The Rosary

CHAPTER IX

LA­DY IN­GLE­BY’S HOUSE PAR­TY

As Jane took her seat and the train moved out of the Lon­don ter­mi­nus she leaned back in her cor­ner with a sigh of sat­is­fac­tion. Some­how these days in town had seemed in­suf­fer­ably long. Jane re­viewed them thought­ful­ly, and sought the rea­son. They had been filled with in­ter­ests and en­gage­ments; and the very fact of be­ing in town, as a rule, con­tent­ed her. Why had she felt so rest­less and dis­sat­is­fied and lone­ly?

From force of habit she had just stopped at the rail­way book-​stall for her usu­al pile of lit­er­ature. Her friends al­ways said Jane could not go even the short­est jour­ney with­out at least half a dozen pa­pers. But now they lay un­heed­ed on the seat in front of her. Jane was con­sid­er­ing her Tues­day, Wednes­day, and Thurs­day, and won­der­ing why they had mere­ly been weary step­ping-​stones to Fri­day. And here was Fri­day at last, and once in the train en route for Shen­stone, she be­gan to feel hap­py and ex­hil­arat­ed. What had been the mat­ter with these three days? Flow­er had been charm­ing; Deryck, his own friend­ly, in­ter­est­ing self; lit­tle Dicky, de­light­ful; and Ba­by Blos­som, as sweet as on­ly Ba­by Blos­som could be. What was amiss?

“I know,” said Jane. “Of course! Why did I not re­alise it be­fore? I had too much mu­sic dur­ing those last days at Over­dene; and SUCH mu­sic! I have been suf­fer­ing from a sur­feit of mu­sic, and the miss of it has giv­en me this blank feel­ing of lone­li­ness. No doubt we shall have plen­ty at Myra’s, and Dal will be there to clam­our for it if Myra fails to sug­gest it.”

With a hap­py lit­tle smile of plea­sur­able an­tic­ipa­tion, Jane took up the SPEC­TA­TOR, and was soon ab­sorbed in an ar­ti­cle on the South African prob­lem.

Myra met her at the sta­tion, driv­ing ponies tan­dem. A light cart was al­so there for the maid and bag­gage; and, with­out los­ing a mo­ment, Jane and her host­ess were off along the coun­try lane at a brisk trot.

The fields and woods were an exquisite rest­ful green in the af­ter­noon sun­shine. Wild ros­es clus­tered in the hedges. The last loads of hay were be­ing cart­ed in. There was an ec­sta­sy in the songs of the birds and a trans­port­ing sense of sweet­ness about all the sights and scents of the coun­try, such as Jane had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced so vivid­ly be­fore. She drew a deep breath and ex­claimed, al­most in­vol­un­tar­ily: “Ah! it is good to be here!”

“You dear!” said La­dy In­gle­by, twirling her whip and nod­ding in gra­cious re­sponse to re­spect­ful salutes from the hay-​field. “It is a com­fort to have you! I al­ways feel you are like the bass of a tune– some­thing so sol­id and sat­is­fac­to­ry and be­neath one in case of a cri­sis. I hate crises. They are so tir­ing. As I say: Why can’t things al­ways go on as they are? They are as they were, and they were as they will be, if on­ly peo­ple wouldn’t both­er. How­ev­er, I am cer­tain noth­ing could go far wrong when YOU are any­where near.”

Myra flicked the lead­er, who was in­clined to “sug­ar,” and they flew along be­tween the high hedges, brush­ing light­ly against over­hang­ing mass­es of hon­ey­suck­le and wild clema­tis. Jane snatched a spray of the clema­tis, in pass­ing. “‘Trav­eller’s joy,’” she said, with that same qui­et smile of glad an­tic­ipa­tion, and put the white blos­som in her but­ton­hole.

