George Manville Fenn (continued 3)

“I will take the greatest care, milady.”

“My drops, Justine, my drops. This is really too much for my nerves.”

Justine hurried to a case, and brought out a flaçon of spirits of red lavender, a goodly portion of which her ladyship took upon lumps of sugar, sighed, and felt better.

“What is to be done, my good Justine? It must be a profound secret.”

“What more of ease, milady, than for Miladi Maude to go out for ze health promenade every morning, and call upon Monsieur Hector Launay. I tink he might be trusted if he is well pay.”

“Oh, no, no,” exclaimed her ladyship, sharply. “I could not trust her; she is too weak.”

“Wis her faithful attendant, milady?”

Her ladyship turned sharply round upon the maid, and gazed full into the dark shining eyes that met hers without a wink.

“Can I trust you, Justine?” she exclaimed.

“Who knows better than milady?” retorted the maid. “Is it I who go below to the servants and betrays all miladi’s secrets? Ma foi! no: I sooner die. And,” she added, nodding sharply, “I know two, tre, many secret of her ladyship.”

“Yes, yes, you do, my good Justine. It shall be as you say: Monsieur Launay shall have a very high fee for his pains if he checks it. A silly, weak girl; it is nothing but fretting after that nasty, vulgar wretch and his dog. Ah, Justine, if ever you become a mother, you will know what a mother’s troubles really are.”

Her ladyship rolled in her fauteuil more like the heaving billows than ever, and shed a couple of tears, either the tears or her breath smelling strongly of lavender.

“Poor milady!” said the confidential maid, compassionately. “Then milady trusts me to see that Miladi Maude goes safely to the coiffeur’s?”

“Oh, yes, Justine, my good soul, I will. Justine, I shall not wear that black satin, nor the ruby moiré again. Alas, who would be a mother! I have but one idea, Justine, and that is to see my children settled with good establishments, and they seem to do nothing but rebel against me.”

“It is vairy terrible, poor milady.”

“Yes, it is dreadful, Justine,” said her ladyship who was now shedding tears copiously. “Even my son goes against me.”

“It is vairy shocking of him, milady,” said the sympathetic maid, holding salts to her mistress’ nostrils, and having her hand gratefully pressed in return.

“Ah, me; I am a great martyr,” said her ladyship, sobbing softly, and growing more confiding. “I don’t know what I should do without you, Justine. Every one fights against me.”

“Poor, poor milady,” cried Justine, sympathetically.

“Does Miss Tryphie ever talk to you about Captain Bellman?”

“She said once he was vairy handsome,” said Justine.

“Yes, yes, very, and so well connected, Justine. They say he has been rather wild; but a man of birth may make mistakes, Justine; they are never the serious errors of a plebeian.”

“No, milady, never,” said the maid. “Just a few more drops, milady.”

“Thanks, Justine, thanks,” sighed her ladyship, partaking of some more lavender upon sugar. “That Mr Melton never calls now, I think?”

“No, milady, never.—Ah, quel mensonge!” she added to herself.

“And his dog does not come?”

“No, milady, I have not seen it for a month.”

“Ah,” sighed her ladyship, whose noble bust rose and fell from the excess of her emotions; “mine is far from a happy life; but go, Justine, go now: I feel as if I could sleep. A nap might do me good. I trust you, Justine. You shall have a gold watch and chain the day my daughter becomes Lady Wilters. Let her go at once.”

“Thank you, dear milady; merci beaucoup,” cried the Frenchwoman, bending down and kissing her ladyship’s extremely white and beringed plump hand.

A minute later she was in Maude’s room.

“Go!” faltered the girl, trembling. “No, no, Justine, I cannot—I dare not.”

“How—miladi is timide,” said the Frenchwoman, laying her hand upon the girl’s soft tresses. “Would she have all this fall, so that when Sir Wilter, your dear husband, would pass his hand through and say, ‘Ah, ma belle ange, your fair tresses are adorable,’ and kiss them, and become fou with delight as he pass them over his face, would you have them thin and come out in his fingaire?”

Maude’s face was a study as she gazed at the maid while she spoke. She shuddered, and her features assumed a look of unutterable loathing.

“Quick, give me my hat and scarf. I will have a veil.”

“You shall, my sweet young lady. Her ladyship wills that you go often to save your beautiful hair. Ah, I would that Monsieur Hector could attend you himself, but he will be busy. You must be content wis ze assistant.”

“Justine,” said Maude quietly, “do not forget our positions.”

“Ma chère young lady, I will not,” said the French woman. “Pardon, I was foolish. I do not forrgette. Miladi will let me put on the tick veil.”

Full of respectful solicitude now, Justine helped her young mistress to dress, when she again began to tremble.

“Justine, I dare not,” she faltered.

“Would miladi prefer to be accompany by her own maid Preen?”

“No, no, Justine,” cried Maude, hastily, “I dare not trust her.”

“Ma foi, non! miladi is right. She will trust Justine, her ladyship’s confidential maid, who keep her ladyship’s secret, and will be so silent and secret as never was for cette chère young mistress in her big trouble.”

“I will trust you, Justine; I am obliged,” sobbed Maude.

“And not trust, ze foolish girl goose who fall in love wis ze mis-er-rable organ grind. My faith, it is so foolish, though ze man is beau.”

“Yes, very handsome,” sighed Maude, thoughtfully.

“Ah, Justine, I cannot be angry with the poor girl for being in love.”

“Ma foi, non, miladi, it is our nature to have our weakness there. I too, I confess to it all. Yais.”

“You, Justine! you?” cried Maude, staring hard at the dark shining eyes of the Frenchwoman, who looked too hard to have had a soft sensation in her life.

“Oui, miladi. It is my secret, and I hide him. But I too love with a grand ardour that cannot be what you call him in your tongue.”

“Appeased, Justine,” sighed Maude.

“Non, non, miladi. Ah, yais, I have him, squench, which can nevaire be squench.”

“Poor Justine!” sighed Maude; and then recovering herself, and shrinking from being so intimate with her mother’s maid. “But no, no, I could not go.”

“Why not, miladi?” said the wily Frenchwoman. “Monsieur Hector is a gentleman that an empress might trust.”

“Yes, yes; but—oh, this is dreadful.”

“Her ladyship does not think of Sir Wilters’ great sorrow if he find my young lady has lose all her hair,” said Justine, smiling as she watched the effect of her words; and a few minutes after she was attending Maude on her way to Upper Gimp Street.

The waxen lady had her head turned in the opposite direction, but the waxen gentleman watched her coming, and looked a combination of the mysterious and admiring as, closely veiled, Maude walked swiftly by Justine’s side, trembling the while, and feeling certain that every one she passed knew her errand and was watching her.

Dreading the visit as she did, it was with something like relief that she stood within the curtained door, face to face with bland, chivalrous Monsieur Hector, who rose, laid down his three days’ old copy of the Petit Journal, and bowed profoundly.

“Miladi will excuse that I do not attend her myself?” he said, respectfully. “Monsieur my assistant is at miladi’s service.”

As Maude bowed, he opened the inner door that led to his private consulting room, and returned to the front, to indulge for the next two hours in pleasant converse with Justine.

At last Justine rose to go.

“One instant, my beautiful,” whispered Monsieur Hector. “When do I come to see La Grande Chouette?”

“Oh, I had forgotten,—to-morrow,” said Justine.

“Cette chère picture!” said Hector, taking a photograph from over the little stove and kissing it, “remains with me for ever. But stay,” he said, addressing the real instead of the image. “Behold a little packet which I prepare for my beautiful—tooth-powder for her beauteous teeth; scent of the best, but not so sweet as her gentle breath; soap for her soft skin. Ah, sweet soap, sweet soap! if I were only you to be pressed in her hands,” he added, kissing it, and then presenting his offerings to his goddess, who received them like a deity, and held out one hand for him to kiss, with which he was apparently quite content.

Then he struck a table gong, and evidently conveyed by it due notice to his assistant that he had devoted sufficient time to the new client, who shortly after came out, closely veiled, took Justine’s arm, and the waxen lady had one glance at her, while the waxen gentleman looked more mysterious than ever, as he watched her till she was out of sight.

Chapter Fifteen.

Lady Barmouth receives Information.

“Maude, I will not allow it,” cried Lady Barmouth, one morning. “That wretched organ man is always haunting this house, and you are constantly giving him money.”

“The poor fellow is a foreigner and in distress, and he does no harm,” said Maude.

“No harm? He distracts me with his dreadful noise.”

“Plays that tune from Trovatore where the fellow’s shut up rather nicely,” said his lordship, rubbing his leg.

“Barmouth!”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Be quiet. And mind this, Maude, I have given instructions to the servants that this dreadful Italian is to be sent away.”

“Very well, mamma,” said Maude, coldly, “only be fair—send every man away who comes to the house. Be consistent in what you do.”

“Is the girl mad?” exclaimed Lady Barmouth. “What does she mean?”

“I mean, mamma,” cried Maude, with spirit, “that I will not—I cannot marry Sir Grantley Wilters.”

“Maude, you’ll break my heart,” cried her ladyship.

“Tom, this is your fault for bringing that wicked young man to the house.”

“What—Wilters?”

“No, no, no, my boy,” said his lordship, rubbing his leg. “Your mamma means Charley Melton, and I—I—I—damme, I can’t understand it all about him. I’m sure I—I—I—don’t think he’s so bad as he’s being painted.”

Maude darted a look of gratitude towards him, and then one of reproach at her brother, who stood biting his nails.

“Barmouth, will you leave that leg alone,” cried her ladyship. “You give me the creeps; and if you cannot talk sensibly, hold your tongue. Everybody knows, even Tom, if he would only speak, that this man—pah! I cannot utter his name—is degraded to the utmost degree; but he has managed to play upon a foolish girl’os heart, and she is blind to his wickedness.”

“Mamma,” cried Maude, “I am not blind; and I will not believe these calumnies. Mr Melton never professed to be rich, and I do not believe he either gambles or drinks.”

“Believe them or not, Maude, my word and your papa’s are passed to Sir Grantley Wilters, and you will be his wife. So no more folly, please.”

Maude turned pale, and glanced at Tom, who stood biting his nails, and then at her father, who grew more wrinkled, and rubbed his leg. She then turned to Tryphie, whose look was sympathising, but meant no help. For poor dependent Tryphie hardly dare say that her soul was her own. Maude felt that she was alone, and, even in these nineteenth century times, being as helplessly driven into marriage with a man she detested as if in the days of old chivalry, when knights and barons patronised ironmongery for costume, and carried off captive maidens to their castles to espouse them before shaven friar, or else dispense with his services.

