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Jill the Reckless/Chapter 20

I
It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts. Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant and vivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being very high, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when she went on to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third, were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.

Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try, left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he seized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly up Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi. Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable interest, but she would not marry him.

One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him, and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the future—five years almost to a day from that evening—and seen himself walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis' sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except that he rather disliked her and suspected her—correctly—of laughing at him, amounted to just nil in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically though he was in favour of it five years later.

However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, who had been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got over it.

The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris, with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs, and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own—and that meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment of form.

Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."

Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into the passage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. It came as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr. Pilkington anything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill would accept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and all that, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.

"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris agitated.

"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."

"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him with you."

"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he met on the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with them afterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."

"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here to-night?"

"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from these people. Ought to be here any moment now."

Uncle Chris plucked at his moustache gloomily. Freddie's detachment depressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater sense of the importance of the issue.

"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box. "Have to be getting back. See you later."

He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs. As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, and Mrs. Peagrim came out.

"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious hostess. "I couldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for you everywhere."

Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.

"May I have the pleasure...?" he began, then broke off as he saw the man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!" He grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had no notion that you had arrived!"

"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs. Peagrim.

"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised at the warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.

"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But, as I was saying, Mrs. Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"

"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs. Peagrim surprisingly. "I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't you take Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"

"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. As Mrs. Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this passage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Well, well, well! It's delightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately. Every time he had met Mrs. Peagrim that evening he had quailed inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent the re-union of Derek and Jill: and now that the other was actually here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His spirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"

"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill.... Does she.... I mean...."

Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion's coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.

"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right.... Ah, there she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!"

II
Since the hurried departure of Mr. Pilkington, Jill had been sitting in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the couples dancing on the stage. She found herself drifting into a mood of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was happy—quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read Mr. Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen out just as she had expected. Mr. Pilkington had said his say and departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget that the incident had ever happened.

And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently contented. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra. It puzzled Jill.

And then, quite suddenly, yet with no abruptness or sense of discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along, the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid, comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like fine weather or music or a sea-breeze—or like that friendly, soothing night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road that led to the gates of the city of dreams.

Suppose there were no Wally...?

Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense and alert, to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?... And why should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that there would never be another girl.... But there were thousands of other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination, leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.

Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek. And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek, and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and clearly and her heart was not aching.

She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand. She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.

She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire. She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the sunlight.

She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisle towards her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim light, Jill saw that it was Derek.

"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"

And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.

"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of him. "Whatever are you doing here?"

Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved, yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her manner which he would have been glad to find there.

"Jill!" he said huskily.

It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind this situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain, straight issue of the strong man humbling himself—not too much of course, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the low voice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he had spoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start—or would have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on a note of absurd cheeriness? Derek found himself resenting her cheeriness. Often as he had attempted during the voyage from England to visualize to himself this first meeting, he had never pictured Jill smiling brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her look extremely pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had been half relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted. He searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came to the conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was too friendly. Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what should have been a tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem to Derek fitting.

"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over on business?"

A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake on the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavy weight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to a higher plane.

"I came to find you!" he said; still huskily but not so huskily as before. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened a little by a touch of irritation.

"Yes?" said Jill.

Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did not know, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstances was almost as bad as "Really?"

There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank and unembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Had she looked at him coldly, he could have understood and even appreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had braced himself to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whether he was playing the rôle of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but in either character he might have anticipated a little temporary coldness, which it would have been his easy task to melt. But he had never expected to be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum, and that was how he was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him—she was inspecting him, examining him, and he chafed under the process.

Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued to gaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changed from the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsome as ever—handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes of the Atlantic had given him an exceedingly becoming coat of tan. And yet he must have changed, for now she could look upon him quite dispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was like seeing a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except the one thing that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like.... She suddenly remembered a scene in the dressing-room when the company had been in Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of the sunburst which her friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately, in a spirit of girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to be priced, and the jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it a paste imitation. Jill recalled how the stricken girl—previous to calling Izzy on the long distance and telling him a number of things which, while probably not news to him, must have been painful hearing—had passed the vile object round the dressing-room for inspection. The imitation was perfect. It had been impossible for the girls to tell that the stones were not real diamonds. Yet the jeweller, with his sixth sense, had seen through them in a trifle under ten seconds. Jill came to the conclusion that her newly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped her with a sixth sense, and that by its aid she was really for the first time seeing Derek as he was.

Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts. All he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she had always done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him. Not for the first, the second, or the third time since they had come into each other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of the appeal which Jill had for him when they were together, as contrasted with its weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt to establish the scene on a loftier plane.

"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"

He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.

"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was, anything to forgive."

"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These were the lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was a brute! A cad!"

"Oh, no!"

"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"

Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothing could have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he would say that sooner or later.

"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and had attributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it was before."

Jill turned.

"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."

"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse. He liked himself in the character of the strong man abashed. "It would be too much to expect, I know. But, when we are married...."

"Do you really want to marry me?"

"Jill!"

"I wonder!"

"How can you doubt it?"

Jill looked at him.

"Have you thought what it would mean?"

"What it would mean?"

"Well, your mother...."

"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.

"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying me before, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven't a penny in the world and am just in the chorus...."

A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.

"In the chorus!"

"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."

"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guest of Mrs. Peagrim's."

"So I am—like all the rest of the company."

"But.... But...."

"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult," said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean, you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married a chorus-girl...."

"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.

Jill opened her eyes.

"Nobody would know!" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never met our Press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl in the company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament and expected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him! The news would be on the front page of all the papers the very next day—columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about it in the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And then it would be cabled to England and would appear in the papers there.... You see, you're a very important person, Derek."

Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky. Though he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased, but this was different.

Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy to read what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say, how he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had no illusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibility of chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.

"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.

And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.

"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."

As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes back to life, Derek revived—slowly as the meaning of her words sank into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.

"What?" he cried.

"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."

Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.

"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.

Jill laughed.

"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."

"Leading me on...!"

Jill patted him on the arm.

"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't it!"

"Fun!"

"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."

"I won't dance!"

Jill got up.

"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye, Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after all this time. You haven't altered a bit!"

Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little ladder on to the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it empty. He uttered a mirthless, laugh. The thing seemed to him symbolic.

III
Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and a beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until the latter spoke.

