Lady K. The awful cables you used to send me? Heavens, how

I cried every night, Gerry! And how horrid Kingsmead was that year!
_So_ jealous.

Carron (_aloud_). You were always such an abominable
flirt! (_In petto_) If I only knew _why_ she hates me so! God! it's
worse than hatred; it's loathing.

Lady K. (_reproachfully_). That is unfair, dear. You
_know_ I never loved anyone but you!

Carron (_aloud_). But you flirted, Tony; yes, you did. You
nearly drove me mad with jealousy. (_In petto_) Hang it all! how
can I get away and go for a walk? This is unbearable.

And so on, and so on, all the _triste canzon_. Lady Kingsmead's boudoir
was a charming room done in white and pale corn-colour. There were many
books, but Tommy had one day betrayed the limitations of their field of
usefulness by asking his mother before several people, "Mother, where do
you keep the books you _read_?"

There were many flowers, beautiful Turkey carpets, shaded lamps,
overloaded little tables whose mission in life appeared to be the
driving parlour-maids, however reluctant, to the process of dusting,
and, in the darkest corner, where its faded gilding was supposed to
lighten the gloom, a beautiful old harp. The harp belonged to Mr. Isaacs
in Baker Street, but was supposed to have been played by the fair
fingers of Lady Kingsmead's grandmother.

The furniture and hangings, all new, belonged to Messrs. Bampton in
Piccadilly, as did the carpets. The pictures, belonging to the entail,
were paid for. Lady Kingsmead lay on a _chaise-longue_ and played with a
Persian kitten named Omar.

Carron sat opposite her in a low chair smoking cigarettes. It was just
four o'clock.

"I suppose she'll curse me out for being here," Carron began suddenly,
feeling that he deserved, after his hasty excursion into the churchyard
of his ancient love, a short indulgence in his present feelings; "she's
a good hater, that girl of yours."

"Yes, she has a very nasty temper. Now I, with all my
faults"--(pause)--"with all my faults, never could stay angry more than
five minutes. Besides, I was always so sensitive."

"Yes; oh, yes! What train does she come by, did you say?"

"The 4.27. Perhaps you'd like to go and meet her?"

He laughed, his blue eyes narrowing. "Thanks, no. And the others?"

"Oh, _I_ don't know. The list is there at your elbow. You are dull
to-day, Gerald."

"I know I am. I think I'm in for an attack of flue, or something; feel
shivery and all-overish. And I think you might be able to understand my
hating to have your daughter make such a horrible _mésalliance_, Tony."

She was touched with the pathetic facility for being touched common to
fading beauties. Rising, she laid her pretty hand on his shoulder.
"Poor darling, I am sorry I was cross. It is dear of you to mind. I
hated it, too, at first, for poor old Ponty is a gentleman, and he is
awfully cut up. But after all, it may not be a bad thing. She's a very
queer girl, Gerald, not at all easy to live with, and this boy Joyselle
is really nice. Besides, he has plenty of money----"

"By the way," interrupted Carron, tossing the kitten to a soft chair,
"where did he get the money? The fiddling chap can't have much. They say
he's a great spendthrift----"

"No, it isn't that. I mean Isabel Clough-Hardy left it to him. You
remember the moley one who died in Egypt?"

"Did she? He must have been a mere child when she died. You mean Hugh
Hislip's daughter?"

"Yes. Oh, yes, it was years ago. They say she was in love with Victor
Joyselle before she married."

"By Jove! Why didn't he marry her?"

"Because in this unenlightened land no man is allowed to have more than
one wife at a time--Oh, Tommy, what have you been doing?"

Kingsmead, who had come in without knocking, sat down and stretched his
thin legs over the arm of the chair. "Ratting."

"Oh, you nasty child! What a beastly thing!"

"Ratting, my dear mother, is a fine, manly, old-time sport. Most fellows
of my age and appearance would be making love to their mothers' friends,
but I bar women. Sport," he added solemnly, "for Thomas Edward, Earl of
Kingsmead."

Carron, who had always disliked the boy, looked at him. "So you bar
women? Many other 'men of your appearance' have said the same."

It was a nasty thrust, but Tommy, though he felt it, grinned cheerfully.

