The Devil's Garden. W. B. Maxwell

gout means."

      "Sorry you should be afflicted that way, sir," said Dale contritely.

      Mr. Barradine had rung a bell, and a servant was standing at the door.

      "Good day to you, Mr. Dale. You're going home, I suppose?"

      "Not for a fortnight, sir."

      "Ah! I hope to return to the Abbey on Thursday morning;" and quite obviously Mr. Barradine now intended to gratify Dale by a few polite sentences of small talk, and thus show him that his offense had been pardoned. "Yes, I soon begin to pine for my garden. Friday, at latest, sees me home again. I always call the Abbey home. No place like home, Dale."

      Dale going out, through the long passage to the hall, felt momentarily depressed by a sense of humiliating failure in the midst of his apparent success. If only he could have fought them and beaten them alone, as a strong man fighting unaided, instead of being pulled through the battle by that veinous, blotchy, ringed hand! However, he promptly tried to banish all such vague discomfort from his mind.

      All of it was gone when he got back to the lodging-house, and found his wife established in their new room.

VI

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      "The Acadia Theater! So be it. They're all one to me."

      Mavis had chosen this famous music hall because, as she explained, Chirgwin was performing at it, and her aunt had always said that Chirgwin was the most excruciatingly funny of all music-hall artists.

      "So be it. Half a minute, though." Dale counting his money, dolefully discovered that it had run very low indeed. "I begin to think we shall have to cut down our treat a bit."

      But Mavis swept away all difficulties. She had brought money—her very own money—her little emergency hoard; and opening her handbag, and tumbling inside it, she produced a five-pound note, and smilingly put it on the dressing-table.

      "Hulloa! There's more where that comes from." His quick ear had caught the rustling sound inside the handbag. "There's other notes in there, old lady;" and, laughing, he tried to snatch the bag from her. "How much? Here's a miser, and no mistake."

      "Never you mind how much your miser's got." Her lips were smiling, her eyes shining, and with a happy laugh she sprang away from him. "Now, no nonsense. Take me out, and make a fuss of me."

      For a moment he stood still, admiring her. She was dressed in her very best Sunday clothes, and, to his eye at least, she looked quite entrancingly nice. Her straw hat was full of artificial roses that any one might have sworn were real; her unbuttoned jacket disclosed the delicate finery of a muslin blouse; her long skirt, held up so gracefully by the unoccupied hand, was made of veritable silk. She just looked tip-top—a picture—to the full as much a lady as the young dames he had been lately observing; and yet, wonder of wonders, she was his property.

      "By Jupiter, I must have another hug—and then off we go."

      "No," she said archly, and yet decidedly. "No more kisses till bedtime. I'm all ready to show myself to company, and I don't wish to be rumpled."

      They rode like a gentleman and a lady in a hansom cab; they dined like a duke and a duchess at the Criterion restaurant; and they were both as happy and light-hearted as schoolboys on the first day of their holidays. Like children they made silly little jokes which would have been jokes to no one but themselves. He caused immoderate laughter in her by assuming the airs of a man about town, by affecting a profound knowledge of the French names for all the dishes on the table d'hote menu, and by describing how offended he would now be if any one should detect that he was not a regular London swell; and she, by whispered criticism of a stout party at a distant table, sent such a convulsion of mirth through him that he choked badly while drinking wine. He had insisted on ordering the wine, and in making Mav take her share of it, although she vowed that the unaccustomed stimulant would fly to her head.

      "Rot, old girl. You dip your beak in it—it's mostly froth and fizz, and no more strength than the lager beer, as far as I can make out."

      "How much does it cost?"

      "Shan't tell. Yes, I will," and he roared with laughter, "since it's you that's paying for it. Best part of seven shillings."

      "Oh, Will, it's wicked!"

      "Bosh! This is the time of our lives;" and he chaffed her again about being a secret capitalist. "Blow the expense. Let the money fly. And, Mav, I on'y borrow it. This is all my affair really."

      "No, no. You'll spoil half my pleasure if you don't let me pay."

      But his money or her money—what did it matter? They two were one, reunited after a cruel, most bitterly cruel separation; her face was flushed with joy more than with wine, and her love poured out of her eyes like a stream of light.

      They walked from the restaurant to Leicester Square, arm in arm, proud and joyous, enjoying the lamplight and noise, not minding the airless heat; but when they reached the entrance of the music hall—where he had stood gaping, solitary and sad, a few nights ago—Mavis met with disappointment.

      "Oh," she said, "what a shame! They've changed the bill. Chirgwin's name is gone. He was acting here Friday night."

      "How d'you know that?"

      She followed him into the vestibule, and he asked her again while they waited in the crowd by the ticket office.

      "I read it in the paper. Aunt and I were talking of him; and I—I had the curiosity to look at the advertisements—not dreaming that I should come so near seeing him."

      "Never mind," cried Dale, in his jovial, far-carrying voice; "there'll be a many as good as him."

      "Hush," she whispered. "If you talk like that, they'll know we come from the country;" and she squeezed his arm affectionately. "I don't mind a bit, dear—but there's no one so clever as Chirgwin. Really there isn't."

      She at once forgot her trifling disappointment. Placed side by side in extravagantly expensive seats of the stately circle, surrounded by ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, they both gave themselves wholly to the pleasure of this unparalleled treat. All the early items of a long program astounded or charmed him; and her enjoyment was enhanced by recognizing how completely he had thrown off the narrowness or prejudice of village life. Listening to his laughter at almost indecent jokes, his ejaculations of wonder when conjurers showed their skill, his enthusiastic clappings after acrobats had proved their strength, she understood that all his natural sternness was temporarily relaxed; he would not allow himself to be disturbed by any semi-religious notions of propriety or impropriety; he was just a jolly comrade for an evening's sport.

      "Brayvo! Brayvo! By Jupiter—wouldn't 'a' credited it without the evidence of my own eyes." The gorgeous curtains had just descended upon a narrow parlor, which a Japanese necromancer had literally filled to overflowing with colored cardboard boxes produced from the interior of one single top hat. "See! Watch 'em, Mav." Footmen were coming in front of the curtains to remove the plethora of cardboard boxes. "They're real boxes, Mav."

      Sweet music, happy laughter, brilliant light—the evening glided entrancingly, like a dream in which neither Greenwich nor any other time is kept.

      During the interval before the ballet he took her out of the circle, strolled with her up and down the promenade, and gave her an American drink in a refreshment saloon. It was appallingly hot, and they were both longing to quench their thirst with something big and cold. A magnificent waiter brought them bigness and coldness in tall tumblers with straws, and they sat on a velvet divan and sucked rapturously.

      Standing or seated at tables, there were young bloods with white waistcoats and cigarettes, and young ladies with rich gowns and made-up faces; through a gilded doorway one had a vista of the thronged promenade; the air was hot, exhausted, pungent with tobacco smoke; and amid the chatter of voices, the clink of