The Fairfax Comedy

BY H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON

RS. GEORGE RICHARDSON gave the ultimatum at five o'clock in the drawing-room. George Richardson had taken his house at Cradley because his wife had a fancy to try the country. She was thirty, pretty, slim, and extremely restless. In London she ranged through innumerable sensations, until she tired of all. That was how she came to want the country. People were talking of the simple life, and it sounded well. At any rate it sounded like a change, and a change was what Ellice Richardson wanted. George was wont indulgently to grant her most of what she wanted. He was a novelist of repute, with a standing in literary circles, and an income not capable of indefinite expansion. Cradley in its remoteness and its silence satisfied his needs. for he had enjoyed life in his forty years, and now liked to stand in the wings and look on aslant at the performance with a perfect knowledge of the conditions in which it was taking place. If he had been unable to do this, he would not have been able to write his novels, sound, broad-minded, wise, sweet-blooded, and cynical books like himself. With the relaxation of life's ardent claim on him he had also developed an interest in nature other than human. He faced the wind on the heath with rare pleasure; he was a spectator of the human show, but a partisan on the hills. The acrid smell of gorse upon a hot afternoon was as perfume to his nostrils; he was part of that now rather than of big cities and the whole complex and monotonous social system. So he found Cradley to his taste, while his wife tired of it.

Ellice, indeed, may be said to have tired of it ere she gave it a proper trial. They had fled from London in the early spring, when the country exhibited to eyes weary of the drab winter-time its most pleasing features. Daffodils nodded in the meadows, the violets bad come, and the sweet o' the year entered with the primrose. Ellice gushed over nature and formed innumerable plans for the garden, for excursions, for settling info rural life—forever.

"Isn't it far more delightful than noisy, staring, unhealthy town?" she asked her husband, in staccato adjectives, and he agreed. "The taxicabs!"—she made a sound of despairing disapproval—"the dirt! the noise!" She paused. "The taxis were useful," she added, pensively.

But this mood of satisfaction was not destined to endure. Cradley was dull beyond question, and perhaps even indefensibly dull. George Richardson never attempted to defend it against her attacks when the first rapture had disappeared. Spring passed into summer, and despite her full pageant summer proved dull. A beauty may be dull, you know, and very often is. The resplendent lanes and woods and hills were dull; and then the hot days brought the dust; and Ellice, missing the shops and the parties and the theatres and the restaurants, and the unceasing stream of people, known and unknown, declared the situation intolerable. They had agreed to forego their summer holiday, partly because of the expense incurred by their removal, and partly because the change to Cradley was to be regarded in the light of a holiday. So in the dog-days, with her heart in London, Ellice Richardson moped. The chief source of her dissatisfaction was the fact that none of the best people in the countryside had "called." Carfields, Melcombes, Beamans, Bostocks, and their congeners all abstained, quite unconscious of the intrusion of the newcomers. Society straddled between religious works and hunting. In summer there was no hunting, but there were always religious works, and plenty of old maids to be absorbed in them. For the male part of the inhabitants hunting was the prime consideration, and George did not hunt. He could not have afforded to hunt even if he had wanted to, which he certainly did not. Of course the Vicar's wife, Mrs. Mowbray, called on Ellice, but she, though young, was prim and heavy and gauche as well, and so did not count very much. The doctor's wife, on the other hand, was elderly, with rather a vulgar sense of humor, and so "second-rate" that it was of no consequence to know her. She counted even less. There remained the landed gentry, whose wives were in no hurry, it appeared, to make Ellice's acquaintance. George had proffered reasons out of his imagination, mainly for the purposes of consolation and reassurance, but somewhat in indulgence of his humor.

"It is obvious they want us to be on probation," he said. "You see, it is an important matter to be admitted into the familiarity of country society."

Didn't Ellice know it was important? That was the very reason she was indignant. What did these people mean by not rushing to make her acquaintance? They were merely rustics, clodhoppers, louts....

"Well, thank goodness they don't call, then," said George, with sly good humor.

"There's not one of the women knows how to dress," declared Ellice, scornfully.

"Not one," agreed her husband, surveying her pleasant figure in its appropriate gown.

This had become the burden of their private exchanges, until even George's placid patience showed signs of giving. Of course, with the selfishness of man, he could not detach himself from his own satisfaction.

