The Literary Sense

"I knew I should see you somewhere – this continent is so tiny," she said. "Come right along and be introduced to Papa – that's him over there."

"I – I can't," he answered, in an agony. "I – my pocket's been picked – "

"Do tell!" said the Girl, laughing; "but Papa doesn't want tipping – he's got all he wants – come right along."

"I can't," he said, hoarse with the misery of the degrading confession; "it wasn't my money – it was my shoes. I came up in boots, brown boots; distant suburb; train; my shoes were in my overcoat pocket – I meant to change in the cab. I must have dropped them or they were taken out. And here I am in these things." He looked down at his bright brown boots. "And all the shops are shut – and my whole future depends on my getting into that room within the next half-hour. But never mind! Why should you bother? – Besides, what does it matter? I've seen you again. You'll speak to me as you come back? I'll wait all night for a word."

"Don't be so silly," said the Girl; but she smiled very prettily, and her dear eyes sparkled. "If it's really important, I'll fix it for you! But why does your future depend on it, and all that?"

"I have to meet a lady," said the wretched young man.

"The one you were with at the masked ball? The nun? Yes – I made Papa take me. Is it that one?" Her tone was imperious, but it was anxious too.

He looked imploringly at her. "Yes, but – "

"You shall have the shoes, all the same," she interrupted, and turned away before he could add a word.

A moment later the grey-bearded gentleman was bowing to him.

"My girl tells me you're in a corner for want of shoes, Sir. Mine are at your service – we seem about of a size – we can change behind that pillar."

"But," stammered the young man, "it's too much – I can't – "

"It's nothing at all, Sir," said the man with the grey beard warmly; "nothing compared to the way you stood by my girl! Shake! John B. Warner don't forget."

"I can't thank you," said the other, when they had shaken hands. "If you will – just for a short time! I'll be back in half an hour – "

He was back in two minutes. The first face he saw when he had made his duty bows was the face of the Beautiful Lady. She was radiant: and beside her stood her Jew, also radiant. They had made it up. And what is more – though he never knew it – they had made it up in that half-hour of delay caused by the Boots. The Lady passed our hero without a word or even a glance to acknowledge acquaintanceship, and he saw that the game was absolutely up. He swore under his breath. But the next moment he laughed to himself with a free heart. After all – for any documents, any evidence, for any success in any walk of life, how could he have borne to devote himself, as he had promised to do, to that Corsican lady, while the Girl, the Girl, was in the room? And he perceived now that he should not even use the information he already had. It did not seem fitting that one to whom the Girl stooped to speak, for ever so brief a moment, should play the part of a spy – in however good a cause.

"Back already?" said the old gentleman.

"Thank you – my business is completed."

The young man resumed his brown boots.

"Now, Papa," said the Girl, "just go right along and do your devoirs in there – and I'll stay and talk to him– "

The father went obediently.

"Have you quarrelled with her, then?" asked the Girl, her eyes on the diamond buckles of her satin shoes.

He told her everything – or nearly.

"Well," she said decisively, "I'm glad you're out of it, anyway. Don't worry about it. It's a nasty trade. Papa'll find you a berth. Come out to the States and edit one of his papers!"

"You told me he was a millionaire! I suppose everything went all right? He didn't lose his money or anything?" His tone was wistful.

"Not he! You don't know Papa!" said the Girl; "but, say, you're not going to be too proud to be acquainted with a self-made man?"

He didn't answer.

"Say," said she again, "I don't take so much stock in dukes as I used to." She laid a hand on his arm.

"Don't make a fool of me," said the young man, speaking very low.

"I won't," – her voice was a caress, – "but Papa shall make Something of you. You don't know Papa! He can make men's fortunes as easily as other folks make men's shoes. And he always does what I tell him. Aren't you glad to see me again? And don't you remember – ?" said she, looking at him so kindly that he lost his head and —

"Ah! haven't you forgotten?" said he.

That is about all there is of the story. He is now a Something – and he has married the Girl. If you think that a young man of comparatively small income should not marry the girl he loves because her father happens to have made money in pork, I can only remind you that your opinion is not shared by the bulk of our English aristocracy. And they don't even bother about the love, as often as not.

THE SECOND BEST

THE letter was brief and abrupt.

"I am in London. I have just come back from Jamaica. Will you come and see me? I can be in at any time you appoint."

There was no signature, but he knew the handwriting well enough. The letter came to him by the morning post, sandwiched between his tailor's bill and a catalogue of Rare and Choice Editions.

He read it twice. Then he got up from the breakfast-table, unlocked a drawer, and took out a packet of letters and a photograph.

"I ought to have burned them long ago," he said; "I'll burn them now." He did burn them but first he read them through, and as he read them he sighed, more than once. They were passionate, pretty letters, – the phrases simply turned, the endearments delicately chosen. They breathed of love and constancy and faith, a faith that should move mountains, a love that should shine like gold in the furnace of adversity, a constancy that death itself should be powerless to shake. And he sighed. No later love had come to draw with soft lips the poison from this old wound. She had married Benoliel, the West Indian Jew. It is a far cry from Jamaica to London, but some whispers had reached her jilted lover. The kindest of them said that Benoliel neglected his wife, the harshest, that he beat her.

He looked at the photograph. It was two years since he had seen the living woman. Yet still, when he shut his eyes, he could see the delicate tints, the coral, and rose, and pearl, and gold that went to the making up of her. He could always see these. And now he should see the reality. Would the two years have dulled that bright hair, withered at all that flower-face? For he never doubted that he must go to her.

He was a lawyer; perhaps she wanted that sort of help from him, wanted to know how to rid herself of the bitter bad bargain that she had made in marrying the Jew. Whatever he could do he would, of course, but —

He went out at once and sent a telegram to her.

"Four to-day."

And at four o'clock he found himself on the doorstep of a house in Eaton Square. He hated the wealthy look of the house, the footman who opened the door, and the thick carpets of the stairs up which he was led. He hated the soft luxury of the room in which he was left to wait for her. Everything spoke, decorously and without shouting, but with unmistakable distinctness, of money, Benoliel's money: money that had been able to buy all these beautiful things, and, as one of them, to buy her.

She came in quietly. Long simple folds of grey trailed after her: she wore no ornament of any kind. Her fingers were ringless, every one. He saw all this, but before he saw anything else he saw that the two years had taken nothing from her charm, had indeed but added a wistful patient look that made her seem more a child than when he had last seen her.

The meaningless contact of their hands was over, and still neither had spoken. She was looking at him questioningly. The silence appeared silly; there was, and there could be, no emotion to justify, to transfigure it. He spoke.

"How do you do?" he said.

She drew a deep breath, and lifted her eyebrows slightly.

"Won't you sit down?" she said; "you are looking just like you used to." She had the tiniest lisp; once it had used to charm him.

"You, too, are quite your old self," he said. Then there was a pause.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she said.

"It was you who sent for me," said he.