“Maude,” said her ladyship then, “I wished to spare your feelings, and if you had been less recalcitrant”—that was a word that her ladyship had been hoarding up for the occasion, and it rather jarred against her second best set of teeth as she used it; it was such a hard, stony word, and so threatening to the enamel—“I should have kept this back, but now I must tell you that for your papa’s and my own satisfaction, we have had inquiries made as to this—this—Mr Melton’s character, by an impartial person, and you shall hear from his lips how misguided you have been.”

Maude turned pale, but, setting her teeth, she threw up her head and remained defiant and proud.

“After hearing this, I trust that your sense of duty to your parents will teach you to behave to Sir Grantley Wilters more in accordance with your relative positions. He does not complain, but I can often see that he is wounded by your studied coldness.”

“Not he; damned sight too hard.”

“Diphoos,” said her ladyship, “I had hoped that your visit to purer atmospheres taken at the expense of your papa would have had a more refining influence upon you.”

“So it has,” said Tom, sharply; “but if you keep on making use of that worn-out cad’s name, I must swear, so there.”

Her ladyship did not reply, but pointed to the bell, and Lord Barmouth dropped the hand with which he was about to caress his leg, toddled across the room and rang, surreptitiously feeling in one of his pockets directly after to see if something was safe.

Tryphie Wilders crossed to her cousin and took her hand, whispering a few consolatory words, while her ladyship played the heaving billow a little as she settled herself in her chair in a most magisterial manner.

“Robbins,” said her ladyship, as the butler entered, “has that gentleman arrived?”

“Been here five minutes, my lady. He is in his lordship’s study.”

“Show him up, Robbins, and we are at home to no one until he is gone.”

The butler bowed, went out, and returned with a tall, rather ungainly man in black, who had something of the appearance of a country carpenter who had taken to preaching. He had a habit of buttoning his black coat up tightly, with the consequence that it made a great many wrinkles round his body, and though he was fully six feet high, you felt that these wrinkles were caused by a kind of contraction, his body being of the nature of concertina bellows, and that you might pull him out to a most amazing extent.

He favoured this conceit, too, by being very cartilaginous in the spine, and softly pressing his hands to his breast, and bowing and undulating gently in different directions to the party assembled in the room.

“Hang him!” muttered Tom, scowling at the new comer. “He looks, as if he were in training for a spiral spring. Who the deuce is he?”

“Tom,” whispered his lordship, “that man makes me feel queer; get some brandy and soda in your room after he has gone.”

Tom favoured his father with a peculiar wink, and the old gentleman felt in his pockets once more, to be sure that he had not flung something out with his handkerchief.

“Mr Irkle, I think?” said her ladyship, blandly.

“Hurkle, my lady,” said the new arrival, bowing. “Hurkle and Slant, Murley Court, Obun.”

“Oban?” said her ladyship; “I thought your place of business was in town.”

“Yes, my lady, Obun, W.C., near top o’ Charn-shery Lane.”

“Go it, old chap,” said Tom; “never mind the H’s.”

“Tom, be silent.”

“All right!”

“I think we need no preliminaries, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship. “Perhaps you will favour me by reading a few notes from your diary.”

“Thank you, my lady, yes, certainly,” said the new arrival, taking out a large flat pocket-book, and then getting into difficulties with his gloves and hat, setting the latter down upon a chair and putting the former in his pocket, then altering his mind, and taking the gloves out of his pocket, dropping one, and putting the other in his hat, which he took up and placed under the chair instead of upon it. Then he had to pick up the stray glove and put it in his pocket, evidently feeling uneasy directly after because he had not put it in his hat, but not liking to make a fresh alteration.

He now coughed behind the pocket-book very respectfully, opened it, turned over a few leaves, drew out a pencil, and laid it across, so as not to lose the place, coughed again, and said—

“Your ladyship would like me to begin at the beginning?”

“Certainly, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship with dignity; and then with Maude sitting with her eyes half-closed, Tom walking up and down the room, and Lord Barmouth looking very much troubled and caressing his leg, the visitor coughed again, and began in a low subdued tone indicative of the secrecy of his mission.

“‘Thursday, twelft. Called into Lady Barmouth’s’”—no mention was made of Lord Barmouth whatever—“‘Portland Place. Private inquiry. No expense to be spared.’”

“I think you may omit all that part, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship, graciously.

“Thank you, my lady. Hem!” said the visitor, going on reading. “‘Decided to take up case myself, Mr Slant being in Paris’—That is the end of that entry, my lady.”

“Thank you,” said her ladyship, bowing, and Tom began to whistle softly, and to wonder what the man would say if he kicked his hat across the room like a football.

“‘Friday, thirteent,’” continued the visitor, turning over a leaf. “Hem!” His cough seemed to be brought on by the fact that he was in the presence of the nobility, and it troubled him slightly as he went on—“‘Melton, Charles, Esquire, 150 Duke Street, Saint James. Went out with bull-dog, 10:50, Burlington Arcade, Gardens, Vigo Street, Regent Street, Portland Place, Upper Gimp Street. Must have got into house there. Missed. Took up clue in Duke Street 2:30. Came back. Admiration Club. Back home at 11:30,’—That is the second entry, my lady.”

“Thank you, Mr Hurkle—proceed,” said her ladyship; and Lord Barmouth yawned so loudly that her ladyship turned upon him with a portentous frown.

“‘Saturday, fourteent,’ Hem!” said Mr Hurkle. “‘Met C.M. in Strand. Followed to hosier’s shop; stayed ten minutes—gloves. Went west. Cosmo Club. Stayed an hour. Came out. Walked to Barker’s, Jermyn Street,’ Hem!”

Mr Hurkle looked up after coughing apologetically.

“Barker’s—notorious gambling house, my lady.”

“Bosh!” said Tom. “Fellows play a friendly game of pool sometimes.”

“I must request that you will not interrupt, Lord Diphoos,” said her ladyship, sternly.

“Time to interrupt when I’m called upon to listen to a cock-and-bull story like this,” cried Tom. “Barker’s isn’t a notorious gambling house.”

Mr Hurkle raised his eyebrows and then his hand to his lips, and said “Hem!”

“May I ask how you know?” said her ladyship.

“Been there myself, hundreds of times,” said Tom, sturdily.

“Oh!” ejaculated her ladyship; and that “Oh!” was wonderful in the meaning it expressed. For it seemed to say, “I thought as much! That accounts for the amount of money squandered away!” and her ladyship gazed at her son from between her half-closed lids as she said aloud, “Go on, Mr Hurkle, if you please.”

“Hem! ‘Left Barker’s at eleven Pee Hem. Returned to Duke Street.’ That is the whole of the third entry, my lady.”

“Thank you. Proceed.”

“Eleven o’clock, eh?” said Tom. “Well, very respectable time.”

“Be silent, if you please, sir. Continue, Mr Hurkle.”

“‘Sunday, fifteent. Went out at three. To Barker’s, Jermyn Street.’”

“Hum! Gambling house on a Sunday,” said her ladyship, sarcastically. “Continue, Mr Hurkle.”

“Here, shall I finish for you?” cried Tom. “Went to Barker’s, and had a chop for lunch, read the papers till dinnertime—a wicked wretch, on a Sunday too; then dined—soup, fish, cutlet, cut, off the joint, pint o’ claret, and on a Sunday. Is that right, my hawk-eyed detective?”

“No, my lord. Hem!”

“Will you be silent, Lord Diphoos?” cried her ladyship.

“That is the whole of the fourt entry, my lady.”

“And cheap at the money, whatever it is,” cried Tom. “I say,” he added, scornfully, “do you know where I was on Sunday, you sir?”

“Beg pardon, my lord,” said Mr Hurkle, undulating. “You are not on my list, and I have no client making inquiries about you.”

“That’s a blessing,” said Tom, “for them and for you.”

“Pray go on, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship. “Lord Diphoos, I must beg that you do not interrupt.”

To address her son as “Lord Diphoos” was in her ladyship’s estimation crushing, but Tom did not seem crushed.

“‘Monday, sixteenth Hem!’” said Mr Hurkle. “‘Saw Mr Melton come out, followed by large-headed bull-dog, short tail, closely-cut ears, one white leg, and—’”

“Left canine tooth in lower jaw knocked out, and lip torn in a fight,” cried Tom. “Enter that, please.”

“Lord Diphoos.”

“Oh, all right,” cried Tom, savagely. “Here, I say, you sir, get on and finish. This grows interesting.”

He glanced across to his sister, who was holding Tryphie’s hand, her head erect, lip curling, and a warm flush in her cheeks as she listened to this diary of her lover’s doings.

“That is the fift entry,” said Mr Hurkle, glancing from one to the other; and then, as a dead silence reigned, he went on—

“‘Tuesday, seventeent. Blank. C.M. did not go out,’—That is the sixt entry, my lady.

“‘Wednesday, eighteent. Blank. C.M. did not go out.’—That is the sevent entry, my lady.

“‘Thursday, ninetent. Watched at Duke Street. Found C.M. was out. Waited. C.M. returned by north of street and met Lord Barmouth.’”

“Eh, what?” exclaimed her ladyship.

“‘His lordship entered Duke Street from the south, after stopping some time to look in picture-dealer’s at full-length portrait of a goddess.’”

“Why, governor!” cried Tom.

“Go on, Mr Hurkle, please. Lord Barmouth, I beg you will not leave the room.”

“Certainly not, my dear,” said his lordship, rubbing his leg.

“Proceed, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship, sternly.

“Hem! Yes, my lady. ‘C.M. and his lordship went together to Regal Café, Regal Street. Dined there.’”

“Oh!” ejaculated her ladyship, with eyes growing very tight. “Proceed.”

“But I say, you sir,” cried Tom, “wasn’t I there?”

“No, my lord. Hem!”

“Wish I had been. I say, gov’nor, it was shabby of you.”

Lord Barmouth squirmed—to use his son’s words.

“Go on, Mr Hurkle,” said her ladyship, patting the carpet with her boot, while his lordship rubbed his leg.

“‘Long dinner of many courses. Several kinds of wine, sodas, brandies, and cigars. Gentlemen returned to chambers in Duke Street, smoked cigars till ten; then to Barker’s.’”

