Ella D'Arcy

“ Willoughby felt a sudden accession of interest in her. Like many intelligent young men, he had dabbled a little in Socialism and at one time had wandered among the dispossessed; but since then, had caught up and held loosely the new doctrine—It is a good and fitting thing that woman also should earn her bread by the sweat of her brow. Always in reference to the woman who, fifteen months before, had treated him ill, he had said to himself that even the breaking of stones in the road should be considered a more feminine employment than the breaking of hearts. ”

“ There were the long boards of the platform slipping by her, running away to converge in a single point in the distance; there was a porter—the very porter to whom she had given the shilling—rolling and rattling milk-cans from one part of the station to the other; there stood the young man in grey, still waiting, and talking now with the station-master. Everything was calm, placid, ordinary; everyone was absolutely indifferent to her peril. And yet she was being carried away from all security, from all calmness, to a horrible uncertainty, most likely to a violent death. ”

“ Across it moved a figure, a real figure, not a shadow, going from him. The hands, holding a light bamboo, were clasped behind the back.
"By Jove, it's Garve!" thought Underhill and hurried after him. Garve turned round in surprise.
"I didn't think there was much likelihood of my overtaking you" said he, "but it never occurred to me you could overtake me. You remained up at the Casino?"
"And you didn't go home after all, but put your advice to me into practice instead? Well, it was good advice too. The walk is superb. It's the sort of night when the thought of bed is a sacrilege." ”

“ RAYMOND ASSURED HER."
"YOU MAY BELIEVE THAT I WOULD DO EVERYTHING A MAN CAN," RAYMOND ASSURED HER."
He spoke so earnestly that she was surprised into a blush.
He referred enthusiastically to Mlle. Léonie when he and Puivert were in the train together on the way to Gex.
"A very beautiful creature!" he said. "But for a young girl her face is too sad."
"Ah! You should have known her before this affair," answered the other. "Full of vivacity, blooming and smiling as Hebe. Well, we can do little for her but trust to time." ”

“ Isn't it less improbable to believe it was luck than to believe that a man of his position, his wealth, and his appearance—for you'll admit, I suppose, that his appearance is in his favour—is a mere card-sharper, a swindler? ”

“ Esther's tears gradually ceased to flow, she began to exhibit a sort of compunction, she wished to be forgiven, and, with the kiss of reconciliation, passed into a phase of demonstrative affection perhaps more trying to Willoughby's patience than all that had preceded it. "You don't love me?" ”

“ I went there first, long before the cliff hotels were thought of. You came down the upper road, of course? Then, take my advice, and go back by the sands. They're as smooth and firm as a billiard-table, and with this moonlight, you'll have a magnificent walk. Presently you'll come to a zig-zag staircase cut in the cliff, which will bring you up right opposite your hotel."
Underhill and Morris remained some little time longer leaning against the stone balustrade. Above them was a moon-suffused sky, before them a moon-silvered sea. ”

“ He stumbled over Lily's feet without a word of apology, shut the door behind him with a furious slam, and precipitated himself into the farthest opposite corner of the carriage. Lily looked at him in amazement and dismay. Really this was worse than anything she could have possibly foreseen. It was simply impossible for her to travel in a carriage with a man who smoked, for the smell of smoke always made her ill, always gave her a bad headache. She could not sit ten minutes in her cousin Jack's smoking-room without the atmosphere affecting her. ”

“ Then came the past of his first love-dream, when he worshipped at the feet of Nora Beresford, and, with the wholeheartedness of the true fanatic, clothed his idol with every imaginable attribute of virtue and tenderness. To this day there remained a secret shrine in his heart wherein the Lady of his young ideal was still enthroned, although it was long since he had come to perceive she had nothing whatever in common with the Nora of reality. For the real Nora he had no longer any sentiment: she had passed altogether out of his life and thoughts ”

“ A couple of logs smouldered on the hearth, and an evil-smelling kerosene lamp, with an opaline shade, hung from the ceiling.
Two persons occupied the room, the man who had opened the door—evidently the innkeeper—and a stout, dark, squat little woman of repellent visage.
Raymond wondered what sort of a living these two could make, since surely direful necessity alone such as his was could ever keep them a customer. Even so, he hesitated a moment as to whether he would not merely ask for something to eat and take leave again. ”

“ Underhill's quick brain envisaged the man's whole life, the infamy of it, the pathos of it. He recognised the impossibility of living down such a past, he foresaw the degrading years to come. He knew that Garve had found the only solution possible. ”

“ But Lily knew that the move had been made for the very purpose of observing him, and by a little sign she indicated to the young man in grey the pistol lying under the Frenchman's hand, and now half hidden by a fold of his cloak.
The man was still smoking, while he stared in front of him with an assumed air of mental preoccupation, although every now and then a glint from his flickering eye fell upon his companions in the carriage.
The train every moment was increasing in speed. ”

