The Lion and the Unicorn

The Lion and the Unicorn

by Richard Harding Davis

Prentiss had a long lease on the house, and because it stood in
Jermyn Street the upper floors were, as a matter of course, turned
into lodgings for single gentlemen; and because Prentiss was a
Florist to the Queen, he placed a lion and unicorn over his
flowershop, just in front of the middle window on the first floor.
By stretching a little, each of them could see into the window just
beyond him, and could hear all that was said inside; and such things
as they saw and heard during the reign of Captain Carrington, who
moved in at the same time they did! By day the table in the centre
of the room was covered with maps, and the Captain sat with a box of
pins, with different-colored flags wrapped around them, and amused
himself by sticking them in the maps and measuring the spaces in
between, swearing meanwhile to himself. It was a selfish amusement,
but it appeared to be the Captain's only intellectual pursuit, for at
night, the maps were rolled up, and a green cloth was spread across
the table, and there was much company and popping of soda-bottles,
and little heaps of gold and silver were moved this way and that
across the cloth. The smoke drifted out of the open windows, and the
laughter of the Captain's guests rang out loudly in the empty street,
so that the policeman halted and raised his eyes reprovingly to the
lighted windows, and cabmen drew up beneath them and lay in wait,
dozing on their folded arms, for the Captain's guests to depart. The
Lion and the Unicorn were rather ashamed of the scandal of it, and
they were glad when, one day, the Captain went away with his tin
boxes and gun-cases piled high on a four-wheeler.

Prentiss stood on the sidewalk and said: "I wish you good luck,
sir." And the Captain said: "I'm coming back a Major, Prentiss."
But he never came back. And one day--the Lion remembered the day
very well, for on that same day the newsboys ran up and down Jermyn
Street shouting out the news of "a 'orrible disaster" to the British
arms. It was then that a young lady came to the door in a hansom,
and Prentiss went out to meet her and led her upstairs. They heard
him unlock the Captain's door and say, "This is his room, miss," and
after he had gone they watched her standing quite still by the centre
table. She stood there for a very long time looking slowly about
her, and then she took a photograph of the Captain from the frame on
the mantel and slipped it into her pocket, and when she went out
again her veil was down, and she was crying. She must have given
Prentiss as much as a sovereign, for he called her "Your ladyship,"
which he never did under a sovereign.

And she drove off, and they never saw her again either, nor
could they hear the address she gave the cabman. But it was
somewhere up St. John's Wood way.

After that the rooms were empty for some months, and the Lion
and the Unicorn were forced to amuse themselves with the beautiful
ladies and smart-looking men who came to Prentiss to buy flowers and
"buttonholes," and the little round baskets of strawberries, and even
the peaches at three shillings each, which looked so tempting as they
lay in the window, wrapped up in cotton-wool, like jewels of great
price.

Then Philip Carroll, the American gentleman, came, and they
heard Prentiss telling him that those rooms had always let for five
guineas a week, which they knew was not true; but they also knew that
in the economy of nations there must always be a higher price for the
rich American, or else why was he given that strange accent, except
to betray him into the hands of the London shopkeeper, and the London
cabby?

The American walked to the window toward the west, which was the
window nearest the Lion, and looked out into the graveyard of St.
James's Church, that stretched between their street and
Piccadilly.

"You're lucky in having a bit of green to look out on," he said
to Prentiss. "I'll take these rooms--at five guineas. That's more
than they're worth, you know, but as I know it, too, your conscience
needn't trouble you."

Then his eyes fell on the Lion, and he nodded to him gravely.
"How do you do?" he said. "I'm coming to live with you for a little
time. I have read about you and your friends over there. It is a
hazard of new fortunes with me, your Majesty, so be kind to me, and
if I win, I will put a new coat of paint on your shield and gild you
all over again."

Prentiss smiled obsequiously at the American's pleasantry, but
the new lodger only stared at him.

"He seemed a social gentleman," said the Unicorn, that night,
when the Lion and he were talking it over. "Now the Captain, the
whole time he was here, never gave us so much as a look. This one
says he has read of us."

"And why not?" growled the Lion. "I hope Prentiss heard what he
said of our needing a new layer of gilt. It's disgraceful. You can
see that Lion over Scarlett's, the butcher, as far as Regent Street,
and Scarlett is only one of Salisbury's creations. He received his
Letters-Patent only two years back. We date from Palmerston."

The lodger came up the street just at that moment, and stopped
and looked up at the Lion and the Unicorn from the sidewalk, before
he opened the door with his night-key. They heard him enter the room
and feel on the mantel for his pipe, and a moment later he appeared
at the Lion's window and leaned on the sill, looking down into the
street below and blowing whiffs of smoke up into the warm
night-air.

It was a night in June, and the pavements were dry under foot
and the streets were filled with well-dressed people, going home from
the play, and with groups of men in black and white, making their way
to supper at the clubs. Hansoms of inky-black, with shining lamps
inside and out, dashed noiselessly past on mysterious errands,
chasing close on each other's heels on a mad race, each to its
separate goal. From the cross streets rose the noises of early
night, the rumble of the 'buses, the creaking of their brakes, as
they unlocked, the cries of the "extras," and the merging of
thousands of human voices in a dull murmur. The great world of
London was closing its shutters for the night, and putting out the
lights; and the new lodger from across the sea listened to it with
his heart beating quickly, and laughed to stifle the touch of fear
and homesickness that rose in him.

"I have seen a great play to-night," he said to the Lion, "nobly
played by great players. What will they care for my poor wares? I
see that I have been over-bold. But we cannot go back now--not
yet."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and nodded "good-night" to
the great world beyond his window. "What fortunes lie with ye, ye
lights of London town?" he quoted, smiling. And they heard him close
the door of his bedroom, and lock it for the night.

The next morning he bought many geraniums from Prentiss and
placed them along the broad cornice that stretched across the front
of the house over the shop window. The flowers made a band of
scarlet on either side of the Lion as brilliant as a Tommy's
jacket.

"I am trying to propitiate the British Lion by placing flowers
before his altar," the American said that morning to a visitor.

"The British public you mean," said the visitor; "they are each
likely to tear you to pieces."

"Yes, I have heard that the pit on the first night of a bad play
is something awful," hazarded the American.

"Wait and see," said the visitor.

"Thank you," said the American, meekly.

Every one who came to the first floor front talked about a play.
It seemed to be something of great moment to the American. It was
only a bundle of leaves printed in red and black inks and bound in
brown paper covers. There were two of them, and the American called
them by different names: one was his comedy and one was his
tragedy.

"They are both likely to be tragedies," the Lion heard one of
the visitors say to another, as they drove away together. "Our young
friend takes it too seriously."

The American spent most of his time by his desk at the window
writing on little blue pads and tearing up what he wrote, or in
reading over one of the plays to himself in a loud voice. In time
the number of his visitors increased, and to some of these he would
read his play; and after they had left him he was either depressed
and silent or excited and jubilant. The Lion could always tell when
he was happy because then he would go to the side table and pour
himself out a drink and say, "Here's to me," but when he was
depressed he would stand holding the glass in his hand, and finally
pour the liquor back into the bottle again and say, "What's the use
of that?"

After he had been in London a month he wrote less and was more
frequently abroad, sallying forth in beautiful raiment, and coming
home by daylight.

And he gave suppers too, but they were less noisy than the
Captain's had been, and the women who came to them were much more
beautiful, and their voices when they spoke were sweet and low.
Sometimes one of the women sang, and the men sat in silence while the
people in the street below stopped to listen, and would say, "Why,
that is So-and-So singing," and the Lion and the Unicorn wondered how
they could know who it was when they could not see her.