"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"

Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.

"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes? Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence, finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say, Derek, old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll never guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of the scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I mean—engaged to be married!"

"Ugh!" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.

"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a little wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he would have welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it myself."

Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.

"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"

"Not yet, but you will soon. She's a girl in the company—in the chorus as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute corker. I'll go further—a topper. You'll like her, old man."

Derek was looking at him, amazed.

"Good Heavens!" he said.

"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but the idea of getting engaged—I don't know—sort of thing that doesn't occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, we had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never struck me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up for life with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so forth. All very jolly and what not. And then this evening—I don't know. I had a bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she was most dashed sweet and patient and soothing and—and—well, and what not, don't you know, and suddenly—deuced rummy sensation—the jolly old scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old eyes; I don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look myself squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top, how do we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove, thinking it over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no notion how dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had this hump, you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling that life was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she bucked me up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her and all that sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so forth, and she's got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody about, and the long and the short of it was, old boy, that I said, 'Let's get married!' and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you see what I mean. The scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and get a licence, which it appears you have to have if you want to bring this sort of binge off with any success and vim, and then what ho for the padre! Looking at it from every angle, a bit of a good egg, what? Happiest man in the world, and all that sort of thing."

At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It had occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of monopolising the conversation.

"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you? Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"

"Yes," said Derek shortly.

"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it, what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make a reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half price!"

Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere this the fact that his demeanour was not that of a happy and successful wooer.

"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.

A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now, in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it seemed even more incredible.

"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"

It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had phrased his question differently; but the brutal directness of the query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be utterly beyond his powers.

"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was in the chorus of this damned piece?"

Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and for years—to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of his life—he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed to be trying to convey; for, if he was, well ... by Jove ... it was too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the fellow was simply....

"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because she's in the chorus?"

Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the rôle of exuberant fiancé. It offended his pride to have to make explanations to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not a bad fellow in his way but in every essential respect negligible.

"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would mean.... Paragraphs in all the papers.... photographs ... the news cabled to England ... everybody reading it and misunderstanding.... I've got my career to think of.... It would cripple me...."

His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt. For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as he was.

"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what? Well, I've always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked up to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great Scott! if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not! I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike you I am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly right. A tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good old Ronny told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a lot of time trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap at all. It's no good standing there looking like your mother," said Freddie firmly. "This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If we ever meet again, I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a reputation to keep up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"

Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance as interpreted by Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.

"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably, attaching himself to the other's arm, "what...?"

He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the Underhills had had a bad evening.

Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.

"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.

"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his rotten mind! It's off!"

"Off?"

"Absolutely off!"

"Absolutely off?"

"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his blasted career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."

"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is ridiculous.... Surely, if I were to speak a word...."

"You can if you like. I wouldn't speak to the man again if you paid me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"

Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.

"Then you mean...?"

"It's off!" said Freddie.

For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk, he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled at his moustache jauntily.

"Morituri te salutant!" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."

He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.

"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.

"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.

"What do you mean?"

"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs. Peagrim!"

"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but the other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear into the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.

"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."

"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs. Peagrim."

"With Mrs. Peagrim?"

"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.

Jill stared.

"Proposing to Mrs. Peagrim? What do you mean?"

Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.

IV
In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore ... but that had nothing to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs. Peagrim. The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms beneath the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he had forgotten, though he remembered that she had worn a dress of some pink stuff, was immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush Mrs. Peagrim in his arms? Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet. He contented himself for the moment with bending an intense gaze upon her and asking if she was tired.

"A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."

Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped him to face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignity when she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostess resembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lions which he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to a vaudeville house.

"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficult tenderness.

"I am so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs. Peagrim. Recovering some of her breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-winded archness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."

"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"

"You know you are!"

Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.

"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He felt that he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it has ever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemed to remember reading something like that in an advertisement in a magazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "I wonder if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again, "that any sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotion which.... Have you never suspected that you have never suspected...." Uncle Chris began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a man of fluent speech, he was not at his best to-night. He was just about to try again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in it sent him cowering back into the silence as if he were taking cover from an enemy's shrapnel.

Mrs. Peagrim touched him on the arm.

"You were saying...?" she murmured encouragingly.

Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into the velvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a raw lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets. He seemed to hear the damned things whop-whopping now ... and almost wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just now would be a welcome diversion.

"Yes?" said Mrs. Peagrim.—

"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel, I might have felt ... that is to say might be feeling a feeling...?"

There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris started violently. Jill came in.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak...."

"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up. "Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse me for a moment?"

Mrs. Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She had no notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at this particular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped out into the passage like a young lamb.

"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.

"In time?"

"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not to propose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"

Uncle Chris shook his head.

"The die is cast!"

"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless...." She stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"

"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But...."

"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was very sweet of you, but you mustn't."

"But, Jill, you don't understand."

"I do understand."

"I have a motive...."

"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself about me, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."

A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.

"Then Underhill...?"

"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him, but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissed him. "Now you can go back."

Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.

"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a ... this is a great relief."

"I knew it would be."

"If you are really going to marry a rich man...."

"I didn't say he was rich."

The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.

"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I...."

"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What's money?"

"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is ... is ... well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if you think you will really have enough...?"

"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs. Peagrim will be wondering what has become of you."

"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.

"Of course. You must be polite."

"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult to continue the conversation on what you might call general lines. However!"

Back in the box, Mrs. Peagrim was fanning herself with manifest impatience.

"What did that girl want?" she demanded.

Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed, and he was himself again.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able to dispose of in a few words."

Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point restrained her. She bent towards him.

"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."

Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.

"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the dickens with the system."

Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed, and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the conversation.

"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not do better than to begin again at that point. The remark had produced good results before and it might do so a second time.

"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen something of all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later, unless—unless," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps. Unless one acts in time. I had a friend—" His voice sank—"I had a very dear friend over in London, Lady Alice—but the name would convey nothing—the point is that she was in exactly the same position as you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable. She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia...." Uncle Chris sighed. "All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at that time," he resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino then...." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life. It would have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing, there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red corpuscles of the blood...."

Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.

"Major Selby!"

"Mrs. Peagrim?"

"I am not interested in patent medicines!"

"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully. "It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty—or large—size, and the...."

Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.

"Major Selby, I am tired...."