“Let me see, Lord Barmouth, you said you were unwell last evening?”

“And I was not there,” cried Tom.

“That, my lady—hem!” said Mr Hurkle, undulating and threatening to draw himself out—“carries us up to midnight.”

“Yes—yes—yes,” cried his lordship, rising in great excitement; “and—and—and it’s, damme, it’s too much. Tom, Tom, my son, if you don’t kick that fellow out of the house, damme, I will, for it’s all a piece of—of confounded humbug. I won’t have it—I didn’t order this to be done—it’s—it’s—a confounded, damme, it’s a cruel insult to me and my family, and I won’t—I won’t—Tom, my boy, send that fellow away, or I shall—damme, I shall kill him.”

“Yes, yes, go now,” moaned her ladyship. “I will send to you, Mr Hurkle.”

The private inquirer bowed very low, took up his hat and gloves, and, replacing his pocket-book without unbuttoning himself, backed out of the room, as Tom stood with his hands in his pockets, his little waxed moustache sticking out in two sharp points, and grinding his teeth, while poor Lord Barmouth limped about the room trembling with excitement.

“Oh!” moaned her ladyship. “My salts—my drops, Tryphie; this will be the death of me.”

“Serve you right,” said Tom, savagely. “You brought it on yourself.”

“It’s—it’s too bad. Little innocent amusement. Bit o’ dinner and glass o’ wine. Charley Melton is all right.”

“Yes,” said Lady Barmouth, “a gambler, a roué. But what wonder. Ah, me! Oh, my poor children. That Melton debauching my husband!”

“And—and—and devilish nice fellow too. I—I—I—I liked it, and—and—and I wished that you had been there, Tom.”

“Thanke, governor.”

“Oh, that I should live to hear all this!”

“You—you ought to have kicked that fellow out, Tom.”

“Be silent, Barmouth, be silent. Tryphie, ring for Justine to help me to my room. My heart is nearly broken now,” she added, in a tone of voice that seemed to indicate that it was only holding together by a little bit of ligament which was ready to go at any moment. “Maude, ungrateful girl, you have heard all. The horrible, dissipated gambler who is dragging my son into his dreadful vortex, and even spreading his meshes around your weak father.”

“Weak!” cried Lord Barmouth; “not at all.”

“I have heard no harm of Mr Melton, mamma,” said Maude. “He—” She checked herself on the point of saying, “He told me he was going.”

“But a gambler, my child—a gambler.”

“Who pockets sixpenny lives at pool when he isn’t losing,” said Tom—“a wretch, a demon. Vot a larks!”

“Good game, pool, when your hand is steady. Yes, my boy, yes,” said his lordship, who was now rapidly calming down, and looking frightened.

“Thank heaven,” cried her ladyship, in tragic tones, “civilisation has introduced the private inquirer. I know all now, and my course is clear.”

“Know all, eh?” said Tom, “Why, mamma, you’ve had a splendid pen’orth. All that about Charley Melton, and the private information about the governor chucked in.”

“‘Chucked!’” ejaculated her ladyship, in tones which sounded as if she were forming an enormous “poster” for a hoarding. “‘Chucked!’ And this is my expensively-educated son. Justine, help me to my room.”

“Funnee lil mans,” said Justine to herself as Tom gave her a peculiar look.

Chapter Sixteen.

Music hath Charms.

The private inquiry trouble was cooling down, but there was so much excitement and trouble at Portland Place, that Maude’s hair had to go untended on one occasion, and Monsieur Hector and his assistant waited in vain for the lady’s coming. Short as was the distance, Mademoiselle Justine was unable to run round and say that they need not wait.

For Sir Grantley Wilters was to dine in Portland Place that evening, and he arrived in good time.

The baronet was quite bright in spirits and youthful in appearance, having got the better of his late ailment, and Lady Barmouth smiled pensively at him when she was not watching Lord Barmouth, and seeing if he was surreptitiously supplied with wine.

Tom dined at home, and was morosely civil, being puzzled how to act towards his future brother-in-law.

Sir Grantley knew of the trouble between her ladyship and her lord, but religiously avoided all allusion thereto; he, however, found time and opportunity to mention to her ladyship the last scandal that he had heard concerning Melton.

“No?” exclaimed her ladyship, laying her plump hand upon his arm.

“Yas; fact, I assure you,” he said. “I had it from three fellows at the club, and they were present. It was at a place in Jermyn street.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed her ladyship in a low tone.

“They are retailing scandal about poor old Charley, Maude,” said Tom, leaning over the back of her chair in the drawing-room. “You think he’s quite square, eh?”

“If you mean by that, Tom, that I think him an honourable gentleman; yes, I do,” said Maude quietly.

“That’s right. He’s fond enough of you to keep him right, so never you mind what scraggy Wilters says.”

Maude did not reply, but her face flushed, and she sat looking proud and content in her faith.

Meantime her ladyship had been furnished with the last new piece of gossip regarding the young man who had gone to the bad, and was supremely happy.

In spite of her ladyship’s watchfulness Tom managed that his father should have a little wine, and the consequence was that he became very garrulous, making some personal remarks to Sir Grantley about matters of the past which the baronet wished to be considered too youthful to remember, and suffering at last from such decided twinges of his old complaint that he had to leave the table. Maude at once seized the excuse to be freed for the rest of the evening from a presence she detested, and went to attend upon her father, while Tom started to have a quiet cigar and a game of billiards, leaving her ladyship and Sir Grantley together to discuss a few more of the preliminaries of the wedding; Sir Grantley going so far, when he left, as to say that this was about the pleasantest evening he had had at the house in Portland Place, “don’t you know.”

But those below stairs were not above talking at dinner and supper in the servants’ hall, while Mademoiselle Justine sat like a smiling sphinx and listened, but said nothing.

“For my part,” said Robbins, “I think her young ladyship bears it admirably, as a well-bred lady should. She’s getting to know that people in the upper classes can’t marry as they like, and behaving quite right.”

“Ah, poor girl,” said Mrs Downes; “but under that there quiet look who knows what a volcano is a-busting in her breast. Ah, I have a heart of my own.”

“It seems to me,” said Dolly Preen, who during the past few weeks had been growing thin and acid consequent upon slighted love, much banter, the threatened loss of her situation, and genuine feminine jealousy of Justine, who had been intrusted with the task of accompanying her young mistress in her walks—“it seems to me that Lady Maude is finding consolation somewhere.”

Justine, who had been sitting so sphinx-like, suddenly flashed into life.

“You—you lil bébé of a girl, say what you mean,” she cried angrily.

“I was not talking of her ladyship, ma’amselle,” retorted Dolly, who had aptly picked up the London ways of her fellows. “It only seemed to me that Lady Maude had taken to liking music very much.”

“Ah, yes!” said Robbins. “Miss Preen is right there.”

“Some people found fault with me for liking to listen to the organ,” said Dolly, spitefully, “but nobody says nothing about my betters.”

“Lil bébé!” ejaculated Justine scornfully.

“Not quite such a little baby as you think for, ma’amselle,” retorted Dolly, tossing her head. “I’m not blind.”

“But you are lil miserable,” said Justine, scornfully. “What can you see, pray say?”

“Lady Maude giving money to that Italian musician, and listening to him very often from the balcony.”

“Ah,” said Mrs Downes, “but it’s different there, Miss Preen. Some one I know used to look out of the window at the man, Lady Maude looks out to console herself with the music, and you knows music hath charms.”

“See how right is Madame Downes,” said Justine, smiling and nodding. “My faith, Dolly Preen, but how you are bête.”

“I don’t know French,” said Dolly, rising, “but I did look in Lady Maude’s dictionary to see what that word meant, and I won’t sit here to be called a beast by a foreigner, so there.”

“Lil bébé,” said Justine, as Dolly moved toward the door.

“One moment, Miss Preen,” said the butler, speaking in an elderly, paternal tone. “Just you take my advice.”

“I don’t want anybody’s advice, Mr Robbins,” said the girl with asperity.

“Yes, you do, my dear, and what I wanted to say was, don’t you talk so free. You’ve had one narrow escape of losing a good situation through looking weak on Italian lazy ronies, don’t go and run another risk by hinting as a young lady of the highest aristocracy is giving her attention to such a thing as a black-bearded, plaster image selling man who grinds tunes in a box, because if you do you’ll find yourself wrong.”

“Thank you, Mr Robbins,” said Dolly, tartly. “I only know what I see, and I’m not afraid to speak my mind, whatever other people may be. I’m English, I am, and not French, and if I am from the country, as I said before, I’m not blind.”

Exit Miss Dolly Preen as Justine exclaimed once more, “Lil bébé,” and became so sphinx-like that she appeared deep as a knowledge mine.

“Well, such things have happened,” said Mrs Downes, sighing.

“Mrs Downes, don’t make me blush for you,” said the butler, sternly. “I’m ashamed to sit here and listen to such hints.”

“Ah, well, I’ll say no more,” said the cook, oracularly; “but I have a heart of my own, and I know what hearts is.”

“Trumps,” exclaimed the buttons.

“Henery! silence!” cried the butler sternly. “You go and see to the things in the pantry. Mrs Downes, as the oldest servant in her ladyship’s establishment, I have a right to take the lead. Such remarks as these are not seemly.”

“I only want to say, Mr Robbins,” cried the stout lady, with her heart doing its work well, “that if you check true love in one direction, out it comes in another. It will have its way. There, look at that.”

The demon of Portland Place was at the edge of the pavement turning the handle of his organ, and as a matter of fact, Maude Diphoos stepped slowly out of the French window in the drawing-room, and stood looking down at the Italian’s swarthy, smiling face.

Chapter Seventeen.

Lady Barmouth puts down her foot.

Lady Maude sat in her dressing-room once more with her back hair down, listening to the strains of Luigi’s organ as it discoursed a delicious waltz, while Dolly Preen, who was rapidly developing a vicious-looking mouth, brushed away at the beautiful golden cascade, which rippled quite to the ground. The lady’s head swerved softly to the rhythm of the music, and it proved infectious; for though Dolly knew little of dancing, the music was pleasant to her soul, and she swayed her head and brushed softly with an accentuated beat at the beginning of every bar.

Just in the middle of the most sostenuto strain, and just as the ivory-backed brush was descending low, its long bristles dividing the golden threads, which crackled again in the warm air of that gloriously sunshiny day, there was a sharp tap at the dressing-room, and her ladyship entered.