He strolled the lawn that July afternoon, enjoying the cooling air that streamed over the rhododendrons, poised between two incidents for a plot. He wanted to fix his mind on one, and it persisted in dividing, as did Æneas's so often. He fluttered, he hesitated, and he would have come down on one or the other if he had had the chance. But fate intervened with Ellice—Ellice and two strong, good-natured, clean-limbed, and empty-headed puppy hounds which she had on leash. Ellice, usually pale, and more than ever pallid lately with the heat, was flushed and breathless. The pups, exploring in different directions simultaneously, wound her round the arch of a pergola.

"George!" she called. "For goodness' sake come and take these creatures—these blessed dogs! I wish they were—" George took one over while she disentangled herself.

"I believe," he said, mildly, "that these things are called hounds, and that Cradley does not forgive any one who calls them dogs."

"Nonsense!" said Ellice, crossly, as the hound she still held endeavored to make after a distant cat. "There, I'll let the beast go."

Sparker, thus manumitted, darted across the lawn and disappeared in a shrubbery, his companion whimpering and straining at the leash in an endeavor to follow. Mrs. Richardson, you see, had undertaken to "walk puppies" for the Cradley pack, an offer to which she had been stimulated by the beaming friendliness of Major Weldon. At the time she had not known that the Major was a bachelor and incorrigibly catholic in his acquaintances. No one considered a person merely because Major Weldon knew him or her. That painful discovery was to follow. The neighborhood did not stream in after the Major.

"I thought I heard a voice at the gate," said George, lighting a cigarette.

"Oh, young Beaman," said his wife, impatiently.

"As devoted as ever," he replied, lightly.

Young Beaman was five-and-twenty, extremely elongated in body, and very shy. As yet his devotion had not brought Mrs. Beaman or the Misses Beaman to Holt Place; which was another matter that vexed Ellice's stricken heart.

"Go away—do. George, keep that beast off," she said, crossly, as the second hound puppy made a sudden manifestation of its affection for her by rising on its hind legs and pawing at her fresh summer frock. George jerked back the beast.

"What's the use of the silly fellow?" she went on, reverting to young Beaman. "Here have I been walking puppies (ugh!) for four months, and nothing has happened. Lady Carfield, Lady Melcombe, the Hasalls—none of them have called."

Ellice was pretty, after her fashion, and her figure was nice; she had a talkative nature, and could sustain a conversation with spirit—but humor had been denied to her. George Richardson's eyes ruffled up in a twinkle.

"It is pretty bad of them," he declared, as they began to walk toward the house. "I've a good mind to send in a bill for puppy-biscuits to Lord Garfield, and so bring his wife to reason."

"Oh, if you're going to be sarcastic—" protested Ellice, hotly.

George disclaimed any intention of sarcasm; he had noticed that his wife was constitutionally unable to distinguish between sarcasm and humor—levity, if you will. But lie was conscious that he was properly rebuked for treating the matter with levity. It was an occasion for serious discussion. He got rid of the dog—hound, that is—and followed Ellice to the drawing-room. She had divested herself of her hat, but still had the effect, he thought, of sitting at her own tea table like a visitor. She opened on him without ceremony. "I can't stand it, George. We must go."

This was the ultimatum, and it filled him with misgivings. In his mind's eye he saw Ellice, as was her wont, mounting from stage to stage of emotional revolt against her circumstances, and he was dismayed. His means were limited, and he was in the middle of a novel. Besides, the place did suit him. He pondered. Perhaps it was selfish of him to look at it in that way. But, after all, it had been Ellice's idea, and he had offered resistance of a sort, at any rate criticism. She was rattling on, apparently incensed at his silence.

"It's all very well for you. You have your work, and you enjoy talking to the villagers. I don't. I am accustomed to something better. This is stagnation; I feel the mould growing over me. It's no good. I can't stand it."

"There's Mrs. Blenkinsop," murmured George, weakly, "and old Weldon isn't bad, and—"

He had invited the thunder and he got it. Mrs. Blenkinsop was third-rate. Old Weldon was of no account. "It's the second-rates I know—not one of the people who really matter, not one," she pronounced, with embittered emphasis.