"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino...."

"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see if you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."

"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly, certainly."

He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he passed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain. They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the 'nineties.

title: Jill the Reckless/Chapter 20


text:
Author:Leonora Blanche Lang

Works

 * Men, Women And Minxes (1912)
 * Dissolving views
 * Dissolving Views (1901)

Collaborations

 * The life and work of Sir Frederick Leighton, bart (coauthor)
 * Poetical works (coauthor)

Translations

 * History of Russia (1898) as translator

as Mrs. Lang, translations in "coloured fairy books" edited by Andrew Lang

'Coloured' fairy books

 * The Blue Fairy Book (1889)
 * The Red Fairy Book (1890)
 * The Green Fairy Book (1892)
 * The Yellow Fairy Book (1894)
 * The Pink Fairy Book (1897)
 * The Grey Fairy Book (1900)
 * The Violet Fairy Book (1901)
 * The Crimson Fairy Book (1903)
 * The Brown Fairy Book (1904)
 * The Orange Fairy Book (1906)
 * The Olive Fairy Book (1907)
 * The Lilac Fairy Book (1910)

Other 'coloured' books

 * The True Story Book (1893)
 * The Red True Story Book (1895)
 * The Animal Story Book (1896)
 * The Red Book of Animal Stories 1899
 * The book of romance 1902
 * The Red Book of Heroes
 * The book of saints and heroes

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Author:Leonora Blanche Lang


text:
Jill the Reckless/Chapter 21

I
Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is divided into two classes—those who do setting-up exercises before breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former and more praiseworthy class Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill standing beside him.

"Good Lord!" said Wally.

"Don't stop," said Jill. "I'm enjoying it.'

"How long have you been here?"

"Oh, I only just arrived. I rang the bell, and the nice old lady who is cooking your lunch told me you were out here.'

"Not lunch. Breakfast."

"Breakfast! At this hour?"

"Won't you join me?"

"I'll join you. But I had my breakfast long ago."

Wally found his despondency magically dispelled. It was extraordinary how the mere sight of Jill could make the world a different place. It was true the sun had been shining before her arrival, but in a flabby, weak-minded way, not with the brilliance it had acquired immediately he heard her voice.

"If you don't mind waiting for about three minutes while I have a shower and dress...."

"Oh, is the entertainment over?" asked Jill, disappointed. "I always arrive too late for everything."

"One of these days you shall see me go through the whole programme, including shadow-boxing and the goose-step. Bring your friends! But at the moment I think it would be more of a treat for you to watch me eat an egg. Go and look at the view. From over there you can see Hoboken."

"I've seen it. I don't think much of it."

"Well, then, on this side we have Brooklyn. There is no stint. Wander to and fro and enjoy yourself. The rendezvous is in the sitting-room in about four moments."

Wally vaulted through the passage-window and disappeared. Then he returned and put his head out.

"I say!"

"Yes?"

"Just occurred to me. Your uncle won't be wanting this place for half an hour or so, will he? I mean, there will be time for me to have a bite of breakfast?"

"I don't suppose he will require your little home till some time in the evening."

"Fine!"

Wally disappeared again, and a few moments later Jill heard the faint splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel through the haze. She had come to Journey's End, and she was happy. Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to go in as Wally called.

In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the grandfather's clock punctuated the stillness.

She looked at Wally with a quickening sense of affection. He had the divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was where she belonged.

"It didn't take me in, you know," said Jill at length, resting her arms on the table and regarding him severely.

Wally looked up.

"What didn't take you in?"

"That bath of yours. Yes, I know you turned on the cold shower, but you stood at a safe distance and watched it show!"

Wally waved his fork.

"As Heaven is my witness.... Look at my hair! Still damp! And I can show you the towel."

"Well, then, I'll bet it was the hot water. Why weren't you at Mrs. Peagrim's party last night?"

"It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was that I wasn't invited. How did it go off?"

"Splendidly. Freddie's engaged!"

Wally lowered his coffee cup.

"Engaged! You don't mean what is sometimes slangily called betrothed?"

"I do. He's engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her 'What ho!' and she said 'You bet!' and Freddie said 'Pip pip!' and the thing was settled." Jill bubbled. "Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with her!"

"No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?"

"I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Nelly is domestic. She's going to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and pigs."

"Father's in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat, eh?"

"Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her parrot."

Wally's cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of Freddie's enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with his own. A little home in the country.... Oh, well!

II
There was a pause. Jill was looking a little grave.

"Wally!"

"Yes?"

She turned her face away, for there was a gleam of mischief in her eyes which she did not wish him to observe.

"Derek was at the party!"

Wally had been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a semi-circle and plumped on to the tablecloth. He recovered himself quickly.

"Sorry!" he said. "You mustn't mind that. They want me to be second-string for the "Boosting the Butter" event at the next Olympic Games, and I'm practising all the time.... Underhill was there, eh?"

"Yes."

"You met him?"

"Yes."

Wally fiddled with his knife.

"Did he come over.... I mean ... had he come specially to see you?"

"Yes."

"I see."

There was another pause.

"He wants to marry you?"

"He said he wanted to marry me."

Wally got up and went to the window. Jill could smile safely now, and she did, but her voice was still grave.

"What ought I to do, Wally? I thought I would ask you as you are such a friend."

Wally spoke without turning.

"You ought to marry him, of course."

"You think so?"

"You ought to marry him, of course," said Wally doggedly. "You love him, and the fact that he came all the way to America must mean that he still loves you. Marry him!"

"But...." Jill hesitated. "You see, there's a difficulty."

"What difficulty?"

"Well ... it was something I said to him just before he went away. I said something that made it a little difficult."

Wally continued to inspect the roofs below.

"What did you say?"

"Well ... it was something ... something that I don't believe he liked ... something that may interfere with his marrying me."

"What did you say?"

"I told him I was going to marry you!"

Wally spun round. At the same time he leaped in the air. The effect of the combination of movements was to cause him to stagger across the room and, after two or three impromptu dance steps which would have interested Mrs. Peagrim, to clutch at the mantelpiece to save himself from falling. Jill watched him with quiet approval.

"Why, that's wonderful, Wally! Is that another of your morning exercises? If Freddie does go into vaudeville, you ought to get him to let you join the troupe."

Wally was blinking at her from the mantelpiece.

