“ She is enthusiastic and impulsive. Oh, these impulses of youth! How well I remember the delightful impulses of youth, when one feels as if one could fly with wings! Even now I get impulses. Poor Penelope! Ah, dear, I wish she would come. I have written again and again to ask her, but I'm afraid she will not."
And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where she was, unless, indeed, it was Timothy and Geordie Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.
Titania and Bob between them, at any rate, accomplished one thing. ”

“ But of course he will pay no attention, and in time will die like the rest. It's no use advising men to be sensible. I've given it up. Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."
Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly like the twisting piece of glass in a mechanical clock which mimics a jet of water. She turned round and never advanced. But Augustin, Lord Bradstock, was as calm as a mill-pond, as a mere in the mountains. He was tall and thin and ruddy and white-haired at fifty. He had been twice a widower.
"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood with Penelope's hand in his. ”

“ Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby's glory.
"Did I not tell you she had married her groom?" she demanded of Titania. "Penelope was extremely rude to me. I am almost glad she has married a groom. If he is a nice groom, he may improve her manners."
"She hasn't married any groom," cried Titania, furiously. "I am perfectly certain it is the Marquis of Rivaulx."
She was certain of nothing. Bradstock was certain of nothing. They both asked Bob what he was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers were in such a state of mind that it couldn't be any of them. ”

“ Penelope was very indignant.
"He's not," she cried. "They sha'n't say it any more. Bob, tell that girl up-stairs to bring him down."
And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.
"I decline to see it," said Titania. "A baby without a name is a terrible object to me. It is an insult to the bishop and to the Church to bring one into the room. I will retire into the open air and try to breathe again."
Goby assisted her outside.
"This is a calamity," said Titania. "It's a catastrophe. What is the truth, Captain Goby? Are you a liar, too?" ”

“ She knew men of many classes adored her, wondering and humble. One great lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and only reasonably bitter against motor-cars, was her groom, Timothy Bunting. He didn't know he loved her. Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid. But there is this quality in a great love, that it asks all or nothing. Tim was perhaps as great as the greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her with a quiet and unjealous mind. ”

“ I am ashamed of myself."
"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I have seen heroes quail in a motor-car. I myself have quailed in one."
The bishop shook his head.
"Nevertheless, I blame myself. I ought not to have been afraid, even though I felt peculiar and unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he murmured.
He smote the table again.
"I will make amends, Bradstock. I will devote myself to the task of finding Penelope at any speed that is necessary. I cannot quite reconcile myself to the notion that I am a coward. I will find her if Bob deceives us." ”

“ But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant, who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him, behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock. "The mother must be a devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen? Oh, Pen, what a queer, mad darling you are! I begin to see daylight."
But nobody else did. Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly, while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it! Mr. de Vere! I say, marquis! ”

“ Her first interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring, was positively so shocking to Titania, who was mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that the poor thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat of three, damned her eyes with terrific vigour. Goring, who was that very curious and absurd survival of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared with laughter. There was humanity in him. There was none in Titania, though there might have been if she had married any one but a duke. ”

“ Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means. It is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour. When Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward destroyed. When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso. When he cheered up he wrote the Inferno. Neither of these is any joke. But then, Dante had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx. ”

“ An unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody compared with an experienced boy in one. I wish Penelope was a sensible person, or that I had never known her, or that she hadn't been born! I wonder what I am to do. I must walk; I may be overtaken by a cart and get a ride in one. I anticipate much talk in Spilsborough about this. I wonder what Ridley will say. Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will say nothing. I wish I was near Ridley; I am thirsty. This road is dusty. It also appears long and interminable. I am as dry as convocation. I much resent Bob's treatment of me. ”

“ Carew shrank from Carteret Williams. Gordon went livid under Plant's eyes. Bramber looked at them all as if he would die on the spot. Rivaulx rose up and waltzed around the room. It was a happy chance that he did so; it is possible that he saved immediate bloodshed. Bradstock and Bob caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him outside to the lawn, where there was ample room for a frantic pas seul.
"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady! Her husband must acknowledge now who he is!"
"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not much! If she's married at all, she's sworn him not to. ”

“ I don't love any one yet, and perhaps I never shall. But what I say is this: I'll think as to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish about this matter and about others."
"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there anything I would not dare or do?"
"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing," said Penelope, thereby putting her pretty foot upon the sudden flowers of De Vere's imagination, "and what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door man. You live too much in rooms, hothouses, Mr. de Vere, and in your own garden." ”

“ I entreat you to go through them and dismiss those of whom we can't approve, I and Lord Bradstock."
"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock. "They are all very good fellows; I approve of them all."
"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you help, Augustin? You are a hindrance. I believe it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has these strange and alarming ideas. Yes, my dear, I'm afraid it is. He is not the kind of man who should have been your guardian. I ought to have been consulted. I knew a bishop who would have been admirable, most admirable. ”

“ I no longer abhor the poor, foolish men who are so much in love with her. I see plainly (for I, too, am naturally a democrat of the proper kind) that they have fine qualities. I have marked my sense of this in a way which appears to amuse Lord Bradstock for some reason that I do not follow,—but then, I never could follow Augustin, poor fellow,—by asking them all down here. I dare say they think Penelope will come, for they have all accepted. ”