The lodger's visitors came to see him at all hours. They seemed
to regard his rooms as a club, where they could always come for a
bite to eat or to write notes; and others treated it like a lawyer's
office and asked advice on all manner of strange subjects. Sometimes
the visitor wanted to know whether the American thought she ought to
take Lœ10 a week and go on tour, or stay in town and try to
live on Lœ8; or whether she should paint landscapes that would
not sell, or racehorses that would; or whether Reggie really loved
her and whether she really loved Reggie; or whether the new part in
the piece at the Court was better than the old part at Terry's, and
wasn't she getting too old to play "ingenues" anyway.

The lodger seemed to be a general adviser, and smoked and
listened with grave consideration, and the Unicorn thought his
judgment was most sympathetic and sensible.

Of all the beautiful ladies who came to call on the lodger the
one the Unicorn liked the best was the one who wanted to know whether
she loved Reggie and whether Reggie loved her. She discussed this so
interestingly while she consumed tea and thin slices of bread that
the Unicorn almost lost his balance in leaning forward to listen.
Her name was Marion Cavendish and it was written over many
photographs which stood in silver frames in the lodger's rooms. She
used to make the tea herself, while the lodger sat and smoked; and
she had a fascinating way of doubling the thin slices of bread into
long strips and nibbling at them like a mouse at a piece of cheese.
She had wonderful little teeth and Cupid's-bow lips, and she had a
fashion of lifting her veil only high enough for one to see the two
Cupid-bow lips. When she did that the American used to laugh, at
nothing apparently, and say, "Oh, I guess Reggie loves you well
enough."

"But do I love Reggie?" she would ask sadly, with her tea-cup
held poised in air.

" I am sure I hope not," the lodger would reply, and she would
put down the veil quickly, as one would drop a curtain over a
beautiful picture, and rise with great dignity and say, "if you talk
like that I shall not come again."

She was sure that if she could only get some work to do her head
would be filledwith more important matters than whether Reggie loved
her or not.

"But the managers seem inclined to cut their cavendish very fine
just at present," she said. "If I don't get a part soon," she
announced, "I shall ask Mitchell to put me down on the list for
recitations at evening parties."

"That seems a desperate revenge," said the American; "and
besides, I don't want you to get a part, because some one might be
idiotic enough to take my comedy, and if he should, you must play
Nancy."

"I would not ask for any salary if I could play Nancy," Miss
Cavendish answered.

They spoke of a great many things, but their talk always ended
by her saying that there must be some one with sufficient sense to
see that his play was a great play, and by his saying that none but
she must play Nancy.

The Lion preferred the tall girl with masses and folds of brown
hair, who came from America to paint miniatures of the British
aristocracy. Her name was Helen Cabot, and he liked her because she
was so brave and fearless, and so determined to be independent of
every one, even of the lodger--especially of the lodger, who it
appeared had known her very well at home. The lodger, they gathered,
did not wish her to be independent of him and the two Americans had
many arguments and disputes about it, but she always said, "It does
no good, Philip; it only hurts us both when you talk so. I care for
nothing, and for no one but my art, and, poor as it is, it means
everything to me, and you do not, and, of course, the man I am to
marry, must." Then Carroll would talk, walking up and down, and
looking very fierce and determined, and telling her how he loved her
in such a way that it made her look even more proud and beautiful.
And she would say more gently, "It is very fine to think that any one
can care for like that, and very helpful. But unless I cared in the
same way it would be wicked of me to marry you, and besides--" She
would add very quickly to prevent his speaking again--" I don't want
to marry you or anybody, and I never shall. I want to be free and to
succeed in my work, just as you want to succeed in your work. So
please never speak of this again." When she went away the lodger
used to sit smoking in the big arm-chair and beat the arms with his
hands, and he would pace up and down the room while his work would
lie untouched and his engagements pass forgotten.

Summer came and London was deserted, dull, and dusty, but the
lodger stayed on in Jermyn Street. Helen Cabot had departed on a
round of visits to country houses in Scotland, where, as she wrote
him, she was painting miniatures of her hosts and studying the game
of golf. Miss Cavendish divided her days between the river and one
of the West End theatres. She was playing a small part in a
farce-comedy.

One day she came up from Cookham earlier than usual, looking
very beautiful in a white boating frock and a straw hat with a
Leander ribbon. Her hands and arms were hard with dragging a punting
pole and she was sunburnt and happy, and hungry for tea.

"Why don't you come down to Cookham and get out of this heat?"
Miss Cavendish asked. "You need it; you look ill."

"I'd like to, but I can't," said Carroll. "The fact is, I paid
in advance for these rooms, and if I lived anywhere else I'd be
losing five guineas a week on them."

Miss Cavendish regarded him severely. She had never quite
mastered his American humor.

"But five guineas--why that's nothing to you," she said.
Something in the lodger's face made her pause. "You don't
mean----"

"Yes, I do," said the lodger, smiling. "You see, I started in
to lay siege to London without sufficient ammunition. London is a
large town, and it didn't fall as quickly as I thought it would. So
I am economizing. Mr. Lockhart's Coffee Rooms and I are no longer
strangers."

Miss Cavendish put down her cup of tea untasted and leaned
toward him

"Are you in earnest?" she asked. "For how long?"

"Oh, for the last month," replied the lodger; "they are not at
all bad--clean and wholesome and all that."

"But the suppers you gave us, and this," she cried, suddenly,
waving her hands over the pretty tea-things, "and the cake and
muffins?"

"My friends, at least," said Carroll, "need not go to
Lockhart's."

"And the Savoy?" asked Miss Cavendish, mournfully shaking her
head.

"A dream of the past," said Carroll, waving his pipe through the
smoke. "Gatti's? Yes, on special occasions; but for necessity, the
Chancellor's, where one gets a piece of the prime roast beef of Old
England, from Chicago, and potatoes for ninepence--a pot of bitter
twopence-halfpenny, and a penny for the waiter. It's most amusing on
the whole. I am learning a little about London, and some things
about myself. They are both most interesting subjects."

"Well, I don't like it," Miss Cavendish declared helplessly.
"When I think of those suppers and the flowers, I feel--I feel like a
robber."

"Don't," begged Carroll. "I am really the most happy of men--
that is, as the chap says in the play, I would be if I wasn't so
damned miserable. But I owe no man a penny and I have assets--I have
Lœ80 to last me through the winter and two marvellous plays;
and I love, next to yourself, the most wonderful woman God ever made.
That's enough."

"But I thought you made such a lot of money by writing?" asked
Miss Cavendish.

"I do--that is, I could," answered Carroll, "if I wrote the
things that sell; but I keep on writing plays that won't."

"And such plays!" exclaimed Marion, warmly; "and to think that
they are going begging." She continued indignantly, "I can't imagine
what the managers do want."

"I know what they don't want," said the American. Miss
Cavendish drummed impatiently on the tea-tray.

"I wish you wouldn't be so abject about it," she said. "If I
were a man I'd make them take those plays."

"How?" asked the American; "with a gun?"

"Well, I'd keep at it until they read them," declared Marion.
"I'd sit on their front steps all night and I'd follow them in cabs,
and I'd lie in wait for them at the stage-door. I'd just make them
take them."

Carroll sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I guess I'll give up
and go home," he said.

"Oh, yes, do, run away before you are beaten," said Miss
Cavendish, scornfully. "Why, you can't go now. Everybody will be
back in town soon, and there are a lot of new plays coming on, and
some of them are sure to be failures, and that's our chance. You
rush in with your piece and somebody may take it sooner than close
the theatre."