“Well,” con­tin­ued La­dy In­gle­by, “my house par­ty is go­ing on quite sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly. Oh, and, Jane, there seems no doubt about Dal. How pleased I shall be if it comes off un­der my wing! The Amer­ican girl is sim­ply exquisite, and so vi­va­cious and charm­ing. And Dal has quite giv­en up be­ing sil­ly–not that _I_ ev­er thought him sil­ly, but I know YOU did–and is very qui­et and pen­sive; re­al­ly were it any one but he, one would al­most say ‘dull.’ And they roam about to­geth­er in the most ap­proved fash­ion. I try to get the aunt to make all her re­marks to me. I am so afraid of her putting Dal off. He is so fas­tid­ious. I have promised Bil­ly any­thing, up to the half of my king­dom, if he will sit at the feet of Mrs. Park­er Bangs and lis­ten to her wis­dom, an­swer her ques­tions, and keep her away from Dal. Bil­ly is be­ing so ab­ject­ly de­vot­ed in his at­ten­tions to Mrs. Park­er Bangs that I be­gin to have fears lest he in­tends ask­ing me to kiss him; in which case I shall hand him over to you to chas­tise. You man­age these boys so splen­did­ly. I ful­ly be­lieve Dal will pro­pose to Pauline Lis­ter tonight. I can’t imag­ine why he didn’t last night. There was a most per­fect moon, and they went on the lake. What more COULD Dal want?–a lake, and a moon, and that love­ly girl! Bil­ly took Mrs. Park­er Bangs in a dou­ble ca­noe and near­ly up­set her through laugh­ing so much at the things she said about hav­ing to sit flat on the bot­tom. But he pad­dled her off to the op­po­site side of the lake from Dal and her niece, which was all we want­ed. Mrs. Park­er Bangs asked me af­ter­wards whether Bil­ly is a wid­ow­er. Now what do you sup­pose she meant by that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Jane. “But I am de­light­ed to hear about Dal and Miss Lis­ter. She is just the girl for him, and she will soon adapt her­self to his ways and needs. Be­sides, Dal MUST have flaw­less love­li­ness, and re­al­ly he gets it there.”

“He does in­deed,” said Myra. “You should have seen her last night, in white satin, with wild ros­es in her hair. I can­not imag­ine why Dal did not rave. But per­haps it is a good sign that he should take things more qui­et­ly. I sup­pose he is mak­ing up his mind.”

“No,” said Jane. “I be­lieve he did that at Over­dene. But it means a lot to him. He takes mar­riage very se­ri­ous­ly. Whom have you at Shen­stone?”

La­dy In­gle­by told off a list of names. Jane knew them all.

“De­light­ful!” she said. “Oh! how glad I am to be here! Lon­don has been so hot and so dull. I nev­er thought it hot or dull be­fore. I feel a rene­gade. Ah! there is the love­ly lit­tle church! I want to hear the new or­gan. I was glad your nice par­son re­mem­bered me and let me have a share in it. Has it two man­uals or three?”

“Half a dozen I think,” said La­dy In­gle­by, “and you work them up and down with your feet. But I judged it wis­er to leave them alone when I played for the chil­dren’s ser­vice one Sun­day. You nev­er know quite what will hap­pen if you touch those me­chan­ical af­fairs.”

“Don’t you mean the com­po­si­tion ped­als?” sug­gest­ed Jane.

“I dare say I do,” said Myra placid­ly. “Those things un­der­neath, like foot-​rests, which star­tle you hor­ri­bly if you ac­ci­den­tal­ly kick them.”

Jane smiled at the thought of how Garth would throw back his head and shout, if she told him of this con­ver­sa­tion. La­dy In­gle­by’s mu­si­cal re­marks al­ways amused her friends.

They passed the vil­lage church on the green, ivy-​clad, pic­turesque, and, half a minute lat­er, swerved in at the park gates. Myra saw Jane glance at the gate-​post they had just shaved, and laughed. “A miss is as good as a mile,” she said, as they dashed up the long drive be­tween the elms, “as I told dear mam­ma, when she ex­pos­tu­lat­ed wrath­ful­ly with me for what she called my ‘fu­ri­ous driv­ing’ the oth­er day. By the way, Jane, dear mam­ma has been quite COR­DIAL late­ly. By the time I am sev­en­ty and she is nine­ty-​eight I think she will be­gin to be al­most fond of me. Here we are. Do no­tice Law­son. He is new, and such a nice man. He sings so well, and plays the con­certi­na a lit­tle, and teach­es in the Sun­day-​school, and speaks re­al­ly quite ex­cel­lent­ly at tem­per­ance meet­ings. He is ex­treme­ly fond of mow­ing the lawns, and my maid tells me he is study­ing French with her. The on­ly thing he seems re­al­ly in­ca­pable of be­ing, is an ef­fi­cient but­ler; which is so un­for­tu­nate, as I like him far too well ev­er to part with him. Michael says I have a per­fect­ly fa­tal habit of LIK­ING PEO­PLE, and of en­cour­ag­ing them to do the things they do well and en­joy do­ing, in­stead of the things they were en­gaged to do. I sup­pose I have; but I do like my house­hold to be hap­py.”