"_Stung!_" he cried, laying his hand on his heart in an absurd
theatrical gesture. "Your bolt has gone home, my dear fellow. But
experience may take the place of beauty at fifty."

Carron started. He loathed being fifty, he loathed Tommy, he loathed
everything.

Tommy turned to the kitten and talked artless nonsense to it to fill up
the pause that followed, and Lady Kingsmead powdered her nose with a bit
of chamois skin that lived in a silver box full of Fuller's earth under
the _chaise-longue_ pillows.

"Glad Brigit's coming?" asked Tommy, turning with appalling suddenness
to Carron, whose hatred for him increased tenfold as he tried to answer
carelessly.

As he replied, Brigit came in, without a hat, but covered from head to
foot with a rough tweed coat. Her wavy hair was very wet, and her
gloves, as she pulled them off, dripped on the floor. In her pearly pale
cheeks was a lovely pink tinge.

"What a day!" she cried. "I can't kiss you, mother--how d'ye do, Gerald?
Tommy, you angel, come and be drowned in sister's fond embrace!"

They all stared at her. "It's such a jolly rain. I drove myself in the
cart that had gone for Mr. Green. Green came in the brougham, poor dear!
Well--what are you all staring at, souls?"

"You look so--so young, Bicky," answered Tommy, with an effort. "What a
good time you must have had!"

Having taken off her coat and thrown her ruined gloves into the fire,
she sat down by her brother and put her arm round him.

"Dear little boy! I _am_ young, Thomas, and I did have a good time. He
is going to play for you, dear--all you want him to. He is a--a--what
shall I say?" Her eyes crinkled with amusement as she sought for a word.
"He really is a--ripper, Tommy. And he has a human dog named
Papillon--But-ter-fly," she added, still smiling and obviously quoting,
"also a parrot."

"And a wife," put in Carron sharply.

She looked at him, her face stiffening into its old expression of surly
hauteur.

"You have seen her?"

"No. But a friend of mine has. Charley Masterson, Tony. He says she
looks like a clean old peasant."

"That is exactly what she is--bravo, Charley Masterson! A clean old
peasant. Joyselle, too, is a peasant. They come from near Falaise, and
as a girl Madame Joyselle wore a cap. Is there no tea going?"

Lady Kingsmead, who hated rows unless she was one of the principals,
rang the bell.

"How was Pam?" she asked hastily.

"As nice as ever. They both sent you their love, by the way. I had a
heavenly week there, and they liked Théo so much. He came down for the
week-end. Oh, mother," she went on as the man who had answered the bell
closed the door, "please ask them down soon, will you? The clean old
peasant won't come; she never leaves home, and _he_ is--perfectly
presentable."

Lady Kingsmead watched her daughter in amazement. Tommy, as usual, was
right; Brigit looked, and seemed, years younger than she had done a
fortnight ago.

"Yes, my dear, I'll write to-night," she said with the graciousness she
used at will, and that was so charming. Then she added, "I might ask him
when the Duchess comes. He is sure to love duchesses; _those_ kind of
people always do."

"Yes, and as to duchesses, _those_ kind of people frequently like good
music for nothing."

But there was no bitterness in her tone, and mother and daughter smiled
at each other.




CHAPTER TEN


The Duchess did like good music for nothing, and when, a week later, she
was told on her arrival that Joyselle was to be of the party, she was
much pleased. She was only an ancient dowager, full of aches and pains
and sad and merry memories, but she was a great favourite nevertheless,
for her aches and pains and sad memories were kept safely in the
background, whereas her merry and sometimes somewhat shocking
recollections made her the very best of good company.

"A great man, my dear," she told Lady Kingsmead, "one of the finest
artistes I ever heard. I remember once in Petersburg, heaven only knows
how many centuries ago, hearing him play before the Czar. He was
extraordinarily handsome then, a tall young fellow--he can't be much
over forty now--very broad and strong-looking, with beautiful wavy brown
hair and gorgeous black eyes. The Grand Duchess Anastasia-Katherine was
very much in love with him, and he with her. She gave him a rose before
everybody--a red rose--and he kissed it quite boldly before he put it
into his coat. A remarkably dashing young man!"

