The Farringdons

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

  CHAPTER XIII

  CECIL FARQUHAR

  And my people ask politely How a friend I know so slightly Can be more to me than others I have liked a year or so; But they've never heard the history Of our transmigration's mystery, And they've no idea I loved you those millenniums ago.

  It was the night of the Academy _soiree_ in the year of Elisabeth'striumph; she was being petted and _feted_ on all sides, and passedthrough the crowded rooms in a sort of royal progress, surrounded by anatmosphere of praise and adulation. Of course she liked it--what womanwould not?--but she was conscious of a dull ache of sadness, at the backof all her joy, that there was no one to share her triumph with her; noone to whom she could say, "I care for all this, chiefly because itmakes me stronger to help you and worthier to be loved by you;" no onewho would be made happy by her whisper, "I have set the Thames ablaze inorder to make warm your fireside."

  It was as yet early in the evening when the President turned for amoment from his duties as "official receiver" to say to her, "MissFarringdon, I want to present Farquhar to you. He is a rising man, anda very good fellow into the bargain, and I know he is most anxious to beintroduced to you."

  And then the usual incantation was gone through, which constitutes anintroduction in England--namely, the repetition of two names, whereofeach person hears only his or her own (an item of information by nomeans new or in any way to be desired), while the name of the othercontracting party remains shrouded in impenetrable mystery; andElisabeth found herself face to face with the man whom she speciallydesired to meet.

  Cecil Farquhar was a remarkably handsome man, nearer forty than thirtyyears of age. He was tall and graceful, with golden hair and the profileof a Greek statue; and, in addition to these palpable charms, hepossessed the more subtle ones of a musical voice and a fascinatingmanner. He treated every woman, with whom he was brought into contact,as if she were a compound of a child and a queen; and he had a way oflooking at her and speaking to her as if she were the one woman in theworld for whom he had been waiting all his life. That women were takenin by this half-caressing, half-worshipping manner was not altogethertheir fault; perhaps it was not altogether his. Very attractive peoplefall into the habit of attracting, and are frequently unconscious of,and therefore irresponsible for, their success.

  "It is so good of you to let me be presented to you," he said toElisabeth, as they walked through the crowded rooms in search of a seat;"you don't know how I have longed for it ever since I first saw picturesof yours on these walls. And my longing was trebled when I saw yourglorious Pillar of Cloud, and read all that it was meant to teach."

  Elisabeth looked at him slyly through her long eyelashes. "How do youknow what I meant to teach? Perhaps you read your own meanings into it,and not mine."

  Farquhar laughed, and Elisabeth thought he had the most beautiful teethshe had ever seen. "Perhaps so; but, do you know, Miss Farringdon, Ihave a shrewd suspicion that my meanings and yours are the same."

  "What meaning did you read into my picture?" asked Elisabeth, with thedictatorial air of a woman who is accustomed to be made much of anddeferred to, as he found a seat for her in the vestibule, under apalm-tree.

  "I read that there was only one answer to the weary problems of labourand capital, and masses and classes, and employers and employed, and allthe other difficulties that beset and threaten any great manufacturingcommunity; and that this answer is to be found to-day--as it was foundby the Israelites of old--in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillarof fire by night, and all of which that pillar is a sign and asacrament."

  "Yes," replied Elisabeth, and her eyes shone like stars; "I meant allthat. But how clever of you to have read it so correctly!"

  "I do not ask if you understood what my picture meant. I know you did;for it was to you, and women such as you, that I was speaking."

  "Yes; I understood it well enough," replied Elisabeth sadly.

  "I knew you would."

  "Poor little daughters of Philip! How much happier they would have feltif they had been just the same as all the other commonplace Jewishmaidens, and had lived ordinary women's lives!"

  "But how much happier they made other people by their great gift ofinterpreting to a tired world the hidden things of God!" replied Cecil,his face aglow with emotion. "You must never forget that, you women ofgenius, with your power of making men better and women brighter by themessages you bring to them! And isn't it a grander thing to help andcomfort the whole world, than to love, honour, and obey one particularman?"

  "I am not sure. I used to think so, but I'm beginning to have my doubtsabout it. One comforts the whole world in a slipshod, sketchy kind ofway; but one could do the particular man thoroughly!"

