The Literary Sense

"But don't you know anyone in London?" he asked in a sensible postscript.

It was not yet so dark but that he could see the crimson flush on her face.

"Not know," she said. "Papa wouldn't like me to spoil my chances of knowing the right people with any foolishness like this. There's no one I could let know. You see, papa's so very rich, and at home they expect me to – to get acquainted with dukes and things – and – "

She stopped.

"American heiresses are expected to marry English dukes," he said, with a distinct physical pain at his heart.

"It wasn't I who said that," said the girl, smiling; "but that's so, anyhow." And then she sighed.

"So it's your destiny to marry a duke, is it?" the young man spoke slowly. "All the same," he added irrelevantly, "you shall have the latch-key."

"You are kind," she said for the third time, and reached her hand out to him. He did not kiss it then, only took it in his, and felt how small and cold it was. Then it was taken away.

He says that he only talked to her for half an hour – but the neighbours, from whose eyes suburban hawthorns and laburnums are powerless to conceal the least of our actions, declare that he sat with the guitar player on the iron seat till well after midnight; further, that when they parted he kissed her hand, and that she then put her hands on his shoulders – "quite shamelessly, you know" – and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. It is known that he passed the night prowling in our suburban lanes, and caught the 6.25 train in the morning to the place where his people were staying.

The lady and the guitar certainly passed the night at Hill View Villa, but when his mother, very angry and very frightened, came up with him at about noon, the house looked just as usual, and no one was there but the charwoman.

"An adventuress! I told you so!" said his mother at once – and the young man sat down at his study table and looked at the title of his article on "The Decadence of Criticism." It was surely a very long time ago that he had written that. And he sat there thinking, till his mother's voice roused him.

"The silver is all right, thank goodness," she said, "but your banjo girl has taken a pair of your sister's silk stockings, and those new shoes of hers with the silver buckles – and she's left these."

She held out a pair of little patent leather shoes, very worn and dusty – the slender silken web of a black stocking, brown with dust, hung from her hand. He answered nothing. She spent the rest of that day in searching the house for further losses, but all things were in their place, except the silver-handled button-hook – and that, as even his sister owned, had been missing for months.

Yet his family would never leave him to keep house alone again: they said he is not to be trusted. And perhaps they are right. The half dozen pairs of embroidered silk stockings and the dainty French silver-buckled shoes, which arrived a month later addressed to Miss – , Hill View Villa, only confirmed their distrust. He must have had them sent – that tambourine girl could never have afforded these – why, they were pure silk – and the quality! It was plain that his castanet girl – his mother and sister took a pleasure in crediting her daily with some fresh and unpleasing instrument – could have had neither taste, money, nor honesty to such a point as this.

As for the young man, he bore it all very meekly, only he was glad when his essays on the decadence of things in general led to a berth on the staff of a big daily, and made it possible for him to take rooms in town – because he had grown weary of living with his family, and of hearing so constantly that She played the bones and the big drum and the concertina, and that She was a twopenny adventuress who stole his sister's shoes and stockings. He prefers to sit in his quiet room in the Temple, and to remember that she played the guitar and sang sweetly – that she had a mouth like a tired child's mouth, that her eyes were like stars, and that she kissed him – on both cheeks – and that he kissed – her hand only – as the scandalised suburb knows.

THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS

A YOUNG man with a little genius, a gift of literary expression, and a distaste not only for dissipation, but for the high-toned social functions of his suburban acquaintances, may go far – once he has chosen journalism for a profession, and has realised that to success in any profession a heart-whole service is necessary. A certain young man, having been kissed in his own garden by a girl with a guitar, ceased to care for evening parties, and devoted himself steadily to work. His relaxations were rowing down the Thames among the shipping, and thinking of the girl. In two years he was sent to Paris by the Thunderer – to ferret out information about a certain financial naughtiness which threatened a trusting public in general, and, in particular, a little band of blameless English shareholders.

The details of the scheme are impertinent to the present narrative.

The young man went to Paris and began to enjoy himself.