"You have heard, I suppose, that my girl is going to marry his son?"

"Bless me, no! Has the creature a son? Men of that type ought never to
marry and have sons. What is he like, the boy?"

"A delightful person, Duchess, and we are all so pleased about it. I had
hoped for some time that she would take him--anyone could see how things
were going with _him_--but she was always so peculiar, and I rather
feared at one time that she would say no," and so on, and so on. Lady
Kingsmead did not know she was lying, and the Duchess, who was sleepy
and had on a tight dress, did not care. When she had found out who the
other guests were to be, and that dinner was at half-past eight, she
waddled upstairs, looking remarkably like Guillaume le Conquérant in her
grey dress, and went to sleep.

Lady Kingsmead had a cup of Bovril, which she had been told was
excellent for the complexion (although as her complexion was always
carefully concealed from the eye of man, also from the far more piercing
one of woman, it may be asked why she considered it). Then she had her
maid lock her dressing-room door, and give her an hour's facial massage.

At seven Joyselle arrived, and she was told that he had arrived.

"Ask Mr. Joyselle to come to my boudoir, Burton."

"Very good, my lady."

When Joyselle was ushered in he found a beautiful person in a lacy white
tea-gown reading Maeterlinck on a satin _chaise-longue_.

He kissed her hand.

"I am glad to have an opportunity of seeing you, Lady Kingsmead," he
began abruptly, fixing his dark eyes on hers. "Our little private
correspondence has, I trust, been as pleasing to you as it has to me?"

"I have greatly enjoyed it."

"I am delighted. And they, the _fiancés_, know nothing of it?"

"Of course not, Monsieur Joyselle." Her ladyship bowed with some dignity
as she spoke, for, besides being a very great artiste, this person with
the quiet air of authority was also a peasant.

"As I said, I rather doubted the wisdom of writing to you, but Théo is a
baby regarding money, and as you, of course, must consider the matter as
not altogether advantageous in the point of birth--for we have no birth,
my wife and I, we were just born,"--he smiled delightfully--"I thought
it only just to reassure your"--he was on the point of saying "mother's
heart," but thought better of it, and hastily substituted the word
"mind,"--"on this point of money. Théo, by the will of my dear friend,
Lady Isabel Clough-Hardy, does not come of age until he is twenty-five,
in something less than three years' time. But you now understand that I,
as guardian, am prepared to do all I can for the two dear children."

He _was_ handsome, the Duchess was right. And he was beautifully
dressed. And he would play for her guests after dinner.

Lady Kingsmead held out her jewelled hand.

"I am very glad that it happened," she said sweetly. "Théo's a dear
boy, and seems to make my little girl very happy."

"Yes, they seem happy. Ah--is this Tommy?"

It was. A spick-and-span Tommy, with very wet hair and a nervous smile;
a Tommy with cold hands and a curious twitching behind his knees. For he
had come to Olympus to see a god.

Joyselle held out his big, strong hand and Tommy's disappeared in it.
Thus, sometimes, are friendships made.

"I say--you _can_ play," stammered the boy. "I--it is glorious."

"You love music, Brigitte says."

"Don't I just! She says you'll play for me some time."

Tommy's small, greenish eyes were wet with irrepressible tears of
adoration.

Joyselle rose. "Come with me to my room now, Tommy, and I will play for
you. _Vous permettez, madame?_"

Lady Kingsmead bowed graciously, but when the door closed, frowned with
disgust, and putting Maeterlinck on the table, drew Claudine from under
an embroidered pillow and began to read.

Tommy, treading on air, accompanied Joyselle to his room, and sitting on
the floor as the easiest place in which to contain almost unbearable
rapture, listened.

Joyselle as he played recalled another little boy who, years before, had
listened in much the same way to another man playing the violin, and the
comparison is not so far-fetched as it seems, for although the blind
fiddler of the sunny day in Normandy had been only a third-rate scraper
of the bow, and Joyselle one of the world's very greatest artists, yet
in one thing they joined issue. Each of them gave to the listening child
before him his very best.