"Young Beaman—" George would have begun, but was snapped up.

"Beaman! Where are the Beamans?" she demanded, in ringing accents of scorn, and a connection making in her fretted brain, she turned upon him again. "Of course it might have been different if I knew how to ride. If you had only had lessons for rue, when you knew that we were coming into this wilderness!"

George Richardson discovered it was time to act. If this went on, the flood would carry him away. He pulled himself together and faced the situation boldly. He put his teacup down and crossed his legs.

"We give hostages to fortune when we abandon town. I warned you of that," he said. "You are good enough to consider me a very clever fellow, my dear, and I am disposed to agree with you. But it is a mistake to suppose that cleverness counts much in life."

"What counts?" she asked.

"Various things—money, position, advertisement, but not cleverness. You told me that you thought my book Illusion was the most brilliant novel you had read for years. (You have an admirable literary taste, dear.) Now if you were to go up to Cradley Park to Lord Garfield's house-party assembled this coming September for partridge shooting, you would find ears blank to Illusion and my very name. Possibly you might catch some one's attention. Richardson? Lives here? Is that the writin' chap? No, I never read any, but I believe my sister read one once.' But, mind you, that would be an extra well-informed guest. They're not interested in me or what I do. They buy my books, if they buy them at all, as they buy groceries. You don't call on your grocer."

"It's all shameful," declared Ellice, simmering.

"What I do obviously doesn't count. Books are produced, and so are guns and motor-cars. They couldn't produce any one of these. Why should they consider the person who produces books for them to buy as more important than the persons who produce guns or motor-cars? In fact, the man who makes their guns is more important than such as I. He does count. They'll know his name and have a respect for him."

"Then why did you bring me here?" demanded Ellice tragically. "We must leave at once."

At this moment the maid announced Mrs. Mowbray, the Vicar's wife, who approached slowly, in all the righteous resignation of her dull and sober raiment. Ellice's face showed a perfunctory welcome, but George bustled about in a way which was alien to his usual large deliberation. He proffered a chair, a cup of tea, and a plate of cake.

"You must try this—Buzzard's, you know," he explained, in a delicately intimate way. Ellice was silent, wondering. The Vicars wife, uneasily eating Buzzard's, broached the object of her visit with characteristic tactlessness. It might have eased poor Ellice's raw wounds had even this dull lady come for social amenities. But she had not. Munching a Buzzard delicacy which she had not even the wit or savoir faire to commend, she unlimbered her ordnance.

Mrs. Richardson must have noticed the state of the bells. No? Ellice was flat; she had not recovered herself. But Mr. Richardson had, he professed, waiting anxiously to know what their condition might be. They were badly hung, it seemed, and there were defects in two. Hadn't Mr. Richardson (she appealed to him now) noticed the tenor? Of course Mr. Richardson had. That seemed to make it easier for the Vicaress. Well, the Vicar was anxious to restore the bells in accordance with the dignity of the Church and its traditions. Lord Carfield had been approached and was in cordial agreement—in fact, it need be no secret that his lordship was heading the subscription with twenty guineas. The total cost would be about two hundred pounds. Staid Mrs. Mowbray was shrewd and business-like, if dull. She invitingly eyed George Richardson beaming over bells which he hated.

"Of course I am willing to help with my mite," he declared, choosing the word mite as most Scripturally suitable for the lady. "But, my dear Mrs. Mowbray, it will take some trouble to raise that sum in these hard times."

The Vicaress sighed unconsciously, for had she not debated this very point with her husband ere setting out on her begging round?

"The Richardsons ought to give five pounds," he had said. "I believe novelists are well paid. And Mrs. Richardson comes regularly to church."

Yet it would take, to be precise, forty five-pound notes or checks to make up £200. Mrs. Mowbray's sigh was an involuntary testimony to her discouragement. Ellice eyed her hardly, realizing now that this was no social call, but merely an official stand-and-deliver. To her intense amazement George went on genially:

"I think I may be of help to you there, if you will allow me. We might arrange for a dramatic performance, or something in that line."

Mrs. Mowbray looked doubtful. "Yes," she assented, her mind adding up the various attractions and accomplishments of the parishioners. "Captain Hassall acts, and there are the Melcombe girls," she suggested, still doubtfully. "I think they acted somewhere in private theatricals last year."