"I'm thinking of closing the theatre myself," said Carroll.
"What's the use of my hanging on here?" he exclaimed. "It distresses
Helen to know I am in London, feeling about her as I do--and the Lord
only knows how it distresses me. And, maybe, if I went away," he
said, consciously, "she might miss me. She might see the
difference."

Miss Cavendish held herself erect and pressed her lips together
with a severe smile. "If Helen Cabot doesn't see the difference
between you and the other men she knows now," she said, "I doubt if
she ever will. Besides--" she continued, and then hesitated. "Well,
go on," urged Carroll.

"Well, I was only going to say," she explained, "that leaving
the girl alone never did the man any good unless he left her alone
willingly. If she's sure he still cares, it's just the same to her
where he is. He might as well stay on in London as go to South
Africa. It won't help him any. The difference comes when she finds
he has stopped caring. Why, look at Reggie. He tried that. He went
away for ever so long, but he kept writing me from wherever he went,
so that he was perfectly miserable--and I went on enjoying myself.
Then when he came back, he tried going about with his old friends
again. He used to come to the theatre with them--oh, with such nice
girls--but he always stood in the back of the box and yawned and
scowled--so I knew. And, anyway, he'd always spoil it all by leaving
them and waiting at the stage entrance for me. But one day he got
tired of the way I treated him and went off on a bicycle tour with
Lady Hacksher's girls and some men from his regiment, and he was gone
three weeks and never sent me even a line; and I got so scared; I
couldn't sleep, and I stood it for three days more, and then I wired
him to come back or I'd jump off London Bridge; and he came back that
very night from Edinburgh on the express, and I was so glad to see
him that I got confused, and in the general excitement I promised to
marry him, so that's how it was with us."

"Yes," said the American, without enthusiasm; "but then I still
care, and Helen knows I care."

"Doesn't she ever fancy that you might care for some one else?
You have a lot of friends, you know."

"Yes, but she knows they are just that--friends," said the
American.

Miss Cavendish stood up to go, and arranged her veil before the
mirror above the fireplace.

"I come here very often to tea," she said.

"It's very kind of you," said Carroll. He was at the open
window, looking down into the street for a cab.

"Well, no one knows I am engaged to Reggie," continued Miss
Cavendish, "except you and Reggie, and he isn't so sure. She doesn't
know it."

"Well?" said Carroll.

Miss Cavendish smiled a mischievous kindly smile at him from the
mirror.

"Well?" she repeated, mockingly. Carroll stared at her and
laughed. After a pause he said: "It's like a plot in a comedy. But
I'm afraid I'm too serious for play-acting."

"Yes, it is serious," said Miss Cavendish. She seated herself
again and regarded the American thoughtfully. "You are too good a
man to be treated the way that girl is treating you, and no one knows
it better than she does. She'll change in time, but just now she
thinks she wants to be independent. She's in love with this
picture-painting idea, and with the people she meets. It's all new
to her--the fuss they make over her and the titles, and the way she
is asked about. We know she can't paint. We know they only give her
commissions because she's so young and pretty, and American. She
amuses them, that's all. Well, that cannot last; she'll find it out.
She's too clever a girl, and she is too fine a girl to be content
with that long. Then--then she'll come back to you. She feels now
that she has both you and the others, and she's making you wait: so
wait and be cheerful. She's worth waiting for; she's young, that's
all. She'll see the difference in time. But, in the meanwhile, it
would hurry matters a bit if she thought she had to choose between
the new friends and you."

"She could still keep her friends, and marry me," said Carroll;
"I have told her that a hundred times. She could still paint
miniatures and marry me. But she won't marry me."

"She won't marry you because she knows she can whenever she
wants to;" cried Marion. "Can't you see that? But if she thought
you were going to marry some one else now?"

"She would be the first to congratulate me," said Carroll. He
rose and walked to the fireplace, where he leaned with his arm on the
mantel. There was a photograph of Helen Cabot near his hand, and he
turned this toward him and stood for some time staring at it. "My
dear Marion," he said at last, "I've known Helen ever since she was
as young as that. Every year I've loved her more, and found new
things in her to care for; now I love her more than any other man
ever loved any other woman."

Miss Cavendish shook her head sympathetically.

"Yes, I know," she said; "that's the way Reggie loves me,
too."

Carroll went on as though he had not heard her.

"There's a bench in St. James's Park," he said, "where we used
to sit when she first came here, when she didn't know so many people.
We used to go there in the morning and throw penny buns to the
ducks. That's been my amusement this summer since you've all been
away--sitting on that bench, feeding penny buns to the silly
ducks--especially the black one, the one she used to like best. And
I make pilgrimages to all the other places we ever visited together,
and try to pretend she is with me. And I support the crossing
sweeper at Lansdowne Passage because she once said she felt sorry for
him. I do all the other absurd things that a man in love tortures
himself by doing. But to what end? She knows how I care, and yet
she won't see why we can't go on being friends as we once were.
What's the use of it all? "

"She is young, I tell you," repeated Miss Cavendish, "and she's
too sure of you. You've told her you care; now try making her think
you don't care."

Carroll shook his head impatiently.

"I will not stoop to such tricks and pretence, Marion," he cried
impatiently. "All I have is my love for her; if I have to cheat and
to trap her into caring, the whole thing would be degraded."

Miss Cavendish shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door.
"Such amateurs!" she exclaimed, and banged the door after her.

Carroll never quite knew how he had come to make a confidante of
Miss Cavendish. Helen and he had met her when they first arrived in
London, and as she had acted for a season in the United States, she
adopted the two Americans--and told Helen where to go for boots and
hats, and advised Carroll about placing his plays. Helen soon made
other friends, and deserted the artists, with whom her work had first
thrown her. She seemed to prefer the society of the people who
bought her paintings, and who admired and made much of the painter.
As she was very beautiful and at an age when she enjoyed everything
in life keenly and eagerly, to give her pleasure was in itself a
distinct pleasure; and the worldly tired people she met were
considering their own entertainment quite as much as hers when they
asked her to their dinners and dances, or to spend a week with them
in the country. In her way, she was as independent as was Carroll in
his, and as she was not in love, as he was, her life was not narrowed
down to but one ideal. But she was not so young as to consider
herself infallible, and she had one excellent friend on whom she was
dependent for advice and to whose directions she submitted
implicitly. This was Lady Gower, the only person to whom Helen had
spoken of Carroll and of his great feeling for her. Lady Gower,
immediately after her marriage, had been a conspicuous and brilliant
figure in that set in London which works eighteen hours a day to keep
itself amused, but after the death of her husband she had disappeared
into the country as completely as though she had entered a convent,
and after several years had then re-entered the world as a
professional philanthropist. Her name was now associated entirely
with Women's Leagues, with committees that presented petitions to
Parliament, and with public meetings, at which she spoke with
marvellous ease and effect. Her old friends said she had taken up
this new pose as an outlet for her nervous energies, and as an effort
to forget the man who alone had made life serious to her. Others
knew her as an earnest woman, acting honestly for what she thought
was right. Her success, all admitted, was due to her knowledge of
the world and to her sense of humor, which taught her with whom to
use her wealth and position, and when to demand what she wanted
solely on the ground that the cause was just.