They alight­ed, and Myra trailed in­to the hall with a lazy grace which gave no in­di­ca­tion of the mas­ter­ly way she had han­dled her ponies, but rather sug­gest­ed step­ping from a com­fort­able seat in a barouche. Jane looked with in­ter­est at the man-​ser­vant who came for­ward and deft­ly as­sist­ed them. He had not quite the air of a but­ler but nei­ther could she imag­ine him play­ing a con­certi­na or ha­rangu­ing a tem­per­ance meet­ing and he ac­quit­ted him­self quite cred­itably.

“Oh, that was not Law­son,” ex­plained Myra, as she led the way up­stairs. “I had for­got­ten. He had to go to the vicarage this af­ter­noon to see the vicar about a ’ser­vice of song’ they are get­ting up. That was Tom, but we call him ‘Jeph­son’ in the house. He was one of Michael’s stud grooms, but he is en­gaged to one of the house­maids, and I found he so very much pre­ferred be­ing in the house, so I have ar­ranged for him to un­der­study Law­son, and he is grow­ing side whiskers. I shall have to break it to Michael on his re­turn from Nor­way. This way, Jane. We have put you in the Mag­no­lia room. I knew you would en­joy the view of the lake. Oh, I for­got to tell you, a ten­nis tour­na­ment is in progress. I must has­ten to the courts. Tea will be go­ing on there, un­der the chest­nuts. Dal and Ron­nie are to play the fi­nal for the men’s sin­gles. It ought to be a fine match. It was to come on at about half-​past four. Don’t wait to do any chang­ings. Your maid and your lug­gage can’t be here just yet.”

“Thanks,” said Jane; “I al­ways trav­el in coun­try clothes, and have done so to-​day, as you see. I will just get rid of the rail­way dust, and fol­low you.”

Ten min­utes lat­er, guid­ed by sounds of cheer­ing and laugh­ter, Jane made her way through the shrub­bery to the ten­nis lawns. The whole of La­dy In­gle­by’s house par­ty was as­sem­bled there, form­ing a pic­turesque group un­der the white and scar­let chest­nut-​trees. Be­yond, on the beau­ti­ful­ly kept turf of the court, an ex­cit­ing set was in progress. As she ap­proached, Jane could dis­tin­guish Garth’s slim, ag­ile fig­ure, in white flan­nels and the vi­olet shirt; and young Ron­nie, huge and pow­er­ful, trust­ing to the ter­rif­ic force of his cuts and drives to coun­ter­bal­ance Garth’s keen­er eye and swifter turn of wrist.

It was a fine game. Garth had won the first set by six to four, and now the score stood at five to four in Ron­nie’s favour; but this game was Garth’s ser­vice, and he was al­most cer­tain to win it. The score would then be “games all.”

Jane walked along the line of gar­den chairs to where she saw a va­cant one near Myra. She was greet­ed with de­light, but hur­ried­ly, by the ea­ger watch­ers of the game.

Sud­den­ly a howl went up. Garth had made two faults.

Jane found her chair, and turned her at­ten­tion to the game. Al­most in­stant­ly shrieks of as­ton­ish­ment and sur­prise again arose. Garth had served IN­TO the net and OVER the line. Game and set were Ron­nie’s.

“One all,” re­marked Bil­ly. “Well! I nev­er saw Dal do THAT be­fore. How­ev­er; it gives us the bliss of watch­ing an­oth­er set. They are splen­did­ly matched. Dal is light­ning, and Ron­nie thun­der.”

The play­ers crossed over, Garth rather white be­neath his tan. He was be­yond words vexed with him­self for fail­ing in his ser­vice, at that crit­ical junc­ture. Not that he mind­ed los­ing the set; but it seemed to him it must be patent to the whole crowd, that it was the sight, out of the tail of his eye, of a tall grey fig­ure mov­ing qui­et­ly along the line of chairs, which for a mo­ment or two set earth and sky whirling, and made a con­fused blur of net and lines. As a mat­ter of fact, on­ly one of the on­look­ers con­nect­ed Garth’s loss of the game with Jane’s ar­rival, and she was the love­ly girl, seat­ed ex­act­ly op­po­site the net, with whom he ex­changed a smile and a word as he crossed to the oth­er side of the court.

The last set proved the most ex­cit­ing of the three. Nine hard-​fought games, five to Garth, four to Ron­nie. And now Ron­nie was serv­ing, and fight­ing hard to make it games-​all. Over and over en­thu­si­as­tic par­ti­sans of both shout­ed “Deuce!” and then when Garth had won the “van­tage,” a slash­ing over-​hand ser­vice from Ron­nie beat him, and it was “deuce” again.