“Ah, just in time,” she exclaimed, raising her gold-rimmed eye-glass. “I wanted to see your hair, Maude.”

“My hair, mamma?”

“Yes, child. Let me see; you went to Monsieur Launay’s yesterday?”

“Yes, mamma.”

“I have been telling Justine that I shall not go to any further expense over it. I have just sent him a cheque for his account, and your head looks so much better that I think we may be satisfied now.”

Maude’s cheeks turned scarlet, and so did her temple and neck, but her beautiful hair made a magnificent veil, and hid her confusion from her ladyship’s view as she examined the parting, drew it away from the temples and poked it about just at the poll.

“Don’t you think, mamma, I had better keep on for a little longer?”

“No,” said her ladyship, peremptorily. “Your hair is in beautiful condition. I grudged paying that man; but he has saved your hair, and he deserves what he has received. He is very clever.”

“I should like to continue a little longer, mamma.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said her ladyship tartly. “Your hair is perfect.”

“I must go and say that I am not about to continue his course of treatment.”

“No, you must not. I shall write to Monsieur Launay myself and tell him. I cannot afford these expenses, the demands for money are dreadful. I am always spending. Go away, Preen.”

“Yes, my lady,” said the little maid, and she “made a face” as she left the room.

“The preparations for your marriage will be more than I can afford.”

“Oh, mamma, must that go on?” cried Maude.

“Now, now, now, Maude, no more of that, please. I will not have it. Silence. The expenses will be terrible, and I shall be very glad when it is over, and so will you be, and I must say I am pleased to find you are coming more to your senses. Oh, that odious wretch. Go away, do!”

Her ladyship crossed to the window and shut it down with a crash, deadening the sound of Luigi’s minstrelsy as she returned to her daughter’s side.

“Really the expenses of our establishment are maddening. I have had the wine merchant’s bill in this morning, and it is outrageous. The man must be a swindler. Case after case of dry champagne charged for that I cannot remember having. But I must see into it at once; and, yes: I am quite satisfied there is no need for you to go to the hairdresser’s any more.”

Her ladyship gave a quick glance round the room—a glance that took in everything, the furniture, the davenport at which her daughter wrote, the books she had been reading, even to the tiny cobweb left by a careless housemaid in one corner, and then in a very dissatisfied frame of mind she descended to write to Mr Launay, leaving her daughter looking speechless with misery, and gazing wildly at the closed window.

“Shall I finish your hair, ma’am?” said a voice which made her start, for she had not heard the door opened.

“If you like, Dolly,” said Maude despairingly; and with a curiously furtive glance at her mistress, caused by her wonder what her ladyship had said, the girl went on with her interrupted work till she had done; and then when certain hooks had been persuaded to enter certain eyes, and as many buttons to pass through their button-holes, as she could obtain no further orders, Dolly left the room, and Maude walked to the window, opened it, and sat down with her elbow on the sill to listen to the distant strains of music which came from the top end of the place near Park Crescent, and as she listened the tears stole down her cheeks, for the fiat must be obeyed. There would be no more pleasant visits to the coiffeur’s—those little trips which relieved the monotony of her life so deliciously, and made her better able to bear the coming of Sir Grantley Wilters.

No more—no more! she was to be a prisoner now till she was to be decked out with garlands, and sent like a lamb to the sacrifice, and served up with mint sauce, for Sir Grantley was going to be very rich. Life was becoming an empty void with nothing to fill it. No Charley Melton allowed to visit; no assistant to arrange her hair—and Monsieur Hector Launay’s aide was so very, very nice.

Maude’s sad musings were interrupted by the door being opened quickly, and the head of Justine thrust in.

“Oh, mademoiselle—chère miladi, have you heard?”

“Yes, Justine. It is all over.”

“All ovaire, miladi? c’est atroce, but not ovaire; I will take counsel wiz M’sieu Hector, and all will be well.”

“Justine! Justine!”

“Coming, milady; I descend directly. Have a good heart, still yet, and all shall be well. Oui, milady, I come.”

Justine descended, and Maude melted into tears.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Chance looks bad.

That same afternoon Monsieur Hector Launay’s assistant entered the business place hurriedly, followed by Joby, and exclaimed—

“I am rather late. Has she come?”

“Come, non, M’sieu; she comes no more.”

“What?”

“I have a letter from my lady in which she say I have done her daughter’s hair so much good that the visits will cease. I am paid, and voilà tout.”

“Good heavens! Does she suspect?”

“Non, M’sieu,” said the Frenchman, smiling. “You have been too capable an assistant, and the occasion has ceased; but I will think, and M’sieu shall see the lady again. I will take counsel with Justine, and we will have a new plan. I am a Frenchman, and spirituel. I cannot live wizout I see ma chère sometimes. Justine must come, so be of good hope; we must wait.”

Charley Melton walked out of the reception-room, followed by Joby, who kept looking up at his master in a curious manner, as if half-pitying and wholly divining his feelings. There was a curious leer too in one eye, which seemed to look maliciously at his proprietor, who took the greatest care that he, Joby, should not form any canine intimacies of a tender nature, and Joby’s leering eye seemed to say, “How do you like being morally chained up, my boy?”

Charley Melton went homeward, turned, and walked right up to the Euston Road, where he made for Park Crescent, and then walked straight down Portland Placc, so as to try and catch a glimpse of his inamorata.

He was blessed and yet annoyed, for Maude was at one of the windows with a book in her hand, apparently reading, but really looking down at Luigi, the Italian, who was turning the handle of his baize-covered chest in the most diligent manner, producing sweet sounds according to taste, and smiling and bowing to the lady.

“Lucky brute!” muttered Charley, as he went by without venturing to salute. For as he passed he saw a white packet drop from the window and fall upon the pavement, where it burst like a shell, scattering bronze discs in all directions, so that the organ-grinder had hard work to collect them laden as he was, while the tune he played was broken up into bits.

“Lucky brute!” sighed Charley Melton again, “allowed to stand upon the edge of the pavement to gaze up at her, and then paid for so doing. Ah, I’d better give it up. She won’t bolt with me. I seem as if I can get no help from Tom, and I cannot go there. Hang it all, I shall do something desperate before I’ve done. She was yielding, but the game’s up now.”

Poor Joby in the days which followed was far from happy, for his master was a great deal away from home, and the dog was shut out often enough from his rooms as well as from his confidence.

People said that Charley Melton, being crossed in love, was going to the bad—taking to drink and gambling, and steadily gliding down the slide up which there is no return; and certainly his habits seemed to indicate this to be the case, so much so that Joby thought a good deal in his dense, thick-brained fashion upon the problem that puzzled his head as well as several wiser ones—a problem that he was to solve though for himself when the due time came, for Joby could not make out his master.

Time glided on, and Charley Melton’s case seemed to grow more and more hopeless, while Maude appeared to be going melancholy mad, and passed a great portion of her time gazing dreamily down at the purveyor of tunes set afloat upon the air by the mechanical working of a large set of bellows, and the opening and shutting by a toothed barrel of the mouths of so many graduated pipes.

Everybody was miserable, so it appeared, saving Sir Grantley Wilters, whose joy approached the weird in the peculiarity of its developments. He took medicine by the bucketful, so his valet told Mr Robbins in confidence, “and the way he talks about your young lady is wonderful.”

It was wonderful, for in his amatory madness he chuckled and chattered and praised the lady’s charms, and he even went so far at times as to sing snatches of love songs in a voice that suggested the performances of a mad—or cracked—clarionet in a hilarious fit, during which it was suffering from a dry reed.

Love ruled the day at Portland Place, and Sir Grantley came and made it in the drawing-room as often as he liked, while when she could escape to the balcony, Maude stood and listened to the strains of Trovatore, and, “poor dear, seemed to get wuss and wuss.”

The last was cook’s remark, and it was received with a feminine chorus of “Ah’s!”

“Oh, that wretched Italian, why does he persist in coming here?” cried her ladyship one day. “Maude, you’ll drive me mad if you keep on encouraging him so.”

Maude looked at her mother dreamily and said nothing, but the next time the man came she wrapped some coppers in a piece of paper, and dropped them out, to be caught deftly in the soft felt hat.

“Poor fellow,” she sighed, “it may make him happy.”

“Ah, bella signora,” cried Luigi in mellifluous tones, and he ground, and smiled, and showed his white teeth till the lady retired.

But if there was love-making in Portland Place there was despair in Duke Street, human and canine, for Joby more than once proved himself to be a terrible nuisance at the chambers by uttering low snuffling whines upon the stairs and landings, which, being interpreted, meant, “Why doesn’t master come home?” But by degrees he smothered his feelings on finding that an open avowal of his trouble only resulted in boots, boot-jacks, empty soda-water bottles, and other missiles being flung at him from open doors, while he was reviled as being a beast.

His retort upon receiving such forcible salutations was very often a display of his teeth, and so threatening an action in the direction of legs that he generally caused his assailants to beat a retreat; but at last he performed the same strategic evolution himself, consequent upon having to deal with the unknown. In fact, science conquered him. He stood shot, and dodged them bravely. So clever was he indeed upon this point, that it was almost impossible to hit him with hair-brush, boot, or lump of coal; but one day an angry occupant of the chambers, upon hearing a very long-drawn howl, opened his door suddenly and hurled a bottle at the dog.

It was this bottle which puzzled Joby, for instead of being empty, it was full of the water known as soda, highly charged with gas by one Schweppe, and though it missed the dog, it struck upon a partly filled coal-scuttle, and exploded with such violence, and so great a scattering of fragments, that for two days Joby preferred to sleep in the park, and had a very narrow escape from a dog-stealer, who tried every blandishment he knew to get the animal to follow him, but without effect.

Sometimes he would go and hang about the great house in Portland Place, but there was no admission. Attempts to glide past or between the legs of the servants dismally failed; but he had a look or two at Lord Barmouth, and followed him when he went out, giving sundry sniffs at his pocket, and more than once coming in for a bone. But this was very exceptional, and Joby’s was just now a very unsatisfactory and useless life.

His lordship swore a little softly and in private about the organ, but ceased as he saw that his daughter took a little interest in the music.

“But it’s doosed bad taste, Tom, doosed bad taste, my boy; and dear me, how I do long for a glass of port.”

“Yes, and you’ll have to long, governor.”