  "And then find he wasn't worth the doing, in all probability," addedCecil.

  "Perhaps." And Elisabeth smiled.

  "It is delightful to be really talking to you," exclaimed Cecil; "sodelightful that I can hardly believe it is true! I have so longed tomeet you, because--ever since I first saw your pictures--I always knewyou would understand."

  "And I knew you would understand, too, as soon as I saw The Daughters ofPhilip," replied Elisabeth; and her voice was very soft.

  "I think we must have known each other in a former existence," Cecilcontinued; "because I do not feel a bit as if I were being introduced toa stranger, but as if I were meeting an old friend. I have so much totell you about all that has happened to me since you and I playedtogether in the shadow of the Sphinx, or worshipped together in thetemple at Philae; and you will be interested in it all, won't you?"

  "Of course I shall. I shall want to know how many centuries ago youfirst learned what women's hearts and minds were made of, and who taughtyou."

  "You taught me, dear lady, one day when we were plucking flowerstogether at the foot of Olympus. Don't you remember it? You ought, as itcan't be more than two or three thousand years ago."

  "And you've never forgotten it?"

  "Never; and never shall. If I had, I shouldn't have been an artist. Itis the men who remember how they lived and loved and suffered duringtheir former incarnations, that paint pictures and carve statues andsing songs; and the men who forget everything but this present world,that make fortunes and eat dinners and govern states."

  "And what about the women?"

  "Ah! the women who forget, set their hearts upon the attainment of afine house and large establishment, with a husband thrown in as amakeweight; if they succeed, the world calls them happy. While the womenwho remember, wait patiently for the man who was one with them at thebeginning of the centuries, and never take any other man in his place;if they find him, they are so happy that the world is incapable ofunderstanding how happy they are; and if they don't find him in thislife, they know they will in another, and they are quite content."

  "You really are very interesting," remarked Elisabeth graciously.

  "Only because you understand me; most women would think me stupid to adegree if I talked to them in this way. But you are interesting toeverybody, even to the stupid people. Tell me about yourself. Are youreally as strong-willed and regal as the world says you are?"

  "I don't know," replied Elisabeth; "I fancy it depends a good deal uponwhom I am talking to. I find as a rule it is a good plan to let a weakman think you are obedient, and a strong man think you are wilful, ifyou want men to find you interesting."

  "And aren't you strong-minded enough to be indifferent to the fact as towhether men find you interesting or the reverse?"

  "Oh, dear, no! I am a very old-fashioned person, and I am proud of it.I'd even rather be an old woman than a New Woman, if I were driven to beone or the other. I'm not a bit modern, or _fin-de-siecle_; I stillbelieve in God and Man, and all the other comfortable and antiquatedbeliefs."

  "How nice of you! But I knew you would, though the world in general doesnot give you credit for anything in the shape of warmth or tenderness;it adores you, you know, but as a sort of gloriou
s Snow-Queen, such asKay and Gerda ran after in dear Hans Andersen."

  "I am quite aware of that, and I am afraid I don't much care; though itseems a pity to have a thing and not to get the credit for it. Isympathize with those women who have such lovely hair that nobodybelieves that it was grown on the premises; my heart is similarlymisjudged."

  "Lord Stonebridge was talking to me about you and your pictures theother day, and he said you would be an ideal woman if only you had aheart."

  Elisabeth shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Then you can tell him that Ithink he would be an ideal man if only he had a head; but you can'texpect one person to possess all the virtues or all the organs; now canyou?"

  "I suppose not."

  "Oh! do look at that woman in white muslin and forget-me-nots, with thekittenish manner," exclaimed Elisabeth; "I can't stand kittens of overfifty, can you? I have made all my friends promise that if ever they seethe faintest signs of approaching kittenness in me, as I advance inyears, they will have recourse without delay to the stable-bucket, whichis the natural end of kittens."

  "Still, women should make the world think them young as long aspossible."

  "But when we are kittenish we don't make the world think we are young;we only make it think that we think we are young, which is quite adifferent thing."

  "I see," said Cecil, possessing himself of Elisabeth's fan. "Let me fanyou. I am afraid you find it rather hot here, but I doubt if we couldget a seat anywhere else if once we resigned this one."