“Don’t it make one gid­dy?” said Mrs. Park­er Bangs to Bil­ly, who re­clined on the sward at her feet. “I should say it has gone on long enough. And they must both be want­ing their tea. It would have been kind in Mr. Dal­main to have let that ball pass, any­way.”

“Yes, wouldn’t it?” said Bil­ly earnest­ly. “But you see, Dal is not nat­ural­ly kind. Now, if I had been play­ing against Ron­nie, I should have let those over-​hand balls of his pass long ago.”

“I am sure you would,” said Mrs. Park­er Bangs, ap­prov­ing­ly; while Jane leaned over, at Myra’s re­quest, and pinched Bil­ly.

Slash went Ron­nie’s rack­et. “Deuce! deuce!” shout­ed half a dozen voic­es.

“They shouldn’t say that,” re­marked Mrs. Park­er Bangs, “even if they are mad about it.”

Bil­ly hugged his knees, de­light­ed­ly; look­ing up at her with an ex­pres­sion of seraph­ic in­no­cence.

“No. Isn’t it sad?” he mur­mured. “I nev­er say naughty words when I play. I al­ways say ‘Game love.’ It sounds so much nicer, I think.”

Jane pinched again, but Bil­ly’s rapt gaze at Mrs. Park­er Bangs con­tin­ued.

“Bil­ly,” said Myra stern­ly, “go in­to the hall and fetch my scar­let sun­shade. Yes, I dare say you WILL miss the fin­ish,” she added in a stern whis­per, as he leaned over her chair, re­mon­strat­ing; “but you rich­ly de­serve it.”

“I have made up my mind what to ask, dear queen,” whis­pered Bil­ly as he re­turned, breath­less, three min­utes lat­er and laid the para­sol in La­dy In­gle­by’s lap. “You promised me any­thing, up to the half of your king­dom. I will have the head of Mrs. Park­er Bangs in a charg­er.”

“Oh, shut up, Bil­ly!” ex­claimed Jane, “and get out of the light! We missed that last stroke. What is the score?”

Once again it was Garth’s van­tage, and once again Ron­nie’s arm swung high for an un­tak­able smash­er.

“Play up, Dal!” cried a voice, amid the gen­er­al hub­bub.

Garth knew that dear voice. He did not look in its di­rec­tion, but he smiled. The next mo­ment his arm shot out like a flash of light­ning. The ball touched ground on Ron­nie’s side of the net and shot the length of the court with­out ris­ing. Ron­nie’s wild scoop at it was hope­less. Game and set were Garth’s.

They walked off the ground to­geth­er, their rack­ets un­der their arms, the flush of a well-​con­test­ed fight on their hand­some faces. It had been so near a thing that both could sense the thrill of vic­to­ry.

Pauline Lis­ter had been sit­ting with Garth’s coat on her lap, and his watch and chain were in her keep­ing. He paused a mo­ment to take them up and re­ceive her con­grat­ula­tions; then, slip­ping on his coat, and pock­et­ing his watch, came straight to Jane.

“How do you do, Miss Cham­pi­on?”

His eyes sought hers ea­ger­ly; and the wel­com­ing glad­ness he saw in them filled him with cer­tain­ty and con­tent. He had missed her so un­ut­ter­ably dur­ing these days. Tues­day, Wednes­day, and Thurs­day had just been weary step­ping-​stones to Fri­day. It seemed in­cred­ible that one per­son’s ab­sence could make so vast a dif­fer­ence. And yet how per­fect that it should be so; and that they should both re­alise it, now the day had come when he in­tend­ed to tell her how des­per­ate­ly he want­ed her al­ways. Yes, that they should BOTH re­alise it–for he felt cer­tain Jane had al­so ex­pe­ri­enced the blank. A thing so com­plete and over­whelm­ing as the miss of her had been to him could not be one-​sid­ed. And how well worth the ex­pe­ri­ence of these lone­ly days if they had there­by learned some­thing of what TO­GETH­ER meant, now the words were to be spo­ken which should in­sure for­ev­er no more such part­ings.

All this sped through Garth’s mind as he greet­ed Jane with that most com­mon­place of En­glish greet­ings, the ev­er­last­ing ques­tion which nev­er re­ceives an an­swer. But from Garth, at that mo­ment, it did not sound com­mon­place to Jane, and she an­swered it quite frankly and ful­ly. She want­ed above all things to tell him ex­act­ly how she did; to hear all about him­self, and com­pare notes on the hap­pen­ings of these three in­ter­minable days; and to take up their close com­rade­ship again, ex­act­ly where it had left off. Her hand went home to his with that firm com­plete­ness of clasp, which al­ways made a hand shake with Jane such a sat­is­fac­to­ry and re­al­ly friend­ly thing.

