Moth and Rust; Together with Geoffrey's Wife and The Pitfall. Mary Cholmondeley

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      "Married?"

      "N—no."

      "H'm! Look here, Janet. You suck up to her. And you look how she does things, and notice the way she talks. She reads the papers, takes an interest in politics. That's what a man likes. You do the same. And don't you knock under to that old bag of bones too much. Hold your own. We are as good as she is."

      "Oh, no, Fred; we're not."

      "Oh! it's all rot about family. It's not worth a rush. We are just the same as them. A gentleman's a gentleman whether he lives in a large house or a small one, and the real snobs are the people who think different. Does it make you less of a lady because you live in an unpretentious way? Not a bit of it. Don't talk to me."

      Janet remained silent. She felt there was some hitch in her brother's reasoning, which, until to-day, had appeared to her irrefutable, but she could not see where the hitch lay.

      "You must stand up to the old woman, I tell you. I don't want you to be rude, but you let her know that she is the dowager. Don't give way. Didn't you see how I tackled her?"

      "I'm not clever like you."

      "Well, you are a long sight prettier," said her brother proudly. "And I've brought some dollars with me for the trousseau. You go to the Brands to-morrow, don't you?"

      "Yes."

      "Well, don't pay for anything you can help. Tell them to put it down. Get this Lady Varney or Mrs. Brand to recommend the shops and dressmakers, and then they will not dun us for money."

      "Oh, Fred! Are you so hard up?"

      "Hard up!" said Fred, his face becoming suddenly pinched and old. "Hard up!" He drew in his breath. "Oh! I'm all right. At least, yes, just for the moment I'm a bit pressed. Look here, Janet. You and Mrs. Brand are old pals. Get Brand," his voice became hoarse, "get Brand to wait a bit. He has my I O U, and he has waited once, but he warned me he would not again. He said it was against his rules; as if rules matter between gentlemen. He's as hard as nails. The I O U falls due next week, and I can't meet it. I don't want any bother till after you are spliced. You and Mrs. Brand lay your heads together, and persuade him to wait till you are married, at any rate. He hates me, but he won't want to stand in your light."

      "I'll ask him," said Janet, looking earnestly at her brother, but only half understanding why his face was so white and set. "But why don't you take my two thousand and pay him back? I said you could borrow it. I think that would be better than speaking again to Mr. Brand, who will never listen."

      "No, it wouldn't," said Fred, his hand shaking so violently that he gave up attempting to light a cigarette. He knew that that two thousand, Janet's little fortune, existed only in her imagination. It had existed once; he had had charge of it, but it was gone.

      "Ask Brand," he said again. "A man with any gentlemanly feeling cannot refuse a pretty woman anything. I can't. You ask Brand—as if it was to please you. You're pretty enough to wheedle anything out of men. He'll do it."

      "I'll ask him," said Janet again, and she sighed as she went back alone to the great house which was one day to be hers. She did not think of that as she looked up at the long lines of stone-mullioned windows. She thought only of her George, and wondered, with a blush of shame, whether Fred had yet borrowed money from him.

      Then, as she saw a white figure move past the gallery windows, she remembered Anne, and her brother's advice to her to make a friend of "Lady Varney." Janet had been greatly drawn towards Anne, after she had got over a certain stolid preliminary impression that Anne was "fine." And Janet had immediately mistaken Anne's tactful kindness to herself for an overture of friendship. Perhaps that is a mistake which many gentle, commonplace souls make, who go through life disillusioned as to the sincerity of certain other attractive, brilliant creatures with whom they have come in momentary contact, to whom they can give nothing, but from whom they have received a generous measure of delicate sympathy and kindness, which they mistook for the prelude of friendship; a friendship which never arrived. It is well for us when we learn the difference between the donations and the subscriptions of those richer than ourselves, when we realize how broad is the way towards a person's kindness, and how many surprisingly inferior individuals are to be met therein; and how strait is the gate, how hard to find, and how doubly hard, when found, to force it, of that same person's friendship.

      Janet supposed that Anne liked her as much as she herself liked Anne, and, being a simple soul, she said to herself, "I think I will go and sit with her a little."

      A more experienced person than my poor heroine would have felt that there was not marked encouragement in the civil "Come in" which answered her knock at Anne's door.

      But Janet came in smiling, sure of her welcome. Every one was sure of their welcome with Anne.

      She was sitting in a low chair by the open window. She had taken off what Janet would have called her "Sunday gown," and had wrapped round her a long, diaphanous white garment, the like of which Janet had never seen. It was held at the neck by a pale green ribbon, cunningly drawn through lace insertion, and at the waist by another wider green ribbon, which fell to the feet. The spreading lace-edged hem showed the point of a green morocco slipper.

      Janet looked with respectful wonder at Anne's dressing-gown, and a momentary doubt as to whether her presence was urgently needed vanished. Anne must have been expecting her. She would not have put on that exquisite garment to sit by herself in.

      Janet's eyes travelled to Anne's face.

      Even the faint, reassuring smile, which did not come the first moment it was summoned, could not disguise the fatigue of that pale face, though it effaced a momentary impatience.

      "You are very tired," said Janet. "I wish you were as strong as me."

      Janet's beautiful eyes had an admiring devotion in them, and also a certain wistfulness, which appealed to Anne.

      "Sit down," she said cordially. "That is a comfortable chair."

      "You were reading. Shan't I interrupt you?" said Janet, sitting down nevertheless, and feeling that tact could no further go.

      "It does not matter," said Anne, closing the book, but keeping one slender finger in the place.

      "What is your book called?"

      "'Inasmuch.'"

      "Who wrote it?"

      "Hester Gresley."

      "I think I've heard of her," said Janet cautiously. "Mrs. Smith, our Rector's wife, says that Mr. Smith does not approve of her books; they have such a low tone. I think Fred read one of them on a visit once. I haven't time myself for much reading."

      Silence.

      "I should like," said Janet, turning her clear, wide gaze upon Anne, "I should like to read the books you read, and know the things you know. I should like to—to be like you."

      A delicate colour came into Anne's face, and she looked down embarrassed at the volume in her hand.

      "Would you read me a little bit?" said Janet. "Not beginning at the beginning, but just going on where you left off."

      "I am afraid СКАЧАТЬ