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NLP Research Group 9

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

deathly

How many times the word 'deathly' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

rob

How many times the word 'rob' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

black

How many times the word 'black' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

me,--even

How many times the word 'me,--even' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

nightmare

How many times the word 'nightmare' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

word

How many times the word 'word' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

she

How many times the word 'she' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

cent

How many times the word 'cent' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

train

How many times the word 'train' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

astir

How many times the word 'astir' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

emilia

How many times the word 'emilia' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

nasty

How many times the word 'nasty' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

yells

How many times the word 'yells' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

encourage

How many times the word 'encourage' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

heavens

How many times the word 'heavens' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

exquisitely

How many times the word 'exquisitely' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

rang

How many times the word 'rang' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

jogged

How many times the word 'jogged' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

shook

How many times the word 'shook' appears in the text?

your concerns!" retorted Langham. Gilmore laughed. "I ain't going to remind him of it; what have I got you for, Marsh? It's your job." He took a step nearer Langham while his black brows met in a sullen frown. "I know I ain't popular here in Mount Hope, I know there are plenty of people who'd like to see me run out of town; but I'm no quitter, they'll find. It suits me to stay here, and they can't touch me if Moxlow won't have it. That's your job, that's what I hire you for, Marsh; you're Moxlow's partner, you're your father's son, it's up to you to see I ain't interfered with. Don't tell me you can't do anything more for me. I won't have it!" Langham's face was red, and his eyes blazed angrily, but Gilmore met his glance with a look of stern insistence that could not be misunderstood. "I have done what I could for you," the lawyer said at last, choking down his rage. "Oh, go to hell! You know you haven't hurt yourself," said Gilmore insolently. "Well, then, why do you come here?" demanded Langham. "Same old business, Marsh." He lounged across the room and dropped, yawning, into a chair near the window. There was silence between them for a little space. Langham fussed with the papers on his desk, while Gilmore squinted at him over the end of his cigar. "Same old business, Marsh!" Gilmore repeated lazily. "What's the enemy up to, anyhow? Are the good people of Mount Hope worrying Moxlow? Is their sleepless activity going to interfere with my sleepless profession, eh? Can you answer me that?" "Moxlow has cut the office of late," said Langham briefly. "He's happened on a good thing in the prosecuting attorney's office, I suppose? It's a pity you didn't strike out for that, Marsh; you'd have been of some use to your friends if you'd got the job." "Not necessarily," said Langham. "Well, when's Moxlow going after me?" inquired Gilmore. "I, haven't heard him say. He told me he had sufficient evidence for your indictment." "Yes, of course," agreed Gilmore placidly. "I guess yours is a case for the next grand jury!" "So Moxlow's in earnest about wishing to make trouble for me?" said Gilmore, still placidly. "Oh, he's in earnest, all right." Langham shrugged his shoulders petulantly. "He'll go after you, and perhaps by the time he's done with you you'll wish you'd taken my advice and made yourself scarce!" "I'm no quitter!" rejoined Gilmore, chewing thoughtfully at the end of his cigar. "By all means stay in Mount Hope if you think it's worth your while," said Langham indifferently. "Can you give me some definite idea as to when the fun begins?" "No, but it will be soon enough, Andy. He wants the support of the best element. He can't afford to offend it." "And he knows you are my lawyer?" asked Gilmore still thoughtfully. "Of course." "Ain't that going to cut any figure with him?" "Certainly not." "Is that so, Marsh?" He crossed his legs and nursed an ankle with both hands. "Well, somebody ought to lose Moxlow,--take him out and forget to find him again. He's much too good for this world; it ain't natural. He's about the only man of his age in Mount Hope who ain't drifted into my rooms at one time or another." He paused and took the cigar from between his teeth. "You call him off, Marsh, make him agree to let me alone; ain't there such a thing as friendship in this profession of yours?" Langham shook his head, and again Gilmore's black brows met in a frown. He made a contemptuous gesture. "You're a hell of a lawyer!" he sneered. "Be careful what you say to me!" cried Langham, suddenly giving way to the feeling of rage that until now he had held in check. "Oh, I'm careful enough. I guess if you stop to think a minute you'll understand you got to take what I choose to say as I choose to say it!" Langham sprang to his feet shaking with anger. "No, by--" he began hoarsely. "Sit down," said Gilmore coldly. "You can't afford to row with me; anyhow, I ain't going to row with you. I'll tell you what I think of you and what I expect of you, so sit down!" There was a long pause. Gilmore gazed out the window. He seemed to watch the hurrying snowflakes with no interest in Langham who was still standing by his desk, with one shaking hand resting on the back of his chair. Presently the lawyer resumed his seat and Gilmore turned toward him. "Don't talk about my quitting here, Marsh," he said menacingly. "That's the kind of legal advice I won't have from you or any one else." "You may as well make up your mind first as last to it," said Langham, not regarding what Gilmore had just said. "I can't keep Moxlow quiet any longer; the sentiment of the community is against gamblers. If you are not a gambler, what are you?" "You mean you are going to throw me over, you two?" "With Moxlow it is a case of bread and butter; personally I don't care whom you fleece, but I've got my living to make here in Mount Hope, too, and I can't afford to go counter to public opinion." "You have had some favors out of me, Marsh." "I am not likely to forget them, you give me no chance," rejoined Langham bitterly. "Why should I, eh?" asked Gilmore coolly. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling above his head. "Marsh, what was that North was saying about me when I came down the hall?" and his swarthy cheeks were tinged with red. "I don't recall that he was speaking of you." "You don't? Well, think again. It was about our going up to your house to-night, wasn't it? Your wife's back, eh? Well, don't worry, I came here partly to tell you that I had made other arrangements for the evening." "It's just as well," said Langham. "Do you mean your wife wouldn't receive me?" demanded Gilmore. There was a catch in his voice and a pallor in his face. "I didn't say that." Gilmore's chair resounded noisily on the floor as he came to his feet. He strode to the lawyer's side. "Then what in hell _do_ you say?" he stormed. In spite of himself Langham quailed before the gambler's fury. "Oh, keep still, Andy! What a nasty-tempered beast you are!" he said pacifically. There was a pause, and Gilmore resumed his chair, turning to the window to hide his emotion; then slowly his scowling glance came back to Langham. "He said I was a common card-sharp, eh?" Langham knew that he spoke of North. "Damn him! What does he call himself?" He threw the stub of his cigar from him across the room. "Marsh, what does your wife know about me?" And again there was the catch to his voice. Langham looked at him in astonishment. "Know about you--my wife--nothing," he said slowly. "I suppose she's heard my name?" inquired the gambler. "No doubt." "Thinks I rob you at cards, eh?" But Langham made no answer to this. "Thinks I take your money away from you," continued the gambler. "And it's your game to let her think that! I wonder what she'd think if she knew the account stood the other way about? I've been a handy sort of a friend, haven't I, Marsh? The sort you could use,--and you have used me up to the limit! I've been good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to take home--" "Oh, come, Andy, what's the use," placated Langham. "I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt." "It's time you and I had a settlement, Marsh. I want you to take up those notes of yours." "I haven't the money!" said Langham. "Well, I can't wait on you any longer." "I don't see but that you'll have to," retorted Langham. "I'm going to offer a few inducements for haste, Marsh. I'm going to make you see that it's worth your while to find that money for me quick,--understand? You owe me about two thousand dollars; are you fixed to turn it in by the end of the month?" The gambler bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it a moment between his fingers as he gazed at Langham, waiting for his reply. The latter shook his head but said nothing. "Well, then, by George, I am going to sue you!" "Because I can't protect you longer!" "Oh, to hell with your protection! Go dig up the money for me or I'll raise a fuss here that'll hurt more than one reputation! The notes are good, ain't they?" "They are good when I have the money to meet them." "They are good even if you haven't the money to meet them! I guess Judge Langham's indorsement is worth something, and Linscott's a rich man; even Moxlow's got some property. Those are the three who are on your paper, and the paper's considerably overdue." Langham turned a pale face on the gambler. "You won't do that, Andy!" he said, in a voice which he vainly strove to hold steady. "Won't I? Do you think I'm in business for my health?" And he laughed shortly, then he wheeled on Langham with unexpected fierceness. "I'll give you until the first of the month, Marsh, and then I'm going after you without gloves. I don't care a damn who squares the account; your indorsers' cash will suit me as well as your own." He caught the expression on Langham's face, its deathly pallor, the hunted look in his eyes, and paused suddenly. The shadow of a slow smile fixed itself at the corners of his mouth, he put out a hand and rested it on Langham's shoulder. "You damn fool! Have you tried that trick on me? I'll take those notes to the bank in the morning and see if the signatures are genuine." "Do it!" Langham spoke in a whisper. "Maybe you think I won't!" sneered the