“Yes, my boy. Seen Charley Melton lately?”

“Yes, looking as if he were going to be hung.”

“Did he though, my boy? What did you say to him?”

“Told him he was a fool.”

“Oh, Tom, my boy, you shouldn’t have done that. I hope he don’t think that I’m behaving badly to him. I’d go and see him, but her ladyship would be sure to know. Be civil to him, my boy, for my sake. His father was such an old friend.”

“Humph, don’t seem like it,” growled Tom.

“But why did you call him a fool, Tom?”

“For not making a bolt of it with Maudey.”

“Oh, no—no—no—no, my boy, that would be very wrong. But what did he say?”

“Nothing. Shook his head and walked off.”

“Yes, yes. Quite right, my boy, quite right. Charley Melton would not do anything to degrade our Maudey like that.”

“Well, I would if I had a chance,” said Tom, “and if I hadn’t I’d make one.”

Chapter Nineteen.

Tom and the Tartar.

All the same though, consequent upon thinking so much about his sister, Tom made very little progress with his own love affairs.

Tryphie Wilder’s was not a very pleasant life at Lady Barmouth’s. She felt that she had been adopted out of charity, and in her bitterness she would sometimes call herself her ladyship’s abuse block, for that lady would call her “little wretch” in private with as much vigour as there was sweetness in the “my dear” of public life. Her ladyship had before now gone so far as to strike her. That very day Tryphie had her revenge, for, going into the drawing-room, she found Tom fast asleep on the sofa, and snipped off the ends of his moustache, wax and all. Tom awoke, and caught and kissed her, and she flew at him, boxed his ears, and then ran out of the room and upstairs, to strike her hand against the wall for being so cruel.

The girl’s bright spirits and unvarying tenderness to his father, for whom she was always buying Bath buns or finding snacks, made Tom desperately in love with her, but he had only received chaff as his amatory food in return. Tryphie meantime went on as a sort of upper servant, with the entrée of the drawing-room; and while Justine was the repository of much that was false in Lady Barmouth, she alone was admitted to the secrets of her aunt’s first and second sets of teeth, which she had to clean in her own room with the door locked, it being supposed that it was her ladyship’s diamond suite then undergoing a renovating brush, while poor Tryphie all the time was operating upon what looked like a ghastly grin without any softening smile given by overhanging lips.

“I tell you what it is, Tryphie,” said Tom one day, as he met her on the stairs—“but I say, what’s that?” and he pointed to a little case which she tried to conceal.

“Don’t ask impertinent questions, sir,” was the reply. “Now then, what is it?”

“Well, I was going to say—oh, I say, how pretty you look this morning.”

“You were not going to say anything of the kind, sir.”

“Well then, I was going to say if I am worried much more, I shall hook it.”

“Slang!” cried Tryphie.

“Well, I must slang somebody. I mustn’t swear. I’m half mad, Tryphie.”

“Poor fellow! you have been smoking yourself so.”

“Nonsense!” he said, “a fellow must do something to keep off the blues.”

“Yes; smoke in bed.”

“I shouldn’t if I was married. If I had a wife now—”

“Married!” said Tryphie, “without any money, sir! What would you do? Keep a billiard table or open a cigar shop? I suppose I might sit behind the counter—”

“Go it,” said Tom. “How down you are on a fellow.”

“While my little liege lord wore his elegant shawl-pattern smoking trousers, dressing-gown and cap, and showed his prowess to customers at the billiard table.”

“Little, eh?” said Tom. “Well, I am little, but you must have some little fellows in the world, to sort up with. We can’t all be great handsome black chaps like Captain Bellman.”

“Captain Bellman is not always smoking.”

“I don’t care, I’m getting reckless. I own it all: I do go to sleep with a cigar in my mouth. I can smoke as many cigars for my size as any man in London and there are not many men who can beat me at billiards.”

“How is the new cue, Tom?” said Tryphie, mockingly.

“All right,” he said. “I tried it last night at the rooms, and played a game with an uncommonly gentlemanly Frenchman, who made the most delicious little cigarettes. I thought I’d met him before. Who do you think it was?”

“Don’t know, and—”

“Don’t care, eh? Well, it was Launay the barber.”

“Tom!”

“Well, I don’t care; home’s wretched and I’m miserable. Besides, other people enjoy seeing me so. Maude is always going about the house like a ghost, or listening to that organ man. She’s going mad, I fancy. Then Charley Melton has turned out a fool to cave in as he has done, and Tryphie cuts me—”

“As you deserve.”

“That’s right, go it. The governor’s miserable, and that mummy Wilters is always here. Nice place to stop in. Perhaps I ought to aim higher than billiards, and keeping one’s cue in a japanned case hanging up in a public room. But look at me; hang it, I hardly get a shilling, if I don’t have some fellow at billiards. What have I to look forward to?”

Tryphie made a movement to continue her way, but Tom spread his hands so as to stop her descent.

“Will you have the goodness to allow me to pass, Lord Diphoos?” she said, demurely.

“Lord!” he cried, peevishly.

“Very well, then, most spoiled child of the house,” said Tryphie, maliciously, “Master Diphoos.”

“You make my life quite miserable, Tryphie, you do, ’pon my honour. You’re the most ungracious—”

“There’s pretty language to use to a lady, sir,” cried Tryphie, speaking as if in an angry fit. “Say I’m the most disgraceful at once, sir.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said Tom; “I meant ungracious and unyielding.”

“Of course, sir. Pretty words to apply to a lady.”

“Bother!” cried Tom. “I never looked upon you as a lady.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, making him a most profound curtsey.

“Well, you know what I mean,” grumbled Tom; “I always think of you as Cousin Tryphie, whom I—there,” he whispered, “I will say it—I love with all my heart.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed Tryphie.

“There’s pretty language to use to a gentleman,” retorted Tom.

“I never look upon you as a gentleman,” said Tryphie in her turn; and she darted a mischievous look at him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom, who was now quite out of heart and temper. “And so you go on snub, snub, peck, peck, till a fellow feels as if he would like to make a hole in the water, he’s so sick of his life.”

“But he only makes a hole in his manners instead,” cried Tryphie.

“I say, Tryphie, you know,” cried Tom, now appealingly. “Don’t be so jolly hard on a fellow who loves you as I do. I can’t bear it when you snub me so. I say, dear,” he continued, taking her hand, “say a kind word to me.”

“Let go my hand, sir, and don’t be stupid,” she cried.

“Tryphie!”

“Well, Tom! Now look here, I’ve got to be so that I can hardly believe in there being such a thing as sincerity in the world, after what I’ve seen in this house: but all the same I do think you mean what you say.”

“Thankye, Tryphie; that’s the kindest thing you’ve said to me for months,” said Tom.

“Stop a bit, sir, and listen. I was going to say—”

“No, don’t say any more, dear,” cried Tom, imploringly. “You’ve said something kind to me, and I shall go and get fat on that for a month.”

“Listen to me, sir,” cried Tryphie, unable to repress a smile—“I was going to say—Do you think I am going to promise to marry an idle, thoughtless, selfish man, with only two ideas in his head?”

“Two?” said Tom, dolefully. “No, you’re wrong. I’ve only got one.”

“I say two, sir—cigars and billiards. Do you think I want to marry a chimney-pot, or an animated cue?”

“Chimney-pot! Animated cue!” said Tom, with a groan, as he took off his little scarlet smoking-cap, and wrung it in his hands as if it were wet.

“Let me see, sir, that you’ve got some energy in you as well as good sincere feeling, before you speak to me again, if you please.”

“I may speak to you again, then?” cried Tom.

“Of course you may,” said Tryphie, tartly.

“And then?” cried Tom.

“Well, then we shall see,” replied the sarcastic little lady.

“Energy, eh?” said Tom. “Well, I will: so now to begin again. You know I have been energetic about Maude?”

“Ye-es, pretty well,” said Tryphie. “Not half enough.”

“Well, now then, dear—may I say dear?”

“If you please, Lord Diphoos,” said Tryphie. “I can’t help it.”

“Well, I’m going to be energetic now, and see if I can’t do something for Maude.”

“What are you going to do?”

“See Charley Melton and stir him up. Then I shall stir up the gov’nor and Maude, and if none of these things do any good I shall have a go at Wilters.”

“Ah,” said Tryphie, “now I’m beginning to believe in you, and there is some hope that I shall not be forced into a marriage with that odious Captain Bellman.”

“Tryphie,” whispered Tom, as he stared, “just say that again.”

She shook her head.

Tom looked upstairs and then down, saw nobody, and hastily catching the little maiden in his arms, stole a kiss before she fled, when, giving his head a satisfied shake, he went down to the hall, saw that his hat was brushed, and went off to Duke street, in utter ignorance of the fact that his father had been sitting in the curtained recess on the landing, where the flowers dwindled in a kind of conservatory, calmly devouring a piece of Bologna sausage and half a French roll.

“He, he, he,” chuckled the old gentleman, “that’s how they make love when they’re young. I was—was—was a devil of a fellow among the ladies when I was Tom’s age; but somehow now I never want to meet her ladyship on the stairs and kiss her. I’d—I’d—I’d a doosed deal rather have a nice piece of chicken, or a bit of tongue.”

Chapter Twenty.

Tom Expresses his Opinion.

Charley Melton was not at home.

Tom went again. Not at home.

Three weeks passed before he could meet him, and then it was by accident at one of the clubs, and during all this time Tryphie had grown colder, and the wedding-day was approaching. But at last the two young men encountered, and Tom went straight to the point, “Hit out,” as he termed it.

“Charley Melton,” he said, “are you going to let this cursed marriage come off?”

“What can I do?” said Charley, lighting a cigar. “I have tried everything, and am forbidden the house.”

“Why not coax Maudey to come and meet you somewhere?”

“I have tried,” said Melton, quietly, “but it is hopeless now.”

“Why?”

“Her ladyship never lets your sister go out of her sight.”

“Then make a bolt of it, Charley.”

“You proposed that before. Oh, undutiful son.”

“There, don’t talk like a Turk,” said Tom.

“I feel like one, Bismillah! It is Kismet,” said Charley Melton, grimly.

“Fate’s what a man makes himself.”

“Yes, but you can’t make bricks without straw. O! my Diphoos,” said the other, mockingly, “I have so little golden straw that her ladyship refuses to let me make bricks at all, and—There, let the matter slide, old man.”