Ellice's attention tautened. George's idea was good. After all, clever men had their uses. She overlooked in her approval the scrawny bodies of the Melcombe girls, recognized and bitterly criticised from church pews.

"Yes," George's assent this time was doubtful. "I hardly designed a local affair. I was thinking I might assist you in another way. I might get Miss Estelle Fairfax."

"Miss Fairfax!" Mrs. Mowbray woke up, deserting parish and bells and the narrow confines of Cradley. "You mean Miss Fairfax the actress?"

Her mind flashed over leagues of wilderness to rare nights at the Euphrosyne, nights of enjoyment, nights of stolen pleasures in a round of dull duty, nights touched with as nearly delirious romance as placid natures are capable of. She saw George Richardson's nod. "Yes."

In that instant also Ellice's heart homed, and she was in a taxi, wrapped about with fluffy things, on her way to the Euphrosyne. Piccadilly roared and surged about her in the summer twilight. She remembered the block at Hyde Park Corner, the imperturbable police ... Constitution Hill ... the soft murk of the rain ... darkness, and the lights of the street. But what was this strange business of George and Estelle Fairfax?

"It would be desirable, of course, that it should be educational," proceeded her husband, leaning back in his chair with a leisurely and indulgent smile. Was it possible that he saw Mrs. Mowbray's face drop and change at that estimable and ugly word?

"Of course," she murmured.

What in the name of conscience and goodness did George mean?

"Do you think, for example. Lord Carfield would lend his grounds for a pastoral play?"

"Oh!" Mrs. Mowbray brightened. "I'm sure he would. He's always so anxious to help. But what—"

"I had an idea of As You Like It, suggested George, offhand, and as though appealing to her judgment.

Mrs. Mowbray only remembered Shakespeare dimly, but the name of the play sounded nice.

"The forests, you know, the healthy open life of the woods, the exiled Duke's court, pretty girls, and all the pomp of romance."

The drab little Vicaress, moribund before her time, brightened anew; her face was flecked with color, and she smiled. "That would be nice," she said, still restricted as to the adjective. It is not only in conduct that one must be nice, but in attributes also. Meanwhile understanding went up in a flare through Ellice Richardson's soul. Oh, how clever was George! Clever people always were the best.

"I think it would be simply splendid," she declared.

"I should hazard at a guess that you could raise fifty pounds easily by that means," said George, reflectively, adding after a moment's punctuation: "Of course Miss Fairfax would make no charge. She would come at my invitation."

"How very kind of you!" said the Vicaress. (Kind was kin to nice.) "I'm sure Lord Carfield will give his consent."

"It should be great fun," speculated the plotter. "Miss Fairfax, of course, as Rosalind. Have you seen her? She's amazing."

"No-o." Mrs. Mowbray's negative was a diminuendo expressive of regret.

"The Miss Melcombes, Captain Hassall, Lady Carfield, I dare say.... But Miss Fairfax could leave that to Lady Carfield and yourself."

So did the official visitation merge strangely into a pleasant social affair, at which wonderfully mundane things were discussed. George Richardson, you see, alarmed and active, was now in command, with all the advantages of a lively, healthy, and unscrupulous imagination. The instant result was an improvement in the domestic atmosphere. With an admiration of George's literary gifts his wife had combined an undervalualion of his tact—or tactics, if you will. She now perceived him to be a general of resource.

"But can you get Estelle Fairfax to come?" she had asked that evening, when the most alluring aspects of the proposal had been canvassed. He looked at her a little quizzically.

"You know I knew her," he said, after a pause.

"Yes, but I didn't know you had known her so well as that," was Ellice's remark.

"I used to see a good deal of her when Clayton was alive," he said.

His quizzical look altered as he regarded her; but there was no signal of jealousy or even of suspicion in her attitude. Indeed, there was, if she should know all, no reason why there should be. Later in the evening, when his wife was in bed, Richardson made a draft of the letter which he sent the next day to Estelle Fairfax, running thus:

,—Perhaps you haven't forgotten me. Some eight years since you vowed that you owed me something. Can you pay it now, or is it barred by the Statute of Limitations? It is proposed that a pastoral play, As You Like It, shall be produced in Lord Garfield's park here. If you could take the part of Rosalind, I should feel you had more than discharged your debt. The affair is, I believe, to buy bells or something of the kind for a church. You know I'm married.