“Very fit, thank you, Dal,” she an­swered. “At least I am ev­ery mo­ment im­prov­ing in health and spir­its, now I have ar­rived here at last.”

Garth stood his rack­et against the arm of her chair and de­posit­ed him­self full length on the grass be­side her, lean­ing on his el­bow.

“Was any­thing wrong with Lon­don?” he asked, rather low, not look­ing up at her, but at the smart brown shoe, plant­ed firm­ly on the grass so near his hand. “Noth­ing was wrong with Lon­don,” replied Jane frankly; “it was hot and dusty of course, but de­light­ful as usu­al. Some­thing was wrong with ME; and you will be ashamed of me, Dal, if I con­fess what it was.”

Garth did not look up, but as­sid­uous­ly picked lit­tle blades of grass and laid them in a pat­tern on Jane’s shoe. This con­ver­sa­tion would have been ex­act­ly to the point had they been alone. But was Jane re­al­ly go­ing to an­nounce to the as­sem­bled com­pa­ny, in that dear, res­onant, car­ry­ing voice of hers, the sweet se­cret of their miss of one an­oth­er?

“Liv­er?” in­quired Mrs. Park­er Bangs sud­den­ly.

“Muffins!” ex­claimed Bil­ly in­stant­ly, and, rush­ing for them, al­most shot them in­to her lap in the haste with which he hand­ed them, stum­bling head­long over Garth’s legs at the same mo­ment.

Jane stared at Mrs. Park­er Bangs and her muffins; then looked down at the top of Garth’s dark head, bent low over the grass.

“I was dull,” she said, “in­tol­er­ably dull. And Dal al­ways says ‘on­ly a dullard is dull.’ But I di­ag­nosed my dul­ness in the train just now and found it was large­ly his fault. Do you hear, Dal?”

Garth lift­ed his head and looked at her, re­al­is­ing in that mo­ment that it was, af­ter all, pos­si­ble for a com­plete and over­whelm­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to be one-​sid­ed. Jane’s calm grey eyes were full of gay friend­li­ness.

“It was your fault, my dear boy,” said Jane.

“How so?” queried Garth; and though there was a deep flush on his sun­burned face, his voice was qui­et­ly in­ter­rog­ative.

“Be­cause, dur­ing those last days at Over­dene, you led me on in­to a time of mu­si­cal dis­si­pa­tion such as I had nev­er known be­fore, and I missed it to a de­gree which was pos­itive­ly alarm­ing. I be­gan to fear for the bal­ance of my well-​or­dered mind.”

“Well,” said Myra, com­ing out from be­hind her red para­sol, “you and Dal can have or­gies of mu­sic here if you want them. You will find a pi­ano in the draw­ing-​room and an­oth­er in the hall, and a Bech­stein grand in the bil­liard-​room. That is where I hold the prac­tices for the men and maids. I could not make up my mind which mak­ers I re­al­ly pre­ferred, Er­ard, Broad­wood, Col­lard, or Bech­stein; so by de­grees I col­lect­ed one of each. And af­ter all I think I play best up­on the lit­tle cot­tage pi­ano we had in the school-​room at home. It stands in my boudoir now. I seem more ac­cus­tomed to its notes, or it lends it­self bet­ter to my way of play­ing.”

“Thank you, Myra,” said Jane. “I fan­cy Dal and I will like the Bech­stein.”

“And if you want some­thing re­al­ly ex­cit­ing in the way of mu­sic,” con­tin­ued La­dy In­gle­by, “you might at­tend some of the re­hearsals for this ’ser­vice of song’ they are get­ting up in aid of the or­gan deficit fund. I be­lieve they are at­tempt­ing great things.”

“I would soon­er pay off the whole deficit, than go with­in a mile of a ’ser­vice of song,’” said Jane em­phat­ical­ly.

“Oh, no,” put in Garth quick­ly, not­ing Myra’s look of dis­ap­point­ment. “It is so good for peo­ple to work off their own debts and earn the things they need in their church­es. And ’ser­vices of song’ are de­light­ful if well done, as I am sure this will be if La­dy In­gle­by’s peo­ple are in it. Law­son out­lined it to me this morn­ing, and hummed all the prin­ci­pal airs. It is high­ly dra­mat­ic. Robin­son Cru­soe–no, of course not! What’s the beg­gar’s name? ‘Un­cle Tom’s Cab­in’? Yes, I knew it was some­thing black. Law­son is Un­cle Tom, and the vicar’s small daugh­ter is to be lit­tle Eva. Miss Cham­pi­on, you will walk down with me to the very next re­hearsal.”