“By George!” cried Tom, savagely. “And this is my old friend Charley Melton! Where’s your spirit?”

“Ah! where indeed.”

“I’d shoot Wilters if I were in your case.”

“It would be agreeable, but the consequences are so precious unpleasant, Tom. I’ve had one awful drop: I don’t want another.”

“You’re a coward, Charley, big as you are.”

“I am, Tom, if it comes to being hung for shooting a baronet dead. No, Tom, I love Maude very much, but I am not chivalrous enough to risk the rope.”

“Bah!”

“Yes, if you like, I am willing for the matrimonial noose, but that prepared for homicides—no: I would rather remain a bachelor.”

“Then I cut you henceforth,” said Tom, angrily. “I’ve done with you.”

“No, you haven’t, old fellow; some day after Maude is married we shall be quite brothers again.”

“Never.”

“Nonsense. Have a B. and S.”

“With you? No, sir; I have done. Good-day.”

“Good-bye, Tom, for I’m going off shortly.”

“And pray where?”

“Italy, I think,” said Melton, smiling.

“Won’t you stop and see Wilters married?”

“No; I will not. Have a B. and S., old fellow.”

Little Tom looked his friend over from top to toe, and then, with an ejaculation full of contempt, he stalked out of the club, and went straight to Portland Place, where the first person he met was Tryphie alone in the drawing-room.

“Well,” she cried, “have you seen Mr Melton?”

“Yes.”

“And—”

“And? Bah! he’s a miserable sneak. I haven’t patience with him. Here, Tryphie, don’t go.”

The little maiden made no answer, but sailed out of the room, just as Lord Barmouth came in.

“Ah, Tom, my boy, any news?”

“Yes, governor—the world’s coming to an end.”

“Dear me! Is it, my boy? I was in hopes that it would have lasted my time. But perhaps it’s for the best. Will it stop poor Maudey’s marriage?”

“I hope so, gov’nor. Here, come along with me.”

“Certainly, my boy, certainly; but, by the way, I’m very hungry. Can we get something to eat?”

The old man looked very haggard, for his internal wolf was gnawing.

“Come and see, gov’nor.”

“Yes, my boy, I will. But, by the way, have you noticed anything particular about Maudey?”

“Looks precious miserable.”

“Yes, my boy, she does; but I mean about her standing out in the balcony so much of an evening. You don’t think—”

“Think what, gov’nor?”

“It’s—it’s—it’s a devil of a way down into the area, Tom; and if she were—”

“To jump over and kill herself? Pooh! nonsense, old fellow. Here, come up to my room.”

“I’m—I’m glad to hear you speak with so much confidence,” said Lord Barmouth. “Yes, certainly, my boy, certainly. Dear me, I feel very faint.”

Tom took his father’s arm, and led the way to his bedroom, where he placed an easy-chair for the old man, and then stooping down, drew a case from beneath the bed and a glass or two from a cupboard.

“Why, Tom, my boy—wine?”

“Yes, gov’nor, wine. Fizz. Pfungst’s dry fruity.”

“But up here, Tom!”

“Yes, up here, gov’nor. A man must have something to take the taste of this nasty wedding out of his mouth.”

“But how came it to be here, Tom?”

“I ordered the wine merchant to send it in, and here it is.”

“But does her ladyship know?”

“Skeercely, gov’nor, as the Yankee said.”

“But did—did you pay for it yourself, my boy?”

“No; I told ’em to put it down in the bill. Here, tip that off.”

Tom filled a couple of small tumblers, and handed one to his father, who took it with trembling fingers.

“But really, my boy, this is very reprehensible. I—I—I—I—as your father, I feel bound to say—”

“Nothing at all, gov’nor. Tip it off. Do you good.”

“No, no, Tom, it’s champagne, and I—I—really, I—Now if it had been port.”

“Tip it up, gov’nor.”

“I shall investigate the whole matter, Robbins,” said a strident voice outside, and the door-handle began to turn.

“Hi! Stop! Dressing!” cried Tom, frantically.

“Do not tell untruths, sir,” exclaimed her ladyship, sternly, as she entered without the slightest hesitation. “Ah, as I expected. Wait, till the servants are gone. Robbins, take down that wine.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Not this, you don’t,” said Tom, seizing the gold-foiled bottle by the neck.

“You knew that Lord Diphoos was having cases of wine up in his bedroom, Robbins?”

“No, my lady.”

“You brought it up?”

“No, my lady—Joseph.”

“Then Joseph knew.”

“He said it was cases of modelling clay, my lady.”

“That’s right,” said Tom, “modelling clay. Try a glass, mamma, to moisten yours.”

“Take away that case.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Robbins stooped with difficulty, picked up the case, and slowly bore it out, her ladyship standing in a studied attitude pointing the while.

“Another time,” said her ladyship, turning tragically to her son, and then withering her lord. “I have too much on my mind at present to trouble about this domestic mutiny.”

“Domestic grandmother,” cried Tom. “There, you needn’t make so much fuss about it. It was all your fault, mamma.”

“My fault, sir?”

“Yes, I was driven to drink by trying to obey you, and being civil to Wilters. Hang him, he makes one a regular laughing-stock.”

“Explain yourself, sir.”

“Well, you gammoned me into going to Hurlingham with your pet poodle.”

“My pet poodle!” exclaimed her ladyship.

“Bah! yes, your pet baronet; but never any more. Hang him, he came there dressed up like a theatrical super, in grey velvet, and with a soft hat and a rosette. I felt so mad that I could have punched his head, for all the fellows there were sniggering. But you should have seen him shoot.”

“Sir Grantley told me that he was a very good shot,” said her ladyship.

“Oh, he did, did he?” roared Tom. “Bless his modesty. Well, I’m going to tell Maude that when she’s married she had better look out, and if ever she sees her lovely husband take up a gun she had better bolt—out of town—the seaside—or come home. She won’t be safe if she don’t.”

Lord Barmouth tittered at this, but his lady looked round at him so sharply, that he turned it off, and stared stolidly straight before him.

“It was a regular case of fireworks,” continued Tom. “His attitudes were grand, and he looked as if he were rehearsing something for a circus. You should have seen the fellows laugh.”

“I sincerely hope that you did not laugh,” said her ladyship, sternly.

“Oh, dear, no,” said Tom, “not at all. Didn’t even smile.”

“I’m very glad of it,” said her ladyship.

“Oh, you are? That’s right,” said Tom; “but somehow one of the buttons flew off the front of my coat, and my ribs ached, and I lay back in a chair in a state of convulsion. I nearly had a fit.”

“Diphoos!” ejaculated her ladyship.

“And when dear Grantley came up he gnashed his teeth at me. He did, ’pon my word, till I roared again. I say, gov’nor, it’s the funniest thing out to see him in a passion.”

“It seems to me,” exclaimed her ladyship, hysterically, “as if the whole of my family were leagued against me, and determined to try and break off this match. From what I can gather, it seems to me, Tom, that you have grossly insulted Sir Grantley.”

“Bosh!” said Tom. “He made such an ass of himself that I roared with laughter, and served him right.”

“Fresh insults,” cried her ladyship; “but I can wait. At present, as I before observed, I shall take no steps to check this domestic mutiny on the part of my husband and my son.”

“Mutiny?”

“Yes, sir, I said mutiny; but after Maude is married—then!”

The door closed behind her, and Lord Barmouth looked piteously up at his little son.

“You have got me into a devil of a scrape, Tom, my boy,” he faltered.

“Never mind, gov’nor. Tip that up. The old girl left us this.”

“But—but it is champagne, Tom.”

“All the better, gov’nor. Here’s to you.”

Lord Barmouth hesitated for a few moments, and then raised his glass.

“Your health, my dear boy,” he said.—“Yes, that’s a very nice glass of wine. I haven’t tasted champagne for a couple of months.”

“Then you shall taste it again,” said Tom. “Now, I mean to go it. Gov’nor, you should come and dine with me to-night, and we’d try and forget all about old Maude, only I have no money.”

“But I have, my boy—ten pounds.”

“You have, gov’nor?—Yes so you have.”

“Take—take it, my boy.”

“But where did you get it, gov’nor?”

“Well—er—never mind that, Tom. I—er—I borrowed it; but I shall pay it again some day.”

“But, gov’nor—”

“Take the money, Tom, my boy. You need not mind, and if I can get away to-night I should like to dine with you.”

“Then you shall, old fellow; I’ll manage that.”

“But her ladyship?”

“Leave it to me, gov’nor.”

“And about Charley Melton, Tom, my boy—is there any hope?”

“Not a bit, gov’nor. He’s a poor thing, and not worthy of her.”

“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” sighed Lord Barmouth. “But I’m afraid I couldn’t get away.”

“You leave it to me, and we’ll dine at nine, gov’nor. Don’t take anything at ours.”

“No, Tom, no.”

“Now go down.”

The old man finished his champagne, thinking of her ladyship’s word—then.

After that he went downstairs, and that night, as good as his word, Tom shuffled him out as soon as the ladies had left the dining-room.

It was easily done, and the door was just being quietly closed as they stood under the portico, when from just outside and beyond the pillar there came the sudden burst of music from an organ, as the man who had been playing changed the tune, and as the pair hurried away they brushed against the player, who stood by the area railings in his slouched hat and ragged attire.

“What the—”

“Devil” his lordship was going to say, for something struck him on the top of his gibus hat.

“Copper,” said Tom, as the object fell with a pat on the pavement. “Come along.”

“Yes, halfpence,” whispered his lordship, nervously, as he tottered on; “but I do wish Maudey wouldn’t be so free with her money to those vagabonds. That scoundrel makes quite an income out of our house.”

“Never mind, gov’nor, it won’t last long. Poor girl, the game’s nearly up. Now for what the Yankees call a good square meal.”

“With a drop of port, Tom, my boy.”

“Yes; you shall have a whole bottle. Barker’s, Jermyn Street,” he cried to the cabman, who drew up; and then as the cab drove off—“There, gov’nor, we’ll forget home troubles for one night.”

“Yes, my boy, we will,” said the old man, eagerly.

“I do wish Tryphie wouldn’t be so hard again,” sighed Tom, “and just too when she was growing so soft. Sympathy for Maudey, I suppose.”

“What say, Tom, my boy?”

“Thinking aloud, gov’nor.”

“What about, Tom?”

“Charley Melton, gov’nor. He’s a regular flat.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Sad Proceedings.