She had taken more than a fancy for Helen, and the position of
the beautiful, motherless girl had appealed to her as one filled with
dangers. When she grew to know Helen better, she recognized that
these fears were quite unnecessary, and as she saw more of her she
learned to care for her deeply. Helen had told her much of Carroll
and of his double purpose in coming to London; of his brilliant work
and his lack of success in having it recognized; and of his great and
loyal devotion to her, and of his lack of success, not in having that
recognized, but in her own inability to return it. Helen was proud
that she had been able to make Carroll care for her as he did, and
that there was anything about her which could inspire a man whom she
admired so much, to believe in her so absolutely and for so long a
time. But what convinced her that the outcome for which he hoped was
impossible, was the very fact that she could admire him, and see how
fine and unselfish his love for her was, and yet remain untouched by
it.

She had been telling Lady Gower one day of the care he had taken
of her ever since she was fourteen years of age, and had quoted some
of the friendly and loverlike acts he had performed in her service,
until one day they had both found out that his attitude of the elder
brother was no longer possible, and that he loved her in the old and
only way. Lady Gower looked at her rather doubtfully and smiled.

"I wish you would bring him to see me, Helen" she said; "I think
I should like your friend very much. From what you tell me of him I
doubt if you will find many such men waiting for you in this country.
Our men marry for reasons of property, or they love blindly, and are
exacting and selfish before and after they are married. I know,
because so many women came to me when my husband was alive to ask how
it was that I continued so happy in my married life."

"But I don't want to marry any one," Helen remonstrated gently.
"American girls are not always thinking only of getting married."

"What I meant was this," said Lady Gower, "that, in my
experience, I have heard of but few men who care in the way this
young man seems to care for you. You say you do not love him; but if
he had wanted to gain my interest, he could not have pleaded his
cause better than you have done. He seems to see your faults and yet
love you still, in spite of them--or on account of them. And I like
the things he does for you. I like, for instance, his sending you
the book of the moment every week for two years. That shows a most
unswerving spirit of devotion. And the story of the broken bridge in
the woods is a wonderful story. If I were a young girl, I could love
a man for that alone. It was a beautiful thing to do."

Helen sat with her chin on her hands, deeply considering this
new point of view.

"I thought it very foolish of him," she confessed questioningly,
"to take such a risk for such a little thing."

Lady Gower smiled down at her from the height of her many
years.

"Wait," she said dryly, "you are very young now--and very rich;
every one is crowding to give you pleasure, to show his admiration.
You are a very fortunate girl. But later, these things which some
man has done because he loved you, and which you call foolish, will
grow large in your life, and shine out strongly, and when you are
discouraged and alone, you will take them out, and the memory of them
will make you proud and happy. They are the honors which women wear
in secret."

Helen came back to town in September, and for the first few days
was so occupied in refurnishing her studio and in visiting the shops
that she neglected to send Carroll word of her return. When she
found that a whole week had passed without her having made any effort
to see him, and appreciated how the fact would hurt her friend, she
was filled with remorse, and drove at once in great haste to Jermyn
Street, to announce her return in person. On the way she decided
that she would soften the blow of her week of neglect by asking him
to take her out to luncheon. This privilege she had once or twice
accorded him, and she felt that the pleasure these excursions gave
Carroll were worth the consternation they caused to Lady Gower.

The servant was uncertain whether Mr. Carroll was at home or
not, but Helen was too intent upon making restitution to wait for the
fact to be determined, and, running up the stairs, knocked sharply at
the door of his study.

A voice bade her come in, and she entered, radiant and smiling
her welcome. But Carroll was not there to receive it, and instead,
Marion Cavendish looked up at her from his desk where she was busily
writing. Helen paused with a surprised laugh, but Marion sprang up
and hailed her gladly. They met half way across the room and kissed
each other with the most friendly feeling.

Philip was out, Marion said, and she had just stepped in for a
moment to write him a note. If Helen would excuse her, she would
finish it, as she was late for rehearsal.

But she asked over her shoulder, with great interest, if Helen
had passed a pleasant summer. She thought she had never seen her
looking so well. Helen thought Miss Cavendish herself was looking
very well also, but Marion said no; that she was too sunburnt, she
would not be able to wear a dinner-dress for a month. There was a
pause while Marion's quill scratched violently across Carroll's
note-paper. Helen felt that in some way she was being treated as an
intruder; or worse, as a guest. She did not sit down, it seemed
impossible to do so, but she moved uncertainly about the room. She
noted that there were many changes, it seemed more bare and empty;
her picture was still on the writing-desk, but there were at least
six new photographs of Marion. Marion herself had brought them to
the room that morning, and had carefully arranged them in conspicuous
places. But Helen could not know that. She thought there was an
unnecessary amount of writing scribbled over the face of each.

Marion addressed her letter and wrote "Immediate" across the
envelope, and placed it before the clock on the mantelshelf. "You
will find Philip looking very badly," she said, as she pulled on her
gloves. "He has been in town all summer, working very hard--he has
had no holiday at all. I don't think he's well. I have been a great
deal worried about him," she added. Her face was bent over the
buttons of her glove, and when she raised her blue eyes to Helen they
were filled with serious concern.

"Really," Helen stammered, "I--I didn't know--in his letters he
seemed very cheerful."

Marion shook her head and turned and stood looking thoughtfully
out of the window. "He's in a very hard place," she began abruptly,
and then stopped as though she had thought better of what she
intended to say. Helen tried to ask her to go on, but could not
bring herself to do so. She wanted to get away.

"I tell him he ought to leave London," Marion began again; "he
needs a change and a rest."

"I should think he might," Helen agreed, "after three months of
this heat. He wrote me he intended going to Herne Bay or over to
Ostend."

"Yes, he had meant to go," Marion answered. She spoke with the
air of one who possessed the most intimate knowledge of Carroll's
movements and plans, and change of plans. "But he couldn't," she
added. "He couldn't afford it. Helen," she said, turning to the
other girl, dramatically, "do you know--I believe that Philip is very
poor."

Miss Cabot exclaimed incredulously, "Poor!" She laughed. "Why,
what do you mean?"

"I mean that he has no money," Marion answered, sharply. "These
rooms represent nothing. He only keeps them on because he paid for
them in advance. He's been living on three shillings a day. That's
poor for him. He takes his meals at cabmen's shelters and at
Lockhart's, and he's been doing so for a month."

Helen recalled with a guilty thrill the receipt of certain boxes
of La France roses--cut long, in the American fashion--which had
arrived within the last month at various country houses. She felt
indignant at herself, and miserable. Her indignation was largely due
to the recollection that she had given these flowers to her hostess
to decorate the dinner-table.

She hated to ask this girl of things which she should have known
better than any one else. But she forced herself to do it. She felt
she must know certainly and at once.

"How do you know this?" she asked. "Are you sure there is no
mistake?"

"He told me himself," said Marion, "when he talked of letting
the plays go and returning to America. He said he must go back; that
his money was gone."

"He is gone to America!" Helen said, blankly.

"No, he wanted to go, but I wouldn't let him," Marion went on.
"I told him that some one might take his play any day. And this
third one he has written, the one he finished this summer in town, is
the best of all, I think. It's a love-story. It's quite beautiful."
She turned and arranged her veil at the glass, and as she did so,
her eyes fell on the photographs of herself scattered over the
mantelpiece, and she smiled slightly. But Helen did not see her--she
was sitting down now, pulling at the books on the table. She was
confused and disturbed by emotions which were quite strange to her,
and when Marion bade her good-by she hardly noticed her departure.
What impressed her most of all in what Marion had told her, was, she
was surprised to find, that Philip was going away. That she herself
had frequently urged him to do so, for his own peace of mind, seemed
now of no consequence. Now that he seriously contemplated it, she
recognized that his absence meant to her a change in everything. She
felt for the first time the peculiar place he held in her life. Even
if she had seen him but seldom, the fact that he was within call had
been more of a comfort and a necessity to her than she understood.