"Jill!"

"Yes?"

"What—what—what...!"

"Now, don't talk like Freddie, even if you are going into vaudeville with him."

"You said you were going to marry me?"

"I said I was going to marry you!"

"But—do you mean...?"

The mischief died out of Jill's eyes. She met his gaze frankly and seriously.

"The lumber's gone, Wally," she said. "But my heart isn't empty. It's quite, quite full, and it's going to be full for ever and ever and ever."

Wally left the mantelpiece, and came slowly towards her.

"Jill!" He choked. "Jill!"

Suddenly he pounced on her and swung her off her feet. She gave a little breathless cry.

"Wally! I thought you didn't approve of cavemen!"

"This," said Wally, "is just another new morning exercise I've thought of!"

Jill sat down, gasping.

"Are you going to do that often, Wally?"

"Every day for the rest of my life!"

"Goodness!"

"Oh, you'll get used to it. It'll grow on you."

"You don't think I am making a mistake marrying you?"

"No, no! I've given the matter a lot of thought, and ... in fact, no, no!"

"No," said Jill thoughtfully. "I think you'll make a good husband. I mean, suppose we ever want the piano moved or something.... Wally!" she broke off suddenly.

"You have our ear."

"Come out on the roof," said Jill. "I want to show you something funny."

Wally followed her out. They stood at the parapet together, looking down.

"There!" said Jill, pointing.

Wally looked puzzled.

"I see many things, but which is the funny one?"

"Why, all these people. Over there—and there—and there. Scuttering about and thinking they know everything there is to know, and not one of them has the least idea that I am the happiest girl on earth!"

"Or that I'm the happiest man! Their ignorance is—what is the word I want? Abysmal. They don't know what it's like to stand beside you and see that little dimple in your chin.... They don't know you've got a little dimple in your chin.... They don't know.... They don't know.... Why, I don't suppose a single one of them even knows that I'm just going to kiss you!"

"Those girls in that window over there do," said Jill. "They are watching us like hawks."

"Let 'em!" said Wally briefly.

title: Jill the Reckless/Chapter 21


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present work treats the problem of the Origin of Species on the same general lines as were adopted by Darwin; but from the standpoint reached after nearly thirty years of discussion, with an abundance of new facts and the advocacy of many new or old theories.

While not attempting to deal, even in outline, with the vast subject of evolution in general, an endeavour has been made to give such an account of the theory of Natural Selection as may enable any intelligent reader to obtain a clear conception of Darwin's work, and to understand something of the power and range of his great principle.

Darwin wrote for a generation which had not accepted evolution, and which poured contempt on those who upheld the derivation of species from species by any natural law of descent. He did his work so well that "descent with modification" is now universally accepted as the order of nature in the organic world; and the rising generation of naturalists can hardly realise the novelty of this idea, or that their fathers considered it a scientific heresy to be condemned rather than seriously discussed.

The objections now made to Darwin's theory apply, solely, to the particular means by which the change of species has been brought about, not to the fact of that change. The objectors seek to minimise the agency of natural selection and to subordinate it to laws of variation, of use and disuse, of intelligence, and of heredity. These views and objections


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 are urged with much force and more confidence, and for the most part by the modern school of laboratory naturalists, to whom the peculiarities and distinctions of species, as such, their distribution and their affinities, have little interest as compared with the problems of histology and embryology, of physiology and morphology. Their work in these departments is of the greatest interest and of the highest importance, but it is not the kind of work which, by itself, enables one to form a sound judgmentjudgement [sic] on the questions involved in the action of the law of natural selection. These rest mainly on the external and vital relations of species to species in a state of nature—on what has been well termed by Semper the "physiology of organisms," rather than on the anatomy or physiology of organs.

It has always been considered a weakness in Darwin's work that he based his theory, primarily, on the evidence of variation in domesticated animals and cultivated plants. I have endeavoured to secure a firm foundation for the theory in the variations of organisms in a state of nature; and as the exact amount and precise character of these variations is of paramount importance in the numerous problems that arise when we apply the theory to explain the facts of nature, I have endeavoured, by means of a series of diagrams, to exhibit to the eye the actual variations as they are found to exist in a sufficient number of species. By doing this, not only does the reader obtain a better and more precise idea of variation than can be given by any number of tabular statements or cases of extreme individual variation, but we obtain a basis of fact by which to test the statements and objections usually put forth on the subject of specific variability; and it will be found that, throughout the work, I have frequently to appeal to these diagrams and the facts they illustrate, just as Darwin was accustomed to appeal to the facts of variation among dogs and pigeons.


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Rh I have also made what appears to me an important change in the arrangement of the subject. Instead of treating first the comparatively difficult and unfamiliar details of variation, I commence with the Struggle for Existence, which is really the fundamental phenomenon on which natural selection depends, while the particular facts which illustrate it are comparatively familiar and very interesting. It has the further advantage that, after discussing variation and the effects of artificial selection, we proceed at once to explain how natural selection acts.

Among the subjects of novelty or interest discussed in this volume, and which have important bearings on the theory of natural selection, are: (1) A proof that all specific characters are (or once have been) either useful in themselves or correlated with useful characters (Chap. VI); (2) a proof that natural selection can, in certain cases, increase the sterility of crosses (Chap. VII); (3) a fuller discussion of the colour relations of animals, with additional facts and arguments on the origin of sexual differences of colour (Chaps. VIII-X); (4) an attempted solution of the difficulty presented by the occurrence of both very simple and very complex modes of securing the cross-fertilisation of plants (Chap. XI); (5) some fresh facts and arguments on the wind-carriage of seeds, and its bearing on the wide dispersal of many arctic and alpine plants (Chap. XII); (6) some new illustrations of the non-heredity of acquired characters, and a proof that the effects of use and disuse, even if inherited, must be overpowered by natural selection (Chap. XIV); and (7) a new argument as to the nature and origin of the moral and intellectual faculties of man (Chap. XV).

Although I maintain, and even enforce, my differences from some of Darwin's views, my whole work tends forcibly to illustrate the overwhelming importance of Natural Selection over all other agencies in the production of new species.


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viii I thus take up Darwin's earlier position, from which he somewhat receded in the later editions of his works, on account of criticisms and objections which I have endeavoured to show are unsound. Even in rejecting that phase of sexual selection depending on female choice, I insist on the greater efficacy of natural selection. This is pre-eminently the Darwinian doctrine, and I therefore claim for my book the position of being the advocate of pure Darwinism.