All the servants remarked that “the poor dear” from the very first bore up like a suffering martyr, and then discoursed upon the vanity of human hopes; and Mrs Downes, who was of a pious turn of mind, and went miles “per ’bus” on Sundays to be present at religious services in theatres, said that it was a “vale of tears,” and wiped one tear out of her eye, looked at it, wrapped it up very carefully in her handkerchief, and put it in her pocket, as if fully aware of the fact that it was a sympathetic pearl.

“They might well call it the last day,” sighed the same lady, for to her mind it was as if heaven and earth had come together.

“She is bête, this woman,” said Mademoiselle Justine, who had descended for hot water; and she stood and purred softly to herself, and looked so like a cat that she only needed to have squatted down upon a chair, and begun licking her trim dress, to have completed the likeness.

It was the last day of Maude’s girlhood; the next was to see her what the fashionable gossips would call a happy wife. The previous fortnight had been spent in a whirl of busy doings. Dressmakers had been to and fro, milliners consulted, Justine and Dolly had been kept up late at night to see to packing, and so anxious was her ladyship that her child should look her best that she insisted upon Maude visiting her dentist, and seeing Dr Todd again and again. Maude tried to expostulate, but her ladyship was inexorable, and spared herself no pains. The consumption of spirits of red lavender was startling, but she bore up wonderfully; went with that dear Sir Grantley to the coachmaker’s in Long Acre, and herself selected the new brougham that was one of the baronet’s wedding presents, and declared the horses which she twice over went into the stable to see were “loves.”

Then, too, she aided in the re-decorating of her daughter’s new home; in fact, spared herself in no way to bring about the happy event, while “that wretched Lord Barmouth prowled about the house doing nothing but thinking of gluttony.” In fact, she found him one day sitting behind the curtains in the drawing-room spreading potted tongue upon an Abernethy biscuit, with a pearl paper-knife, when he ought to have been helping her, for in these days his lordship’s wolf, which constantly bade him feed, was unusually active.

Perhaps it was a natural instinct similar to that which directs wild animals to seek certain places at times to lick salt. At all events, tongue had a wonderfully attractive effect upon Lord Barmouth: he would steal or buy tongue in any shape to eat surreptitiously, and evidently from a natural effort to provide homoeopathically against that from which he suffered so much.

Tom gave her ladyship a great deal of trouble by his opposition to the very last, but his efforts were in vain.

“I might perhaps have done more, Maude,” he said, “but, hang it all, what more can I do? A fellow can’t hardly say his soul’s his own in this house. I’ve tried all I can to get the governor to take the lead, but the old woman sits upon him so heavily that he hasn’t a chance.”

Maude only wept silently and laid her head upon his shoulder.

“There, there, little girl,” he said, “cheer up. It’s fashion, and you mustn’t mind. Old Wilters is very soft after all, and you must take a leaf out of the old girl’s book, and serve him out for it all. Hang me, if I were you, if I wouldn’t make him pay dearly for all this.”

“Hush, Tom, dear Tom. Pray, pray don’t talk about it. Tom, dear, when I am gone—”

“There, I say, hang it all, don’t talk as if you were going to pop off.”

“Listen to me, Tom dear,” said Maude, firmly. “I say when I am gone, be as kind as you can to poor papa. I may not be able to speak to you again.”

“All right,” said Tom; “but I say, you will try and hold up.”

“Yes, Tom dear, yes.”

“That’s right, old girl, make the best of a bad bargain. You won’t be much worse off than Diana. Fashionable martyrs both of you.”

“Yes, Tom dear.”

“And you will try to be happy?”

“Yes, dear, I’m going to be happy. But you’ll think the best of me, dear, and take care of poor papa?”

“Of course I will. The old man will be better off when you are gone. Her majesty won’t be so stingy when she has got you both off her hands, and married to rich men.”

“No, dear. I will try and cheer up.”

“That’s right, old girl. I wish some one would make me happy.” This was accompanied by a look at Tryphie, who was in the room.

“I don’t see how you can expect any lady to make you happy, Tom,” said the little girl, sharply. “A gentleman who worships two idols, cigars and billiards, cannot have room for a third love.”

“There she goes,” said Tom, disconsolately. “Maude, I’ve told her I loved her a score of times, and she pooh-poohs me, and looks down upon me.”

“Of course,” said Tryphie, pertly. “Is it not settled that I am to be Mrs Captain Bellman?”

“Mrs Captain Bellman!” cried Tom, savagely. “Look here, Tryphie, I thought we had settled him, and now you bring him up again like an evil spirit in a play. I tell you what it is, if somebody does not shoot that great moustached scoundrel, I will.”

“What, such a handsome, gentlemanly man?” said Tryphie, sarcastically.

“Handsome? Gentlemanly? The narrow-minded scoundrel! Look here, Tryphie, a man may do worse things than smoke cigars and play billiards. Damme, I can say I never caused a woman the heartache, or deceived my friend.”

“Are you sure, Tom?” said Tryphie, looking up at him with a melancholy droll expression upon her countenance.

“Tryphie!” he cried, running to her, and catching her hand.

“Get along, you silly boy,” she cried, laughing; and he turned away with a look of annoyance, but Maude caught his arm.

“Tom, dear,” she said, laying her head upon his shoulder, “come what may, you will always think kindly of me.”

“Why of course, my dear,” he said, “always. I shall think of you as the dearest and best of sisters, who always stuck up for me, and kept herself poor by lending me—no, hang it, I won’t be a humbug—giving me nearly all her allowance. Maude, old girl: I’m afraid we young fellows are terribly selfish beasts. Look here,” he cried, excitedly, to hide the tears that would come into his eyes, “I tell you what; I can get half a dozen fellows together who’ll help me burke old Wilters if you’ll say the word.”

“Don’t be foolish, Tom dear,” sighed Maude. “I must go now to papa. I want to stay with him all day. Thank you, dear Tom; be kind to him when I’m gone.”

“That I will, dear,” he said; and, embracing him fondly, Maude hurried away out of the room.

“Tom,” said Tryphie, coming behind him as he stood, rather moist of eye, gazing after her.

“Tryphie,” he cried excitedly, facing round, “I feel such a scoundrel; and as if I ought to put a stop to this cursed marriage. Here’s a set out: she detests him, that’s evident; and if Charley Melton had been a trump, hang me if he shouldn’t have had her. Curse it all! her ladyship’s too bad. There, I can’t stand it, and must be off. This place chokes me—What were you going to say!”

“I was only going to say, Tom,” she said, softly, “that I’m very sorry I’ve behaved so unkindly to you sometimes, and snubbed you, and been so spiteful.”

“Don’t say any more about it, Tryphie,” said the little fellow, sadly. “I’d forgive you a hundred times as much for being so good to the old man. Good-bye, Tryphie, I’m off.”

“But you’ll come back for the wedding, Tom!”

“I’ll be there, somethinged if I do,” he said.

“What! See a second sister sold by auction?—Knocked down by my lady to the highest bidder? No, that I won’t. I can’t, I tell you. Hang it all, Tryphie, you chaff me till I feel sore right through sometimes. I’m a little humbug of a fellow, but I’ve got some feeling.”

“Yes, Tom,” said Tryphie, looking at him strangely, though he did not see it. “But I was going to say something else to you.”

“Well, look sharp then,” he said. “What is it!”

“Only, Tom, that I don’t think I ever quite knew you before; and you have pleased me so by what you said to poor Maude.”

“Tryphie!” he cried, with his eyes sparkling.

“Yes, Tom, dear,” she said, looking up in his face. “Don’t let aunt marry me to any one.”

“If I do!” he cried, clasping her in his arms, and her pretty little rosebud of a mouth was turned up to his for the kiss that was placed there, just as the drawing-room door opened, and her ladyship sailed in to stand as if petrified.

“Lord Diphoos! Tryphie!” she cried in a deep contralto. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing,” said Tom. “It’s done this way,” and he imprinted half a dozen more kisses upon Tryphie’s frightened little face before she struggled from him, and ran out by another door.

“Have the goodness, sir, to ring that bell,” said her ladyship, laying her hand upon her side, and tottering to an easy-chair. “I cannot talk to you about your conduct now—your wickedness—your riot and debauchery—my mind is too full of what is about to take place; but as you are going away to-day, I must tell you that you can return here no more until Tryphie is married. I will not have her head filled full of wicked nonsense by so unprincipled a young man.”

“Yes, I am a very bad one, mother,” said Tom, quietly; “but don’t make yourself uncomfortable. I am not going away.”

“Not going away?” shrieked her ladyship. “Ah, who is that?” she continued, without turning her head.

“Robbins, my lady.”

“Oh, Robbins, send Justine to me.”

“Yes, my lady,” said the butler, retiring.

“I’m going to stop and see Maude turned off, if old Wilters don’t have a paralytic stroke on his way to church.”

“Tom!”

“Well, it’s likely enough. He’s only about forty, but he has lived twice as fast as most fellows ever since he was fifteen, so that he’s quite sixty-five.”

“I will not listen to your insults, sir. As your mother, I should at least be spared.”

“Oh, ah, of course,” said Tom, “duty to grey hairs and that sort of thing—Beg pardon though; I see they are not grey. I’m going to stop it all out now, and I shan’t go—and what’s more, mamma,” he cried, nursing one of his little patent leather shoes as he lolled back, “if you are cantankerous, hang me if I don’t contrive that the governor has the full run of the wine at the wedding breakfast, there.”

“If you dare, Tom!” cried her ladyship. “Oh, Justine, my drops.”

“Yes, milady,” said that damsel. “Ah! bold, bad lil man,” she added to herself, as she glanced at Tom, who very rudely winked at her when she closed the door after Lord Barmouth, who crept in and went timidly to an easy-chair.

“Your drops!” said Tom. “Ha—ha—ha! why don’t you take a liqueur of brandy like a woman, and not drink that stuff.”

“Tom,” said her ladyship, “you are too coarse. You will break my heart before you have done. Only to think of your conduct,” she cried, glancing at the chair in the farther room, where Lord Barmouth lay apparently asleep, as being his safest course when there was trouble on the way, “that too of your dozy, dilatory father, when one of you might make a position in Parliament, the other a most brilliant match.”

“Why, you don’t want the old man to take another wife, do you?” said Tom. “I say, dad! Here, I say: wake up.”