  "We should have to be contented with the Chiltern Hundreds, I'm afraid.Besides, I am not a bit hot; it is never too warm for me. The thing Ihate most in the world is cold; it is the one thing that makes itimpossible for me to talk, and I'm miserable when I'm not talking. Imean to read a paper before the Royal Society some day, to prove thatthe bacillus of conversation can not germinate in a temperature of lessthan sixty degrees."

  "I hate being cold, too. How much alike we are!"

  "I loathe going to gorgeous parties in cold houses," continuedElisabeth, "and having priceless dinners in fireless rooms. On suchoccasions I always feel inclined to say to my hostess, as the poor do,'Please, ma'am, may I have a coal-ticket instead of a soup-ticket, if Imayn't have both?'"

  "You are a fine lady and I am a struggling artist, so I want you totell me who some of these people are," Cecil begged; "I hardly knowanybody, and I expect there is nobody here that you don't know; soplease point out to me some of the great of the earth. First, can youtell me who that man is over there, talking to the lady in blue? He hassuch a sad, kind face."

  "Oh! that is Lord Wrexham--a charming man and a bachelor. He was jilteda long time ago by Mrs. Paul Seaton--Miss Carnaby she was then--andpeople say he has never got over it. It is she that he is talking tonow."

  "How very interesting! Yes; I like his face, and I am sure he hassuffered. It is strange how women invariably behave worst to the bestmen! I'm not sure that I admire her. She is very stylish and perfectlydressed, but I don't think I should have broken my heart over her if Ihad been my Lord Wrexham."

  "He was perfectly devoted to her, I believe; and she really isattractive when you talk to her, she is so very brilliant and amusing."

  "She looks brilliant, and a little hard," was Cecil Farquhar's comment.

  "I don't think she is really hard, for she adores her husband, anddevotes all her time and all her talents to helping him politically. Heis Postmaster-General, you know; and is bound to get still higher officesome day."

  "Have they any children?"

  "No; only politics."

  "What is he like? I have never seen him."

  "He is an interesting man, and an extremely able one. I should thinkthat as a husband he would be too self-opinionated for my taste; but heand his wife seem to suit each other down to the ground. Some womenlike self-opinionated men."

  "I suppose they do."

  "And after all," Elisabeth went on, "if one goes in for a distinguishedhusband, one must pay the price for the article. It is absurd to shootbig game, and then expect to carry it home in a market-basket."

  "Still it annoys you when men say the same of you, and suggest that anordinary lump of sugar would have sweetened Antony's vinegar moresuccessfully than did Cleopatra's pearl. Your conversation and my arthave exhausted themselves to prove that this masculine imagination is adelusion and a snare; yet the principle must be the same in both cases."

  "Not at all; woman's greatness is of her life a thing apart: 'tis man'swhole existence."

  "Do you think so?" asked Cecil, with that tender look of his whichexpressed so much and meant so little. "You don't know how cold a manfeels when his heart is empty."

  "Paul Seaton nearly wrecked his career at the outset by writing a veryfoolish and indiscreet book called Shams and Shadows; it was just atoss-up whether he would ever get over it; but he did, and now peoplehave pretty nearly forgotten it," continued Elisabeth, who had neverheard the truth concerning Isabel Carnaby.

  "Who is that fat, merry woman coming in now?"

  "That is Lady Silverhampton; and the man she is laughing with is LordRobert Thistletown. That lovely girl on the other side of him is hiswife. Isn't she exquisite?"

  "She is indeed--a most beautiful creature. Now if Lord Wrexham hadbroken his heart over her, I could have understood and almost commendedhim."

  "Well, but he didn't, you see. There is nothing more remarkable than thesort of woman that breaks men's hearts--except the sort of men thatbreak women's."

  "I fancy that the breakableness is in the nature of the heart itself,and not of the iconoclast," said Cecil.

  Elisabeth looked up quickly. "Oh! I don't. I think that the person whobreaks the heart of another person must have an immense capacity forcommanding love."

  "Not at all; the person whose heart is broken has an immense capacityfor feeling love. Take your Lord Wrexham, for instance: it was notbecause Miss Carnaby was strong, but because he was strong, that hisheart was broken in the encounter between them. You can see that intheir faces."