That he was poor, concerned her chiefly because she knew that,
although this condition could only be but temporary, it would
distress him not to have his friends around him, and to entertain
them as he had been used to do. She wondered eagerly if she might
offer to help him, but a second thought assured her that, for a man,
that sort of help from a woman was impossible.

She resented the fact that Marion was deep in his confidence;
that it was Marion who had told her of his changed condition and of
his plans. It annoyed her so acutely that she could not remain in
the room where she had seen her so complacently in possession. And
after leaving a brief note for Philip, she went away. She stopped a
hansom at the door, and told the man to drive along the
Embankment--she wanted to be quite alone, and she felt she could see
no one until she had thought it all out, and had analyzed the new
feelings.

So for several hours she drove slowly up and down, sunk far back
in the cushions of the cab, and staring with unseeing eyes at the
white enamelled tariff and the black dash-board.

She assured herself that she was not jealous of Marion, because,
in order to be jealous, she first would have to care for Philip in
the very way she could not bring herself to do.

She decided that his interest in Marion hurt her, because it
showed that Philip was not capable of remaining true to the one ideal
of his life. She was sure that this explained her feelings--she was
disappointed that he had not kept up to his own standard; that he was
weak enough to turn aside from it for the first pretty pair of eyes.
But she was too honest and too just to accept that diagnosis of her
feelings as final--she knew there had been many pairs of eyes in
America and in London, and that though Philip had seen them, he had
not answered them when they spoke. No, she confessed frankly, she
was hurt with herself for neglecting her old friend so selfishly and
for so long a time; his love gave him claims on her consideration, at
least, and she had forgotten that and him, and had run after strange
gods and allowed others to come in and take her place, and to give
him the sympathy and help which she should have been the first to
offer, and which would have counted more when coming from her than
from any one else. She determined to make amends at once for her
thoughtlessness and selfishness, and her brain was pleasantly
occupied with plans and acts of kindness. It was a new
entertainment, and she found she delighted in it. She directed the
cabman to go to Solomons's, and from there sent Philip a bunch of
flowers and a line saying that on the following day she was coming to
take tea with him. She had a guilty feeling that he might consider
her friendly advances more seriously than she meant them, but it was
her pleasure to be reckless: her feelings were running riotously, and
the sensation was so new that she refused to be circumspect or to
consider consequences. Who could tell, she asked herself with a
quick, frightened gasp, but that, after all, it might be that she was
learning to care? From Solomons's she bade the man drive to the shop
in Cranbourne Street where she was accustomed to purchase the
materials she used in painting, and Fate, which uses strange agents
to work out its ends, so directed it that the cabman stopped a few
doors below this shop, and opposite one where jewelry and other
personal effects were bought and sold. At any other time, or had she
been in any other mood, what followed might not have occurred, but
Fate, in the person of the cabman, arranged it so that the hour and
the opportunity came together.

There were some old mezzotints in the window of the loan shop, a
string of coins and medals, a row of new French posters; and far down
to the front a tray filled with gold and silver cigarette- cases and
watches and rings. It occurred to Helen, who was still bent on
making restitution for her neglect, that a cigarette-case would be
more appropriate for a man than flowers, and more lasting. And she
scanned the contents of the window with the eye of one who now saw in
everything only something which might give Philip pleasure. The two
objects of value in the tray upon which her eyes first fell were the
gold seal-ring with which Philip had sealed his letters to her, and,
lying next to it, his gold watch! There was something almost human
in the way the ring and watch spoke to her from the past--in the way
they appealed to her to rescue them from the surroundings to which
they had been abandoned. She did not know what she meant to do with
them nor how she could return them to Philip; but there was no
question of doubt in her manner as she swept with a rush into the
shop. There was no attempt, either, at bargaining in the way in
which she pointed out to the young woman behind the counter the
particular ring and watch she wanted. They had not been left as
collateral, the young woman said; they had been sold outright.

"Then any one can buy them?" Helen asked eagerly. "They are for
sale to the public--to any one?"

The young woman made note of the customer's eagerness, but with
an unmoved countenance.

"Yes, miss, they are for sale. The ring is four pounds and the
watch twenty-five."

"Twenty-nine pounds!" Helen gasped.

That was more money than she had in the world, but the fact did
not distress her, for she had a true artistic disregard for ready
money, and the absence of it had never disturbed her. But now it
assumed a sudden and alarming value. She had ten pounds in her purse
and ten pounds at her studio--these were just enough to pay for a
quarter's rent and the rates, and there was a hat and cloak in Bond
Street which she certainly must have. Her only assets consisted of
the possibility that some one might soon order a miniature, and to
her mind that was sufficient. Some one always had ordered a
miniature, and there was no reasonable doubt but that some one would
do it again. For a moment she questioned if it would not be
sufficient if she bought the ring and allowed the watch to remain.
But she recognized that the ring meant more to her than the watch,
while the latter, as an old heirloom which had been passed down to
him from a great-grandfather, meant more to Philip. It was for
Philip she was doing this, she reminded herself. She stood holding
his possessions, one in each hand, and looking at the young woman
blankly. She had no doubt in her mind that at least part of the
money he had received for them had paid for the flowers he had sent
to her in Scotland. The certainty of this left her no choice. She
laid the ring and watch down and pulled the only ring she possessed
from her own finger. It was a gift from Lady Gower. She had no
doubt that it was of great value.

"Can you lend me some money on that?" she asked. It was the
first time she had conducted a business transaction of this nature,
and she felt as though she were engaging in a burglary.

"We don't lend money, miss," the girl said, "we buy outright. I
can give you twenty-eight shillings for this," she added.

"Twenty-eight shillings," Helen gasped; "why, it is worth--oh,
ever so much more than that!"

"That is all it is worth to us," the girl answered. She
regarded the ring indifferently and laid it away from her on the
counter. The action was final.

Helen's hands rose slowly to her breast, where a pretty watch
dangled from a bowknot of crushed diamonds. It was her only
possession, and she was very fond of it. It also was the gift of one
of the several great ladies who had adopted her since her residence
in London. Helen had painted a miniature of this particular great
lady which had looked so beautiful that the pleasure which the
original of the portrait derived from the thought that she still
really looked as she did in the miniature was worth more to her than
many diamonds.

But it was different with Helen, and no one could count what it
cost her to tear away her one proud possession.

"What will you give me for this?" she asked defiantly.

The girl's eyes showed greater interest. "I can give you twenty
pounds for that," she said.

"Take it, please," Helen begged, as though she feared if she
kept it a moment longer she might not be able to make the
sacrifice.

"That will be enough now," she went on, taking out her ten-pound
note. She put Lady Gower's ring back upon her finger and picked up
Philip's ring and watch with the pleasure of one who has come into a
great fortune. She turned back at the door.

"Oh," she stammered, "in case any one should inquire, you are
not to say who bought these."

"No, miss, certainly not," said the woman. Helen gave the
direction to the cabman and, closing the doors of the hansom, sat
looking down at the watch and the ring, as they lay in her lap. The
thought that they had been his most valued possessions, which he had
abandoned forever, and that they were now entirely hers, to do with
as she liked, filled her with most intense delight and pleasure. She
took up the heavy gold ring and placed it on the little finger of her
left hand; it was much too large, and she removed it and balanced it
for a moment doubtfully in the palm of her right hand. She was
smiling, and her face was lit with shy and tender thoughts. She cast
a quick glance to the left and right as though fearful that people
passing in the street would observe her, and then slipped the ring
over the fourth finger of her left hand. She gazed at it with a
guilty smile and then, covering it hastily with her other hand,
leaned back, clasping it closely, and sat frowning far out before her
with puzzled eyes.