Yours sincerely,.

When he had finished he sat back, with the aroma of a particularly nice cigar lingering on his palate. He pushed aside the table, contemplated the bookcase, and pursed his lips unconsciously. He was reviewing phases of Polly Fairfax's life. Clayton, a composer of genius, had not been the first to intervene in that life. He had come third, he thought; but Clayton, his friend, had taken the disease with rampant passion. At once he tyrannized and adored; and Polly was so friendly, so amusing, so good-natured, and so natural that it was impossible to dislike her, or to bear a grudge against her. After all, Clayton was foredoomed by his own qualities. He failed as a man because he was a genius. Often it is so. Was it Polly's fault that she could not give him only what and all that he wanted? She was always frank, as frank as good-natured, and on the whole pretty reasonable. The only explanation of her was that she had an individual code of morals. George had thought the connection would be better "cut," and when Polly cut it, had helped her. Clayton stormed, denied him, forgave him, thanked him, and died, as will be remembered, somewhat tragically. Why should he condemn or even judge Polly Fairfax, who had since floated into conspicuous fame? Was the woman of Samaria condemned, before the thought of whom, after all, Polly would or ought to blush? With one passing mental glance at a newspaper paragraph he had lately seen respecting Miss Estelle Fairfax and the famous actor Graham Gordon, George Richardson gave up the problem and went to bed.

Polly's answer came after a delay of two days:

,—I dare say you've grown stouter, but then you were always too thin. Yes, I'll come. Write it off that ledger. I was going to Harrogate early in August, but I'll come to you if you'll name the day. Is she pretty?

2em

This letter opportunely arrived an hour or two before Mrs. Mowbray's excited visit. Gone now was every vestige of the official manner; the sallow face quickened over the emotional storm below. Lady Carfield was delighted at the idea. If Miss Estelle Fairfax could be secured ("and we look upon you to arrange that," interjected the Vicaress), Lord Carfield would willingly give his park—"the wild garden," explained the lady—for the performance; and Lady Carfield and she had already gone into the question of the actors and actresses. Lady Carfield thought that Miss Melcombe might play Audrey, but she (Mrs. Mowbray) thought that the part of Celia ought to be entrusted to Lady Carfield. From the conversation it was evident that the two ladies had been resuming acquaintance with Shakespeare and the Forest of Arden. Ellice, having the news of Miss Fairfax's consent, was now the conduit of its conveyance, and Mrs. Mowbray and she exchanged and interchanged views. George had started the engine. He deserved his comfortable pipe.

Meanwhile up in Cradley Park it is permissible to overhear a conversation which has already taken place. Lady Carfield, a fluffy, flighty thing, carries the news to her husband, blond and forty-odd, with great white teeth, and his roots in solid duties and practical pleasures.

"Mrs. Mowbray wants to know if we will lend the place for a pastoral play." His lordship grunts. "You see, dear, they're going to get Estelle Fairfax."

"What!" cries his lordship. "Mrs. Mowbray!"

"No; it's some one—those people we heard had taken Holt Place. He writes, doesn't he?" So was George Richardson's prophecy vindicated! "Harrison? No, Richardson," Lady Carfield amended her guess.

"Oh!" Lord Carfield, as became a very substantial British person, contemplated. He had once met Estelle Fairfax at the house of the Home Secretary, whose wife was "smart," and wrote bad plays. He remembered her then as enlivening, and he had always admired her acting and her figure.

"If she'll come, by all means. Better write and ask her down," said his lordship.

That was Ellice Richardson's first triumph; and it was what made her realize to the full the beauty of George's manœuvre. For Miss Fairfax, appealed to in one of Lady Carfield's scented sheets of note-paper, excused herself on the ground that she was to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. Polly Fairfax dropped this item into a hasty letter fixing her date, and Ellice glowed. Next day it also dribbled down from Carfield Towers through Mrs. Mowbray. That is, Mrs. Mowbray did not know that the Countess had invited Miss Fairfax, but she heard from the Countess that Miss Fairfax was to stay with the Richardsons. It was certain now that the Carfield knew of the existence of the Richardsons. Indeed, it was no longer possible for any one in the neighborhood to profess ignorance now. The idea of the pastoral play had set the heather afire. In an expiring season it had aroused enthusiasm. Captain Hassall, the Melcombe girls, and Lady Carfield were in constant communication with one another. They had decided the precise theatre for the occasion in a little glade, a clearing embowered in rising heights of wood as it were the upper cloths of a stage. Ellice receiving news of this state of commotion, withered; it seemed that she had counted her chickens too soon. It was not until Estelle Fairfax arrived that a restitution of the balance took place.