“Shall I?” said Jane, un­con­scious of how ten­der was the smile she gave him; con­scious on­ly that in her own heart was the re­mem­brance of the evening at Over­dene when she felt so in­clined to say to him: “Tell me just what you want me to do, and I will do it.”

“Pauline will just love to go with you,” said Mrs. Park­er Bangs. “She dotes on ru­ral mu­sic.”

“Rub­bish, aunt!” said Miss Lis­ter, who had slipped in­to an emp­ty chair near Myra. “I agree with Miss Cham­pi­on about ’ser­vices of song,’ and I don’t care for any mu­sic but the best.”

Jane turned to her quick­ly, with a cor­dial smile and her most friend­ly man­ner. “Ah, but you must come,” she said. “We will be vic­timised to­geth­er. And per­haps Dal and Law­son will suc­ceed in con­vert­ing us to the cult of the ’ser­vice of song.’ And any­way it will be amus­ing to have Dal ex­plain it to us. He will need the courage of his con­vic­tions.”

“Talk­ing of some­thing ‘re­al­ly ex­cit­ing in the way of mu­sic,’” said Pauline Lis­ter, “we had it on board when we came over. There was a nice friend­ly crowd on board the Ara­bic, and they ar­ranged a con­cert for half-​past eight on the Thurs­day evening. We were about two hun­dred miles off the coast of Ire­land, and when we came up from din­ner we had run in­to a dense fog. At eight o’clock they start­ed blow­ing the fog-​horn ev­ery half-​minute, and while the fog-​horn was sound­ing you couldn’t hear your­self speak. How­ev­er, all the pro­grammes were print­ed, and it was our last night on board, so they con­clud­ed to have the con­cert all the same. Down we all trooped in­to the sa­loon, and each item of that pro­gramme was punc­tu­at­ed by the sten­to­ri­an BOO of the fog-​horn ev­ery thir­ty sec­onds. You nev­er heard any­thing so cute as the way it came in, right on time. A man with a deep bass voice sang ROCKED IN THE CRA­DLE OF THE DEEP, and each time he reached the re­frain, ‘And calm and peace­ful is my sle-​eep,’ BOO went the fog-​horn, cast­ing a cer­tain amount of doubt on our ex­pec­ta­tions of peace­ful sleep that night, any­way. Then a man with a sweet tenor sang OFT IN THE STIL­LY NIGHT, and the fog-​horn showed us just how oft, name­ly, ev­ery thir­ty sec­onds. But the queer­est ef­fect of all was when a girl had to play a pi­ano-​forte so­lo. It was some­thing of Chopin’s, full of runs and trills and lit­tle sil­very notes. She start­ed all right; but when she was half-​way down the first page, BOO went the fog-​horn, a longer blast than usu­al. We saw her fin­gers fly­ing, and the turn­ing of the page, but not a note could we hear; and when the old horn stopped and we could hear the pi­ano again, she had reached a place half-​way down the sec­ond page, and we hadn’t heard what led to it. My! it was fun­ny. That went on all through. She was a plucky girl to stick to it. We gave her a good round of ap­plause when she had fin­ished, and the fog-​horn joined in and drowned us. It was the queer­est con­cert ex­pe­ri­ence I ev­er had. But we all en­joyed it. On­ly we didn’t en­joy that noise keep­ing right on un­til five o’clock next morn­ing”

Jane had turned in her chair, and lis­tened with ap­pre­cia­tive in­ter­est while the love­ly Amer­ican girl talked, watch­ing, with re­al de­light, her exquisite face and grace­ful ges­tures, and think­ing how Dal must en­joy look­ing at her when she talked with so much charm and an­ima­tion. She glanced down, try­ing to see the ad­mi­ra­tion in his eyes; but his head was bent, and he was ap­par­ent­ly ab­sorbed in the oc­cu­pa­tion of trac­ing the brogu­ing of her shoes with the long stalk of a chest­nut leaf. For a mo­ment she watched the slim brown hand, as care­ful­ly in­tent on this use­less task, as if work­ing on a can­vas; then she sud­den­ly with­drew her foot, feel­ing al­most vexed with him for his inat­ten­tion and ap­par­ent in­dif­fer­ence.