gambler. "Maybe you'd rather I didn't, eh? It will hardly suit you to have me show those notes?" "Do what you like; whatever suggests itself to a scurvy whelp like you!" said Langham. Gilmore merely grinned at this. "If you are trying to encourage me to smash you, Marsh, you have got the right idea as to how it is to be done." But his tone was now one of lazy good nature. "Smash me then; I haven't the money to pay you." "Get it!" said Gilmore tersely. "Where?" "You are asking too much of me, Marsh. If I could finance you I'd cut out cards in the future. How about the judge,--no? Well, I just threw that out as a hint, but I suppose you have been there already, for naturally you'd compliment him by giving him the chance to pull you up out of your troubles. Since your own father won't help you, how about Linscott? Is he going to want to see his son-in-law disgraced? I guess he's your best chance, Marsh. Put it on strong and for once tell the truth. Tell him you've dabbled in forgery and that it won't work!" Langham had dropped back in his chair. He was seeking to devise some expedient that would meet his present difficulties. His bondage to the gambler had become intolerable, anything would be better than a continuance of that. The monstrous folly of those forgeries seemed beyond anything he could have perpetrated in his sober senses. He must have been mad! But then he had needed the money desperately. He might go to his, father, but he had been to him only recently, and the judge himself was burdened with debt. He might go to Mr. Linscott, he might even try North. He could tell the latter the whole circumstance and borrow a part of what was left of his small fortune; of course he was in his debt as it was, but North would never think of that; he was a man to share his last dollar with a friend. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. On every side the nightmare of his obligations confronted him, for who was there that he could owe whom he did not already owe? He was notorious for his inability to pay his debts. This notoriety was hurting his professional standing, and now if Gilmore carried out his threat he must look forward to the shame of a public exposure. His very reputation for common honesty was at stake. He wondered what men did in a crisis such as this. He wondered what happened to them when they could do nothing more. Usually he was fertile in expedients, but to-day his brain seemed wholly inert. He realized only a certain dull terror of the future; the present eluded him utterly. He had never been over-scrupulous perhaps, he had always taken what he pleased to call long chances, and it was in almost imperceptible gradations that he had descended in the scale of honesty to the point that had at last made possible these forgeries. Until now he had always felt certain of himself and of his future; time was to bring him into the presence of his dear desires, when he should have money to lift the burden of debt, money to waste, money to scatter, money to spend for the good things of life. But he had made the fatal mistake of anticipating the success in which he so firmly believed. Those notes--he dashed his hand before his face; suddenly the air of the room seemed to stifle him, courage and cunning had left him; there was only North to whom he could turn for a few hundreds with which to quiet Gilmore. Let him but escape the consequences of his folly this time and he promised himself he would retrench; he would live within his income, he would apply himself to his profession as he had never yet applied himself. He scowled heavily at Gilmore, who met his scowl with a cynical smile. "Well, what are you going to do?" he queried. But Langham did not answer at once. He had turned and was looking from the window. It was snowing now very hard, and twilight, under the edges of torn gray clouds was creeping over the Square; he could barely see the flickering lights in Archibald McBride's dingy shop-windows. "Give me a chance, Andy!" he said at last appealingly. "To the end of the month, not a day more," asserted Gilmore. "Where am I to get such a sum in that time? You know I can't do it!" "Don't ask me, but turn to and get it, Marsh. That's your only hope." "By the first of the year perhaps," urged Langham. "No, get rid of the notion that I am going to let up on you, for I ain't! I'm going to squat on your trail until the money's in my hand; otherwise I know damn well I won't ever see a cent of it! I ain't your only creditor, but the one who hounds you hardest will see his money first, and I got you where I want you." "I can't raise the money; what will you gain by ruining me?" demanded Langham. He wished to impress this on Gilmore, and then he would propose as a compromise the few hundreds it would be possible to borrow from North. "To get square with you, Marsh, will be worth something, and frankly, I ain't sure that I ever expected to see any of that money, but as long as you stood my friend I was disposed to be easy on you." "I am still your friend." "Just about so-so, but you won't keep Moxlow--" "I can't!" "Then I can't see where your friendship comes in." Gilmore quitted his chair. "Wait, Andy!" said Langham hastily. "No use of any more talk, Marsh, I want my money! Go dig it up." "Suppose, by straining every nerve, I can raise five hundred dollars by the end of the month--" "Oh, pay your grocer with that!" Langham choked down his rage. "You haven't always been so contemptuous of such sums." "I'm feeling proud to-day, Marsh. I'm going to treat myself to a few airs, and you can pat yourself on the back when you've dug up the money by the end of the month! You'll have done something to feel proud of, too." "Suppose we say a thousand," urged Langham. "Good old Marsh! If you keep on raising yourself like this you'll soon get to a figure where we can talk business!" Gilmore laughed. "Perhaps I can raise a thousand dollars. I don't know why I should think I can, but I'm willing to try; I'm willing to say I'll try--" Gilmore shook his head. "I've told you what you got to do, Marsh, and I mean every damn word I say,--understand that? I'm going to have my money or I'm going to have the fun of smashing you." "Listen to me, Andy!" began Langham desperately. "Why take me into your confidence?" asked the gambler coldly. "What will you gain by ruining me?" repeated Langham fiercely. The gambler only grinned. "I am always willing to spend money on my pleasures; and besides when those notes turn up, your father or some one else will have to come across." Langham was silent. He was staring out across the empty snow-strewn Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. "Remember," said Gilmore, moving toward the door. "I'll talk to you when you got two thousand dollars." "Damn you, where do you think I'll get it?" cried Langham. "I'm not good at guessing," laughed Gilmore. He turned without another word or look and left the room. His footsteps echoed loudly in the hall and on the stairs, and then there was silence in the building. Langham was again looking out across the Square at the lights in Archibald McBride's windows. CHAPTER FOUR ADVENTURE IN EARNEST Mr. Shrimplin had made his way through a number of back streets without adventure of any sort, and as the night and the storm closed swiftly in about him, the shapes of himself, his cart and of wild Bill disappeared, and there remained to mark his progress only the hissing sputtering flame, that flared spectrally six feet in air as the little lamplighter drove in and out of shabby unfrequented streets and alleys. It had grown steadily colder with the approach of night, and the wind had risen. The streets seemed deserted, and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind, could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town. He reached Water Street, the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats. He jogged past Maxy Schaffer's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street, which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements, entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm. It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square; here only three gasolene burners--survivors of the old r gime--held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp. He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face. "How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?" "It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling. As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the snowy distance. "Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin. "Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly. He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night. Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of fright. "Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines, but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick. "Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away from the curb. "Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood? "Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!" While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was, indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle with Bill and walked to the curb. And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow room, were all alight. Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious, realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his fellow-merchants had so very generally observed. "And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought. Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark. "Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night. "Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting fuel." Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind, had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold. "Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr. Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out without latching it." He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors, usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls. The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr. Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty retreat. Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope. A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence: "Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!" The room echoed to his words. "Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly. On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings; then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr. Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid. And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man was dead past all peradventure. [Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.] Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by. CHAPTER FIVE COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer. Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture. "My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity. "My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried

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your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

magnanimous

How many times the word 'magnanimous' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

wished

How many times the word 'wished' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

stanhope

How many times the word 'stanhope' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

however

How many times the word 'however' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

beauclere

How many times the word 'beauclere' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

feel

How many times the word 'feel' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

unlooked

How many times the word 'unlooked' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

immense

How many times the word 'immense' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

felt

How many times the word 'felt' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

wife

How many times the word 'wife' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

wall

How many times the word 'wall' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

cheyenne

How many times the word 'cheyenne' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

participating

How many times the word 'participating' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

gave

How many times the word 'gave' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

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your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

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How many times the word 'alternative' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

far

How many times the word 'far' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

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How many times the word 'small' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

saw

How many times the word 'saw' appears in the text?

your place that day and tried to talk to me. I remember he abused theatrical people to me--as if I cared anything about them. But he has apparently something to do with your girl." "Oh I recollect him--I had a discussion with him," Peter patiently said. "How could you? I must go and dress," his sister went on more importantly. "He _was_ clever, remarkably. Miss Rooth and her mother were old friends of his, and he was the first person to speak of them to me." "What a distinction! I thought him disgusting!" cried Julia, who was pressed for time and who had now got up. "Oh you're severe," said Peter, still bland; but when they separated she had given him something to think of. That Nick was painting a beautiful actress was no doubt in part at least the reason why he was provoking and why his most intimate female friend had come abroad. The fact didn't render him provoking to his kinsman: Peter had on the contrary been quite sincere when he qualified it as interesting. It became indeed on reflexion so interesting that it had perhaps almost as much to do with Sherringham's now prompt rush over to London as it had to do with Julia's coming away. Reflexion taught him further that the matter was altogether a delicate one and suggested that it was odd he should be mixed up with it in fact when, as Julia's own affair, he had but wished to keep out of it. It might after all be his affair a little as well--there was somehow a still more pointed implication of that in his sister's saying to him the next day that she wished immensely he would take a fancy to Biddy Dormer. She said more: she said there had been a time when she believed he _had_ done so--believed too that the poor child herself had believed the same. Biddy was far away the nicest girl she knew--the dearest, sweetest, cleverest, _best_, and one of the prettiest creatures in England, which never spoiled anything. She would make as charming a wife as ever a man had, suited to any position, however high, and--Julia didn't mind mentioning it, since her brother would believe it whether she mentioned it or no--was so predisposed in his favour that he would have no trouble at all. In short she herself would see him through--she'd answer for it that he'd have but to speak. Biddy's life at home was horrid; she was very sorry for her--the child was worthy of a better fate. Peter wondered what constituted the horridness of Biddy's life, and gathered that it mainly arose from the fact of Julia's disliking Lady Agnes and Grace and of her profiting comfortably by that freedom to do so which was a fruit of her having given them a house she had perhaps not felt the want of till they were in possession of it. He knew she had always liked Biddy, but he asked himself--this was the rest of his wonder--why she had taken to liking her so extraordinarily just now. He liked her himself--he even liked to be talked to about her and could believe everything Julia said: the only thing that had mystified him was her motive for suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head--most of all into the girl's own--that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying any one--he had ever so many grounds for neglecting that. Of course one was never safe against accidents, but one could at least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post. He waited, after breakfast, but a very few minutes before jumping into a hansom and rattling away to the north. A part of his waiting indeed consisted of a fidgety walk up Bond Street, during which he looked at his watch three or four times while he paused at shop windows for fear of being a little early. In the cab, as he rolled along, after having given an address--Balaklava Place, Saint John's Wood--the fear he might be too early took curiously at moments the form of a fear that he should be too late: a symbol of the inconsistencies of which his spirit at present was full. Peter Sherringham was nervously formed, too nervously for a diplomatist, and haunted with inclinations and indeed with designs which contradicted each other. He wanted to be out of it and yet dreaded not to be in it, and on this particular occasion the sense of exclusion was an ache. At the same time he was not unconscious of the impulse to stop his cab and make it turn round and drive due south. He saw himself launched in the breezy fact while morally speaking he was hauled up on the hot sand of the principle, and he could easily note how little these two faces of the same idea had in common. However, as the consciousness of going helped him to reflect, a principle was a poor affair if it merely became a fact. Yet from the hour it did turn to action the action _had_ to be the particular one in which he was engaged; so that he was in the absurd position of thinking his conduct wiser for the reason that it was directly opposed to his intentions. He had kept away from London ever since Miriam Rooth came over; resisting curiosity, sympathy, importunate haunting passion, and considering that his resistance, founded, to be salutary, on a general scheme of life, was the greatest success he had yet achieved. He was deeply occupied with plucking up the feeling that attached him to her, and he had already, by various little ingenuities, loosened some of its roots. He had suffered her to make her first appearance on any stage without the comfort of his voice or the applause of his hand; saying to himself that the man who could do the more could do the less and that such an act of fortitude was a proof he should keep straight. It was not exactly keeping straight to run over to London three months later and, the hour he arrived, scramble off to Balaklava Place; but after all he pretended only to be human and aimed in behaviour only at the heroic, never at the monstrous. The highest heroism was obviously three parts tact. He had not written to his young friend that he was coming to England and would call upon her at eleven o'clock in the morning, because it was his secret pride that he had ceased to correspond with her. Sherringham took his prudence where he could find it, and in doing so was rather like a drunkard who should flatter himself he had forsworn liquor since he didn't touch lemonade. It is a sign of how far he was drawn in different directions at once that when, on reaching Balaklava Place and alighting at the door of a small detached villa of the type of the "retreat," he learned that Miss Rooth had but a quarter of an hour before quitted the spot with her mother--they had gone to the theatre, to rehearsal, said the maid who answered the bell he had set tinkling behind a stuccoed garden-wall: when at the end of his pilgrimage he was greeted by a disappointment he suddenly found himself relieved and for the moment even saved. Providence was after all taking care of him and he submitted to Providence. He would still be watched over doubtless, even should he follow the two ladies to the theatre, send in his card and obtain admission to the scene of their experiments. All his keen taste for these matters flamed up again, and he wondered what the girl was studying, was rehearsing, what she was to do next. He got back into his hansom and drove down the Edgware Road. By the time he reached the Marble Arch he had changed his mind again, had determined to let Miriam alone for that day. It would be over at eight in the evening--he hardly played fair--and then he should consider himself free. Instead of pursuing his friends he directed himself upon a shop in Bond Street to take a place for their performance. On first coming out he had tried, at one of those establishments strangely denominated "libraries," to get a stall, but the people to whom he applied were unable to accommodate him--they hadn't a single seat left. His actual attempt, at another library, was more successful: there was no question of obtaining a stall, but he might by a miracle still have a box. There was a wantonness in paying for a box at a play on which he had already expended four hundred pounds; but while he was mentally measuring this abyss an idea came into his head which flushed the extravagance with the hue of persuasion. Peter came out of the shop with the voucher for the box in his pocket, turned into Piccadilly, noted that the day was growing warm and fine, felt glad that this time he had no other strict business than to leave a card or two on official people, and asked himself where he should go if he didn't go after Miriam. Then it was that he found himself attaching a lively desire and imputing a high importance to the possible view of Nick Dormer's portrait of her. He wondered which would be the natural place at that hour of the day to look for the artist. The House of Commons was perhaps the nearest one, but Nick, inconsequent and incalculable though so many of his steps, probably didn't keep the picture there; and, moreover, it was not generally characteristic of him to be in the natural place. The end of Peter's debate was that he again entered a hansom and drove to Calcutta Gardens. The hour was early for calling, but cousins with whom one's intercourse was mainly a conversational scuffle would accept it as a practical illustration of that method. And if Julia wanted him to be nice to Biddy--which was exactly, even if with a different view, what he wanted himself--how could he better testify than by a visit to Lady Agnes--he would have in decency to go to see her some time--at a friendly, fraternising hour when they would all be likely to be at home? Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were none of them at home, so that he had to fall back on neutrality and the butler, who was, however, more luckily, an old friend. Her ladyship and Miss Dormer were absent from town, paying a visit; and Mr. Dormer was also away, or was on the point of going away for the day. Miss Bridget was in London, but was out; Peter's informant mentioned with earnest vagueness that he thought she had gone somewhere to take a lesson. On Peter's asking what sort of lesson he meant he replied: "Oh I think--a--the a-sculpture, you know, sir." Peter knew, but Biddy's lesson in "a-sculpture"--it sounded on the butler's lips like a fashionable new art--struck him a little as a mockery of the helpful spirit in which he had come to look her up. The man had an air of participating respectfully in his disappointment and, to make up for it, added that he might perhaps find Mr. Dormer at his other address. He had gone out early and had directed his servant to come to Rosedale Road in an hour or two with a portmanteau: he was going down to Beauclere in the course of the day, Mr. Carteret being ill--perhaps Mr. Sherringham didn't know it. Perhaps too Mr. Sherringham would catch him in Rosedale Road before he took his train--he was to have been busy there for an hour. This was worth trying, and Peter immediately drove to Rosedale Road; where in answer to his ring the door was opened to him by Biddy Dormer. XXIX When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest, pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone." "So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come in?" "Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room, was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look." Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also, on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her: that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move constantly together amid such considerations and subtly intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject. Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned. He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret, small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more. This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him when she talked. He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing; observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other _ demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr. Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_ and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes; he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might call on his sympathy. "I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma; and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St. Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace, but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can talk with about papa." Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get, so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get married. "That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so obliging and devoted." "Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for mendacious emphasis. "But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival and Nick and you?" Peter asked. "Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear Nick of course--that's just what she does want." He had a pause. "And you, Biddy?" "Oh I daresay. But that doesn't signify--I never shall." Peter got up at this; the tone of it set him in motion and he took a turn round the room. He threw off something cheap about her being too proud; to which she replied that that was the only thing for a girl to be to get on. "What do you mean by getting on?"--and he stopped with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the studio. "I mean crying one's eyes out!" Biddy unexpectedly exclaimed; but she drowned the effect of this pathetic paradox in a laugh of clear irrelevance and in the quick declaration: "Of course it's about Nick that she's really broken-hearted." "What's the matter with Nick?" he went on with all his diplomacy. "Oh Peter, what's the matter with Julia?" Biddy quavered softly back to him, her eyes suddenly frank and mournful. "I daresay you know what we all hoped, what we all supposed from what they told us. And now they won't!" said the girl. "Yes, Biddy, I know. I had the brightest prospect of becoming your brother-in-law: wouldn't that have been it--or something like that? But it's indeed visibly clouded. What's the matter with them? May I have another cigarette?" Peter came back to the wide, cushioned bench where he had previously lounged: this was the way they took up the subject he wanted most to look into. "Don't they know how to love?" he speculated as he seated himself again. "It seems a kind of fatality!" Biddy sighed. He said nothing for some moments, at the end of which he asked if his companion were to be quite alone during her mother's absence. She replied that this parent was very droll about that: would never leave her alone and always thought something dreadful would happen to her. She had therefore arranged that Florence Tressilian should come and stay in Calcutta Gardens for the next few days--to look after her and see she did no wrong. Peter inquired with fulness into Florence Tressilian's identity: he greatly hoped that for the success of Lady Agnes's precautions she wasn't a flighty young genius like Biddy. She was described to him as tremendously nice and tremendously clever, but also tremendously old and tremendously safe; with the addition that Biddy was tremendously fond of her and that while she remained in Calcutta Gardens they expected to enjoy themselves tremendously. She was to come that afternoon before dinner. "And are you to dine at home?" said Peter. "Certainly; where else?" "And just you two alone? Do you call that enjoying yourselves tremendously?" "It will do for me. No doubt I oughtn't in modesty to speak for poor Florence." "It isn't fair to her; you ought to invite some one to meet her." "Do you mean you, Peter?" the girl asked, turning to him quickly and with a look that vanished the instant he caught it. "Try me. I'll come like a shot." "That's kind," said Biddy, dropping her hands and now resting her eyes on him gratefully. She remained in this position as if under a charm; then she jerked herself back to her work with the remark: "Florence will like that immensely." "I'm delighted to please Florence--your description of her's so attractive!" Sherringham laughed. And when his companion asked him if he minded there not being a great feast, because when her mother went away she allowed her a fixed amount for that sort of thing and, as he might imagine, it wasn't millions--when Biddy, with the frankness of their pleasant kinship, touched anxiously on this economic point (illustrating, as Peter saw, the lucidity with which Lady Agnes had had in her old age to learn to recognise the occasions when she could be conveniently frugal) he answered that the shortest dinners were the best, especially when one was going to the theatre. That was his case to-night, and did Biddy think he might look to Miss Tressilian to go with them? They'd have to dine early--he wanted not to miss a moment. "The theatre--Miss Tressilian?" she stared, interrupted and in suspense again. "Would it incommode you very much to dine say at 7.15 and accept a place in my box? The finger of Providence was in it when I took a box an hour ago. I particularly like your being free to go--if you are free." She began almost to rave with pleasure. "Dear Peter, how good you are! They'll have it at any hour. Florence will be so glad." "And has Florence seen Miss Rooth?" "Miss Rooth?" the girl repeated, redder than before. He felt on the spot that she had heard of the expenditure of his time and attention on that young lady. It was as if she were conscious of how conscious he would himself be in speaking of her, and there was a sweetness in her allowance for him on that score. But Biddy was more confused for him than he was for himself. He guessed in a moment how much she had thought over what she had heard; this was indicated by her saying vaguely, "No, no, I've not seen her." Then she knew she was answering a question he hadn't asked her, and she went on: "We shall be too delighted. I saw her--perhaps you remember--in your rooms in Paris. I thought her so wonderful then! Every one's talking of her here. But we don't go to the theatre much, you know: we don't have boxes offered us except when _you_ come.

thought

How many times the word 'thought' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

on

How many times the word 'on' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

guest

How many times the word 'guest' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

personally

How many times the word 'personally' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

over

How many times the word 'over' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

scenery

How many times the word 'scenery' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

havnt

How many times the word 'havnt' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

comfortable

How many times the word 'comfortable' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

trousers

How many times the word 'trousers' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

night

How many times the word 'night' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

willing

How many times the word 'willing' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

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How many times the word 'goes' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

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your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

telegram

How many times the word 'telegram' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

brave

How many times the word 'brave' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

ordering

How many times the word 'ordering' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

husband

How many times the word 'husband' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

very

How many times the word 'very' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

drink

How many times the word 'drink' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

heartfelt

How many times the word 'heartfelt' appears in the text?