  "I don't agree with you. It was because she was more lovable thanloving--at least, as far as he was concerned--that the catastrophehappened. A less vivid personality would have been more easilyforgotten; but if once you begin to care badly for any one with a strongpersonality you're done for."

  "You are very modern, in spite of your assertion to the contrary, andtherefore very subjective. It would never occur to you to look atanything from the objective point of view; yet at least five times outof ten it is the correct one."

  "You mean that I am too self-willed and domineering?" laughed Elisabeth.

  "I mean that it is beside the mark to expect a reigning queen tounderstand how to canvass for votes at a general election."

  "But you do think me too autocratic, don't you? You must, becauseeverybody does," Elisabeth persisted, with engaging candour.

  "I think you are the most charming woman I ever met in my life," repliedCecil; and at the moment, and for at least five minutes afterward, hereally believed what he said.

  "Thank you; but you think me too fond of dominating other people, allthe same."

  "Don't say that; I could not think any evil of you, and it hurts me tohear you even suggest that I could. But perhaps it surprises me that solarge-hearted a woman as yourself should invariably look at things fromthe subjective point of view, as I am sure you do."

  "Right again, Mr. Farquhar; you really are very clever at readingpeople."

  Cecil corrected her. "At reading you, you mean; you are not 'people,' ifyou please. But tell me the truth: when you look at yourself from theoutside (which I know you are fond of doing, as I am fond of doing),doesn't it surprise you to see as gifted a woman as you must know youare, so much more prone to measure your influence upon your surroundingsthan their influence upon you; and, measuring, to allow for it?"

  "Nothing that a woman does ever surprises me; and that the woman happensto be one's self is a mere matter of detail."

  "That is a quibble
, dear lady. Please answer my question."

  Elisabeth drew her eyebrows together with a puzzled expression. "I don'tthink it does surprise me, because my influence on my surroundings isgreater than their influence on me. You, too, are a creator; and youmust know the almost god-like joy of making something out of nothing,and seeing that it is good. It seems to me that when once you havetasted that joy, you can never again doubt that you yourself arestronger than anything outside you; and that, as the Apostle said, 'allthings are yours.'"

  "Yes; I understand that. But there is still a step further--namely, whenyou become conscious that, strong as you are, there is somethingstronger than yourself; and that is another person's influence uponyou."

  "I have never felt that," said Elisabeth simply.

  "Have you never known what it is to find your own individualityswallowed up in other persons' individuality, and your own personalitymerged in theirs, until--without the slightest conscious unselfishnesson your part--you cease to have a will of your own?"

  "No; and I don't want to know it. I can understand wishing to shareone's own principalities and powers with another person; but I can'tunderstand being willing to share another person's principalities andpowers."

  "In short," said Cecil, "you feel that you could love sufficiently togive, but not sufficiently to receive; you would stamp your image andsuperscription with pleasure upon another person's heart; but you wouldallow no man to stamp his image and superscription upon yours."

  "I suppose that is so," replied Elisabeth gravely; "but I never put itas clearly to myself as that before. Yes," she went on after a moment'spause; "I could never care enough for any man to give up my own will tohis; I should always want to bend his to mine, and the more I liked himthe more I should want it. He could have all my powers and possessions,and be welcome to them; but my will must always be my own; that is akingdom I would share with no one."

  "Ah! you are treating the question subjectively, as usual. Did it neveroccur to you that you might have no say in the matter; that a man mightcompel you, by force of his own charm or power or love for you, to giveup your will to his, whether you would or no?"

  Elisabeth looked him full in the face with clear, grave eyes. "No; and Ihope I may never meet such a man as long as I live. I have always beenso strong, and so proud of my strength, and so sure of myself, that Icould never forgive any one for being stronger than I, and wresting mydominion from me."

  "Dear lady, you are a genius, and you have climbed to the summit of thegiddy pinnacle which men call success; but for all that, you are still'an unlesson'd girl.' Believe me, the strong man armed will come someday, and you will lower your flag and rejoice in the lowering."

  "You don't understand me, after all," said Elisabeth reproachfully.

  Cecil's smile was very pleasant. "Don't I? Yet it was I who painted TheDaughters of Philip."