Mrs. Richardson accompanied Estelle Fairfax to Cradley Park on a broiling afternoon. "I thought we'd better get to close quarters at once, Lady Carfield," said the actress. "So I got Mrs. Richardson to bring me up."

Lady Carfield acknowledged Ellice with an amiable smile. "We have been doing ever so much," she declared, eagerly. "But we do want your assistance. I'm so glad you've come at last."

Polly Fairfax took off her gloves, discovering pretty hands that were ringless. Ellice, mechanically noting this, was vaguely disturbed by the recollection of a newspaper paragraph some years back mentioning Miss Fairfax's marriage at a registrar's office. This popular lady was bright of face, instinct with vitality, of an exceedingly shapely form, and possessed a most divine smile. She was somewhere about six-and-thirty.

"Now tell me exactly," she commanded Lady Carfield. She threw herself into the breach like a regiment, inspected the glade and approved it, suggested a few alterations in the cast, solved the question of costume that had been so baffling with a graceful gesture of her hand.

"Don't bother. I can fix that. Burbage will send me his wardrobe from the Royal. It cost a mint of money. I played Rosalind there, you know."

Of course Lady Carfield knew. Had she not seen Miss Fairfax in the part? She flew into fresh excitement, discussed questions with zest, and clasped Ellice Richardson's hand warmly in parting.

"You'll come to lunch and we'll go into it all to-morrow. I'll get some of them here," she called out, ecstatically. "Mrs. Richardson, bring her to lunch."

Never had Ellice been so fluttered as by this diplay [sic] of friendliness. The lunch succeeded. Miss Fairfax remembered the occasion when she had met Lord Carfield, and reminded him of a witticism he had let fall. His lordship smiled and bridled: he was even submissive in hearing that he had been set down for the Duke.

"I've never acted. I'm as stiff as a prop, but if you want me—"

They did. "Such a lark!" Polly Fairfax confided under the rose that night to George Richardson. "It will be the funniest pastoral I ever played in. Heaven send us fine weather so as not to put the comedy out! There's Carfield himself, a veritable Duke; Lady Carfield as Celia. Ye gods, a colorless blonde who would like to dare and pretends she knows things, and would shy at a man's shadow on the foot-path! There was a girl—Sir James some one's daughter—"

"Melcombe," suggested George.

"That was it—with a walk like a milkmaid, and bony hands. She's to play Phœbe, and it goes to my heart I can't cast her for the wench Audrey. It seems she's the best lady rider to hounds in these parts. Save my waist-line I should think so! But the girl who takes Audrey—it doesn't matter what her name is—is rather pretty in a rustic way—Coll—no—Cork—oh, it doesn't signify."

"My dear Polly," said the author. "In a rustic way! Don't you know that this young lady is probably, from your description, the Hon. Helen Colclougb, of one of our oldest families, and herself an heiress of weight?"

"Is she?" said Polly Fairfax; and then, clearly without heeding, burst into laughter. "Oh, I forgot my warm admirer, Captain Hassall. As well leave out Hamlet as that Orlando."

George reflected. "I believe I've heard Ellice speak of him. He is a sporting man with a sporting wife."

"His wife is as plain as a pikestaff, but has a wonderful figure. Hassall's a beauty, one of the real lady-killers. I'm his new victim."

On this occasion, you understand, Ellice had retired. The day had been one glow of satisfaction, and she had retired happy, felix opportunitate somni. The Melcombe girls had been civil, and Mrs. Hassall tolerant; Lady Garfield had been cordial, meeting her as though old friends met, and Miss Colclough had been and able and interested. She was a distinctly pleasant and unaffected girl, and that had pleased Ellice almost more than anything. She had almost forgotten such people as Major Weldon and the Blenkinsops, and, alas! she had quite forgotten that source and fount of her present intoxication, Mrs. Mowbray.