He had good introductions. He had once done a similar piece of business before – but then luck aided him. As I said, he enjoyed himself, but he did not see his way to accomplishing his mission. But his luck stood by him, as you will see, in a very remarkable manner. At a masked ball he met a very charming Corsican lady. She was dressed as a nun, but the eyes that sparkled through her mask might have taxed the resources of the most competent abbess. She spoke very agreeable English, and she was very kind to the young man, indicated the celebrities – she seemed to know everyone – whom she recognised quite easily in their carnival disguises, and at last she did him the kindness to point out a stout cardinal, and named the name of the very Jew who was pulling the strings of the very business which had brought the young man to Paris.

The young man's lucky star shone full on him, and dazzled him to a seeming indiscretion.

"He looks rather a beast," he said.

The nun clapped her hands.

"Oh – he is!" she said. "If you knew all that I could tell you about him!"

It was with the distinct idea of knowing all that the lady could tell about the Jew that our hero devoted himself to her throughout that evening, and promised to call on her the next day. He made himself very amiable indeed, and if you think that he should not have done this, I can only say that I am sorry, but facts are facts.

When he put her into her carriage – a very pretty little brougham – he kissed her hand. He did not do this because he desired to do it, as in the case of the Girl with the Guitar, but purely as a matter of business. If you blame him here I can only say "à la guerre comme à la guerre – "

Next day he called on her. She received him in a charming yellow silk boudoir and gave him tea and sweets. Unmasked, the lady was seen to be of uncommon beauty. He did not make love to her – but he was very nice, and she asked him to come again.

It was at their third interview that his star shone again, and again dazzled him to indiscreetness. He told the beautiful lady exactly why he wanted to know all that she could tell him about the Jew financier. The beautiful lady clapped her hands till all her gold bangles rattled musically, and said —

"But I will tell you all – everything! I felt that you wished to know – but I thought … however … are you sure it will all be in your paper?"

"But yes, Madame!" said he.

Then she folded her hands on the greeny satin lap of her tea-gown, and told him many things. And as she spoke he pieced things together, and was aware that she spoke the truth.

When she had finished speaking, his mission was almost accomplished. His luck had done all this for him. The lady promised even documents and evidence. Then he thanked her, and she said —

"No thanks, please. I suppose this will ruin him?"

"I'm afraid it will," said he.

She gave a little sigh of contentment.

"But why – ?" he asked.

"I don't mind, somehow, telling you anything," she said, and indeed as it seemed with some truth. "He – he did me the honour to admire me – and now he has behaved like the pig he is."

"And so you have betrayed him – told me the things he told you when he loved you?"

She snapped her fingers, and the opals and rubies of her rings shone like fire.

"Love!" she said scornfully.

Then he began to be a little ashamed and sorry for his part in this adventure, and he said so.

"Ah – don't be sorry," she said softly. "I wanted to betray him. I was simply longing to do it – only I couldn't think of the right person to betray him to! But you are the right person, Monsieur. I am indeed fortunate!"

A little shiver ran through him. But he had gone too far to retreat.

"And the documents, Madame?"

"I will give you them to-morrow. There is a ball at the American Embassy. I can get you a card."

"I have one." He had indeed made it his first business to get one – was not the Girl with the Guitar an American, and could he dare to waste the least light chance of seeing her again?

"Well – be there at twelve, and you shall have everything. But," she looked sidelong at him, "will Monsieur be very kind – very attentive – in short, devote himself to me – for this one evening? He will be there."

He murmured something banal about the devotion of a lifetime, and went away to his lodging in a remote suburb, which he had chosen because he loved boating.

The next night at twelve saw him lounging, a gloomy figure, on a seat in an ante-room at the Embassy. He knew that the Lady was within, yet he could not go to her. He sat there despairingly, trying to hope that even now something might happen to save him. Yet, as it seemed, nothing short of a miracle could. But his star shone, and the miracle happened. For, as he sat, a radiant vision, all white lace and diamonds, detached itself from the arm of a grey-bearded gentleman, and floated towards him.

"It is you!" said the darling vision, and the next moment his hands – both hands – were warmly clasped by little white-gloved ones, and he was standing looking into the eyes of the Girl.