“ There being no one else to perform the office he congratulated himself very warmly, and Esther's frequent laughter filled in the pauses of the day.
Three months later Willoughby was dining with a friend, and the hour-hand of the clock nearing ten the host no longer resisted the guest's growing anxiety to be gone. He arose and exchanged with him good wishes and good-byes.
"Marriage is evidently a most successful institution," said he, half jesting, half sincere; "you almost make me inclined to go and get married myself. Confess now your thoughts have been at home the whole evening?" ”

“ Garve broke in bitterly, "simply necessitates my spending more money than other men, without furnishing me the wherewithal to do it. I suppose it seems incredible to you Americans, that a man of old family, a man with a handle to his name, shouldn't possess a brass farthing to bless himself with?" ”

“ We are going to pass directly a very extraordinary sight. We are going to pass a house built without any front to it, by a man who is consumptive, and hopes to cure himself on the open-air system. It looks precisely like a dolls' house with the door open. You can see into all the rooms. There! There it is! Do you see it?" he cried eagerly, getting up to point it out, and Lily jumped up and looked with all her eyes, and the Frenchman half rose and looked too. ”

“ When we have been at home a week or two we shall scarcely remember each other's names."
Esther sobbed at intervals, but her tears had ceased. "It's fine for you to talk of home," she said to this. "You've got some thing that is a home, I s'pose? But me! my home's like hell, with nothing but quarrellin' and cursin', and father who beats us whether sober or drunk. Yes!" she repeated shrewdly, seeing the lively disgust on Willoughby's face, "he beat me, all ill as I was, jus' before I come away. ”

“ Then, holding the candle at such an angle that the grease ran over on to the carpet, she gave Willoughby another vehement kiss and trailed out of the room with an ineffectual attempt to close the door behind her.
Willoughby got up to shut it himself, and wondered why it was that Esther never did any one mortal thing efficiently or well. Good God! how irritable he felt! It was impossible to write. He must find an outlet for his impatience, rend or mend something. ”

“ Now, when you stood at the baccarat table this evening, what made you think of the little Professor?"
"My dear chap," said Underhill, "you make me tired. There is such a thing as pressing a point too far. And, since you were good enough to call my attention to the fact that the cliff throws a shadow, I'm going to extinguish your Socratic questionings by walking in it. Buona sera!" ”

“ Finally, it seemed to Lily that the station-master invited the old lady to accompany him to the luggage-van and verify the whereabouts of the box herself, for he walked off towards the rear of the train and the old lady trotted after him.
By this time most of the other passengers had taken their places and the platform was nearly empty. Only a nice-looking young man in a grey summer suit remained, and he kept looking now at his watch and now through each of the station entrances as he sauntered by them, as if he were awaiting the arrival of a friend. ”

“ By Ella D'Arcy A young man strolled along a country road one August evening after a long delicious day—a day of that blessed idleness the man of leisure never knows: one must be a bank clerk forty-nine weeks out of the fifty-two before one can really appreciate the exquisite enjoyment of doing nothing for twelve hours at a stretch. Willoughby had spent the morning lounging about a sunny rickyard ”

“ Rien ne va plus."
The bank lost, won, lost again; seemed in for a run of ill-luck. Re-heartened, the players increased their stakes, and Fortune immediately shifted her wheel, and the croupier's impassive rake pushed everything on the table over to the banker. The young man with the pince-nez lost five hundred marks, a thousand, two thousand, in succession. With a steady hand and insouciant air, he doubled his stake every time, but the bank continued to win, and the players and bystanders began to look at him with curiosity. ”

“ What tales you get hold of, cook, you and the fish-man. Why should it be put off?"
"They do say the King God bless him, is ill."
"Oh, people are always croaking evil! Don't pay any attention, cook, but just get on with your work."
At that moment a boy passed down the street selling second editions of the morning papers, and shouting, "Serious illness of the King! Coronation postponed!"
Eva and Muriel looked at each other in dismay.
"The poor King!" was Muriel's first exclamation. "Oh, how I hope it isn't really much!"
"The poor people!" sighed Eva. ”

“ The elder lady was gentle, faded, and broken with grief. The young girl was beautiful, poignantly sad, yet at the same time full of energy and fire.
The mother had resigned herself to the mystery which shrouded her son's fate. The daughter rebelled against it.
"The Leroys are suspected by the police," Mme. Maréchal explained as she talked the affair over with Raymond and her nephew on the terrace after dinner. "But after all, it is a mere suspicion. And, indeed, how is it possible to believe that that man and his wife could have been guilty of so cold-blooded a crime?" ”