The rehearsals in the park were an amazing success, if the entertainment of the performers be considered. Miss Fairfax inspired them with life, blew into them the breath of enthusiasm. Her very appearance on the scene infused sparkle into it. She amused herself. Captain Hassall trailed after her, the model of Don Juan, under the very range of his wife's hard eyes. He cooed in corners, arranged her flounces, thrilled when she set a careless hand on his arm. He strutted like a bantam on the road to conquest. Polly Fairfax was, as she always was off the stage, no actress, but herself, her wilful, frank, selfish, good-natured and unpretentious self. In her dainty forest costume at the dress rehearsal she cannoned into the dignified Sir James Melcombe, and first shocked and then charmed him by exclaiming in a merry mood: "My dear man, where did I hit you? Let me rub the place; do."

In a word, Polly Fairfax was natural to the top of her bent, and every one knows in these days that individuality is the only thing that counts, whether you be criminal or apostle. If your individuality be invented for you by the public press, so much the more to your advantage. But it is only accidents of birth, wealth, or favor of the gods that accomplish this. Was there ever a wiser summary of human affairs than that saying:

"Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

Lord Garfield was born great, and he played the exiled Duke quite handsomely. For the part of Jacques was found that elegant and promising member of Parliament, Silvester Merrill, who has written a book of essays and a book of verses, and will some day rise to the surface of his party and be in the Government. He cut a very pretty figure and aroused sore feeling in the heart of Orlando. Lord Arthur Vallings, who had the soul of a music-hall lion comique, played Touchstone with gusto, but Touchstone much edited. It was between Lord Arthur and Miss Fairfax that the play began to "go." At the dress rehearsal everybody played up magnificently. Ellice in a pretty summer gown was installed among the privileged spectators; to one side of her Mrs. Beaman, on the other Lady Melcombe. George Richardson, who for the first time visited the scene, on the express invitation of Lady Garfield, wandered about examining people and effects with a critical eye. It was he who marked the flash in Mrs. Hassall's eye when Orlando cried out with an overplus of emotion:

"What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue!"

As a matter of fact, it was just that which stirred Mrs. Hassall's tongue to action. She was married to a good-looking man, and had long been aware of it. If she realized that Miss Fairfax found his attentions tiresome at last and much preferred Lord Arthur's frank vulgarity, it made no difference. She began feminine operations at ten o'clock that night, when Miss Fairfax and her hostess had retreated after a merry and unmethodical meal to the shelter of Holt Place. She shot her remarks with the blunt acidity of her temperament into the general company—"firing into the brown," so to speak. No men were present, the occasion being strictly feline.

"I wonder what became of Miss Fairfax's last husband?"

Lady Garfield stared. "Which?" she asked, vaguely.

"I don't know his number. The actor, wasn't it, whom she married two or three years ago. One never hears of him now."

"Perhaps he's dead," suggested Lady Carfield, who saw no particular point of interest in the problem. The men were playing billiards or smoking.

"Is the other one dead—the musician, you know?" inquired Mrs. Hassall, with deadly equanimity.

"What other one What do you mean?" retorted Lady Carfield.

"Of course Colonel Le Maille don't count," pursued Mrs. Hassall, recrossing her legs deliberately.

"Who's Colonel Le Maille?" asked Lady Melcombe.

Probably Mrs. Hassall welcomed a visible target. "Oh, the man in the Guards, don't you remember?" she said, turning slightly toward her interlocutor. "He was afterward concerned in that filibustering raid."

Lady Melcombe was of an age to remember and had tolerant notions. She was the nearest approach to the grande dame Cradley could produce.

"Of course," she assented. "He was vastly épris, wasn't he?"

"Poor Mrs. Le Maille!" breathed Mrs. Hassall.

The attention of the girls in the room was obvious. Mrs. Mowbray listened, alert, anxious, and instant.

"I believe Miss Fairfax was first married at eighteen," said Mrs. Hassall, at field work.

"Yes. What a shame!" said Lady Carfield. "I don't wonder, poor thing—"

Mrs. Hassall hadn't expected or wanted this.