  There was a moment's constrained silence; and then Elisabeth broke thetension by saying lightly--

  "Look! there's Lady Silverhampton coming back again. Isn't it a pity sheis so stout? I do hope I shall never be stout, for flesh is a mostdifficult thing to live down."

  "You are right; there are few things in the world worse than stoutness."

  "I only know two: sin and boiled cabbage."

  "And crochet-antimacassars," added Cecil; "you're forgettingcrochet-antimacassars. I speak feelingly, because my present lodgingsare white with them; and they stick to my coat like leeches, and followme whithersoever I go. I am never alone from them."

  "If I were as stout as Lady Silverhampton," said Elisabeth thoughtfully,"I should either cut myself up into building lots, or else let myselfout into market gardens: I should never go about whole; should you?"

  "Certainly not; I would rather publish myself in sections, asdictionaries and encyclopaedias do!"

  "Lady Silverhampton presented me," remarked Elisabeth, "so I always feela sort of god-daughterly respect for her, which enhances the pleasure ofabusing her."

  "What does it feel like to go to Court? Does it frighten you?"

  "Oh, dear! no. It would do, I daresay, if you were in plain clothes; buttrains and feathers make fine birds--with all the manners and habits offine birds. Peacocks couldn't hop about in gutters, and London sparrowscouldn't strut across Kensington Gardens, however much they both desiredit. So when a woman, in addition to her ordinary best clothes, isattended by twenty-four yards of good satin which ought to be feedingthe poor, nothing really abashes her."

  "I suppose she feels like a queen."

  "Well, to tell the truth, with her train over her arm and her tullelappets hanging down her back, she feels like a widow carrying awaterproof; but she thinks she looks like a duchess, and that is a verysupporting thought."

  "Tell me, who is that beautiful woman with the tall soldierly man,coming in now?" said Farquhar.

  "Oh! those are the Le Mesuriers of Greystone; isn't she divine? And shehas the two loveliest little boys you ever saw or imagined. I'm longingto paint them."

  "She is strikingly handsome."

  "There is a very strange story about her and her twin sister, which I'lltell you some day."

  "You shall; but you must tell me all about yourself first, and how youhave come to know so much and learn so little."

  Elisabeth looked round at him quickly. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that the depth of your intuition is only surpassed by theshallowness of your experience."

  "You are very rude!" And Elisabeth drew up her head rather haughtily.

  "Forgive me; I didn't mean to be; but I was overcome by the wonder ofhow complex you are--how wise on the one side, and how foolish upon theother; but experience is merely human and very attainable, whileintuition is divine and given to few. And I was overcome by anotherthought; may I tell you what that was?"

  "Yes; of course you may."

  "You won't be angry?"

  "No."

  "You will remember how we played together as children round the templeof Philae, and let my prehistoric memories of you be my excuse?"

  "Yes."

  "I was overcome by the thought of how glorious it would be to teach youall the things you don't know, and how delightful it would be to seeyou learn them."

  "Let us go into the next room," said Elisabeth, rising from her seat; "Isee Lady Silverhampton nodding to me, and I must go and speak to her."

  Cecil Farquhar bent his six-foot-one down to her five-foot-five. "Areyou angry with me?" he whispered.

  "I don't know; I think I am."

  "But you will let me come and see you, so that you may forgive me, won'tyou?"

  "You don't deserve it."

  "Of course I don't; I shouldn't want it if I did. The things we deserveare as unpleasant as our doctor's prescriptions. Please let mecome--because we knew each other all those centuries ago, and I haven'tforgotten you."

  "Very well, then. You'll find my address in the Red Book, and I'm alwaysat home on Sunday afternoons."

  As Elisabeth was whirled away into a vortex of gay and well-dressedpeople, Farquhar watched her for a moment. "She is an attractive woman,"he said to himself, "though she is not as good-looking as I expected.But there's charm about her, and breeding; and they say she has anenormous fortune. She is certainly worth cultivating."

  Farquhar cultivated the distinguished Miss Farringdon assiduously, andthe friendship between them grew apace. Each had a certain attractionfor the other; and, in addition, they enjoyed that wonderful freemasonrywhich exists among all followers of the same craft, and welds thesetogether in a bond almost as strong as the bond of relationship. Theartist in Farquhar was of far finer fibre than the man, as is sometimesthe case with complex natures; so that one side of him gave expressionto thoughts which the other side of him was incapable of comprehending.He did not consciously pretend that he was better than he was, and hereally believed the truths which he preached; but when the gods servetheir nectar in earthen vessels, the vessels are apt to get more creditthan they deserve, and the gods
less.