“ Morris thought there was no need to fret; evidently he was a millionaire. How else could he afford to waste his time studying art? But Garve stuck to his own opinion.
"Unless my intuitions are very much at fault," said he, in an impressive undertone, "to-night has struck him a heavy blow. I've known men put an end to themselves for less. ”

“ He fell into musing . . . . a woman may lack beauty, he told himself, and yet be loved. . . . .
Meantime Esther reached white heats of passion, and the strain could no longer be sustained. She broke into sobs and began to shed tears with the facility peculiar to her. In a moment her face was all wet with the big drops which rolled down her cheeks faster and faster and fell with audible splashes on to the table, on to her lap, on to the floor. To this tearful abundance, formerly a surprising spectacle, Willoughby was now acclimatised ”

“ The Other Fellow turned with him, insisting at his ear: "The man's a card-sharper, a swindler, some poor devil of a half-pay captain, some chevalier d'industrie who can't pay his hotel bill."
"You're quite out of it!" returned the young man warmly. "His whole personality refutes you."
"Let's make it a question of character," said the Other Fellow, "and I bet you—well, I bet you twopence that his character won't stand the laxest investigation."
A moment later they both came across Morris. The diamond broker had rendered Underhill a small service earlier in the day. ”

“ And then because she was so unhappy, and because the young man was so sympathetic, and because Eva had gone to get the tea, she found herself telling the whole story of their great venture, their high hopes, and their frightful disillusionment.
"Well, that's too bad!" declared the young man. "But just like Fortune. She plays us these tricks continually. Look at King Edward, for instance, and look at me. Here I am, home in England for the first time in my life, after a year's hard work with the Australians in South Africa. ”

“ I've often wished I was a lady. It must be so nice ter wear fine clo'es an' never have ter do any work all day long."
Willoughby thought it innocent of the girl to say this; it reminded him of his own notion as a child—that kings and queens put on their crowns the first thing on rising in the morning. His cordiality rose another degree.
"If being a gentleman means having nothing to do," said he, smiling, "I can certainly lay no claim to the title. Life isn't all beer and skittles with me, any more than it is with you. ”

“ Nevertheless, he now added the table and chair to the barricade within the cupboard, put the lamp down on the floor by the window to burn itself out, and went back to bed, to again fall asleep.
But now he dreamed a dream which was so consequent in its happenings, and which remained so clearly impressed upon his mind next morning, that he could call it up with absolute accuracy of detail across the intervening years.
In this dream he stood in the sordid attic, and a man, either himself or another, lay sleeping in the bed. ”

“ At first, Willoughby had tried to educate her and had gone hopefully to the task. It is so natural to think you may make what you will of the woman who loves you. But Esther had no wish to improve. She evinced all the self-satisfaction of an illiterate mind. ”

“ A murmur arose, half disgust and wholly admiration, for the continued run of luck, which gave the bank, for its third card, the eight of diamonds. The croupier raked together the coloured ivory counters and pushed them over to the Englishman, who swept them into a careless heap and prepared to deal again.
The American, watching, found that his thoughts had travelled to a certain "Professor" Deedes, a professor of conjuring, whose acquaintance he had made at Saratoga during the preceding summer ”

“ He took his cigar from his mouth when she had begun to speak, and one corner of his upper lip drew back in an ugly way, reminding her of some ill-tempered dog.
"You object to me smoking?" he asked, speaking with a strong foreign accent, in a hard, curious, unmodulated voice.
"Well—yes, I do," said Lily, bravely. "It makes me feel ill, and that is why I came into this carriage, which is not a smoking-carriage. But there is a smoking compartment on that side, next door. You will have time to change, if you are quick. ”

“ He's got his head screwed on the right way if ever a man had. Don't think I ever saw a cuter specimen."
Garve looked at the diamond merchant with a tolerant smile. "Of course, being an American, he's necessarily cute, while Irishmen are necessarily emotional, and Englishmen like myself necessarily slow-witted but honest. You allow for no shades in your character-painting. However, I'll try to believe, in this matter, you're right. Look here, he s coming this way now," he added in a moment; "can't you introduce him to me?"
Morris was proud to be in a position to gratify a baronet's wish. ”

“ A carriage with two fat horses, two fat servants, a fat poodle, and a fatter pug stood outside the door, and an old lady had bustled in and kissed the tea ladies very affably.
"Your young friend, Mr. Bullen, is extremely eccentric," she began, when Tom Eltham put in a word. "Very rich, do you say? An Australian millionaire? To be sure, that makes a difference. The vagaries of millionaires must be pardoned like those of genius, I suppose. ”

“ Then I get up, take a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and come into the rooms with all my wits about me. Naturally, I stand a better chance than the men who've finished off a day of peg-drinking by a heavy indigestible dinner and half a dozen different wines. ”