"Clayton was supposed to be the man she really cared for," she interrupted. "You remember Clayton's tragic death?"

She fastened her glance on Lady Carfield, who moved uneasily.

"That's all ancient history," she said.

"Clayton was a genius," remarked Lady Melcombe. "Lord Winterborough told me that Estelle Fairfax inspired him with his second Symphony."

"She left him," declared Mrs. Hassall, defiantly.

"My dear, you can't judge people like that," demurred Lady Carfield.

"Nothing was ever proved," protested Mrs. Beaman.

"Codes, you see, are different," said Lady Carfield, vaguely.

"She goes everywhere," remarked the grande dame. The girls showed increasing interest, and Mrs. Mowbray looking from one speaker to another, Mrs. Hassall's desperate hard eye alighted on her and invited her in.

"What do you think, Mrs. Mowbray?"

"I—" she hesitated. "Oh, I think Lady Carfield's right. Of course we are told not to judge."

It was Mrs. Hassall's last gamble with the dice; she had failed, and recognized it. She rose, the fineness of her figure emphasizing her plain face and unsympathetic eyes. "I don't mind myself. I'm quite broad-minded," said she. "But where there are young people about—" Her gaze swept over the three girls, and she didn't finish. In fact, she went out on that.

"What on earth did she mean with all that?" inquired Miss Colclough, wrinkling her brows in a puzzled way. "What has Miss Fairfax—"

"Oh, it's all rubbish," said Lady Carfield, hastily; and so the privateering ended.

At the actual performance Ellice and George occupied seats of honor between the Melcombes and the Beamans, Bob in attendance; and the old maids of the district, devoted to church and good works, sat in state in order to do honor to Shakespeare and augment the Bell Fund. The Vicar was present, officially certifying, as it were, an atmosphere of sanctity, and Mrs. Mowbray renewed the stolen joys of liberty and worldliness.

"I have enjoyed myself, but it's reached a limit," murmured Polly Fairfax in George's ear after the play. "Hassall has become an emphatic nuisance. He ought to know there are hundreds of him hanging about any theatre. But your Lord Arthur's a dear."

George disclaimed any proprietary rights in Lord Arthur; but she paid no heed. Lord Arthur called for her with his car next morning, and she departed as informally as she had come.

"He's going to drive me up to town," she imparted to George. "Kiss your petsy for me. She quite passes. I've got to meet Rayner to-night before I go to Homburg. No, my dear man, I enjoyed it."

She took her seat, just as Ellice hurried up, and waved gayly to both. Lord Arthur was most friendly, and the last they saw of the pair consisted of laughing exchanges as the car whizzed down the road. Ellice sighed as at the end of a pleasant dream. George was looking quizzically in the direction in which the car had vanished. Lord Arthur!

But, after all, he had nothing of which to complain. Sir James Melcombe told his wife, that stately lady, that that chap Richardson was not at all a bad chap. He knew how to cast a fly with any one. Miss Colclough had admired Ellice's gown, and said so frankly. All this was very satisfactory. But the little comedy did not fizzle out quite so tamely. We may set its conclusion that same evening. In the afternoon Ellice in tailor-made costume disappeared, and returned only an hour before dinner, coming upon her husband as he sat at work.

"George, isn't it great? Bob Beaman is going to teach me to ride, and Mr. Beaman is lending me a horse."

He looked up indulgently. "My dear, I knew you only had to get to quarters with them all."

But later that night he was free to revolve the episode in his mind, and the thought that framed itself at last was this:

"To think of Polly Fairfax pulling us through the needle's eye!"

He giggled aloud, and his wife asked him why he laughed.

"Oh," said he, fumblingly, "I was thinking of something Lord Carfield said."

"What was that?" she persisted, as the maid brought in the evening post. She opened the letters.

"It was," he said, slowly and carefully, "to the effect that in the matter of a genius things don't count."

"Well, of course, they don't," said Ellice, abstractedly, as she read her letter. "George dear, Lady Melcombe has written asking us to dinner on the 25th. We shall be able to manage that, sha'n't we?" she asked, calmly.

"I'll look up my engagements, but I think so," he said, his eyes twinkling.

"Of course," said Ellice, complacently, after a tiny pause, "country society is more exclusive than town, and smarter."