Adrian Savage. Lucas Malet

softening of the pale, anxious, blue-gray eyes by eyelash or eyebrow. An acquiline nose with upcut winged nostrils, and a mouth, which, but for the compression of the lips, might have argued a certain coarseness of nature. A face, in fine, almost painful in its effect of studied self-repression, patient as it was unsatisfied, an arrested, consciously resisted violence of feeling perceptible in every line of it.

      "I could hardly bear having my hair brushed to-night, I am afraid, Isherwood," she said, presently. "I am really only fit to be alone. You say Margaret is quite composed now? You think she will sleep?"

      "Oh! dear me, yes, Miss Joanna, Miss Margaret will sleep. She drank a full tumbler of hot milk and fairly settled off before I left her. I wish I was half as easy about your night's rest as I am about hers."

      "My good Isherwood," Miss Smyrthwaite said, softly, as she moved away across the landing. Suddenly she paused and came hurriedly back.

      "Isherwood, Isherwood," she called under her breath, "the smell of that disinfectant seems so very strong. You're sure the door of—of papa's room is shut and locked?"

      "Dear me, yes, Miss Joanna. I have the key here in my pocket. Mr. Smallbridge and I went in the last thing before I came up, and I locked the door myself. You've got the smell of that nasty stuff in your nose. Anybody would, the amount those nurses used of it! Now you promise you'll ring, Miss Joanna, if you should feel nervous or poorly in the night? You know it never troubles me the least to get up."

      "My good Isherwood!" the younger woman said again.

      From the age of fourteen Joanna Smyrthwaite had been encouraged to keep a diary. For the diary was an acknowledged part of the system of feminine education—"forming the character," it used euphemistically to be called—that obtained so largely among serious-minded persons of leisure during the earlier half of the Victorian Era. Thoughtfulness, reserve, methodical habits, the saving of time, hands never unemployed, the conforming of one's own conduct to and testing of the conduct of others by certain wholly arbitrary and conventional standards—these nominal rather than real virtues were perpetually pressed home upon the minds and consciences of the "well-brought-up" female child. Inevitable reaction carried the majority of fin-de-siècle female children notably far in the quite opposite direction. But in some instances the older system survived its appointed span—that of the Smyrthwaite family may be cited as a case in point. The consequences were of doubtful benefit; since conditions have changed, and adaptability to environment is a necessity of mental as well as of physical health.

      Joanna Smyrthwaite was now in her twenty-ninth year. She still kept a diary. Written in a very small, neat, scholarly hand, it filled many octavo volumes, bound in dark-purple leather, each with a clasp and lock to it, her initials and the date stamped in gold lettering on the back. She was a diarist absolutely innocent of any thought or wish of eventual print. A fierce modesty, indeed, overlay the whole matter of her diary. That it should be secret, unseen by any eyes save her own, gave it its value. She regarded it with a singular jealousy of possession. As nothing else belonging to her, her diaries were exclusively, inviolably her own. It may almost be asserted that she took refuge in them, as weaker women, under stress of unsatisfied passion, will take refuge in a drug.

      And so to-night, without waiting to make any change in her dress, feverishly, as one at last set free from unwelcome observation, she pushed back the cylinder of the handsome satinwood bureau in her bedroom, set lighted candles upon the flat desk of it, took the current volume of the diary out of one of the pigeon-holes, and sat down, her thin hands trembling with mingled fatigue and excitement, to write.