  To Elisabeth, Cecil was extremely interesting; and sheunderstood--better than most women would have done--the differencebetween himself and his art, and how the one must not be measured by theother. The artist attracted her greatly; she had so much sympathy withhis ways of looking at life and of interpreting truth; as for the man,she had as yet come to no definite conclusion in her mind concerninghim; it was not easy for mankind to fascinate Elisabeth Farringdon.

  "I have come to see my mother-confessor," he said to her one Sundayafternoon, when he dropped in to find her alone, Grace Cobham havinggone out to tea. "I have been behaving horribly all the week, and I wantyou to absolve me and help me to be better and nicer."

  Elisabeth was the last woman to despise flattery of this sort; an appealfor help of any kind never found her indifferent.

  "What have you been doing?" she asked gently.

  "It isn't so much what I have been doing as what I have been feeling. Ifound myself actually liking Lady Silverhampton, simply because she is acountess; and I was positively rude to a man I know, called Edgar Ford,because he lives at the East End and dresses badly. What a falling-offsince the days when you and I worshipped the gods together at Philae,and before money and rank and railways and bicycles came into fashion!Help me to be as I was then, dear friend."

  "How can I?"

  "By simply being yourself and letting me watch you. I always feel goodand ideal and unworldly when I am near you. Don't you know how dreadfulit is to wish to do one thing and to want to do another, and to be tornasunder between the two?"

  Elisabeth shook her head. "No; I have never felt like that. I canunderstand wanting to do different things at different times of one'slife, but I can not comprehend how one person can want to do twoopposing things at the same time."

  "Oh! I can. I can imagine doing a thing, and despising one's self at thetime for doing it, and yet not being able to help doing it."

  "I have heard other people say that, and I can't understand it."

  "Yet you are so complex; I should have thought you would," saidFarquhar.

  "Yes, I am complex; but not at the same moment. I have two distinctnatures, but the two are never on the stage at once. I don't in theleast know what St. Paul meant when he said that the evil he would notthat he did. I can quite understand doing the evil on Tuesday morningthat I would not on Monday afternoon; but I could never do anything anddisapprove of it at the same minute."

  "That is because you are so good--and so cold."

  "Am I?"

  "Yes, dear Miss Farringdon; and so amiable. You never do things in atemper."

  "But I do; I really have got a temper of my own, though nowadays peopleseem to find difficulty in believing it. I have frequently done thingsin a temper before now; but as long as the temper lasts I am pleasedthat I have done them, and feel that I do well to be angry. When thetemper is over, I sometimes think differently; but not till then. As Ihave told you before, my will is so strong that it and I are never atloggerheads with each other; it always rules me completely."

  Farquhar sighed. "I wish I were as strong as you are; but I am not. Anddo you mean to tell me that there is no worldly side to you, either; noside that hankers after fleshpots, even while the artist within you isbeing fed with manna from heaven?"

  "No; I don't think there is," Elisabeth replied slowly. "I really do notlike people any the better for having money and titles and things likethat, and it is no use pretending that I do."

  "I do. I wish I didn't, but I can't help it. It is only you who can helpme to look at life from the ideal point of view--you whose feet arestill wet with the dew of Olympus, and in whom the Greek spirit is asfresh as it was three thousand years ago."

  "Oh! I'm not as perfect as all that; far from it! I don't despise peoplefor not having rank or wealth, since rank and wealth don't happen to bethe things that interest me. But there are things that do interestme--genius and wit and culture and charm, for instance--and I am quiteas hard on the people who lack these gifts, as ever you are on theimpecunious nobodies. I confess I am often ashamed of myself when Irealize how frightfully I look down upon stupid men and dull women, andhow utterly indifferent I am as to what becomes of them. So I really amas great a snob as you are, though I wear my snobbery--like my rue--witha difference."

  "Not a snob, dear lady--never a snob! There never existed a woman withless snobbery in her composition than you have. That you are impatientof the dull and unattractive, I admit; but so you ought to be--your ownwit and charm give you the right to despise them."