CHAPTER ELEVEN


Dinner that night was a very grand affair. Fledge inspired awe by his
majestic mien--Fledge liked duchesses--and Burton and William, the
recently promoted, with their heads striped with grease and powder,
looked to the enraptured eyes of the female servants their very best.

There were crimson roses in beautiful silver vases on the table, and in
the centre stood a particularly hideous but very valuable silver
ship--"given," as Tommy once gravely explained to a guest, "by somebody
or other--a king, or an admiral, I think--to one of my ancestors, in the
seventeenth century, who did something or other rather well."

Lady Kingsmead, under the Duchess' influence, was suffering from one of
her attacks of thinking Tommy "quaint," so, by the old lady's
suggestion, the boy was allowed to sit at the foot of his own table,
pretending, as he had told his sister he should find it necessary to do,
to be as young as his mother's guests.

The Duchess, greatly diverted by his demeanour, and reinforced on her
other side by an amusing, sad dog of thirty, who wrote wicked novels,
thoroughly enjoyed her dinner. There are so many reasons for enjoying
one's dinner; some people do because they like to meet their
fellow-creatures; some because they like being seen at certain houses;
some because they have beauty to display or stories to tell; and some
because they enjoy eating and drinking simply as eating and drinking.
The Duchess, in that she enjoyed dining for all the reasons above cited,
except that of bothering her ancient head about whose house she was seen
at, was extremely pleased with her entertainment. She wagged her old
head--white now, quite frankly, after many years of essays in difficult
tints--whispered to her novelist, and made love to Tommy quite
shamelessly.

"You look like an Eastern potentate, you are so silent and serious," she
told him once. "Do I bore you so horribly, or is it Miss Letchworth?"

"I am not bored at all, Duchess," answered the boy simply; "I am
thinking."

"And what are you thinking about?"

Tommy hesitated. Under her frivolous manner he knew the Duchess had a
heart, and very human sympathies.

"I want to be a violinist," he said slowly, after a pause during which
the Duchess, with a little shriek, rescued her salad, which William had
pounced upon.

"A violinist!"

"Hush! Please don't tell."

"Of course I'll not tell, but----"

"Have you heard him play?"

"Joyselle? Of course I have."

"Well?" asked Tommy in quiet triumph. What more could anyone say?

The old woman smiled sweetly at him. She, too, had been young, and
remembered. And there was in this little, plain boy a certain strain of
blood that she loved; his grandmother had been a Yeoland.

"So you really love it that much, do you? It means hard work, Tommy."

"I know," nodded the boy gravely.

And his mother, seeing his gravity, feared that he was not being
sufficiently quaint to amuse the old lady, and screamed down the table
at him to tell the Duchess the story of the jibbing pony at the Irish
race meeting. The story was not told.

On her right hand Lady Kingsmead had the local M.F.H., a dull man with
his head full of hounds, as she expressed it. But on her left sat
Joyselle, and as a guest he was certainly perfect. Lady Kingsmead in
pale pink and pearls was good enough to look at, and feeling that she
wished to be made love to, he made love to her, as was his duty. And he
did it well, for he was an artist. He was not conspicuous, or
over-impassioned, or over-adoring (very few women like unmixed
adoration), but he was amusing, a trifle outrageous, admiring, and
tactful. He was also amazingly handsome.

Down to her left Lady Kingsmead could see Carron being bored to death by
the wife of the M.F.H., who, someone said, if he had _his_ head full of
hounds and foxes, certainly had hers full of coals and blankets. For the
vicar was a bachelor, and poor Lady Brinsley hated hounds and foxes, and
really loved helping the poor. And being of the simple-minded who talk
to strangers out of the fulness of their hearts, she was telling him
sadly of the shameful way in which the coal-dealer had cheated poor,
dear Mr. Smith.

Mentally damning poor, dear Mr. Smith and his friend, as well as the
whole race of coal-dealers, Carron watched Brigit as she talked to Théo
and her other neighbour, Pat Yelverton, who watched her in quite evident
surprise.

"May I be rude and make a personal remark?" he asked her presently. She
smiled. "Yes." Yelverton hesitated, and then said slowly: "You have
changed wonderfully since I last saw you, Lady Brigit."

"You mean that I am not so disagreeable?"