I wish to express my obligation to Mr. Francis Darwin for lending me some of his father's unused notes, and to many other friends for facts or information, which have, I believe, been acknowledged either in the text or footnotes. Mr. James Sime has kindly read over the proofs and given me many useful suggestions; and I have to thank Professor Meldola, Mr. Hemsley, and Mr. E. B. Poulton for valuable notes or corrections in the later chapters in which their special subjects are touched upon.

, March 1889.


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x


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Rh


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title of Mr. Darwin's great work is—On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection and the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In order to appreciate fully the aim and object of this work, and the change which it has effected not only in natural history but in many other sciences, it is necessary to form a clear conception of the meaning of the term "species," to know what was the general belief regarding them at the time when Mr. Darwin's book first appeared, and to understand what he meant, and what was generally meant, by discovering their "origin." It is for want of this preliminary knowledge that the majority of educated persons who are not naturalists are so ready to accept the innumerable objections, criticisms, and difficulties of its opponents as proofs that the Darwinian theory is unsound, while it also renders them unable to appreciate, or even to comprehend, the vast change which that theory has effected in the whole mass of thought and opinion on the great question of evolution.

The term "species" was thus defined by the celebrated botanist De Candolle: "A species is a collection of all the individuals which resemble each other more than they resemble anything else, which can by mutual fecundation


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 produce fertile individuals, and which reproduce themselves by generation, in such a manner that we may from analogy suppose them all to have sprung from one single individual." And the zoologist Swainson gives a somewhat similar definition: "A species, in the usual acceptation of the term, is an animal which, in a state of nature, is distinguished by certain peculiarities of form, size, colour, or other circumstances, from another animal. It propagates, 'after its kind,' individuals perfectly resembling the parent; its peculiarities, therefore, are permanent."

To illustrate these definitions we will take two common English birds, the rook (Corvus frugilegus) and the crow (Corvus corone). These are distinct species, because, in the first place, they always differ from each other in certain slight peculiarities of structure, form, and habits, and, in the second place, because rooks always produce rooks, and crows produce crows, and they do not interbreed. It was therefore concluded that all the rooks in the world had descended from a single pair of rooks, and the crows in like manner from a single pair of crows, while it was considered impossible that crows could have descended from rooks or vice versâ. The "origin" of the first pair of each kind was a mystery. Similar remarks may be applied to our two common plants, the sweet violet (Viola odorata) and the dog violet (Viola canina). These also produce their like and never produce each other or intermingle, and they were therefore each supposed to have sprung from a single individual whose "origin" was unknown. But besides the crow and the rook there are about thirty other kinds of birds in various parts of the world, all so much like our species that they receive the common name of crows; and some of them differ less from each other than does our crow from our rook. These are all species of the genus Corvus, and were therefore believed to have been always as distinct as they are now, neither more nor less, and to have each descended from one pair of ancestral crows of the same identical species, which themselves had an unknown "origin." Of violets there are more than a hundred different kinds in various parts of the world, all differing very slightly from each other and forming distinct


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Rh species of the genus Viola. But, as these also each produce their like and do not intermingle, it was believed that every one of them had always been as distinct from all the others as it is now, that all the individuals of each kind had descended from one ancestor, but that the "origin" of these hundred slightly differing ancestors was unknown. In the words of Sir John Herschel, quoted by Mr. Darwin, the origin of such species was "the mystery of mysteries."

A few great naturalists, struck by the very slight difference between many of these species, and the numerous links that exist between the most different forms of animals and plants, and also observing that a great many species do vary considerably in their forms, colours, and habits, conceived the idea that they might be all produced one from the other. The most eminent of these writers was a great French naturalist, Lamarck, who published an elaborate work, the Philosophie Zoologique, in which he endeavoured to prove that all animals whatever are descended from other species of animals. He attributed the change of species chiefly to the effect of changes in the conditions of life—such as climate, food, etc.—and especially to the desires and efforts of the animals themselves to improve their condition, leading to a modification of form or size in certain parts, owing to the well-known physiological law that all organs are strengthened by constant use, while they are weakened or even completely lost by disuse. The arguments of Lamarck did not, however, satisfy naturalists, and though a few adopted the view that closely allied species had descended from each other, the general belief of the educated public was, that each species was a "special creation" quite independent of all others; while the great body of naturalists equally held, that the change from one species to another by any known law or cause was impossible, and that the "origin of species" was an unsolved and probably insoluble problem. The only other important work dealing with the question was the celebrated Vestiges of Creation, published anonymously, but now acknowledged to have been written by the late Robert Chambers. In this work the action of general laws was traced throughout the


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4 universe as a system of growth and development, and it was argued that the various species of animals and plants had been produced in orderly succession from each other by the action of unknown laws of development aided by the action of external conditions. Although this work had a considerable effect in influencing public opinion as to the extreme improbability of the doctrine of the independent "special creation" of each species, it had little effect upon naturalists, because it made no attempt to grapple with the problem in detail, or to show in any single case how the allied species of a genus could have arisen, and have preserved their numerous slight and apparently purposeless differences from each other. No clue whatever was afforded to a law which should produce from any one species one or more slightly differing but yet permanently distinct species, nor was any reason given why such slight yet constant differences should exist at all.

In order to show how little effect these writers had upon the public mind, I will quote a few passages from the writings of Sir Charles Lyell, as representing the opinions of the most advanced thinkers in the period immediately preceding that of Darwin's work. When recapitulating the facts and arguments in favour of the invariability and permanence of species, he says: "The entire variation from the original type which any given kind of change can produce may usually be effected in a brief period of time, after which no further deviation can be obtained by continuing to alter the circumstances, though ever so gradually, indefinite divergence either in the way of improvement or deterioration being prevented, and the least possible excess beyond the defined limits being fatal to the existence of the individual." In another place he maintains that "varieties of some species may differ more than other species do from each other without shaking our confidence in the reality of species." He further adduces certain facts in geology as being, in his opinion, "fatal to the theory of progressive development," and he explains the fact that there are so often distinct species in countries of similar climate and vegetation by


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I "special creations" in each country; and these conclusions were arrived at after a careful study of Lamarck's work, a full abstract of which is given in the earlier editions of the Principles of Geology.