To Carroll all roads led past Helen's studio, and during the
summer, while she had been absent in Scotland it was one of his sad
pleasures to make a pilgrimage to her street and to pause opposite
the house and look up at the empty windows of her rooms.

It was during this daily exercise that he learned, through the
arrival of her luggage, of her return to London, and when day
followed day without her having shown any desire to see him or to
tell him of her return he denounced himself most bitterly as a
fatuous fool.

At the end of the week he sat down and considered his case quite
calmly. For three years he had loved this girl, deeply and tenderly.
He had been lover, brother, friend, and guardian. During that time,
even though she had accepted him in every capacity except as that of
the prospective husband, she had never given him any real affection,
nor sympathy, nor help; all she had done for him had been done
without her knowledge or intent. To know her, to love her, and to
scheme to give her pleasure had been its own reward, and the only
one. For the last few months he had been living like a
crossing-sweeper in order to be able to stay in London until she came
back to it, and that he might still send her the gifts he had always
laid on her altar. He had not seen her in three months. Three
months that had been to him a blank, except for his work--which like
all else that he did, was inspired and carried on for her. Now at
last she had returned and had shown that, even as a friend, he was of
so little account in her thoughts, of so little consequence in her
life, that after this long absence she had no desire to learn of his
welfare or to see him--she did not even give him the chance to see
her. And so, placing these facts before him for the first time since
he had loved her, he considered what was due to himself. "Was it
good enough?" he asked. "Was it just that he should continue to wear
out his soul and body for this girl who did not want what he had to
give, who treated him less considerately than a man whom she met for
the first time at dinner? He felt he had reached the breaking-point;
that the time had come when he must consider what he owed to himself.
There could never be any other woman save Helen, but as it was not
to be Helen, he could no longer, with self-respect, continue to
proffer his love only to see it slighted and neglected. He was
humble enough concerning himself, but of his love he was very proud.
Other men could give her more in wealth or position, but no one could
ever love her as he did. "He that hath more let him give," he had
often quoted to her defiantly, as though he were challenging the
world, and now he felt he must evolve a make-shift world of his
own--a world in which she was not his only spring of acts; he must
begin all over again and keep his love secret and sacred until she
understood it and wanted it. And if she should never want it he
would at least have saved it from many rebuffs and insults.

With this determination strong in him, the note Helen had left
for him after her talk with Marion, and the flowers, and the note
with them, saying she was coming to take tea on the morrow, failed to
move him except to make him more bitter. He saw in them only a tardy
recognition of her neglect--an effort to make up to him for
thoughtlessness which, from her, hurt him worse than studied
slight.

A new regime had begun, and he was determined to establish it
firmly and to make it impossible for himself to retreat from it; and
in the note in which he thanked Helen for the flowers and welcomed
her to tea, he declared his ultimatum.

"You know how terribly I feel," he wrote; "I don't have to tell
you that, but I cannot always go on dragging out my love and holding
it up to excite your pity as beggars show their sores. I cannot
always go on praying before your altar, cutting myself with knives
and calling upon you to listen to me. You know that there is no one
else but you, and that there never can be any one but you, and that
nothing is changed except that after this I am not going to urge and
torment you. I shall wait as I have always waited--only now I shall
wait in silence. You know just how little, in one way, I have to
offer you, and you know just how much I have in love to offer you.
It is now for you to speak--some day, or never. But you will have to
speak first. You will never hear a word of love from me again. Why
should you? You know it is always waiting for you. But if you
should ever want it, you must come to me, and take off your hat and
put it on my table and say, 'Philip, I have come to stay.' Whether
you can ever do that or not can make no difference in my love for
you. I shall love you always, as no man has ever loved a woman in
this world, but it is you who must speak first; for me, the rest is
silence."

The following morning as Helen was leaving the house she found
this letter lying on the hall-table, and ran back with it to her
rooms. A week before she would have let it lie on the table and read
it on her return. She was conscious that this was what she would
have done, and it pleased her to find that what concerned Philip was
now to her the thing of greatest interest. She was pleased with her
own eagerness--her own happiness was a welcome sign, and she was
proud and glad that she was learning to care.

She read the letter with an anxious pride and pleasure in each
word that was entirely new. Philip's recriminations did not hurt
her, they were the sign that he cared; nor did his determination not
to speak of his love to her hurt her, for she believed him when he
said that he would always care. She read the letter twice, and then
sat for some time considering the kind of letter Philip would have
written had he known her secret--had he known that the ring he had
abandoned was now upon her finger.

She rose and, crossing to a desk, placed the letter in a drawer,
and then took it out again and re-read the last page. When she had
finished it she was smiling. For a moment she stood irresolute, and
then, moving slowly toward the centre-table, cast a guilty look about
her and, raising her hands, lifted her veil and half withdrew the
pins that fastened her hat.

"Philip," she began in a frightened whisper, "I have--I have
come to--"

The sentence ended in a cry of protest, and she rushed across
the room as though she were running from herself. She was blushing
violently.

"Never!" she cried, as she pulled open the door; "I could never
do it--never!"

The following afternoon, when Helen was to come to tea, Carroll
decided that he would receive her with all the old friendliness, but
that he must be careful to subdue all emotion.

He was really deeply hurt at her treatment, and had it not been
that she came on her own invitation he would not of his own accord
have sought to see her. In consequence, he rather welcomed than
otherwise the arrival of Marion Cavendish, who came a half-hour
before Helen was expected, and who followed a hasty knock with a
precipitate entrance.

"Sit down," she commanded breathlessly; "and listen. I've been
at rehearsal all day, or I'd have been here before you were awake."
She seated herself nervously and nodded her head at Carroll in an
excited and mysterious manner.

"What is it?" he asked. "Have you and Reggie--"

"Listen," Marion repeated, "our fortunes are made; that is
what's the matter--and I've made them. If you took half the interest
in your work I do, you'd have made yours long ago. Last night," she
began impressively, "I went to a large supper at the Savoy, and I sat
next to Charley Wimpole. He came in late, after everybody had
finished, and I attacked him while he was eating his supper. He said
he had been rehearsing 'Caste' after the performance; that they've
put it on as a stop-gap on account of the failure of the 'Triflers,'
and that he knew revivals were of no use; that he would give any sum
for a good modern comedy. That was my cue, and I told him I knew of
a better comedy than any he had produced at his theatre in five
years, and that it was going begging. He laughed, and asked where
was he to find this wonderful comedy, and I said, 'It's been in your
safe for the last two months and you haven't read it.' He said,
'Indeed, how do you know that?' and I said, 'Because if you'd read
it, it wouldn't be in your safe, but on your stage.' So he asked me
what the play was about, and I told him the plot and what sort of a
part his was, and some of his scenes, and he began to take notice.
He forgot his supper, and very soon he grew so interested that he
turned his chair round and kept eying my supper-card to find out who
I was, and at last remembered seeing me in 'The New Boy'--and a
rotten part it was, too--but he remembered it, and he told me to go
on and tell him more about your play. So I recited it, bit by bit,
and he laughed in all the right places and got very much excited, and
said finally that he would read it the first thing this morning."
Marion paused, breathlessly. "Oh, yes, and he wrote your address on
his cuff," she added, with the air of delivering a complete and
convincing climax.