“Silence, sir, how dare you!” exclaimed his mother. “You wicked, offensive boy. I was, for your benefit, trying to point out to you how you might gain for yourself a first-rate establishment, when you interrupted me with your ribald jests.”

“Hang the establishment!” said Tom; “any one would think you were always getting your children into trade. I shall marry little Tryphie, if she’ll have me. I’m not going to marry for money. Pretty sort of a fellow I look for making a brilliant match, don’t I?”

“Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom,” said her ladyship, bursting into tears, “you will break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Not I,” said Tom, cynically; “it’s not one of the heart-breaking sort. But I say, you’ve made Diana miserable, and Maude half crazy, and now I hope you are happy. Tell you what, I shouldn’t be at all surprised now if it’s through you that Charley Melton is going to the bad. If so, you’ve done it and no mistake.”

“I am surprised that your father allows you to talk to me like this,” said her ladyship. “I never knew a son so wanting in respect.”

“Dad’s asleep; don’t wake him,” said Tom; “the old man’s about tired out.”

A snore from the easy-chair endorsed Tom’s words, and he sat smiling at his mother, knowing from old experience that she would not go away till he had done criticising her conduct in his rough and ready style.

“I shudder when I think of poor Maude’s escape,” said her ladyship. “Nothing could be more disgraceful than that young man’s conduct. He sees at last though that he cannot marry Maude, and that it would be little short of a crime, so he—”

“Stands out of it,” said Tom. “Hang me if I would, if any one was to try to cut in after Tryphie.”

“Once for all, Tom,” said her ladyship, “I desire that you cease that nonsensical talk about your cousin. Tryphie will marry when I select a husband for her.”

“Oh, of course!” said Tom; “but look here—two can play at that game.”

“Will you have the goodness to explain what you mean, sir?”

“Yes,” said Tom, taking out and counting his money. “Let me see,—about two pounds ten, I should say. I dare say old Wilters would lend me a fiver, if I asked him.”

“Tom,” cried her ladyship, excitedly, “if you dared to do such a thing I should never survive the disgrace. For my sake don’t ask him—at all events not yet. There, there,” she cried hastily, “there’s a five-pound note. Now, my dear boy, for your mother’s and sister’s sake, do not do anything foolish for twenty-four hours. Only twenty-four hours, I implore you.”

“Thankye,” said Tom, taking the note and crumpling it up, as he stuffed it into his trousers pocket. “All right, then: I’ll wait twenty-four hours.”

“What—what do you want the money for?” said her ladyship, adopting now the tremolo stop to play her son, as the furioso had proved so futile.

“I’m going to buy a revolver,” said Tom, kicking up one leg as if he were dancing a child upon it.

“A revolver, Tom? You are not going to do anything rash—anything foolish?”

“What! Operate on myself? Not such a fool. I’d sweep a crossing to live, not blow my brains out if I were what people call ruined. I’m philosopher enough, mother, to know the value of life. Do you wish to know what I want that revolver for?”

“Yes,” said her ladyship, faintly; “but pray mind that your poor papa does not get hold of it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tom. “Well, mother, I’m going to stick up a lot of playing cards in my bedroom, and practice at the spots till I’m a dead shot.”

“Great Heavens, Tom! what for?”

“So as to be able to make it warm for the man who comes after Tryphie. Ah, Justine, got the drops? Why, you grow handsomer than ever.”

“Go, impudent little man,” said Justine, shaking her head at him, and then running to her ladyship, who was lying back with closed eyes. “Ah, poor, dear milady, you are ill.”

“My drops, Justine, my drops,” sighed her ladyship. “Ah, Justine, what comfort you are to me in my sorrows. My good Justine, never pray to be a mother;” and she showed her best teeth in a pensive smile of sadness by way of recompense for the attention.

“Ma foi! no, milady, I never will,” said Justine, turning very French for the moment, and her ladyship’s drops produced more tears.

Tom “made a face” at the maid while her ladyship’s eyes were buried in her scented handkerchief, and Justine gave him a Parisian smile as he rose, winked once more, and left the room.

Then Lady Barmouth took up her lament once more.

“Ah! Justine, when the gangrene of the wounds in my poor heart has been cicatrised over, I may perhaps breathe forgiveness into the ears of my children; but now—oh now—”

“Ah, poor milady! what you do suffer,” said the sympathising Justine; “you make me so much to think of that poor Job, only he was a great lord and not a lady, and you have not the boil.”

“My poor Justine,” sighed her ladyship, as she smiled patronisingly at the innocence of her handmaiden, “there are moral and social boils as well as those external, and when I sit here alone, forsaken by my children—by my husband—by all who should be dear, left alone to the tender sympathies of an alien who is all probity and truth—”

“Yes, poor milady, I suffer for you,” said Justine.

“Thanks, good Justine, you faithful creature,” said her ladyship, sighing; “I could not exist if it were not for you.”

And Justine said to herself maliciously, “I am what that wicked young man calls a hom-bogues.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

Lady Maude goes Mad.

Meanwhile Maude had sought Lord Barmouth, whom she surprised in a corner of the library, feeding his wolf and studying the wing of a chicken, which he was picking with great gusto. He did not hear her entry, and he was talking to himself as he lifted up and smelt his pocket-handkerchief.

“Yes,” he muttered; “damme, that’s what it is. I could not make out what made the chicken taste so queer. He—he—he! it’s eau de Cologne. He—he—he—Poulet à la Jean Marie Farina. Damme, that’ll be a good thing to say at the next dinner-party, or to-morrow morning. No,” he said sadly, “not then. Oh, dear, it’s very hard to see them taken away from me like this, and I must get my strength up a bit. Who’s that?”

“It is only I, papa,” said Maude, seating herself on the hearthrug by his side, as the old man hastily popped the chicken bone out of sight.

“I’m glad to see you, my dear, glad to see you,” said Lord Barmouth, patting her soft glossy head. “Maude, my pet, I can hardly believe that you are going away from me to-morrow.”

“Pray, pray don’t talk of it, dear papa,” she faltered. “I’ve come to stay with you and talk to you; and you must tell me what to do, papa.”

“Yes, yes, yes, my dear,” he said, “I will; and you must be strong, and brave, and courageous, and not break down. Her ladyship would be so upset, you see. Maudey, my darling, matrimony’s a very different sort of thing to what we used to be taught, and read of in books. It isn’t sentimental at all, my dear, it’s real—all real—doosed real. There’s a deal of trouble in this world, my darling, especially gout, which you women escape. It’s very bad, my dear, very bad indeed, sometimes.”

Maude’s forehead wrinkled as she gazed piteously at her father, for her heart was full to overflowing, and she longed to confide in him, to lay bare the secrets of her laden breast; but his feeble ways—his wanderings—chilled the current that was beating at the flood-gates, and they remained closed.

“What can I do—what can I do?” she moaned to herself, and laying her head upon the old man’s knee, she drew his arm round her neck, and wept silently as he chatted on.

“I—I—I remember, my dear, when Lady Susan Spofforth was married, she was the thinnest girl I ever saw, and they said she hated the match—it was Lord Barleywood she married—Buck Wood we used to call him at the club. Well, next time I saw her, about three years after, I hardly knew her, she had grown so plump and round. It’s—it’s—it’s an astonishing thing, Maudey, how plump some women do get after marriage. Look at her ladyship. Doosed fine woman. Don’t look her age. Very curious, damme, yes, it is curious, I’ve never got fat since I was married. Do you know, Maudey, I think I’m thinner than I used to be.”

“Do you, papa?” she said, smiling up at him.

“Yes, my dear, I do indeed; but it don’t matter much, and I don’t think her ladyship minds. Let me see, Sir Grantley’s coming to dinner to-day, isn’t he, my dear?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Ha! yes! A good dinner’s a nice thing when you can enjoy it free and unfettered, but it’s like matrimony, my dear, full of restrictions, and very disappointing when you come to taste it. Well, there, there, there, now we have had our little talk and confidences, we will go upstairs to the drawing-room. It will be more cheerful for you.”

He rose, taking his child’s hand, kissing it tenderly, and holding it before he drew it through his arm, while Maude sighed gently, and suffered herself to be led upstairs.

Her ladyship was better, and she smiled with a sweetly pathetic expression in her countenance as Maude entered with her father, rising, and crossing to meet them, and kissing her child upon her forehead.

“Bless you, my darling!” she said; “pray be happy in the knowledge that you are doing your duty. Go now, Justine.”

“Yes, my lady,” said that sphinx; and as soon as they were alone her ladyship continued—

“Yes, in the thought that you are doing your duty. At your age I too had my little love romance, but I was forced to marry your poor papa.”

“Oh, damn it, my dear!” cried his lordship, looking at his wife aghast; “I was forced to marry you.”

“Barmouth! That will do! Maude, my child, I begged Sir Grantley to come and dine with us en famille this evening.”

“Oh, mamma!” cried Maude, “was that wise?”

“Trust me, my dear, for doing what is best,” said her ladyship.

There was a great bouquet of flowers on the table, which was littered with presents from the bridegroom elect, and family friends; but Maude did not seem to heed them, only the flowers, which she picked up, and as Lady Barmouth smiled and shook her head at her husband, Maude went and sat down by the open window, to begin picking the petals to pieces and shower them down. Some fell fluttering out into the area; some littered her dress and the carpet; and some were wafted by the wind to a distance; but Maude’s mind seemed far away, and her little white fingers performed their task of destroying her present, as her head sank down lower and lower, bowed down by its weight of care.

It was autumn, and the shades of evening were falling, and so were Maude’s spirits; hence a tear fell from time to time upon the flowers, to lie amidst the petals like a dew-drop; but they fell faster as her ladyship uttered an impatient cry, for just then the black-bearded Italian stopped beneath the window, swung round his organ, and began to grind out dolefully the Miserere once more and its following melody from Trovatore, the whole performance sounding so depressing in her nervous state that the poor girl’s first inclination was to bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break. She set her teeth though firmly, glanced back in the room, and then, smiling down at the handsome simple face beneath her, she threw a sixpence which the man caught in his soft hat.

“Grazie, signora,” said the Italian, smiling and showing his white teeth.

“Maude, how can you be so foolish?” cried her ladyship. “You have encouraged those men about till it’s quite dreadful: we never have any peace.”

“Poor fellows!” said Maude, “they seem very glad of a few pence, and they are far away from home.”

“Yes,” said her ladyship, “where they ought to be sent back.”