Professor Agassiz, one of the greatest naturalists of the last generation, went even further, and maintained not only that each species was specially created, but that it was created in the proportions and in the localities in which we now find it to exist. The following extract from his very instructive book on Lake Superior explains this view: "There are in animals peculiar adaptations which are characteristic of their species, and which cannot be supposed to have arisen from subordinate influences. Those which live in shoals cannot be supposed to have been created in single pairs. Those which are made to be the food of others cannot have been created in the same proportions as those which live upon them. Those which are everywhere found in innumerable specimens must have been introduced in numbers capable of maintaining their normal proportions to those which live isolated and are comparatively and constantly fewer. For we know that this harmony in the numerical proportions between animals is one of the great laws of nature. The circumstance that species occur within definite limits where no obstacles prevent their wider distribution leads to the further inference that these limits were assigned to them from the beginning, and so we should come to the final conclusion that the order which prevails throughout nature is intentional, that it is regulated by the limits marked out on the first day of creation, and that it has been maintained unchanged through ages with no other modifications than those which the higher intellectual powers of man enable him to impose on some few animals more closely connected with him."

These opinions of some of the most eminent and influential writers of the pre-Darwinian age seem to us, now, either altogether obsolete or positively absurd; but they nevertheless exhibit the mental condition of even the most advanced section of scientific men on the problem of the


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 nature and origin of species. They render it clear that, notwithstanding the vast knowledge and ingenious reasoning of Lamarck, and the more general exposition of the subject by the author of the Vestiges of Creation, the first step had not been taken towards a satisfactory explanation of the derivation of any one species from any other. Such eminent naturalists as Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Dean Herbert, Professor Grant, Von Buch, and some others, had expressed their belief that species arose as simple varieties, and that the species of each genus were all descended from a common ancestor; but none of them gave a clue as to the law or the method by which the change had been effected. This was still "the great mystery." As to the further question—how far this common descent could be carried; whether distinct families, such as crows and thrushes, could possibly have descended from each other; or, whether all birds, including such widely distinct types as wrens, eagles, ostriches, and ducks, could all be the modified descendants of a common ancestor; or, still further, whether mammalia, birds, reptiles, and fishes, could all have had a common origin;—these questions had hardly come up for discussion at all, for it was felt that, while the very first step along the road of "transmutation of species" (as it was then called) had not been made, it was quite useless to speculate as to how far it might be possible to travel in the same direction, or where the road would ultimately lead to.

It is clear, then, that what was understood by the "origin" or the "transmutation" of species before Darwin's work appeared, was the comparatively simple question whether the allied species of each genus had or had not been derived from one another and, remotely, from some common ancestor, by the ordinary method of reproduction and by means of laws and conditions still in action and capable of being thoroughly investigated. If any naturalist had been asked at that day whether, supposing it to be clearly shown that all the different species of each genus had been derived from some one ancestral species, and that a full and complete explanation were to be given of how each minute difference in form, colour, or structure might have originated, and how the


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Rh several peculiarities of habit and of geographical distribution might have been brought about—whether, if this were done, the "origin of species" would be discovered, the great mystery solved, he would undoubtedly have replied in the affirmative. He would probably have added that he never expected any such marvellous discovery to be made in his lifetime. But so much as this assuredly Mr. Darwin has done, not only in the opinion of his disciples and admirers, but by the admissions of those who doubt the completeness of his explanations. For almost all their objections and difficulties apply to those larger differences which separate genera, families, and orders from each other, not to those which separate one species from the species to which it is most nearly allied, and from the remaining species of the same genus. They adduce such difficulties as the first development of the eye, or of the milk-producing glands of the mammalia; the wonderful instincts of bees and of ants; the complex arrangements for the fertilisation of orchids, and numerous other points of structure or habit, as not being satisfactorily explained. But it is evident that these peculiarities had their origin at a very remote period of the earth's history, and no theory, however complete, can do more than afford a probable conjecture as to how they were produced. Our ignorance of the state of the earth's surface and of the conditions of life at those remote periods is very great; thousands of animals and plants must have existed of which we have no record; while we are usually without any information as to the habits and general life-history even of those of which we possess some fragmentary remains; so that the truest and most complete theory would not enable us to solve all the difficult problems which the whole course of the development of life upon our globe presents to us.

What we may expect a true theory to do is to enable us to comprehend and follow out in some detail those changes in the form, structure, and relations of animals and plants which are effected in short periods of time, geologically speaking, and which are now going on around us. We may expect it to explain satisfactorily most of the lesser and superficial differences which distinguish one species from another. We may expect it to throw light on the mutual relations of


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 animals and plants which live together in any one country, and to give some rational account of the phenomena presented by their distribution in different parts of the world. And, lastly, we may expect it to explain many difficulties and to harmonise many incongruities in the excessively complex affinities and relations of living things. All this the Darwinian theory undoubtedly does. It shows us how, by means of some of the most universal and ever-acting laws in nature, new species are necessarily produced, while the old species become extinct; and it enables us to understand how the continuous action of these laws during the long periods with which geology makes us acquainted is calculated to bring about those greater differences presented by the distinct genera, families, and orders into which all living things are classified by naturalists. The differences which these present are all of the same nature as those presented by the species of many large genera, but much greater in amount; and they can all be explained by the action of the same general laws and by the extinction of a larger or smaller number of intermediate species. Whether the distinctions between the higher groups termed Classes and Sub-kingdoms may be accounted for in the same way is a much more difficult question. The differences which separate the mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes from each other, though vast, yet seem of the same nature as those which distinguish a mouse from an elephant or a swallow from a goose. But the vertebrate animals, the mollusca, and the insects, are so radically distinct in their whole organisation and in the very plan of their structure, that objectors may not unreasonably doubt whether they can all have been derived from a common ancestor by means of the very same laws as have sufficed for the differentiation of the various species of birds or of reptiles.