Carroll stared at her and pulled excitedly on his pipe.

"Oh, Marion!" he gasped, "suppose he should? He won't though,"
he added, but eying her eagerly and inviting contradiction.

"He will," she answered, stoutly, "if he reads it."

"The other managers read it," Carroll suggested, doubtfully.

"Yes, but what do they know?" Marion returned, loftily. "He
knows. Charles Wimpole is the only intelligent actor-manager in
London."

There was a sharp knock at the door, which Marion in her
excitement had left ajar, and Prentiss threw it wide open with an
impressive sweep, as though he were announcing royalty: "Mr. Charles
Wimpole," he said.

The actor-manager stopped in the doorway bowing gracefully, his
hat held before him and his hand on his stick as though it were
resting on a foil. He had the face and carriage of a gallant of the
days of Congreve, and he wore his modern frock-coat with as much
distinction as if it were of silk and lace. He was evidently amused.
"I couldn't help overhearing the last line," he said, smiling. "It
gives me a good entrance."

Marion gazed at him blankly: "Oh," she gasped, "we--we--were
just talking about you."

"If you hadn't mentioned my name," the actor said, "I should
never have guessed it. And this is Mr. Carroll, I hope."

The great man was rather pleased with the situation. As he read
it, it struck him as possessing strong dramatic possibilities:
Carroll was the struggling author on the verge of starvation: Marion,
his sweetheart, flying to him gave him hope; and he was the good
fairy arriving in the nick of time to set everything right and to
make the young people happy and prosperous. He rather fancied
himself in the part of the good fairy, and as he seated himself he
bowed to them both in a manner which was charmingly inclusive and
confidential.

"Miss Cavendish, I imagine, has already warned you that you
might expect a visit from me," he said tentatively. Carroll nodded.
He was too much concerned to interrupt.

"Then I need only tell you," Wimpole continued, "that I got up
at an absurd hour this morning to read your play; that I did read it;
that I like it immensely--and that if we can come to terms I shall
produce it I shall produce it at once, within a fortnight or three
weeks."

Carroll was staring at him intently and continued doing so after
Wimpole had finished speaking. The actor felt he had somehow missed
his point, or that Carroll could not have understood him, and
repeated, "I say I shall put it in rehearsal at once."

Carroll rose abruptly, and pushed back his chair. "I should be
very glad," he murmured, and strode over to the window, where he
stood with his back turned to his guests. Wimpole looked after him
with a kindly smile and nodded his head appreciatively. He had
produced even a greater effect than his lines seemed to warrant.
When he spoke again, it was quite simply, and sincerely, and though
he spoke for Carroll's benefit, he addressed himself to Marion.

"You were quite right last night," he said, "it is a most
charming piece of work. I am really extremely grateful to you for
bringing it to my notice." He rose, and going to Carroll, put his
hand on his shoulder. "My boy," he said, "I congratulate you. I
should like to be your age, and to have written that play. Come to
my theatre to-morrow and we will talk terms. Talk it over first with
your friends, so that I sha'n't rob you. Do you think you would
prefer a lump sum now, and so be done with it altogether, or trust
that the royalties may--"

"Royalties," prompted Marion, in an eager aside.

The men laughed. "Quite right," Wimpole assented, good-
humoredly; "it's a poor sportsman who doesn't back his own horse.

Well, then, until to-morrow."

"But," Carroll began, "one moment please. I haven't thanked
you."

"My dear boy," cried Wimpole, waving him away with his stick,
"it is I who have to thank you."

"And--and there is a condition," Carroll said, "which goes with
the play. It is that Miss Cavendish is to have the part of
Nancy."

Wimpole looked serious and considered for a moment.

"Nancy," he said, "the girl who interferes--a very good part. I
have cast Miss Maddox for it in my mind, but, of course, if the
author insists--"

Marion, with her elbows on the table, clasped her hands
appealingly before her.

"Oh, Mr. Wimpole!" she cried, "you owe me that, at least."

Carroll leaned over and took both of Marion's hands in one of
his.

"It's all right," he said; "the author insists."

Wimpole waved his stick again as though it were the magic wand
of the good fairy.

"You shall have it," he said. "I recall your performance in
'The New Boy' with pleasure. I take the play, and Miss Cavendish
shall be cast for Nancy. We shall begin rehearsals at once. I hope
you are a quick study."

"I'm letter-perfect now{,}" laughed Marion.

Wimpole turned at the door and nodded to them. They were both
so young, so eager, and so jubilant that he felt strangely old and
out of it. "Good-by, then," he said.

"Good-by, sir," they both chorussed. And Marion cried after
him, "And thank you a thousand times."

He turned again and looked back at them, but in their rejoicing
they had already forgotten him. "Bless you, my children," he said,
smiling. As he was about to close the door a young girl came down
the passage toward it, and as she was apparently going to Carroll's
rooms, the actor left the door open behind him.

Neither Marion nor Carroll had noticed his final exit. They
were both gazing at each other as though, could they find speech,
they would ask if it were true.

"It's come at last, Marion," Philip said, with an uncertain
voice.

"I could weep," cried Marion. " Philip," she exclaimed, "I
would rather see that play succeed than any play ever written, and I
would rather play that part in it than--Oh, Philip," she ended. "I'm
so proud of you!" and rising, she threw her arms about his neck and
sobbed on his shoulder.

Carroll raised one of her hands and kissed the tips of her
fingers gently. "I owe it to you, Marion," he said--"all to you."

This was the tableau that was presented through the open door to
Miss Helen Cabot, hurrying on her errand of restitution and good-
will, and with Philip's ring and watch clasped in her hand. They had
not heard her, nor did they see her at the door, so she drew back
quickly and ran along the passage and down the stairs into the
street.

She did not need now to analyze her feelings. They were only
too evident. For she could translate what she had just seen as
meaning only one thing--that she had considered Philip's love so
lightly that she had not felt it passing away from her until her
neglect had killed it--until it was too late. And now that it was
too late she felt that without it her life could not go on. She
tried to assure herself that only the fact that she had lost it made
it seem invaluable, but this thought did not comfort her--she was not
deceived by it, she knew that at last she cared for him deeply and
entirely. In her distress she blamed herself bitterly, but she also
blamed Philip no less bitterly for having failed to wait for her.
"He might have known that I must love him in time," she repeated to
herself again and again. She was so unhappy that her letter
congratulating Philip on his good fortune in having his comedy
accepted seemed to him cold and unfeeling, and as his success meant
for him only what it meant to her, he was hurt and grievously
disappointed.

He accordingly turned the more readily to Marion, whose
interests and enthusiasm at the rehearsals of the piece seemed in
contrast most friendly and unselfish. He could not help but compare
the attitude of the two girls at this time, when the failure or
success of his best work was still undecided. He felt that as Helen
took so little interest in his success he could not dare to trouble
her with his anxieties concerning it, and she attributed his silence
to his preoccupation and interest in Marion. So the two grew apart,
each misunderstanding the other and each troubled in spirit at the
other's indifference.

The first night of the play justified all that Marion and
Wimpole had claimed for it, and was a great personal triumph for the
new playwright. The audience was the typical first-night audience of
the class which Charles Wimpole always commanded. It was brilliant,
intelligent, and smart, and it came prepared to be pleased.