your prowess, my dear sir. Magnificent. Youll stay to dinner. Youll stay the night. Stay over the week. The Chickabiddy will be delighted. MRS TARLETON. Wont you take off your goggles and have some tea? _The Passenger begins to remove the goggles._ TARLETON. Do. Have a wash. Johnny: take the gentleman to your room: I'll look after Mr Percival. They must-- _By this time the passenger has got the goggles off, and stands revealed as a remarkably good-looking woman._ MRS TARLETON. | Well I never!!! | | | BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! | | | JOHNNY. | By George! | | | _All LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to- | | gether._ HYPATIA. | A woman! | | | TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- | | | PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- | _An embarrassed pause._ PERCIVAL. I assure you if I'd had the faintest notion that my passenger was a lady I shouldnt have left you to shift for yourself in that selfish way. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The lady seems to have shifted for both very effectually, sir. PERCIVAL. Saved my life. I admit it most gratefully. TARLETON. I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes. I'm proud to receive in my house a lady of evident refinement and distinction. Allow me to introduce myself: Tarleton: John Tarleton (_seeing conjecture in the passenger's eye_)--yes, yes: Tarleton's Underwear. My wife, Mrs Tarleton: youll excuse me for having in what I had taken to be a confidence between man and man alluded to her as the Chickabiddy. My daughter Hypatia, who has always wanted some adventure to drop out of the sky, and is now, I hope, satisfied at last. Lord Summerhays: a man known wherever the British flag waves. His son Bentley, engaged to Hypatia. Mr Joseph Percival, the promising son of three highly intellectual fathers. HYPATIA. _[startled]_ Bentley's friend? _[Bentley nods]._ TARLETON. _[continuing, to the passenger]_ May I now ask to be allowed the pleasure of knowing your name? THE PASSENGER. My name is Lina Szczepanowska _[pronouncing it Sh-Chepanovska]._ PERCIVAL. Sh-- I beg your pardon? LINA. Szczepanowska. PERCIVAL. _[dubiously]_ Thank you. TARLETON. _[very politely]_ Would you mind saying it again? LINA. Say fish. TARLETON. Fish. LINA. Say church. TARLETON. Church. LINA. Say fish church. TARLETON. _[remonstrating]_ But it's not good sense. LINA. _[inexorable]_ Say fish church. TARLETON. Fish church. LINA. Again. TARLETON. No, but--_[resigning himself]_ fish church. LINA. Now say Szczepanowska. TARLETON. Szczepanowska. Got it, by Gad. _[A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]._ Szczepanowska! Not an English name, is it? LINA. Polish. I'm a Pole. TARLETON. Ah yes. Interesting nation. Lucky people to get the government of their country taken off their hands. Nothing to do but cultivate themselves. Same as we took Gibraltar off the hands of the Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you? _The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes. Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his father._ MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you? LINA. I never drink tea. TARLETON. _[sitting down at the end of the writing table nearest Lina]_ Bad thing to aeroplane on, I should imagine. Too jumpy. Been up much? LINA. Not in an aeroplane. Ive parachuted; but thats child's play. MRS TARLETON. But arnt you very foolish to run such a dreadful risk? LINA. You cant live without running risks. MRS TARLETON. Oh, what a thing to say! Didnt you know you might have been killed? LINA. That was why I went up. HYPATIA. Of course. Cant you understand the fascination of the thing? the novelty! the daring! the sense of something happening! LINA. Oh no. It's too tame a business for that. I went up for family reasons. TARLETON. Eh? What? Family reasons? MRS TARLETON. I hope it wasnt to spite your mother? PERCIVAL. _[quickly]_ Or your husband? LINA. I'm not married. And why should I want to spite my mother? HYPATIA. _[aside to Percival]_ That was clever of you, Mr Percival. PERCIVAL. What? HYPATIA. To find out. TARLETON. I'm in a difficulty. I cant understand a lady going up in an aeroplane for family reasons. It's rude to be curious and ask questions; but then it's inhuman to be indifferent, as if you didnt care. LINA. I'll tell you with pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life--or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that there had been a fire, and that he could do nothing for the rest of the week. Fortunately I had an invitation from the Aerial League to see this gentleman try to break the passenger record. I appealed to the President of the League to let me save the honor of my family. He arranged it for me. TARLETON. Oh, I must be dreaming. This is stark raving nonsense. LINA. _[quietly]_ You are quite awake, sir. JOHNNY. We cant all be dreaming the same thing, Governor. TARLETON. Of course not, you duffer; but then I'm dreaming you as well as the lady. MRS TARLETON. Dont be silly, John. The lady is only joking, I'm sure. _[To Lina]_ I suppose your luggage is in the aeroplane. PERCIVAL. Luggage was out of the question. If I stay to dinner I'm afraid I cant change unless youll lend me some clothes. MRS TARLETON. Do you mean neither of you? PERCIVAL. I'm afraid so. MRS TARLETON. Oh well, never mind: Hypatia will lend the lady a gown. LINA. Thank you: I'm quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns: they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous; so if you dont mind I shall not change. MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm beginning to think I'm doing a bit of dreaming myself. HYPATIA. _[impatiently]_ Oh, it's all right, mamma. Johnny: look after Mr. Percival. _[To Lina, rising]_ Come with me. _Lina follows her to the inner door. They all rise._ JOHNNY. _[to Percival]_ I'll shew you. PERCIVAL. Thank you. _Lina goes out with Hypatia, and Percival with Johnny._ MRS TARLETON. Well, this is a nice thing to happen! And look at the greenhouse! Itll cost thirty pounds to mend it. People have no right to do such things. And you invited them to dinner too! What sort of woman is that to have in our house when you know that all Hindhead will be calling on us to see that aeroplane? Bunny: come with me and help me to get all the people out of the grounds: I declare they came running as if theyd sprung up out of the earth _[she makes for the inner door]._ TARLETON. No: dont you trouble, Chickabiddy: I'll tackle em. MRS TARLETON. Indeed youll do nothing of the kind: youll stay here quietly with Lord Summerhays. Youd invite them all to dinner. Come, Bunny. _[She goes out, followed by Bentley. Lord Summerhays sits down again]._ TARLETON. Singularly beautiful woman Summerhays. What do you make of her? She must be a princess. Whats this family of warriors and statesmen that risk their lives every day? LORD SUMMERHAYS. They are evidently not warriors and statesmen, or they wouldnt do that. TARLETON. Well, then, who the devil are they? LORD SUMMERHAYS. I think I know. The last time I saw that lady, she did something I should not have thought possible. TARLETON. What was that? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, she walked backwards along a taut wire without a balancing pole and turned a somersault in the middle. I remember that her name was Lina, and that the other name was foreign; though I dont recollect it. TARLETON. Szcz! You couldnt have forgotten that if youd heard it. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I didnt hear it: I only saw it on a program. But it's clear shes an acrobat. It explains how she saved Percival. And it accounts for her family pride. TARLETON. An acrobat, eh? Good, good, good! Summerhays: that brings her within reach. Thats better than a princess. I steeled this evergreen heart of mine when I thought she was a princess. Now I shall let it be touched. She is accessible. Good. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope you are not serious. Remember: you have a family. You have a position. You are not in your first youth. TARLETON. No matter. Theres magic in the night When the heart is young. My heart is young. Besides, I'm a married man, not a widower like you. A married man can do anything he likes if his wife dont mind. A widower cant be too careful. Not that I would have you think me an unprincipled man or a bad husband. I'm not. But Ive a superabundance of vitality. Read Pepys' Diary. LORD SUMMERHAYS. The woman is your guest, Tarleton. TARLETON. Well, is she? A woman I bring into my house is my guest. A woman you bring into my house is my guest. But a woman who drops bang down out of the sky into my greenhouse and smashes every blessed pane of glass in it must take her chance. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Still, you know that my name must not be associated with any scandal. Youll be careful, wont you? TARLETON. Oh Lord, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was only joking, of course. _Mrs Tarleton comes back through the inner door._ MRS TARLETON. Well I never! John: I dont think that young woman's right in her head. Do you know what shes just asked for? TARLETON. Champagne? MRS TARLETON. No. She wants a Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. What? MRS TARLETON. A Bible and six oranges. TARLETON. I understand the oranges: shes doing an orange cure of some sort. But what on earth does she want the Bible for? MRS TARLETON. I'm sure I cant imagine. She cant be right in her head. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Perhaps she wants to read it. MRS TARLETON. But why should she, on a weekday, at all events. What would you advise me to do, Lord Summerhays? LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, is there a Bible in the house? TARLETON. Stacks of em. Theres the family Bible, and the Dore Bible, and the parallel revised version Bible, and the Doves Press Bible, and Johnny's Bible and Bobby's Bible and Patsy's Bible, and the Chickabiddy's Bible and my Bible; and I daresay the servants could raise a few more between them. Let her have the lot. MRS TARLETON. Dont talk like that before Lord Summerhays, John. LORD SUMMERHAYS. It doesnt matter, Mrs Tarleton: in Jinghiskahn it was a punishable offence to expose a Bible for sale. The empire has no religion. _Lina comes in. She has left her cap in Hypatia's room. She stops on the landing just inside the door, and speaks over the handrail._ LINA. Oh, Mrs Tarleton, shall I be making myself very troublesome if I ask for a music-stand in my room as well? TARLETON. Not at all. You can have the piano if you like. Or the gramophone. Have the gramophone. LINA. No, thank you: no music. MRS TARLETON. _[going to the steps]_ Do you think it's good for you to eat so many oranges? Arnt you afraid of getting jaundice? LINA. _[coming down]_ Not in the least. But billiard balls will do quite as well. MRS TARLETON. But you cant eat billiard balls, child! TARLETON. Get em, Chickabiddy. I understand. _[He imitates a juggler tossing up balls]._ Eh? LINA. _[going to him, past his wife]_ Just so. TARLETON. Billiard balls and cues. Plates, knives, and forks. Two paraffin lamps and a hatstand. LINA. No: that is popular low-class business. In our family we touch nothing but classical work. Anybody can do lamps and hatstands. _I_ can do silver bullets. That is really hard. _[She passes on to Lord Summerhays, and looks gravely down at him as he sits by the writing table]._ MRS TARLETON. Well, I'm sure I dont know what youre talking about; and I only hope you know yourselves. However, you shall have what you want, of course. _[She goes up the steps and leaves the room]._ LORD SUMMERHAYS. Will you forgive my curiosity? What is the Bible for? LINA. To quiet my soul. LORD SUMMERHAYS _[with a sigh]_ Ah yes, yes. It no longer quiets mine, I am sorry to say. LINA. That is because you do not know how to read it. Put it up before you on a stand; and open it at the Psalms. When you can read them and understand them, quite quietly and happily, and keep six balls in the air all the time, you are in perfect condition; and youll never make a mistake that evening. If you find you cant do that, then go and pray until you can. And be very careful that evening. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Is that the usual form of test in your profession? LINA. Nothing that we Szczepanowskis do is usual, my lord. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Are you all so wonderful? LINA. It is our profession to be wonderful. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Do you never condescend to do as common people do? For instance, do you not pray as common people pray? LINA. Common people do not pray, my lord: they only beg. LORD SUMMERHAYS. You never ask for anything? LINA. No. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Then why do you pray? LINA. To remind myself that I have a soul. TARLETON. _[walking about]_ True. Fine. Good. Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact. LORD SUMMERHAYS. Have I denied it? TARLETON. Our whole civilization is a denial of it. Read Walt Whitman. LORD SUMMERHAYS. I shall go to the billiard room and get the balls for you. LINA. Thank you. _Lord Summerhays goes out through the vestibule door._ TARLETON. _[going to her]_ Listen to me. _[She turns quickly]._ What you said just now was beautiful. You touch chords. You appeal to the poetry in a man. You inspire him. Come now! Youre a woman of the world: youre independent: you must have driven lots of men crazy. You know the sort of man I am, dont you? See through me at a glance, eh? LINA. Yes. _[She sits down quietly in the chair Lord Summerhays has just left]._ TARLETON. Good. Well, do you like me? Dont misunderstand me: I'm perfectly aware that youre not going to fall in love at first sight with a ridiculous old shopkeeper. I cant help that ridiculous old shopkeeper. I have to carry him about with me whether I like it or not. I have to pay for his clothes, though I hate the cut of them: especially the waistcoat. I have to look at him in the glass while I'm shaving. I loathe him because hes a living lie. My soul's not like that: it's like yours. I want to make a fool of myself. About you. Will you let me? LINA. _[very calm]_ How much will you pay? TARLETON. Nothing. But I'll throw as many sovereigns as you like into the sea to shew you that I'm in earnest. LINA. Are those your usual terms? TARLETON. No. I never made that bid before. LINA. _[producing a dainty little book and preparing to write in it]_ What did you say your name was? TARLETON. John Tarleton. The great John Tarleton of Tarleton's Underwear. LINA. _[writing]_ T-a-r-l-e-t-o-n. Er--? _[She looks up at him inquiringly]._ TARLETON. _[promptly]_ Fifty-eight. LINA. Thank you. I keep a list of all my offers. I like to know what I'm considered worth. TARLETON. Let me look. LINA. _[offering the book to him]_ It's in Polish. TARLETON. Thats no good. Is mine the lowest offer? LINA. No: the highest. TARLETON. What do most of them come to? Diamonds? Motor cars? Furs? Villa at Monte Carlo? LINA. Oh yes: all that. And sometimes the devotion of a lifetime. TARLETON. Fancy that! A young man offering a woman his old age as a temptation! LINA. By the way, you did not say how long. TARLETON. Until you get tired of me. LINA. Or until you get tired of me? TARLETON. I never get tired. I never go on long enough for that. But when it becomes so grand, so inspiring that I feel that everything must be an anti-climax after that, then I run away. LINA. Does she let you go without a struggle? TARLETON. Yes. Glad to get rid of me. When love takes a man as it takes me--when it makes him great--it frightens a woman. LINA. The lady here is your wife, isnt she? Dont you care for her? TARLETON. Yes. And mind! she comes first always. I reserve her dignity even when I sacrifice my own. Youll respect that point of honor, wont you? LINA. Only a point of honor? TARLETON. _[impulsively]_ No, by God! a point of affection as well. LINA. _[smiling, pleased with him]_ Shake hands, old pal _[she rises and offers him her hand frankly]._ TARLETON. _[giving his hand rather dolefully]_ Thanks. That means no, doesnt it? LINA. It means something that will last longer than yes. I like you. I admit you to my friendship. What a pity you were not trained when you were young! Youd be young still. TARLETON. I suppose, to an athlete like you, I'm pretty awful, eh? LINA. Shocking. TARLETON. Too much crumb. Wrinkles. Yellow patches that wont come off. Short wind. I know. I'm ashamed of myself. I could do nothing on the high rope. LINA. Oh yes: I could put you in a wheelbarrow and run you along, two hundred feet up. TARLETON. _[shuddering]_ Ugh! Well, I'd do even that for you. Read The Master Builder. LINA. Have you learnt everything from books? TARLETON. Well, have you learnt everything from the flying trapeze? LINA. On the flying trapeze there is often another woman; and her life is in your hands every night and your life in hers. TARLETON. Lina: I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to cry _[he crumples into the nearest chair]._ LINA. Pray instead: dont cry. Why should you cry? Youre not the first I've said no to. TARLETON. If you had said yes, should I have been the first then? LINA. What right have you to ask? Have I asked am _I_ the first? TARLETON. Youre right: a vulgar question. To a man like me, everybody is the first. Life renews itself. LINA. The youngest child is the sweetest. TARLETON. Dont probe too deep, Lina. It hurts. LINA. You must get out of the habit of thinking that these things matter so much. It's linendraperish. TARLETON. Youre quite right. Ive often said so. All the same, it does matter; for I want to cry. _[He buries his face in his arms on the work-table and sobs]._ LINA. _[going to him]_ O la la! _[She slaps him vigorously, but not unkindly, on the shoulder]._ Courage, old pal, courage! Have you a gymnasium here? TARLETON. Theres a trapeze and bars and things in the billiard room. LINA. Come. You need a few exercises. I'll teach you how to stop crying. _[She takes his arm and leads him off into the vestibule]._ _A young man, cheaply dressed and strange in manner, appears in the garden; steals to the pavilion door; and looks in. Seeing that there is nobody, he enters cautiously until he has come far enough to see into the hatstand corner. He draws a revolver, and examines it, apparently to make sure that it is loaded. Then his attention is caught by the Turkish bath. He looks down the lunette, and opens the panels._ HYPATIA. _[calling in the garden]_ Mr Percival! Mr Percival! Where are you? _The young man makes for the door, but sees Percival coming. He turns and bolts into the Turkish bath, which he closes upon himself just in time to escape being caught by Percival, who runs in through the pavilion, bareheaded. He also, it appears, is in search of a hiding-place; for he stops and turns between the two tables to take a survey of the room; then runs into the corner between the end of the sideboard and the wall. Hypatia, excited, mischievous, her eyes glowing, runs in, precisely on his trail; turns at the same spot; and discovers him just as he makes a dash for the pavilion door. She flies back and intercepts him._ HYPATIA. Aha! arnt you glad Ive caught you? PERCIVAL. _[illhumoredly turning away from her and coming towards the writing table]_ No I'm not. Confound it, what sort of girl are you? What sort of house is this? Must I throw all good manners to the winds? HYPATIA. _[following him]_ Do, do, do, do, do. This is the house of a respectable shopkeeper, enormously rich. This is the respectable shopkeeper's daughter, tired of good manners. _[Slipping her left hand into his right]_ Come, handsome young man, and play with the respectable shopkeeper's daughter. PERCIVAL. _[withdrawing quickly from her touch]_ No, no: dont you know you mustnt go on like this with a perfect stranger? HYPATIA. Dropped down from the sky. Dont you know that you must always go on like this when you get the chance? You must come to the top of the hill and chase me through the bracken. You may kiss me if you catch me. PERCIVAL. I shall do nothing of the sort. HYPATIA. Yes you will: you cant help yourself. Come along. _[She seizes his sleeve]._ Fool, fool: come along. Dont you want to? PERCIVAL. No: certainly not. I should never be forgiven if I did it. HYPATIA. Youll never forgive yourself if you dont. PERCIVAL. Nonsense. Youre engaged to Ben. Ben's my friend. What do you take me for? HYPATIA. Ben's old. Ben was born old. Theyre all old here, except you and me and the man-woman or woman-man or whatever you call her that came with you. They never do anything: they only discuss whether what other people do is right. Come and give them something to discuss. PERCIVAL. I will do nothing incorrect. HYPATIA. Oh, dont be afraid, little boy: youll get nothing but a kiss; and I'll fight like the devil to keep you from getting that. But we must play on the hill and race through the heather. PERCIVAL. Why? HYPATIA. Because we want to, handsome young man. PERCIVAL. But if everybody went on in this way-- HYPATIA. How happy! oh how happy the world would be! PERCIVAL. But the consequences may be serious. HYPATIA. Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. My father says so; and I'm my father's daughter. PERCIVAL. I'm the son of three fathers. I mistrust these wild impulses. HYPATIA. Take care. Youre letting the moment slip. I feel the first chill of the wave of prudence. Save me. PERCIVAL. Really, Miss Tarleton _[she strikes him across the face]_ --Damn you! _[Recovering himself, horrified at his lapse]_ I beg your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._ HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me? PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon. HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton." PERCIVAL. Why should I? HYPATIA. O man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male man! You ought to have been a governess. I was expelled from school for saying that the very next person that said "Really, Miss Tarleton," to me, I would strike her across the face. You were the next. PERCIVAL. I had no intention of being offensive. Surely there is nothing that can wound any lady in--_[He hesitates, not quite convinced]._ At least--er--I really didnt mean to be disagreeable. HYPATIA. Liar. PERCIVAL. Of course if youre going to insult me, I am quite helpless. Youre a woman: you can say what you like. HYPATIA. And you can only say what you dare. Poor wretch: it isnt much. _[He bites his lip, and sits down, very much annoyed]._ Really, Mr Percival! You sit down in the presence of a lady and leave her standing. _[He rises hastily]._ Ha, ha! Really, Mr Percival! Oh really, really, really, really, really, Mr Percival! How do you like it? Wouldnt you rather I damned you? PERCIVAL. Miss Tarleton-- HYPATIA. _[caressingly]_ Hypatia, Joey. Patsy, if you like. PERCIVAL. Look here: this is no good. You want to do what you like? HYPATIA. Dont you? PERCIVAL. No. Ive been too well brought up. Ive argued all through this thing; and I tell you I'm not prepared to cast off the social bond. It's like a corset: it's a support to the figure even if it does squeeze and deform it a bit. I want to be free. HYPATIA. Well, I'm tempting you to be free. PERCIVAL. Not at all. Freedom, my good girl, means being able to count on how other people will behave. If every man who dislikes me is to throw a handful of mud in my face, and every woman who likes me is to behave like Potiphar's wife, then I shall be a slave: the slave of uncertainty: the slave of fear: the worst of all slaveries. How would you like it if every laborer you met in the road were to make love to you? No. Give me the blessed protection of a good stiff conventionality among thoroughly well-brought up ladies and gentlemen. HYPATIA. Another talker! Men like conventions because men made them. I didnt make them: I dont like them: I wont keep them. Now, what will you do? PERCIVAL. Bolt. _[He runs out through the pavilion]._ HYPATIA. I'll catch you. _[She dashes off in pursuit]._ _During this conversation the head of the scandalized man in the Turkish bath has repeatedly risen from the lunette, with a strong expression of moral shock. It vanishes abruptly as the two turn towards it in their flight. At the same moment Tarleton comes back through the vestibule door, exhausted by severe and unaccustomed exercise._ TARLETON. _[looking after the flying figures with amazement]_ Hallo, Patsy: whats up? Another aeroplane? _[They are far too preoccupied to hear him; and he is left staring after them as they rush away through the garden. He goes to the pavilion door and looks up; but the heavens are empty. His exhaustion disables him from further inquiry. He dabs his brow with his handkerchief, and walks stiffly to the nearest convenient support, which happens to be the Turkish bath. He props himself upon it with his elbow, and covers his eyes with his hand for a moment. After a few sighing breaths, he feels a little better, and uncovers his eyes. The man's head rises from the lunette a few inches from his nose. He recoils from the bath with a violent start]._ Oh Lord! My brain's gone. _[Calling piteously]_ Chickabiddy! _[He staggers down to the writing table]._ THE MAN. _[coming out of the bath, pistol in hand]_ Another sound; and youre a dead man. TARLETON. _[braced]_ Am I? Well, youre a live one: thats one comfort. I thought you were a ghost. _[He sits down, quite undisturbed by the pistol]_ Who are you; and what the devil were you doing in my new Turkish bath? THE MAN. _[with tragic intensity]_ I am the son of Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. _[the name conveying nothing to him]_ Indeed? And how is she? Quite well, I hope, eh? THE MAN. She is dead. Dead, my God! and youre alive. TARLETON. _[unimpressed by the tragedy, but sympathetic]_ Oh! Lost your mother? Thats sad. I'm sorry. But we cant all have the luck to survive our mothers, and be nursed out of the world by the hands that nursed us into it. THE MAN. Much you care, damn you! TARLETON. Oh, dont cut up rough. Face it like a man. You see I didnt know your mother; but Ive no doubt she was an excellent woman. THE MAN. Not know her! Do you dare to stand there by her open grave and deny that you knew her? TARLETON. _[trying to recollect]_ What did you say her name was? THE MAN. Lucinda Titmus. TARLETON. Well, I ought to remember a rum name like that if I ever heard it. But I dont. Have you a photograph or anything? THE MAN. Forgotten even the name of your victim! TARLETON. Oh! she was my victim, was she? THE MAN. She was. And you shall see her face again before you die, dead as she is. I have a photograph. TARLETON. Good. THE MAN. Ive two photographs. TARLETON. Still better. Treasure the mother's pictures. Good boy! THE MAN. One of them as you knew her. The other as she became when you flung her aside, and she withered into an old