Garth sat up in­stant­ly. “It must have been aw­ful­ly fun­ny,” he said. “And how well you told it. One could hear the fog-​horn, and see the dis­mayed faces of the per­form­ers. Like an earth­quake, a fog-​horn is the sort of thing you don’t ev­er get used to. It sounds worse ev­ery time. Let’s each tell the fun­ni­est thing we re­mem­ber at a con­cert. I once heard a youth re­cite Ten­nyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade with much dra­mat­ic ac­tion. But he was ex­treme­ly ner­vous, and got rather mixed. In de­scrib­ing the at­ti­tude of mind of the no­ble six hun­dred, he told us im­pres­sive­ly that it was”

“‘Theirs not to make re­ply; Theirs not to do or die; Theirs BUT TO REA­SON WHY.’”

“The tone and ac­tion were all right, and I doubt whether many of the au­di­ence no­ticed any­thing wrong with the words.”

“That re­minds me,” said Ronald In­gram, “of quite the fun­ni­est thing I ev­er heard. It was at a Thanks­giv­ing ser­vice when some of our troops re­turned from South Africa. The pro­ceed­ings con­clud­ed by the singing of the Na­tion­al An­them right through. You rec­ol­lect how re­cent­ly we had had to make the change of pro­noun, and how dif­fi­cult it was to re­mem­ber not to shout:”

“‘Send HER vic­to­ri­ous’? Well, there was a fel­low just be­hind me, with a tremen­dous voice, singing lusti­ly, and tak­ing spe­cial pains to get the pro­nouns cor­rect through­out. And when he reached the fourth line of the sec­ond verse he sang with loy­al fer­vour.”

“‘Con­found HIS pol­itics, Frus­trate HIS knav­ish tricks!’”

“That would amuse the King,” said La­dy In­gle­by. “Are you sure it is a fact, Ron­nie?”

“Pos­itive! I could tell you the church, and the day, and call a whole pew­ful of wit­ness­es who were con­vulsed by it.”

“Well, I shall tell his Majesty at the next op­por­tu­ni­ty, and say you heard it. But how about the ten­nis? What comes next? Fi­nal for cou­ples? Oh, yes! Dal, you and Miss Lis­ter play Colonel Lo­raine and Miss Ver­mount; and I think you ought to win fair­ly eas­ily. You two are so well matched. Jane, this will be worth watch­ing.”

“I am sure it will,” said Jane warm­ly, look­ing at the two, who had risen and stood to­geth­er in the evening sun­light, ex­am­in­ing their rack­ets and dis­cussing pos­si­ble tac­tics, while await­ing their op­po­nents. They made such a ra­di­ant­ly beau­ti­ful cou­ple; it was as if na­ture had put her very best and loveli­est in­to ev­ery de­tail of each. The on­ly fault which could pos­si­bly have been found with the idea of them wed­ded, was that her dark, slim beau­ty was so very much just a fem­inine edi­tion of his, that they might eas­ily have been tak­en for broth­er and sis­ter; but this was not a fault which oc­curred to Jane. Her whole-​heart­ed ad­mi­ra­tion of Pauline in­creased ev­ery time she looked at her; and now she had re­al­ly seen them to­geth­er, she felt sure she had giv­en wise ad­vice to Garth, and re­joiced to know he was tak­ing it.

* * * * * * *

Lat­er on, as they strolled back to the house to­geth­er,–she and Garth alone,–Jane said, sim­ply: “Dal, you will not mind if I ask? Is it set­tled yet?”

“I mind noth­ing you ask,” Garth replied; “on­ly be more ex­plic­it. Is what set­tled?”

“Are you and Miss Lis­ter en­gaged?”

“No,” Garth an­swered. “What made you sup­pose we should be?”

“You said at Over­dene on Tues­day–TUES­DAY! oh! doesn’t it seem weeks ago?–you said we were to take you se­ri­ous­ly.”

“It seems years ago,” said Garth; “and I sin­cere­ly hope you will take me–se­ri­ous­ly. All the same I have not pro­posed to Miss Lis­ter; and I am anx­ious for an undis­turbed talk with you on the sub­ject. Miss Cham­pi­on, af­ter din­ner to-​night, when all the games and amuse­ments are in full swing, and we can es­cape un­ob­served, will you come out on­to the ter­race with me, where I shall be able to speak to you with­out fear of in­ter­rup­tion? The moon­light on the lake is worth see­ing from the ter­race. I spent an hour out there last night–ah, no; you are wrong for once–I spent it alone, when the boat­ing was over, and thought of–how–to-​night–we might be talk­ing there to­geth­er.”

“Cer­tain­ly I will come,” said Jane; “and you must feel free to tell me any­thing you wish, and promise to let me ad­vise or help in any way I can.”