"I mean----"

"I know. And you are right, Mr. Yelverton. I was very horrid, and now I
am--nicer--because I am very happy. It's a selfish reason, but I hope I
can use it as--as a kind of means to a good end."

Yelverton held his breath. Was it possible that the mere fact of being
engaged to a sweet-natured youth like Théo Joyselle could cause such a
miracle as this before his eyes? What was the boy to change Brigit from
a sullen, caustic woman into a charming, lovely young girl?

"I am very glad for you," he said presently, "and for him. I'm a sorry
old stager, Lady Brigit, but it is good to see two young things like you
and Joyselle find each other--in time."

As so often happens, his mood was answering hers, and she remembered
some story she had heard long ago about him and some girl who had
drowned herself.

"Thank you," she said very gently, and turned to Théo, for she had a
manlike fear of intruding on people's secrets. But Yelverton was one of
those unfortunate beings who, when they turn to their sentimental past,
must turn not to the memory of one face, but to a kind of romantic
mosaic of many faces that in time takes on the horrid semblance of a
composite photograph. So it is to be feared that the sad little story of
the girl who drowned herself because he who loved her, made casual and,
so to speak, duty-love to a married woman, had not occurred to him, as
Brigit in her new-found kindliness of supposition, took for granted.

It was a wonderful dinner to the girl; wonderful in the indulgence that
had come over her regarding her _convives_, and in the interesting
things she found it possible to glean from the snatches of talk she
caught from time to time. Alert, bright-eyed, an unwonted smile ever
hovering on her mouth, she listened, and young Joyselle watched her in a
fearful ecstasy of joy.

He felt, in his innocent youth, so old, so wicked, so world-worn for
this radiant angel who had given, herself to him. It was too good to be
true, and he trembled at the thought. But after dinner, when he had at
last been able to fly to the drawing-room, the Duchess had a beautiful
word to say to him. "Mr. Joyselle," the old woman began abruptly,
beckoning to him, "come here for a second, I want to congratulate you."

"Thank you, Duchess. I--I am indeed to be congratulated, for she is the
most perfect----"

"Tà, tà, tà, I don't mean that at all! I mean I want to congratulate you
on what you have been able to do for her in so short a time."

"I? To do for her?" He was honestly puzzled.

"Yes, you. Do you suppose she has always been what she is now? Not a bit
of it. The last time I saw Brigit Mead--it was at Ascot--she was a very
good-looking, of course--oh, unbelievably beautiful, if you prefer it,
but an ill-tempered, black-faced young minx, who should have been put on
bread and water for a month to correct her manner."

"Her manners!" shouted Théo, unable to believe his ears.

"No. Her manners were always all right, but her manner was atrocious.
And you have made her most delightful, as well as ten times lovelier
than I would have thought possible. There, now, you may go to her." And
Théo wasted no time.

"Love is a strange thing, isn't it?" went on the old woman to her
neighbour, without looking to see who he was, for it is a remark that
may safely be addressed to anybody.

"It is a damnable thing," growled the afflicted Carron, for it was he
who chanced, for his sins, to have paused just then under the pretence
of lighting a cigarette.

"Exactly," assented the Duchess briskly. "It has led you an awful life,
Gerald, hasn't it?"

"The absurdity of calling that boy's feelings for Brigit by the same
word that must express----"

"Yours for her mother, eh? Go away, you immoral thing!"




CHAPTER TWELVE


There was to be no Bridge that evening, and by unspoken consent everyone
sat in the hall. It was a cold night, and the roaring fire was pleasant
to hear, and in the expressive slang of the time, "things went."

Everyone was amused; for the time being, the bores had ceased from
boring, and the bored were at rest. Brigit, who loved to look into wet
and be dry, to look into cold and be warm, sat in the one plain glass
window in the place (its coloured predecessor had been broken by a
Roundhead cannon-ball and for vainglorious Family Reasons never been
replaced), so that she could look alternately into the storm and at the
comfortable, cheery scene within.

She wore white, and in her hair a tiny wreath of green enamel
bay-leaves. And to her beauty was, as the Duchess had so plainly felt,
added the great graces of good humour and simplicity.

"After all," thought the wise old lady, watching her, "all happy women
are simple."