crunch

How many times the word 'crunch' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

elbows

How many times the word 'elbows' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

ponsonby

How many times the word 'ponsonby' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

slender

How many times the word 'slender' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

eve

How many times the word 'eve' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

fateful

How many times the word 'fateful' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

brunswick

How many times the word 'brunswick' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

keenly

How many times the word 'keenly' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

white

How many times the word 'white' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

expected

How many times the word 'expected' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

scene

How many times the word 'scene' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

father

How many times the word 'father' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

disturbed

How many times the word 'disturbed' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

protested

How many times the word 'protested' appears in the text?

your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

argument

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

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your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as they will die to-morrow. The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar. Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends. And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands, one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their life as they had given a kiss. Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to report for duty. But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers. They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour, and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent, Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their unimpeachable good taste. Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him. "Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that you knew me last." "It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the gruffness of her sally. "The male creature, my dear Mr. Clyffurde," she added, "was intended by God and by nature to be a selfish beast. When he ceases to think of himself, he loses his bearings, flounders in a quagmire of unprofitable heroism which benefits no one, and generally behaves like a fool." "Did I do all that?" asked Clyffurde with a smile. "All of it and more. And look at the muddle you have made of things. Crystal has never got over that miserably aborted engagement of hers to de Marmont, and is no happier now with Maurice de St. Genis than she would have been with . . . well! with anybody else who had had the good sense to woo and win her in a straightforward, proper and selfish masculine way." "Mademoiselle de Cambray, I understand," rejoined Clyffurde stiffly, "is formally affianced now to M. de St. Genis." "She is not formally affianced, as you so pedantically and affectedly put it, my friend," replied Madame with her accustomed acerbity. "But she probably will marry him, if he comes out of this abominable war alive, and if the King of France . . . whom may God protect--comes into his own again. For His Majesty has taken those two young jackanapes under his most gracious protection, and has promised Maurice a lucrative appointment at his court--if he ever has a court again." "Then Mademoiselle de Cambray must be very happy, for which--if I dare say so--I am heartily rejoiced." "So am I," said the Duchesse drily, "but let me at the same time tell you this: I have always known that Englishmen were peculiarly idiotic in certain important matters of life, but I must say that I had no idea idiocy could reach the boundless proportions which it has done in your case. Well!" she added with sudden gentleness, "farewell for the present, mon preux chevalier: it is not too late, remember, to bear in mind certain old axioms both of chivalry and of commonsense--the most obvious of which is that nothing is gained by sitting open-mouthed, whilst some one else gets the largest helpings at supper. And if it is any comfort to you to know that I never believed St. Genis' story of lonely inns, of murderous banditti and whatnots, well then, I give you that information for what you may choose to make of it." And with a final friendly nod and a gentle pressure of her aristocratic hand on his, which warmed and comforted Bobby's sore heart, she turned away from him and was quickly swallowed up by the crowd. IV In spite of rain and blustering wind outside the fine ballroom--as the evening progressed--became unpleasantly hot. Dancing was in full swing and the orchestra had just struck up the first strains of that inspiriting new dance--the latest importation from Vienna--a dreamy waltz of which dowagers strongly disapproved, deeming it licentious, indecent, and certainly ungraceful, but which the young folk delighted in, and persisted in dancing, defying the mammas and all the proprieties. Maurice de St. Genis after the last quadrille had led Crystal away from the ballroom to a small boudoir adjoining it, where the cool air from outside fanned the curtains and hangings and stirred the leaves and petals of a bank of roses that formed a background to a couple of seats--obviously arranged for the convenience of two persons who desired quiet conversation well away from prying eyes and ears. Here Crystal had been sitting with Maurice for the past quarter of an hour, while from the ballroom close by came as in a dream to her the gentle lilt of the waltz, and from behind her, a cluster of sweet-scented crimson roses filled the air with their fragrance. Crystal didn't feel that she wanted to talk, only to sit here quietly with the sound of the music in her ears and the scent of roses in her nostrils. Maurice sat beside her, but he did not hold her hand. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and he talked much and earnestly, the while she listened half absently, like one in a dream. She had often heard, in the olden days in England, her aunt speak of the strange doings of that Doctor Mesmer in Paris who had even involved proud Marie Antoinette in an unpleasant scandal with his weird incantations and wizard-like acts, whereby people--sensible women and men--were sent at his will into a curious torpor, which was neither sleep nor yet wakefulness, and which produced a yet more strange sense of unreality and dreaminess, and visions of things unsubstantial and unearthly. And sitting here surrounded with roses and with that languorous lilt in her ear, Crystal felt as if she too were under the influence of some unseen Mesmer, who had lulled the activity of her brain into a kind of wakeful sleep even while her senses remained keenly, vitally on the alert. She knew, for instance, that Maurice spoke of the coming struggle, the final fight for King and country. He had been enrolled in a Nassau regiment, under the command of the Prince of Orange: he expected to be in the thick of a fight to-morrow. "Bonaparte never waits," Crystal heard him say quite distinctly, "he is always ready to attack. Audacity and a bold use of his artillery were always his most effectual weapons." And he went on to tell her of his own plans, his future, his hopes: he spoke of the possibility of death and of this being a last farewell. Crystal tried to follow him, tried to respond when he spoke of his love for her--a love, the strength of which--he said--she would never be able to gauge. "If it were not for the strength of my love for you, Crystal," he said almost fiercely, "I could not bear to face possible death to-morrow . . . not without telling you . . . not without making reparation for my sin." And still in that curious trance-like sense of aloofness, Crystal murmured vaguely: "Sin, Maurice? What sin do you mean?" But he did not seem to give her a direct reply: he spoke once more only of his love. "Love atones for all sins!" he reiterated once or twice with passionate earnestness. "Even God puts Love above everything on earth. Love is an excuse for everything. Love justifies everything. Such love as I have for you, Crystal, makes everything else--even sin, even cowardice--seem insignificant and meaningless." She agreed with what he said, for indeed she felt too tired to argue the point, or even to get his sophistry into her head. Strangely enough she felt out of tune with him to-night--with him--Maurice--the lover of her girlhood, the man from whom she had parted with such desperate heartache three months ago, in the avenue at Brestalou. Then it had seemed as if the world could never hold any happiness for her again, once Maurice had gone out of her life. Now he had come back into it. Chance and the favour of the King had once more made a future happy union with him possible. She ought to have been supremely happy, yet she was out of tune. His passionate words of love found only a cold response in her heart. For the past three months she had constantly been at war with her own self for this: she hated and despised herself for that numbness of the heart which had so unaccountably taken all the zest and the joy out of her life. Does one love one day and become indifferent the next? What had become of the girlish love that had invested Maurice de St. Genis with the attributes of a hero? What had he done that the pedestal on which her ideality had hoisted him should have proved of such brittle clay? He was still the gallant, high-born, well-bred gentleman whom she had always known; he was on the eve of fighting for his King and country, ready to give his life for the same cause which she loved so ardently; he was even now speaking tender words of love and of farewell. Yet she was out of tune with him. His words of Love almost irritated her, for they dragged her out of that delicious dream-like torpor which momentarily peopled the world for her with gold-headed, white-winged mysterious angels, and filled the air with soft murmurings and sweet sounds, and a divine fragrance that was not of this earth. It must have been that she grew very sleepy--probably the heat weighed her eyelids down--certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame la Duchesse?" Then she realised how she longed for a little rest, for perfect solitude, for perfect freedom to give herself over to the sweet torpor which paralysed her brain and limbs--tired, sleepy, or under the subtle influence of some mysterious agency--she did not know which she was; but she did know that she would have given everything she could at this moment for a few minutes' complete solitude. So she contrived to smile and to look up almost gaily into Maurice's anxious face: "I think really, Maurice," she said, "I am just a little bit sleepy. If I could remain alone for five minutes, I would go honestly to sleep and not be ashamed of myself. Could you . . . could you just leave me for five or ten minutes? . . . and . . . and, Maurice, will you draw that screen a little nearer? . . ." she added, affecting a little yawn; "nobody can see me then . . . and really, really I shall be all right . . . if I could have a few minutes' quiet sleep." "You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now--where she sat--no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed. "I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed." She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "You are kind, Maurice," she murmured. She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer. "You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her. "No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten." The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music. V Like elfin music--tender, fitful, dreamy!--an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland--all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek. Like elfin music!--sweet strains of infinite sadness--the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality! Like elfin music--or like the voice of a human being in pain--the note of sadness became the only real note now! What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her--just behind the bank of roses--and of a voice--low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion--that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra. It almost seemed to her--when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind--that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along--all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude. Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security--almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions. And presently she heard her name--whispered low and with a note of tender appeal. Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered--this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured: "Who calls?" "An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you." "Who is it?" she reiterated. "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand." "What would you like to hear?" "One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony." "How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?" "How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul." "How could I guess?" "By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did." "I hated you because I thought you a traitor." "Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ." "By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence. "By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes--by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening--I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you." The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth--the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God--the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth. The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt. "Will you dance with me, Crystal?" "No! no!" she protested. "Just once--to-night. To-morrow we fight--let us dance to-night." And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that--as like as not--Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice--to whom she had plighted her troth--had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform--many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . . And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she--Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night--how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom? Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own. She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together. VI But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz--inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric--sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being. She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance. The last dance together! A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load. Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once--to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more--to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush. To-morrow a bullet--a bayonet--a sword-thrust--but to-night a last dance together. Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable. Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth--left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever. But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek. She was not very tall and her head--had she chosen--could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again. Then he spoke to her--and finally asked for the dance. And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care--nor did she--that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his--for she had given up her will to him. The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart--and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room--rose-scented--helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love. But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his--not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love--the man by whom he--poor Bobby!--had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned--she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity. In this, their last dance together! VII Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the