“I will tell you ev­ery­thing,” said Garth very low, “and you shall ad­vise and help as ON­LY you can.”

* * * * * * *

Jane sat on her win­dow-​sill, en­joy­ing the sun­set and the exquisite view, and glad of a qui­et half-​hour be­fore she need think of sum­mon­ing her maid. Im­me­di­ate­ly be­low her ran the ter­race, wide and grav­elled, bound­ed by a broad stone para­pet, be­hind which was a drop of eight or ten feet to the old-​fash­ioned gar­den, with quaint box- bor­dered flow­er-​beds, wind­ing walks, and stone foun­tains. Be­yond, a stretch of smooth lawn slop­ing down to the lake, which now lay, a sil­ver mir­ror, in the soft evening light. The still­ness was so per­fect; the sense of peace, so all-​per­vad­ing. Jane held a book on her knee, but she was not read­ing. She was look­ing away to the dis­tant woods be­yond the lake; then to the pearly sky above, flecked with rosy clouds and streaked with gleams of gold; and a sense of con­tent, and glad­ness, and well-​be­ing, filled her.

Present­ly she heard a light step on the grav­el be­low and leaned for­ward to see to whom it be­longed. Garth had come out of the smok­ing-​room and walked briskly to and fro, once or twice. Then he threw him­self in­to a wick­er seat just be­neath her win­dow, and sat there, smok­ing med­ita­tive­ly. The fra­grance of his cigarette reached Jane, up among the mag­no­lia blos­soms. “‘Zenith,’ Mar­cov­itch,” she said to her­self, and smiled. “Packed in jol­ly green box­es, twelve shillings a hun­dred! I must re­mem­ber in case I want to give him a Christ­mas present. By then it will be dif­fi­cult to find any­thing which has not al­ready been show­ered up­on him.”

Garth flung away the end of his cigarette, and com­menced hum­ming be­low his breath; then grad­ual­ly broke in­to words and sang soft­ly, in his sweet bary­tone:

“‘It is not mine to sing the state­ly grace, The great soul beam­ing in my la­dy’s face.’”

The tones, though qui­et, were so vi­brant with pas­sion­ate feel­ing, that Jane felt her­self an eaves­drop­per. She hasti­ly picked a large mag­no­lia leaf and, lean­ing out, let it fall up­on his head. Garth start­ed, and looked up. “Hul­lo!” he said. “YOU–up there?”

“Yes,” said Jane, laugh­ing down at him, and speak­ing low lest oth­er case­ments should be open, “I–up here. You are ser­enad­ing the wrong win­dow, dear ‘de­vout lover.’”

“What a lot you know about it,” re­marked Garth, rather mood­ily.

“Don’t I?” whis­pered Jane. “But you must not mind, Mas­ter Garthie, be­cause you know how tru­ly I care. In old Margery’s ab­sence, you must let me be men­tor.”

Garth sprang up and stood erect, look­ing up at her, half-​amused, half-​de­fi­ant.

“Shall I climb the mag­no­lia?” he said. “I have heaps to say to you which can­not be shout­ed to the whole front of the house.”

“Cer­tain­ly not,” replied Jane. “I don’t want any Romeos com­ing in at my win­dow. ‘Hoity-​toity! What next?’ as Aunt ‘Gi­na would say. Run along and change your pinafore, Mas­ter Garthie. The ‘heaps of things’ must keep un­til to-​night, or we shall both be late for din­ner.”

“All right,” said Garth, “all right. But you will come out here this evening, Miss Cham­pi­on? And you will give me as long as I want?”

“I will come as soon as we can pos­si­bly es­cape,” replied Jane; “and you can­not be more anx­ious to tell me ev­ery­thing than I am to hear it. Oh! the scent of these mag­no­lias! And just look at the great white trum­pets! Would you like one for your but­ton­hole?”

He gave her a wist­ful, whim­si­cal lit­tle smile; then turned and went in­doors.

“Why do I feel so in­clined to tease him?” mused Jane, as she moved, from the win­dow. “Re­al­ly it is I who have been sil­ly this time; and he, staid and sen­si­ble. Myra is quite right. He is tak­ing it very se­ri­ous­ly. And how about her? Ah! I hope she cares enough, and in the right way.–Come in, Matthews! And you can put out the gown I wore on the night of the con­cert at Over­dene, and we must make haste. We have just twen­ty min­utes. What a love­ly evening! Be­fore you do any­thing else, come and see this sun­set on the lake. Ah! it is good to be here!”