From one of the upper stage-boxes Helen and Lady Gower watched
the successful progress of the play with an anxiety almost as keen as
that of the author. To Helen it seemed as though the giving of these
lines to the public--these lines which he had so often read to her,
and altered to her liking--was a desecration. It seemed as though
she were losing him indeed--as though he now belonged to these
strange people, all of whom were laughing and applauding his words,
from the German Princess in the Royal box to the straight-backed
Tommy in the pit. Instead of the painted scene before her, she saw
the birch-trees by the river at home, where he had first read her the
speech to which they were now listening so intensely--the speech in
which the hero tells the girl he loves her. She remembered that at
the time she had thought how wonderful it would be if some day some
one made such a speech to her--not Philip--but a man she loved. And
now? If Philip would only make that speech to her now!

He came out at last, with Wimpole leading him, and bowed across
a glaring barrier of lights at a misty but vociferous audience that
was shouting the generous English bravo! and standing up to applaud.
He raised his eyes to the box where Helen sat, and saw her staring
down at the tumult, with her hands clasped under her chin. Her face
was colorless, but lit with the excitement of the moment; and he saw
that she was crying.

Lady Gower, from behind her, was clapping her hands
delightedly.

"But, my dear Helen," she remonstrated breathlessly, "you never
told me he was so good-looking."

"Yes," said Helen, rising abruptly, "he is--very
good-looking."

She crossed the box to where her cloak was hanging, but instead
of taking it down buried her face in its folds.

"My dear child!" cried Lady Gower, in dismay. "What is it? The
excitement has been too much for you."

"No, I am just happy," sobbed Helen. "I am just happy for
him."

"We will go and tell him so then," said Lady Gower. "I am sure
he would like to hear it from you to-night."

Philip was standing in the centre of the stage, surrounded by
many pretty ladies and elderly men. Wimpole was hovering over him as
though he had claims upon him by the right of discovery.

But when Philip saw Helen, he pushed his way toward her eagerly
and took her hand in both of his.

"I am so glad, Phil," she said. She felt it all so deeply that
she was afraid to say more, but that meant so much to her that she
was sure he would understand.

He had planned it very differently. For a year he had dreamed
that, on the first night of his play, there would be a supper, and
that he would rise and drink her health, and tell his friends and the
world that she was the woman he loved, and that she had agreed to
marry him, and that at last he was able, through the success of his
play, to make her his wife.

And now they met in a crowd to shake hands, and she went her way
with one of her grand ladies, and he was left among a group of
chattering strangers. The great English playwright took him by the
hand and in the hearing of all, praised him gracefully and kindly.
It did not matter to Philip whether the older playwright believed
what he said or not; he knew it was generously meant.

"I envy you this," the great man was saying. "Don't lose any of
it, stay and listen to all they have to say. You will never live
through the first night of your first play but once."

"Yes, I hear them," said Philip, nervously; "they are all too
kind. But I don't hear the voice I have been listening for," he
added in a whisper. The older man pressed his hand again quickly.
"My dear boy," he said, "I am sorry."

"Thank you," Philip answered.

Within a week he had forgotten the great man's fine words of
praise, but the clasp of his hand he cherished always.

Helen met Marion as she was leaving the stage door and stopped
to congratulate her on her success in the new part. Marion was
radiant. To Helen she seemed obstreperously happy and jubilant.

"And, Marion," Helen began bravely, "I also want to congratulate
you on something else. You--you--neither of you have told me yet,"
she stammered, "but I am such an old friend of both that I will not
be kept out of the secret." At these words Marion's air of
triumphant gayety vanished; she regarded Helen's troubled eyes
closely and kindly.

"What secret, Helen?" she asked.

"I came to the door of Philip's room the other day when you did
not know I was there," Helen answered; "and I could not help seeing
how matters were. And I do congratulate you both--and wish you--oh,
such happiness!" Without a word Marion dragged her back down the
passage to her dressing-room, and closed the door.

"Now tell me what you mean," she said.

"I am sorry if I discovered anything you didn't want known yet,"
said Helen, "but the door was open. Mr. Wimpole had just left you
and had not shut it, and I could not help seeing."

Marion interrupted her with an eager exclamation of
enlightenment.

"Oh, you were there, then," she cried. "And you?" she asked
eagerly--"you thought Phil cared for me--that we are engaged, and it
hurt you; you are sorry? Tell me," she demanded, "are you sorry?"

Helen drew back and stretched out her hand toward the door.

"How can you! she exclaimed, indignantly. "You have no
right."

Marion stood between her and the door.

"I have every right," she said, "to help my friends, and I want
to help you and Philip. And indeed I do hope you are sorry. I hope
you are miserable. And I'm glad you saw me kiss him. That was the
first and the last time, and I did it because I was happy and glad
for him; and because I love him too, but not in the least in the way
he loves you. No one ever loved any one as he loves you. And it's
time you found it out. And if I have helped to make you find it out
I'm glad, and I don't care how much I hurt you."

"Marion!" exclaimed Helen," what does it mean? Do you mean that
you are not engaged; that--"

"Certainly not," Marion answered. "I am going to marry Reggie.
It is you that Philip loves, and I am very sorry for you that you
don't love him."

Helen clasped Marion's hands in both of hers.

"But, Marion!" she cried, "I do, oh, I do!"

There was a thick yellow fog the next morning, and with it rain
and a sticky, depressing dampness which crept through the window-
panes, and which neither a fire nor blazing gas-jets could
overcome.

Philip stood in front of the fireplace with the morning papers
piled high on the centre-table and scattered over the room about
him.

He had read them all, and he knew now what it was to wake up
famous, but he could not taste it. Now that it had come it meant
nothing, and that it was so complete a triumph only made it the
harder. In his most optimistic dreams he had never imagined success
so satisfying as the reality had proved to be; but in his dreams
Helen had always held the chief part, and without her, success seemed
only to mock him.

He wanted to lay it all before her, to say, "If you are pleased,
I am happy. If you are satisfied, then I am content. It was done
for you, and I am wholly yours, and all that I do is yours."

And, as though in answer to his thoughts, there was an instant
knock at the door, and Helen entered the room and stood smiling at
him across the table.

Her eyes were lit with excitement, and spoke with many emotions,
and her cheeks were brilliant with color. He had never seen her look
more beautiful.

"Why, Helen!" he exclaimed, "how good of you to come. Is there
anything wrong? Is anything the matter?"

She tried to speak, but faltered, and smiled at him
appealingly.

"What is it?" he asked in great concern.

Helen drew in her breath quickly, and at the same moment
motioned him away--and he stepped back and stood watching her in much
perplexity.

With her eyes fixed on his she raised her hands to her head, and
her fingers fumbled with the knot of her veil. She pulled it loose,
and then, with a sudden courage, lifted her hat proudly, as though it
were a coronet, and placed it between them on his table.

"Philip," she stammered, with the tears in her voice and eyes,
"if you will let me--I have come to stay."

The table was no longer between them. He caught her in his arms
and kissed her face and her uncovered head again and again. From
outside the rain beat drearily and the fog rolled through the street,
but inside before the fire the two young people sat close together,
asking eager questions or sitting in silence, staring at the flames
with wondering, happy eyes.

The Lion and the Unicorn saw them only once again. It was a
month later when they stopped in front of the shop in a four-
wheeler, with their baggage mixed on top of it, and steamer- labels
pasted over every trunk.

"And, oh, Prentiss!" Carroll called from the cab-window. "I
came near forgetting. I promised to gild the Lion and the Unicorn if
I won out in London. So have it done, please, and send the bill to
me. For I've won out all right." And then he shut the door of the
cab, and they drove away forever.

"Nice gal, that," growled the Lion. "I always liked her. I am
glad they've settled it at last."

The Unicorn sighed, sentimentally. "The other one's worth two
of her," he said.