Tommy, big with his splendid secret, roamed about the room, his hands in
his pockets, his chin poked up thoughtfully.

It was all very well to be an earl if one wanted to rule one's mother
and get one's own way generally, but when one wants to be a violinist,
then an earldom is distinctly a bore. He had never heard of a British
peer who at the same time was a great musician, but which of the two
positions precluded the other he could not decide.

He wished, naturally, to begin work at once. He would have to have a
serious talk with his mother to-night. If these people ever went to bed!

Bicky looked heavenly to-night. My word! what a sister for any fellow to
have!

And Joyselle--he was far too great a person to be "Mistered." Fancy Mr.
Beethoven, or Mr. Paderewski! Joyselle the Great and Glorious would help
him. The mater appeared to like him. It was strange, for she had been in
a terrible rage the first day or two--but she certainly was as pleased
as Punch now.

Joyselle had crossed the room and was sitting by Bicky now. By Jove, he
was patting her hand! And before everybody!

Suddenly he rose, she smiled up into his dark face, and he called Tommy.

"Tommy, will you go to my room and bring me my Amati?"

Why Tommy did not then and there burst with joy, that enraptured little
boy never knew. When he put the violin into the master's hand the child
trembled so that the master saw it. "When I have played one thing, you
are to go to bed," he said gravely. "You are tired."

And the spoiled and headstrong Tommy, he whose word was law to his
mother and many other people, nodded obediently. "I will play again for
you alone to-morrow," added Joyselle.

Then he went and stood near the fire, the red light flashing on him, and
played.

The first thing, plainly for Tommy, was a Norman cradle-song, very slow
and monotonous, and full of strange harmonies. When it was over, Tommy
quietly withdrew. To-morrow was to be his day.

Brigit Mead had stayed at the house in Golden Square for a full week,
and during that week she had heard her future father-in-law play a dozen
times or more.

He had played in the crimson velvet dressing-gown, in morning clothes,
in evening dress, once even in the fur-lined coat. Yet it seemed to her,
as she watched and listened now, in the great hall of the house of her
fathers, that she had never heard quite this same man play.

At home he had been "Beau-papa," noisy and demonstrative, or solemn with
artistic responsibility and reverence, but always the oldish man playing
to his family. Now, in some way, he was metamorphosed. He was now
"Joyselle"; he was, as she listened and watched, an unusually handsome,
not yet middle-aged gentleman, playing the violin as an artist, but
indisputably a gentleman.

She recalled, with a shudder, his awful lack of taste displayed the day
Pontefract called; she remembered her amusement on his insisting on
wearing a pale blue satin tie one day when he was lunching at a club to
meet a great pianist, and Théo's subsequent search among his belongings
for other similar horrors.

She remembered his over-loud laugh and his too-ready gesture. She
smiled, however, as she told herself that he was a peasant.

As she listened, her love for music quite subordinated to her strange
interest in the mere man, Théo leant forward and whispered quietly:
"Brigit, do you really care a little for me?"

"Yes." She smiled affectionately at him, for was it not he who made her
so happy?

And then the poor girl drew a long, shuddering breath, and leant back
behind the curtain, for she had suddenly realised that it was not Théo
who made her happy. It was the fact that he was Victor Joyselle's son.

And it was the big man with the violin who--who--who made her happy.

It was a miserable end to her childish dream of felicity, for she was
brave enough to admit to herself without the least hesitation what it
was that had happened.

And when Joyselle at length stopped playing and came back to sit by her,
she smiled at him in very good imitation of her own smile of half an
hour before.

But he was not satisfied.

"You did not like it?" he asked simply.

"Of course I did--it was _splendid_."

"Yet I could not hold you," he persisted, his vanity evidently a little
hurt. He could not hold her!

"Didn't we like it, Théo?" she urged, turning to the young man.

"To tell the truth, I didn't hear a note," he admitted, not in the least
shamefacedly. "I was looking at you."

"Lucky young beggar," laughed Joyselle, "small wonder! You two make a
very pleasant picture," he added, "and in a year or two----"

"Father," protested Théo, blushing scarlet in quick French sympathy for
the strange susceptibilities of his English fiancée, "don't!"