      "Wednesday, Jan. 12, 190-

      "It has been impossible to put down anything for some days. The strain of nursing and the demands upon my time have been incessant and too great. I do not know that I am justified in writing to-night. Isherwood begged me not to do so, but it is a relief. It will quiet me, and bring me into a more normal relation to myself and to my own thought. For days I have been a mere beast of burden, bearing the anxieties of the sick-room and of the household upon my back. My intellectual life has been at a standstill. I have read nothing, not even the newspapers—The Times or last week's Spectator. There has been perpetual friction between the servants and the nurses which I have had to adjust. Margaret could not be looked to for help in this. She is too easily influenced, being disposed always to take sides with the person who last spoke to her. Mr. Savage cannot arrive before to-morrow afternoon. I am glad of this breathing space, for the thought of his coming is oppressive to me. He appeared so lively and so much a man of society, when we met him in Paris, that I felt shy and awkward in talking to him. But it is useless to dwell upon this. He is coming. I must accept the fact. My head aches. I keep on fancying there are strange sounds in the house. But, as Isherwood says, I am overtired. I meant to state quite simply what has occurred since I last wrote; but I find it difficult to concentrate my attention.

      "Papa died just before five o'clock this morning. It was snowing and the wind was high. Isherwood and I were in the room, with the night-nurse. Margaret had gone to lie down and I did not call her. She has reproached me for this since and will probably continue to do so. Perhaps I acted wrongly in not calling her, but I was dazed. Everything appeared unreal, and I did not grasp what was occurring until they told me. We had watched so long that I had grown dull and unresponsive. I was sitting upon the ottoman—in which mamma's evening gowns used to be kept—at the foot of the bed, when Isherwood came close to me and said, 'Miss Joanna, Mr. Smyrthwaite's going.' I said, 'Where?' not understanding what she meant. 'You had better be quick,' the night-nurse said. Her manner has never been respectful. I got up and went to the side of the bed. Papa's eyes were open. They seemed to stare at something which made him angry. He used to look thus at poor Bibby. I felt a spirit of opposition arise in me. This I now regret, for it was not a proper state of mind. Presently the night-nurse felt his pulse and held a hand-mirror to his mouth. I saw that the surface of it remained unblurred. She looked across at Isherwood and nodded familiarly. 'I thought so,' she said. Then I understood that papa was dead; and I felt sorry for him, both because I knew how much he disliked the idea of dying, and also because I should never be afraid of him any more.

      "The night-nurse said, quite out loud—her offhand way of speaking has struck me, all along, as objectionable—'There is no reason Miss Smyrthwaite should stop any longer. I always prefer to do the laying-out by myself. I get through with it so much quicker.'

      "'Isherwood will remain,' I said. I felt it right to assert my authority, and I so dread the upper servants being annoyed. It makes everything so difficult to manage.

      "'That is quite unnecessary,' she answered. 'If I require assistance for lifting I can call Nurse Bagot. She will be coming on duty anyhow in another hour, and as the case is over I should not mind disturbing her. She can finish her rest later.'

      "But I wish Mrs. Isherwood to remain,' I repeated.

      "'Of course I shall stay, Miss Joanna,' Isherwood said. 'It is my place to do so. It is not suitable or likely I should leave the laying-out to strangers. Besides, I do not take orders from anybody in this house but you or Miss Margaret.'

      "To have a wrangle just then was painful; but I think both Isherwood and I spoke under great provocation.

      "Afterward I went to Margaret. It was still dark, and I heard the wind and snow driving against the passage windows. I found Margaret difficult to awaken. When I told her, she became hysterical and said I ought to have spoken less suddenly. But Margaret cries readily. I believe it is a relief to her and enables her to get over trouble more easily. I have had no disposition to cry so far, yet I have been much more of a companion to papa than Margaret ever has. Latterly, in particular, she avoided being with him on the plea that was too exhausting for her. Sometimes I have thought her selfish. When I asked her to sit with him she was so ready with excuses. Still he cared for her more than for me. She is pretty and I am not—less than ever now, my eyes look so tired and have red rims to them—and then Margaret never opposed him. She has a way of slipping out of things without expressing a direct opinion. I did oppose him during the terrible troubles about poor Bibby, and when he spoke harshly or sarcastically before mamma. And I kept him at Carlsbad, away from mamma, during the last days of her illness, by telegraphing false reports to him.