“ The marchioness said she knew, on the highest authority, that this was so. The marchioness always goes on the principle of believing the worst, though, of course, she hopes the best. I hope the best for Penelope, but I'm sure the worst is before us. I'm sure of it."
The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin stroked her hand to calm her. But nothing calmed or cheered her.
"I am calm," she said. "I am even peaceful. What can be worse than the worst? I am cheerful, for I believe there is a better world than this, in which even a duchess may find some kind of rest on the highest authority. ”

“ Ethel cried and said:
"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"
Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."
Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out of Penelope.
"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married without publicity. I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.
When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.
"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious. ”

“ But in the meantime they could only talk, and presently they saw the marquis coming across the lawn. He kept on stopping and looking up at the sky, as if for help or a balloon, and he smote his breast repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.
"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring. "Takes it hard. Give me a light, Bob. Look at the Johnny smiting himself in the chest. What's he thinking of now? Looks as if he was bound upon a desperate deed. Dear me, I hope there will be no bloodshed, Bradstock! I'm too old for bloodshed now. ”

“ Pen is Pen, and there's an end of it."
"I wish there was," cried the duchess. "But she rails against marriage. And she's only twenty-one. Dear, dear me!"
"She pays too much attention to you married women," said Bradstock. "How's the duke, by the way?"
As the duke was engaged in running two theatres at the same time, not wholly in the interests of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked after his health at some other juncture. Titania ignored him.
"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.
"I don't," said Penelope.
"You do," said her aunt. ”

“ Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal. I knew, I knew, I knew it was Williams, and now I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her in time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal; and what, oh, what can she have done with Bob? Augustin, go at once and find where Bob is. I knew it would be Williams! Didn't I always say it would be Williams? I could have forgiven her any one else."
Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true. And Bradstock had a sense of humour, if Pen had none. ”

“ Now Titania believed that she was very smart and very clever, and that she would do things subtly and do them better than Bradstock or a barrister, even if he was a K.C. And as it is the most invariably weak point in people that they think young people fools, or at any rate easily hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly beloved young scoundrel of a grandson, would be as easy to work on as butter. And yet she had the sense to see that Bob adored Penelope. ”

“ She called to the stranger in the road.
"I am so pleased to see you again after such a long time, Miss Mackarness," she said, kindly. "Are you still at Upwell Castle?"
"I'm going there now, ma'am," said the housekeeper, who didn't recognize her Grace.
"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly. "It is a long way to walk. You don't remember me, I see."
"No, ma'am," said Miss Mackarness.
"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.
"Oh, your Grace! I beg your Grace's pardon, but, of course, you are," gasped Miss Mackarness. ”

“ They objected to publicity, especially for other people, and for a young woman to become a public character was something worse than immorality. Nothing but Penelope's entire singleness of character and her humourous want of humour enabled her to meet and overcome them. And even she felt at times that flight was the only thing left. She sent to her solicitor for a list of all the houses and mansions and castles that she owned, and she took her motor-car and her pet chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his grandmother, she set off on a tour. ”

“ And Penelope sighed. Suddenly her face lighted up.
"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty. How very, very noble of them! I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest character and attainments and possibilities. Will you have telegrams written out to all of them, saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am deeply grateful'?"
"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"
"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there." ”

“ Penelope remonstrated with her. Bob was urgent and impatient.
"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a cart."
"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to interview Miss Mackarness.
"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie down and die."
"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.
"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness. "I may be used to much and past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars." ”

“ I become calm; motion is relative. I almost enjoy it. I become a Hegelian. I see that being equals non-being; that pain becomes pleasure if you only have enough of it. I no longer pity those who suffer sufficiently. There is apparently too little pain in the universe. Torquemada did his best to remedy it. Oh, was that a dog? I quite enjoy myself. I wonder if he can go faster. If he can, I wish he would. We are going slow, too slow!"
And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer, Bob put his car again at the third speed, and the bishop gasped. ”

“ But in the conduct of life the grounds of certainty are an estate beyond the rainbow. If Penelope believed any one thing with more fervour than another, it was that her truthfulness must be self-evident. The course of events after the evening on which Titania fainted and recovered so sharply showed her that nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths. For though she said she was married, few, if any, believed her. Titania, who believed in her intuitions, as all right-minded women must, because reason is only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope had lied, to put it plainly. ”

“ He showed that marriage, open and unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the minimum on which morality could exist, and he pointed out with sad firmness that the ethical standards of the true Briton were the only decent ones at present unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great danger of being rolled up and put away. As every one knows, all he said was undoubtedly fact. The true Briton is the only moral person in the world. As a result Penelope felt that she wasn't a true Briton, and it made her very mournful, as it should have done. ”

“ Mr. Plant will do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"
She had never been so beautiful. She showed at her best when her interest in humanity made her courageous and brutal. The colour in her cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as the sea. If Bramber choked, he submitted, though he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.
"Go at once," said Penelope.
She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy Carew, A.R.A. Williams knew as much about art as a hog does of harmony. ”