  "But they don't; that's where you make a mistake. It is as unjust tolook down on a man for not making a joke as for not making a fortune.Though it isn't so much the people who don't make jokes that irritateme, as the people who make poor ones. Don't you know the sort?--would-bewits who quote a remark out of a bound Punch, and think they have beenbrilliant; and who tell an anecdote crusted with antiquity, which menlearned at their mother's knees, and say that it actually happened to afriend of theirs the week before last."

  "Oh! they are indeed terrible," agreed Cecil; "they dabble in invertedcommas as Italians dabble in garlic."

  "I never know whether to laugh at their laboured jokes or not. Ofcourse, it is pretty manners to do so, be the wit never so stale; but onthe other hand it encourages them in their evil habits, and seems to meas doubtful a form of hospitality as offering a brandy-and-soda to aconfirmed drunkard."

  "Dear friend, let us never try to be funny!"

  "Amen! And, above all things, let us flee from humorous recitations,"added Elisabeth. "There are few things in the world more heart-rendingthan a humorous recitation--with action. As for me, it unmans mecompletely, and I quietly weep in a remote corner of the room until thecarriage comes to take me home. Therefore, I avoid such; as no woman'seyelashes will stand a long course of humorous recitation without beingthe worse for wear."

  "It seems to me after all," Cecil remarked, "that the evil that youwould not, that you do, like St. Paul and myself and sundry others, ifyou despise stupid people, and know that you oughtn't to despise them,at the same time."

  "I know I oughtn't to despise them, but I never said I didn't want todespise them--that's just the difference. As a matter of fact, I enjoydespising them; that is where I am really so horrid. I hide it fromthem, because I hate hurting people's feelings; and I say 'How veryinteresting!' out of sheer good manners when they talk to merespectively about their cooks if they are women, and their digestionsif they are men; but all the time I am inwardly lifting up my eyes, andpatting myself on the back, and thanking heaven that I am not as theyare, and generally out-Phariseeing the veriest Pharisee that everbreathed."

  "It is wonderful how the word 'cook' will wake into animation the mostphlegmatic of women!"

  "If they are married," added Elisabeth; "not unless. I often think whenI go up into the drawing-room at a dinner-party, I will just say theword 'cook' to find out which of the women are married and which single.I'm certain I should know at once, from the expression the magic wordbrought to their respective faces. It is only when you have a husbandthat you regard the cook as the ruling power in life for good or evil."

  There was a pause while the footman brought in tea and Elisabeth pouredit out; then Farquhar said suddenly--

  "I feel a different man from the one that rang at your door-bell sometwenty minutes ago. The worldliness has slipped from me like a cast-offshell; now I experience a democratic indifference to my LadySilverhampton, and a brotherly affection for Mr. Edgar Ford. And this isall your doing!"

  "I don't see how that can be," laughed Elisabeth; "seeing that LadySilverhampton is a friend of mine, and I have never heard of Mr. EdgarFord."

  "But it is; it is your own unconscious influence upon me. MissFarringdon, you don't know what you have been and what you are to me! Itis only since I knew you that I have realized how little all outerthings really matter, and how much inner ones do; and how it is aquestion of no moment who a man is, compared with what a man is. And
youwill go on teaching me, won't you, and letting me sit at your feet,until the man in me is always what now the artist in me is sometimes?"

  "I shall like to help you if I can; I am always longing to help people,and yet so few people ever seem to want my help." And Elisabeth's eyesgrew sad.

  "I want it--more than I want anything in the world," replied Cecil; andhe really meant it, for the artist in him was uppermost just then.

  "Then you shall have it."

  "Thank you--thank you more than I can ever say."

  After a moment's silence Elisabeth asked--

  "Are you going to Lady Silverhampton's picnic on the river to-morrow?"

  "Yes; I accepted because I thought I should be sure to meet you,"replied Cecil, who would have accepted the invitation of a countess ifit had been to meet his bitterest foe.

  "Then your forethought will be rewarded, for I am going, too," Elisabethsaid.

  And then other callers were shown in, and the conversation was broughtto an abrupt conclusion; but it left behind it a pleasant taste in theminds of both the principals.