came

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youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

ashamed

How many times the word 'ashamed' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

lived

How many times the word 'lived' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

templars

How many times the word 'templars' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

cautious

How many times the word 'cautious' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

tree

How many times the word 'tree' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

refuge

How many times the word 'refuge' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

suffering

How many times the word 'suffering' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

predecessors

How many times the word 'predecessors' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

say

How many times the word 'say' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

controls

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youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

year

How many times the word 'year' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

antecedent

How many times the word 'antecedent' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

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How many times the word 'mixer' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

between

How many times the word 'between' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

bases

How many times the word 'bases' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

restored

How many times the word 'restored' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

being

How many times the word 'being' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

retain

How many times the word 'retain' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

am

How many times the word 'am' appears in the text?

youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was next to do. Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens, ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description, all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant matter in some shape accommodated. Meanwhile, as Nigel walked hastily forward towards the place of sanctuary, he bitterly blamed himself for suffering Lord Dalgarno to lead him into the haunts of dissipation; and no less accused his intemperate heat of passion, which now had driven him for refuge into the purlieus of profane and avowed vice and debauchery. Dalgarno spoke but too truly in that, were his bitter reflections; I have made myself an evil reputation by acting on his insidious counsels, and neglecting the wholesome admonitions which ought to have claimed implicit obedience from me, and which recommended abstinence even from the slightest approach of evil. But if I escape from the perilous labyrinth in which folly and inexperience, as well as violent passions, have involved me, I will find some noble way of redeeming the lustre of a name which was never sullied until I bore it. As Lord Glenvarloch formed these prudent resolutions, he entered the Temple Walks, whence a gate at that time opened into Whitefriars, by which, as by the more private passage, he proposed to betake himself to the sanctuary. As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs reminded him of the _facilis_ descensus Averni, and rendered him doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which could befall him in the public haunts of honourable men, than to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed vice and profligacy. As Nigel hesitated, a young gentleman of the Temple advanced towards him, whom he had often seen, and sometimes conversed with, at the ordinary, where he was a frequent and welcome guest, being a wild young gallant, indifferently well provided with money, who spent at the theatres and other gay places of public resort, the time which his father supposed he was employing in the study of the law. But Reginald Lowestoffe, such was the young Templar's name, was of opinion that little law was necessary to enable him to spend the revenues of the paternal acres which were to devolve upon him at his father's demose, and therefore gave himself no trouble to acquire more of that science than might be imbibed along with the learned air of the region in which he had his chambers. In other respects, he was one of the wits of the place, read Ovid and Martial, aimed at quick repartee and pun, (often very far fetched,) danced, fenced, played at tennis, and performed sundry tunes on the fiddle and French horn, to the great annoyance of old Counsellor Barratter, who lived in the chambers immediately below him. Such was Reginald Lowes-toffe, shrewd, alert, and well-acquainted with the town through all its recesses, but in a sort of disrespectable way. This gallant, now approaching the Lord Glenvarloch, saluted him by name and title, and asked if his lordship designed for the Chevalier's this day, observing it was near noon, and the woodcock would be on the board before they could reach the ordinary. I do not go there to-day, answered Lord Glenvarloch. Which way, then, my lord? said the young Templar, who was perhaps not undesirous to parade a part at least of the street in company with a lord, though but a Scottish one. I--I-- said Nigel, desiring to avail himself of this young man's local knowledge, yet unwilling and ashamed to acknowledge his intention to take refuge in so disreputable a quarter, or to describe the situation in which he stood-- I have some curiosity to see Whitefriars. What! your lordship is for a frolic into Alsatia? said Lowestoffe- -Have with you, my lord--you cannot have a better guide to the infernal regions than myself. I promise you there are bona-robas to be found there--good wine too, ay, and good fellows to drink it with, though somewhat suffering under the frowns of Fortune. But your lordship will pardon me--you are the last of our acquaintance to whom I would have proposed such a voyage of discovery. I am obliged to you, Master Lowestoffe, for the good opinion you have expressed in the observation, said Lord Glenvarloch; but my present circumstances may render even a residence of a day or two in the sanctuary a matter of necessity. Indeed! said Lowestoffe, in a tone of great surprise; I thought your lordship had always taken care not to risk any considerable stake--I beg pardon, but if the bones have proved perfidious, I know just so much law as that a peer's person is sacred from arrest; and for mere impecuniosity, my lord, better shift can be made elsewhere than in Whitefriars, where all are devouring each other for very poverty. My misfortune has no connexion with want of money, said Nigel. Why, then, I suppose, said Lowestoffe, you have been tilting, my lord, and have pinked your man; in which case, and with a purse reasonably furnished, you may lie perdu in Whitefriars for a twelvemonth--Marry, but you must be entered and received as a member of their worshipful society, my lord, and a frank burgher of Alsatia--so far you must condescend; there will be neither peace nor safety for you else. My fault is not in a degree so deadly, Master Lowestoffe, answered Lord Glenvarloch, as you seem to conjecture--I have stricken a gentleman in the Park, that is all. By my hand, my lord, and you had better have struck your sword through him at Barns Elms, said the Templar. Strike within the verge of the Court! You will find that a weighty dependence upon your hands, especially if your party be of rank and have favour. I will be plain with you, Master Lowestoffe, said Nigel, since I have gone thus far. The person I struck was Lord Dalgarno, whom you have seen at Beaujeu's. A follower and favourite of the Duke of Buckingham!--It is a most unhappy chance, my lord; but my heart was formed in England, and cannot bear to see a young nobleman borne down, as you are like to be. We converse here greatly too open for your circumstances. The Templars would suffer no bailiff to execute a writ, and no gentleman to be arrested for a duel, within their precincts; but in such a matter between Lord Dalgarno and your lordship, there might be a party on either side. You must away with me instantly to my poor chambers here, hard by, and undergo some little change of dress, ere you take sanctuary; for else you will have the whole rascal rout of the Friars about you, like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery. We must have you arrayed something more like the natives of Alsatia, or there will be no life there for you. While Lowestoffe spoke, he pulled Lord Glenvarloch along with him into his chambers, where he had a handsome library, filled with all the poems and play-books which were then in fashion. The Templar then dispatched a boy, who waited upon him, to procure a dish or two from the next cook's shop; and this, he said, must be your lordship's dinner, with a glass of old sack, of which my grandmother (the heavens requite her!) sent me a dozen bottles, with charge to use the liquor only with clarified whey, when I felt my breast ache with over study. Marry, we will drink the good lady's health in it, if it is your lordship's pleasure, and you shall see how we poor students eke out our mutton-commons in the hall. The outward door of the chambers was barred so soon as the boy had re-entered with the food; the boy was ordered to keep close watch, and admit no one; and Lowestoffe, by example and precept, pressed his noble guest to partake of his hospitality. His frank and forward manners, though much differing from the courtly ease of Lord Dalgarno, were calculated to make a favourable impression; and Lord Glenvarloch, though his experience of Dalgarno's perfidy had taught him to be cautious of reposing faith in friendly professions, could not avoid testifying his gratitude to the young Templar, who seemed so anxious for his safety and accommodation. You may spare your gratitude any great sense of obligation, my lord, said the Templar. No doubt I am willing to be of use to any gentleman that has cause to sing _Fortune my foe_, and particularly proud to serve your lordship's turn; but I have also an old grudge, to speak Heaven's truth, at your opposite, Lord Dalgarno. May I ask on what account, Master Lowestoffe? said Lord Glenvarloch. O, my lord, replied the Templar, it was for a hap that chanced after you left the ordinary, one evening about three weeks since--at least I think you were not by, as your lordship always left us before deep play began--I mean no offence, but such was your lordship's custom--when there were words between Lord Dalgarno and me concerning a certain game at gleek, and a certain mournival of aces held by his lordship, which went for eight--tib, which went for fifteen--twenty-three in all. Now I held king and queen, being three--a natural towser, making fifteen--and tiddy, nineteen. We vied the ruff, and revied, as your lordship may suppose, till the stake was equal to half my yearly exhibition, fifty as fair yellow canary birds as e'er chirped in the bottom of a green silk purse. Well, my lord, I gained the cards, and lo you! it pleases his lordship to say that we played without tiddy; and as the rest stood by and backed him, and especially the sharking Frenchman, why, I was obliged to lose more than I shall gain all the season.--So judge if I have not a crow to pluck with his lordship. Was it ever heard there was a game at gleek at the ordinary before, without counting tiddy?--marry quep upon his lordship!--Every man who comes there with his purse in his hand, is as free to make new laws as he, I hope, since touch pot touch penny makes every man equal. As Master Lowestoffe ran over this jargon of the gaming-table, Lord Glenvarloch was both ashamed and mortified, and felt a severe pang of aristocratic pride, when he concluded in the sweeping clause that the dice, like the grave, levelled those distinguishing points of society, to which Nigel's early prejudices clung perhaps but too fondly. It was impossible, however, to object any thing to the learned reasoning of the young Templar, and therefore Nigel was contented to turn the conversation, by making some inquiries respecting the present state of White-friars. There also his host was at home. You know, my lord, said Master Lowestoffe, that we Templars are a power and a dominion within ourselves, and I am proud to say that I hold some rank in our republic--was treasurer to the Lord of Misrule last year, and am at this present moment in nomination for that dignity myself. In such circumstances, we are under the necessity of maintaining an amicable intercourse with our neighbours of Alsatia, even as the Christian States find themselves often, in mere policy, obliged to make alliance with the Grand Turk, or the Barbary States. I should have imagined you gentlemen of the Temple more independent of your neighbours, said Lord Glenvarloch. You do us something too much honour, my lord, said the Templar; the Alsatians and we have some common enemies, and we have, under the rose, some common friends. We are in the use of blocking all bailiffs out of our bounds, and we are powerfully aided by our neighbours, who tolerate not a rag belonging to them within theirs. Moreover the Alsatians have--I beg you to understand me--the power of protecting or distressing our friends, male or female, who may be obliged to seek sanctuary within their bounds. In short, the two communities serve each other, though the league is between states of unequal quality, and I may myself say, that I have treated of sundry weighty affairs, and have been a negotiator well approved on both sides.