The point I wish especially to urge is this. Before Darwin's work appeared, the great majority of naturalists, and almost without exception the whole literary and scientific world, held firmly to the belief that species were realities, and had not been derived from other species by any process accessible to us; the different species of crow and of violet


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Rh were believed to have always as distinct and separate as they are now, and to have originated by some totally unknown process so far removed from ordinary reproduction that it was usually spoken of as "special creation." There was, then, no question of the origin of families, orders, and classes, because the very first step of all, the "origin of species," was believed to be an insoluble problem. But now this is all changed. The whole scientific and literary world, even the whole educated public, accepts, as a matter of common knowledge, the origin of species from other allied species by the ordinary process of natural birth. The idea of special creation or any altogether exceptional mode of production is absolutely extinct! Yet more: this is held also to apply to many higher groups as well as to the species of a genus, and not even Mr. Darwin's severest critics venture to suggest that the primeval bird, reptile, or fish must have been "specially created." And this vast, this totally unprecedented change in public opinion has been the result of the work of one man, and was brought about in the short space of twenty years! This is the answer to those who continue to maintain that the "origin of species" is not yet discovered; that there are still doubts and difficulties; that there are divergencies of structure so great that we cannot understand how they had their beginning. We may admit all this, just as we may admit that there are enormous difficulties in the way of a complete comprehension of the origin and nature of all the parts of the solar system and of the stellar universe. But we claim for Darwin that he is the Newton of natural history, and that, just so surely as that the discovery and demonstration by Newton of the law of gravitation established order in place of chaos and laid a sure foundation for all future study of the starry heavens, so surely has Darwin, by his discovery of the law of natural selection and his demonstration of the great principle of the preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only thrown a flood of light on the process of development of the whole organic world, but also established a firm foundation for all future study of nature.

In order to show the view Darwin took of his own work, and what it was that he alone claimed to have done, the concluding passage of the introduction to the Origin of


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 Species should be carefully considered. It is as follows: "Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently entertained and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification."

It should be especially noted that all which is here claimed is now almost universally admitted, while the criticisms of Darwin's works refer almost exclusively to those numerous questions which, as he himself says, "will long remain obscure."

As it will be necessary, in the following chapters, to set forth a considerable body of facts in almost every department of natural history, in order to establish the fundamental propositions on which the theory of natural selection rests, I propose to give a preliminary statement of what the theory really is, in order that the reader may better appreciate the necessity for discussing so many details, and may thus feel a more enlightened interest in them. Many of the facts to be adduced are so novel and so curious that they are sure to be appreciated by every one who takes an interest in nature, but unless the need of them is clearly seen it may be thought that time is being wasted on mere curious details and strange facts which have little bearing on the question at issue.

The theory of natural selection rests on two main classes of facts which apply to all organised beings without exception, and which thus take rank as fundamental principles or laws. The first is, the power of rapid multiplication in a geometrical progression; the second, that the offspring always vary slightly from the parents, though generally very closely resembling


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Rh old. I had the uneasy feeling that originally that cellar had been a tomb and that later the house had been built over it. But, once at the bottom, there was nothing to indicate a sepulcher. A few small casks of wine, some junk, odds of rope and rusty iron, those were in the corners; otherwise, the room was empty, and dusty.

"It is an odd room," I commented to myself. It seemed in some way out of place and out of shape and size for the villa above it. I had expected something more, something larger, gloomier. Walking around, I examined the walls, and then something came to my alert senses.

Three sides of the room were carved out of rock, but the remaining side was of masonry, and in that side there was a door. A door! And why should a door be there except to lead to another room? There was a door, and that presupposed something on the other side. And what a door it was! More of a barricade than a partition. The iron hinges were built to support weight and give complete defense and support. There was a keyhole, and if the key corresponded with the size of the hole, it was the largest that I had ever heard of.

Naturally, I wanted to open the door. As master of the villa, I had a right to. Upstairs the old woman seemed unable to understand me and ended by telling me to see her husband. He, in turn, seemed incapable of following my stream of talk. At last, I took him to the door and pointed to the keyhole. In English, Italian and sign language I told him rather emphatically that I wanted the key to that door. At last he was willing to admit that he understood my questions. He shook his head. He had never had the key to that door. Yes, he knew that there was such a door, but he had never been on the other side. It was very old. Perhaps his ancestors understood about it, but they were all dead. He made me tired, so much so that I rested by placing a hand on the butt of the upper hinge. I knew that he was deceiving me. Lived there all his life and never saw the door open!

"And you have no key to that door?" I repeated.

"No. I have no key."

"Who has the key?"

"The owner of the house."

"But I own it."

"Yes, you are the master; but I mean the one who owns it all the time."

"So, the various masters do not really buy the place?"

"They buy it, but they tome and go."

"But the owner keeps on selling it and owning it?"

"Yes."

"Must be a profitable business. And who owns it?"

"Donna Marchesi."

"I think I met her yesterday in Sorona."

"Yes, that is where she lives."

The storm had passed. Sorona was only two miles away, on the other side of the mountain. The cellar, the door, die mysterious uncertainty on the other side intrigued me. I told the man that I would be back by supper, and I went to my bedroom to change, preparatory to making an afternoon call.

In the room I found my hand black with oil.

And that told me a good many things, as it was the hand that had rested against the upper hinge of the door. I washed the hand, changed my clothes and drove my car to Sorona.

, the Donna Marchesi was at home. I might have met her before, but I now saw her ethereal beauty for the first time. AAt [sic] least, it seemed ethereal at the first moment. In some


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Author:Cao Cao

Poems

 * Though the Tortoise Lives Long
 * Short Song Style

Annotations

 * Notes on Sun Tzu's Art of War

title: Author:Cao Cao


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Rh them. From the first fact or law there follows, necessarily, a constant struggle for existence; because, while the offspring always exceed the parents in number, generally to an enormous extent, yet the total number of living organisms in the world does not, and cannot, increase year by year. Consequently every year, on the average, as many die as are born, plants as well as animals; and the majority die premature deaths. They kill each other in a thousand different ways; they starve each other by some consuming the food that others want; they are destroyed largely by the powers of nature—by cold and heat, by rain and storm, by flood and fire. There is thus a perpetual struggle among them which shall live and which shall die; and this struggle is tremendously severe, because so few can possibly remain alive—one in five, one in ten, often only one in a hundred or even one in a thousand.

