The Rubicon. Benson Edward Frederic

father would have come with me," she explained, "but he and Percy are away. I am quite alone at home. You are looking wonderfully well, dear, and I'm sure I needn't ask you whether you are happy?"

      "Of course," said Eva, "those are the things that are taken for granted."

      "I've come to have a little cosy talk with you," said Mrs. Grampound, settling herself in a chair and taking off her gloves.

      A cosy little soliloquy would perhaps have been a more accurate description. She wandered on in a sort of pious intoxication at the contemplation of her daughter.

      "The mistress of a great house like this has very great responsibilities, my darling," she said. "If dear James were not such a thoroughly able and upright man, I confess I should feel a wee bit nervous at seeing my darling whirled away into such a circle. Be very sure exactly how you are going to behave. There seems to me something very beautiful in the life of all those dear last-century, great ladies, whose husbands used to treat them with such charming old-fashioned courtesy, and lock them up whenever they went away, which must have been most tedious. Yes, and send a servant to tell the groom of the chambers to ask my lady if she would receive him. Dear me, yes."

      "I don't think Hayes means to lock me up whenever he goes away," said Eva. "We haven't got a groom of the chambers, either."

      "No, dear," said Mrs. Grampound; "I was just saying, wasn't I, that all that was changed. Husbands lounge in their wives' boudoirs now, and smoke cigarettes there. So much more human and natural. You don't mind the smell of smoke, do you, dear?"

      "On the contrary," said Eva; "I smoke myself."

      "Gracious, how shocking! What a wicked child. Of course, there's no harm in it, dear; lots of nice women smoke. I should not let Hayes know that. When a difficult time comes – there will be difficult times, of course, my Eva – there is no rose without its thorns – Let me see, what was I saying – ah! yes, those little indulgences, like letting a husband have a cigarette in the drawing-room every now and then, are very much appreciated. A little womanly tenderness," continued Mrs. Grampound, getting rather breathless, and volubly eloquent, "a little tact, a little wifely sympathy, just a look, the 'I know, I know,' which women can put into one little look, is all that is required to make those difficulties real advantages – concealed facilities, one might really call them; real renewals of the marriage vow; the rough places shall be plain, in fact, if we may use those words."

      "We get on admirably together," said Eva; "he is most considerate for me, and most kind."

      "I declare I positively love him," cried her mother. "Of course, in any case, I should teach myself – should compel myself – to love the man of your choice, but the first time I saw him, I said to myself, that is the husband for my Eva. It was one June evening," continued Mrs. Grampound with an impressional vagueness, "and we were dining somewhere, I can't remember where, and he was there too; dear me, I recollect it all as clearly as if it was yesterday. I remember old Lady Hayes telling us all that brown sherry was rank poison, and that she would as soon think of drinking a glass of laudanum. We all laughed a great deal, because our host had very famous brown sherry."

      "It must have been very pleasant," said Eva.

      "Dear old Lady Hayes," said Mrs. Grampound; "such a wonderful woman, such strong, shrewd common sense; I wonder if she will go on living with you, Eva? I don't think it's a very good plan myself – there is sure to be some little unpleasantness now and then."

      "In spite of her strong, shrewd common sense?" asked Eva.

      "Dear child, how you catch one's words up! Of course, her presence would be invaluable to you, if she stopped, and with such a guest constantly by you, of course you would learn a great deal. But I should make it quite plain what your relative positions must be. You are the mistress of the house, Eva; she is your husband's pensioner. Be very kind, very courteous, but very firm. Your rights are your rights. I daresay she will go to live at Brighton or Bournemouth or Bath, all those watering-places begin with a B; no doubt she has money of her own. You didn't think of asking Lord Hayes what would be done about that, did you, Eva? You might suggest it very gently and feelingly some time soon. Of course, you needn't express any opinion till you see what she is likely to do. Then, if it appears that she is proposing to live with you, just say very quietly that you will be very glad to have her. That will show, I think, that you know and are ready to insist on her occupying her proper position in the house. And you went to Algiers, did you not?" continued her mother; "that dear, white town set like a pearl and all that on the sapphire sea. I forget who said that about it, but it seems to me a very poetical description. I could almost find it in my heart to envy you, dearest."

      "Yes, it's a very pretty place," assented Eva.

      "Darling, why do you tell me so little," said Mrs. Grampound, more soberly. "I have been thinking so continuously about you all the time you have been away; you have lived in all my thoughts. I have said to myself, 'Eva will be at home in four weeks, three weeks, two days, one day; to-day I shall see my dearest again.'"

      "What is there to tell you?" said Eva, slowly. "You assume I am happy, and I don't deny it. I am also amused and interested. I find things very entertaining. If you like I will show you some photographs of Mentone and Algiers. I lost two thousand francs at Monte Carlo. Hayes is very generous about money matters, and he has the further requirement of being very rich. He is bent on my being magnificent, and so, for that matter, am I. You shall see some fine things. I have, as you told me before my marriage, great natural advantages in the way of beauty. Diamonds suit me very well, and I have quantities of diamonds."

      Poor Mrs. Grampound's mental intoxication was passing away rapidly, leaving behind a feeling of depression. At no time did her thoughts present themselves to her with distinctness; they were like seaweeds waving about close to the surface of the water. Sometimes, after a big wave had passed, sundry little ends of them appeared above the sea for a second or two, and Mrs. Grampound made anxious little grabs at these before they disappeared again. Consequently, her descriptions of them, as reflected in her conversation, were somewhat scrappy and inorganic.

      She appeared, in the short silence that followed Eva's remarks, to have got hold of a new sort of sea-weed – a bitter, prickly fragment. At any rate she said, somewhat piteously, —

      "Eva, Eva, tell me you are satisfied. You don't blame me, do you, for urging it on you?"

      Eva could be very cruel. The foam-born Aphrodite, when she came "from barren deeps to conquer all with love," had, we may be sure, many undesirable suitors, and to these, I expect, she did not show any particular kindness or sympathy. She was, to judge by her face, too divine to be cruel in petty, irritating ways, but she was too divine not to be very human.

      Eva raised her eyebrows.

      "Why should I blame you? I am amused and interested. After all, that is more important than anything else. Surely I ought to be grateful to you. But to speak quite frankly, I did not marry to please you; I married to please myself, and Hayes, of course," she added.

      Mrs. Grampound was very nearly shedding a few vague tears, but the appearance of Lord Hayes made her decide to postpone them.

      "My charming mother-in-law," he said, "I am delighted to see you. Very much delighted, in fact. And am I not to see my father-in-law? How do you think Eva is looking?"

      "Eva is looking wonderfully well," said she briskening herself up a little. "She has been giving me the most delightful accounts of your honeymoon. Mentone, Algiers, all those charming, romantic places. But Monte Carlo! Really, I was shocked. And Eva tells me she lost two hundred thousand francs – or was it two thousand, Eva? In any case, it is quite shocking, and I feel I ought to scold you for leading my child into bad ways."

      "He didn't lead me," said Eva. "I went by myself. I think you remonstrated, didn't you, Hayes? You didn't play yourself, I know. However, I got a good deal of fun out of it. It was really exciting sometimes. After all, that is the chief thing. Two thousand francs was cheap. Tell mother about the new villa. I must go – I've got a hundred things to do."

      Old Lady Hayes also made inquiries of her son as to what was to happen to her. She was a direct old lady, and she said, —

      "And what