--But hark--hark--what is that? The sound by which Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. There is something doing, said Lowestoffe, in the Whitefriars at this moment. That is the signal when their privileges are invaded by tipstaff or bailiff; and at the blast of the horn they all swarm out to the rescue, as bees when their hive is disturbed.--Jump, Jim, he said, calling out to the attendant, and see what they are doing in Alsatia.--That bastard of a boy, he continued, as the lad, accustomed to the precipitate haste of his master, tumbled rather than ran out of the apartment, and so down stairs, is worth gold in this quarter--he serves six masters--four of them in distinct Numbers, and you would think him present like a fairy at the mere wish of him that for the time most needs his attendance. No scout in Oxford, no gip in Cambridge, ever matched him in speed and intelligence. He knows the step of a dun from that of a client, when it reaches the very bottom of the staircase; can tell the trip of a pretty wench from the step of a bencher, when at the upper end of the court; and is, take him all in all--But I see your lordship is anxious--May I press another cup of my kind grandmother's cordial, or will you allow me to show you my wardrobe, and act as your valet or groom of the chamber? Lord Glenvarloch hesitated not to acknowledge that he was painfully sensible of his present situation, and anxious to do what must needs be done for his extrication. The good-natured and thoughtless young Templar readily acquiesced, and led the way into his little bedroom, where, from bandboxes, portmanteaus, mail-trunks, not forgetting an old walnut-tree wardrobe, he began to select the articles which he thought best suited effectually to disguise his guest in venturing into the lawless and turbulent society of Alsatia. CHAPTER XVII Come hither, young one,--Mark me! Thou art now 'Mongst men o' the sword, that live by reputation More than by constant income--Single-suited They are, I grant you; yet each single suit Maintains, on the rough guess, a thousand followers-- And they be men, who, hazarding their all, Needful apparel, necessary income, And human body, and immortal soul, Do in the very deed but hazard nothing-- So strictly is that ALL bound in reversion; Clothes to the broker, income to the usurer, And body to disease, and soul to the foul fiend; Who laughs to see Soldadoes and Fooladoes, Play better than himself his game on earth. _The Mohocks._ Your lordship, said Reginald Lowestoffe, must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in _cuerpo_; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and--I grieve to speak it--a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to change your suit for an instant, till I can help to truss you. Lowestoffe retired, while slowly, and with hesitation, Nigel obeyed his instructions. He felt displeasure and disgust at the scoundrelly disguise which he was under the necessity of assuming; but when he considered the bloody consequences which law attached to his rash act of violence, the easy and indifferent temper of James, the prejudices of his son, the overbearing influence of the Duke of Buckingham, which was sure to be thrown into the scale against him; and, above all, when he reflected that he must now look upon the active, assiduous, and insinuating Lord Dalgarno, as a bitter enemy, reason told him he was in a situation of peril which authorised all honest means, even the most unseemly in outward appearance, to extricate himself from so dangerous a predicament. While he was changing his dress, and musing on these particulars, his friendly host re-entered the sleeping apartment-- Zounds! he said, my lord, it was well you went not straight into that same Alsatia of ours at the time you proposed, for the hawks have stooped upon it. Here is Jem come back with tidings, that he saw a pursuivant there with a privy-council warrant, and half a score of yeomen assistants, armed to the teeth, and the horn which we heard was sounded to call out the posse of the Friars. Indeed, when old Duke Hildebrod saw that the quest was after some one of whom he knew nothing, he permitted, out of courtesy, the man-catcher to search through his dominions, quite certain that they would take little by their motions; for Duke Hildebrod is a most judicious potentate.--Go back, you bastard, and bring us word when all is quiet. And who may Duke Hildebrod be? said Lord Glenvarloch. Nouns! my lord, said the Templar, have you lived so long on the town, and never heard of the valiant, and as wise and politic as valiant, Duke Hildebrod, grand protector of the liberties of Alsatia? I thought the man had never whirled a die but was familiar with his fame. Yet I have never heard of him, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch; or, what is the same thing, I have paid no attention to aught that may have passed in conversation respecting him. Why, then, said Lowestoffe-- but, first, let me have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears too accurately trussed--so. Arrange it as you will, sir, said Nigel; but let me hear at least something of the conditions of the unhappy district into which, with other wretches, I am compelled to retreat. Why, my lord, replied the Templar, our neighbouring state of Alsatia, which the law calls the Sanctuary of White-friars, has had its mutations and revolutions like greater kingdoms; and, being in some sort a lawless, arbitrary government, it follows, of course, that these have been more frequent than our own better regulated commonwealth of the Templars, that of Gray's Inn, and other similar associations, have had the fortune to witness. Our traditions and records speak of twenty revolutions within the last twelve years, in which the aforesaid state has repeatedly changed from absolute despotism to republicanism, not forgetting the intermediate stages of oligarchy, limited monarchy, and even gynocracy; for I myself remember Alsatia governed for nearly nine months by an old fish-woman. 'I hen it fell under the dominion of a broken attorney, who was dethroned by a reformado captain, who, proving tyrannical, was deposed by a hedgeparson, who was succeeded, upon resignation of his power, by Duke Jacob Hildebrod, of that name the first, whom Heaven long preserve. And is this potentate's government, said Lord Glenvarloch, forcing himself to take some interest in the conversation, of a despotic character? Pardon me, my lord, said the Templar; this said sovereign is too wise to incur, like many of his predecessors, the odium of wielding so important an authority by his own sole will. He has established a council of state, who regularly meet for their morning's draught at seven o'clock; convene a second time at eleven for their _ante-meridiem_, or whet; and, assembling in solemn conclave at the hour of two afternoon, for the purpose of consulting for the good of the commonwealth, are so prodigal of their labour in the service of the state, that they seldom separate before midnight. Into this worthy senate, composed partly of Duke Hildebrod's predecessors in his high office, whom he has associated with him to prevent the envy attending sovereign and sole authority, I must presently introduce your lordship, that they may admit you to the immunities of the Friars, and assign you a place of residence. Does their authority extend to such regulation? said Lord Glenvarloch. The council account it a main point of their privileges, my lord, answered Lowestoffe; and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent becomes as tractable as a lamb. As for the poorer refugees, they let them shift as they can; but the registration of their names in the Duke's entry-book, and the payment of garnish conforming to their circumstances, is never dispensed with; and the Friars would be a very unsafe residence for the stranger who should dispute these points of jurisdiction. Well, Master Lowestoffe, said Lord Glenvarloch, I must be controlled by the circumstances which dictate to me this state of concealment--of course, I am desirous not to betray my name and rank. It will be highly advisable, my lord, said Lowestoffe; and is a case thus provided for in the statutes of the republic, or monarchy, or whatsoever you call it.--He who desires that no questions shall be asked him concerning his name, cause of refuge, and the like, may escape the usual interrogations upon payment of double the garnish otherwise belonging to his condition. Complying with this essential stipulation, your lordship may register yourself as King of Bantam if you will, for not a question will be asked of you.--But here comes our scout, with news of peace and tranquillity. Now, I will go with your lordship myself, and present you to the council of Alsatia, with all the influence which I have over them as an office-bearer in the Temple, which is not slight; for they have come halting off upon all occasions when we have taken part against them, and that they well know. The time is propitious, for as the council is now met in Alsatia, so the Temple walks are quiet. Now, my lord, throw your cloak about you, to hide your present exterior. You shall give it to the boy at the foot of the stairs that go down to the Sanctuary; and as the ballad says that Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross and rose at Queenhithe, so you shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars. They went out accordingly, attended by the little scout, traversed the gardens, descended the stairs, and at the bottom the young Templar exclaimed,-- And now let us sing, with Ovid, 'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas--' Off, off, ye lendings! he continued, in the same vein. Via, the curtain that shadowed Borgia!--But how now, my lord? he continued, when he observed Lord Glenvarloch was really distressed at the degrading change in his situation, I trust you are not offended at my rattling folly? I would but reconcile you to your present circumstances, and give you the tone of this strange place. Come, cheer up; I trust it will only be your residence for a very few days. Nigel was only able to press his hand, and reply in a whisper, I am sensible of your kindness. I know I must drink the cup which my own folly has filled for me. Pardon me, that, at the first taste, I feel its bitterness. Reginald Lowestoffe was bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar--but on his companion it produced a deep sensation. The ancient Sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied, crowded closely on each other, for, in a place so rarely privileged, every foot of ground was valuable; but, erected in many cases by persons whose funds were inadequate to their speculations, the houses were generally insufficient, and exhibited the lamentable signs of having become ruinous while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter, that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and, that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinselled and painted females, looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers. _Semi-reducta Venus_, said the Templar, pointing to one of these nymphs, who seemed afraid of observation, and partly concealed herself behind the casement, as she chirped to a miserable blackbird, the tenant of a wicker prison, which hung outside on the black brick wall.-- I know the face of yonder waistcoateer, continued the guide; and I could wager a rose-noble, from the posture she stands in, that she has clean head-gear and a soiled night-rail.--But here come two of the male inhabitants, smoking like moving volcanoes! These are roaring blades, whom Nicotia and Trinidado serve, I dare swear, in lieu of beef and pudding; for be it known to you, my lord, that the king's counter-blast against the Indian weed will no more pass current in Alsatia than will his writ of _capias_. As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character. Tour out, said the one ruffian to the other; tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove! [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!] I smell a spy, replied the other, looking at Nigel. Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery. [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.] Bing avast, bing avast! replied his companion; yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple--I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province. So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting. _Grasso in aere_! said the Templar. You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.--And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod. I will be called Grahame, said Nigel; it was my mother's name. Grime, repeated the Templar, will suit Alsatia well enough--both a grim and grimy place of refuge. I said Grahame, sir, not Grime, said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on

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