Then comes the question, Why do some live rather than others? If all the individuals of each species were exactly alike in every respect, we could only say it is a matter of chance. But they are not alike. We find that they vary in many different ways. Some are stronger, some swifter, some hardier in constitution, some more cunning. An obscure colour may render concealment more easy for some, keener sight may enable others to discover prey or escape from an enemy better than their fellows. Among plants the smallest differences may be useful or the reverse. The earliest and strongest shoots may escape the slug; their greater vigour may enable them to flower and seed earlier in a wet autumn; plants best armed with spines or hairs may escape being devoured; those whose flowers are most conspicuous may be soonest fertilised by insects. We cannot doubt that, on the whole, any beneficial variations will give the possessors of it a greater probability of living through the tremendous ordeal they have to undergo. There may be something left to chance, but on the whole the fittest will survive.

Then we have another important fact to consider, the principle of heredity or transmission of variations. If we grow plants from seed or breed any kind of animals year after year, consuming or giving away all the increase we do not wish to keep just as they come to hand, our plants or animals will continue much the same; but if every year


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 carefully save the best seed to sow and the finest or brightest coloured animals to breed from, we shall soon find that an improvement will take place, and that the average quality of our stock will be raised. This is the way in which all our fine garden fruits and vegetables and flowers have been produced, as well as all our splendid breeds of domestic animals; and they have thus become in many cases so different from the wild races from which they originally sprang as to be hardly recognisable as the same. It is therefore proved that if any particular kind of variation is preserved and bred from, the variation itself goes on increasing in amount to an enormous extent; and the bearing of this on the question of the origin of species is most important. For if in each generation of a given animal or plant the fittest survive to continue the breed, then whatever may be the special peculiarity that causes "fitness" in the particular case, that peculiarity will go on increasing and strengthening so long as it is useful to the species. But the moment it has reached its maximum of usefulness, and some other quality or modification would help in the struggle, then the individuals which vary in the new direction will survive; and thus a species may be gradually modified, first in one direction, then in another, till it differs from the original parent form as much as the greyhound differs from any wild dog or the cauliflower from any wild plant. But animals or plants which thus differ in a state of nature are always classed as distinct species, and thus we see how, by the continuous survival of the fittest or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, new species may be originated.

This self-acting process which, by means of a few easily demonstrated groups of facts, brings about change in the organic world, and keeps each species in harmony with the conditions of its existence, will appear to some persons so clear and simple as to need no further demonstration. But to the great majority of naturalists and men of science endless difficulties and objections arise, owing to the wonderful variety of animal and vegetable forms, and the intricate relations of the different species and groups of species with each other; and it was to answer as many of these objections as possible, and to show that the more we know of nature the more we


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Rh find it to harmonise with the development hypothesis, that Darwin devoted the whole of his life to collecting facts and making experiments, the record of a portion of which he has given us in a series of twelve masterly volumes.

It is evidently of the most vital importance to any theory that its foundations should be absolutely secure. It is therefore necessary to show, by a wide and comprehensive array of facts, that animals and plants do perpetually vary in the manner and to the amount requisite; and that this takes place in wild animals as well as in those which are domesticated. It is necessary also to prove that all organisms do tend to increase at the great rate alleged, and that this increase actually occurs, under favourable conditions. We have to prove, further, that variations of all kinds can be increased and accumulated by selection; and that the struggle for existence to the extent here indicated actually occurs in nature, and leads to the continued preservation of favourable variations.

These matters will be discussed in the four succeeding chapters, though in a somewhat different order—the struggle for existence and the power of rapid multiplication, which is its cause, occupying the first place, as comprising those facts which are the most fundamental and those which can be perfectly explained without any reference to the less generally understood facts of variation. These chapters will be followed by a discussion of certain difficulties, and of the vexed question of hybridity. Then will come a rather full account of the more important of the complex relations of organisms to each other and to the earth itself, which are either fully explained or greatly elucidated by the theory. The concluding chapter will treat of the origin of man and his relations to the lower animals.


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390 ways she was the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen: skin white as milk, hair a tawny red, piled in great masses on her head, and eyes of a peculiar green, with pupils that "were slots instead of circles. She wore her nails long, and they were tinted red to match the Titian of her hair. She seemed surprized to have me call on her, and more surprized to hear of my errand.

"You bought the villa?" she asked.

"Yes. Though, when I bought it, I did not know that you were the owner. The agent never stated whom he was acting for."

"I know," she said with a smile. "Franco is peculiar that way. He always pretends that he owns the place.

"No doubt he has used it more than once."

"I fear so. The place seems to be unfortunate. I sell it with a reserve clause. The owner must live there. And no one seems to want to stay; so the place reverts back to me."

"It seems to be an old place."

"Very old. It has been in my family for generations. I have tried to get rid of it, but what can I do when the young men will not stay?"

She shrugged her shoulders expressively. I countered with,

"Perhaps if they knew, as I do, that you owned the property, they would be content to stay, for ever, in Sorona."

"Prettily said," she answered. Then the room became silent, and I heard her heavy breathing, like the deep purr of a cat.

"They come and go," she said at last.

"And, when they go, you sell to another?" I asked.

"Naturally, and with the hope that one will stay."

"I have come for the key," I said bluntly, "the key to the cellar door."

"Are you sure you want it?"

"Absolutely! It is my villa and my cellar and my door. I want the key. I want to see what is on the other side of the door."

And then it was that I saw the pupils of her eyes narrow to livid slits. She looked at me for a second, for five, and then opening a drawer in a cabinet near her chair, she took out the key and handed it to me. It was a tool worthy of the door that it was supposed to open, being fully eight inches long and a pound in weight.

Taking it, I thanked her and said goodbye. Fifteen minutes later I was back, profuse in my apologies: I was temperamental, I explained, and I frequently changed my mind. Whatever was on the other side of the door could stay there, as far as I was concerned. Then again I kissed her hand farewell.

On the side street I passed through the door of a locksmith and waited while he completed a key. He was following a wax impression of the original key. An hour later I was on the way back to the villa, with the key in my pocket, a key that I was sure would unlock the door, and I was confident that the lady with the cat eyes felt sure that I had lost all interest in that door and what was beyond it.

The full moon was just appearing over the mountains when I drove my car up to the villa. I was tired, but happy. Taking the candlestick in my hand, which candlestick was handed to me with a deep bow by the old woman, I ascended the stairs to my bedroom. And soon I was fast asleep.

with a start. The moon was still shining. It was midnight. I heard, or thought I heard, a deep moaning. It sounded a little like waves beating on a rockbound coast. Then it ceased and was replaced by a musical element