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Show . AnDKNBKOOKE. . I'll Dfr do you wroug for your own sak -All s Well That Ends Wall . 1. Lydia couM not help wondering wlty on eartli .AdJeiiliroqke should be so anxious anx-ious to marry her. She was t.tanding at the window, her eyes mechanically following the familiar, famil-iar, Insignificant rijrurti of the professor as he plodded down the gravel walU to the gate; and when lie had passed from view she sat down in' the nearest chair and continued her reflections. It was very strange. She had no love to give him, and had told him so, quite frankly; he must know, as every , one knew, of that miserable affair with Lawrence Fleming; was he not Fleming's intimate friend, the last person who had seen hiio before he went to Africa? Moreover, her glass had taken to reflecting re-flecting a woman who was sad and pale and plii Ix-fore her time; surely not the woman wjth whom a man would be expected ex-pected to wish to begin his life. When we have become to ourselves a daily burden it is so hard to realize that our presence can be desired of others. And yet she had been aware of Adden-brooke's Adden-brooke's devotion from the days of the good but obstinate little boy, with a taste for chemical experiments, to those of the nwloet rniiiiir limn who linker! tinoh- They were so infinitely touching, these poor women and their love stories; their anxious interpretation of looks and words and smiles; their pathetic, careful gathering gather-ing up of crumbs so carelessly scattered. So Lydia, with half averted face, began be-gan her story in the strange, uncertain voice which, from his boyhood upward, had had power to thrill John Adden-brooke Adden-brooke to the inmost depths of his being. "It is nearly a year ago," she began, "at the Meades' plucs in Warwickshire. I arrived on March 28, and stayed a week. It began from the beginning. When I walked into the drawing room, where he was standing by the tea table, it seemed that I had walked into a new and strange and wonderful world. I lived in that world fora week, and it was like a lifetime. Looking back, it astonishes aston-ishes me how every one else at once accepted ac-cepted the situation. Then I no more questioned it than I question the rising of the sun. The day came when I was to go, and, he hail said nothing definite to me. " I, living in my fool's paradise, was neither surprised nor afraid. At last, an hour before I left, he took me in his arms, yes, -Johnny, yes he took nit in his arms and kissed my lips, and told ma that he would follow me .the next day." "That's enough," said Addenbrooke, In a low voice; "he was a brute. Let us hear no more about him." "There is no more to hear," she an- ""Where do you hang out?" askeil Ail-denbrobke, Ail-denbrobke, gathering together tlio ile Bpie,l examination papers. "I have Ik-cu down nt Twickonhani with my people. Can't stand much t f that, you know. I am looking out f,,r i chambers somewhere BunJ street way; and Mrs. Baxter is going to put me up here for a night or two." j "Oh, good. You know Mrs. P.axter I has that portmanteau of yours-" "Yes; she's fetching it now, I bi-liiue, from the lumber room. There are sumo papers in it I want to look at to-niehl." Fleming leaned back in his chair, his eyelids drooping moodily, as they had a trick of doing; then ho said discontentedly: discon-tentedly: "Haven't you got anything to toll a fellow? You London people are nil lie same. One goes away and live:: ii:t seemsa lifetime it's so cram full of experience ex-perience and when one gets back, not a soul remembers if it was last week or last year they met you at the Jenkiic-ons' dinner party." "Krom what I hear, you've no cause to complain, Fleming." '"Oh, of course, one's pestered with invitations from a lot of silly women one never heard of!" grumbled the new lion: "but isn't there anything in tlio sha)e of neyvsr" "Well," said Addenbrooke, slowly, "there is one piece of news, but I don't know that it's interesting. I am thinking of getting married." Addenbrooke had never been n shy man; he was only very modest, and ho had not accustomed his friends to take an interest in his affairs. Fleming opened hiseyesfttll and stared his friend in the face. There was always something startling in his appearance under these circumstances; perhaps because be-cause his eye3 were so rarely shown perhaps because of some quality in the eyes themselves. They were curiously bright and very brown not a black manque, but a beautiful, unusual brown. Looking at them, it was easier to realize real-ize the power, such a3 it was, which Lawrence Fleming possessed over his fellow creatures. "Addenbrooke," ho said, leaning forward for-ward and speaking with sudden intensity, in-tensity, "as you value your peace of mind, have nothing to do with women!" He flung himself back, laughing a little, lit-tle, and letting fall his eyelids. In n few minutes he burst into a fierce tirade against the whole female sex, taking Ad denbrooke's announcement merely as a text. Even Johnny was disappointed at this lack of interest on the part of his friend, but remembered having heard that Lawrence Law-rence had been hard hit before he went to Africa that nothing less, indeed, than a broken heart had sent him forth to those distant shores. : Then, before Addenbrooke knew what was happening, Fleming plunged into the very heart of his) own particular grievance. "It was last year," he said, "at a country coun-try house. It began from the moment she came into the room. I don't pretend that she was the first; but it wa3 different, differ-ent, somehow. I am not even sure that she was good looking, but there was something about her if you cared at all well, you cared! She stayed a week, and at the end of the time I told her. more or less directly, that 1 loved her. I was to see her the next day in London. The next day, as it happened, I was pre vented by my mother's serious illness. I wrote and told her this, begging her to fix a day for my visit. She made no reply, and four days later I called at the" house to be told she was out of town. Tho next day I accepted the otter of The Waterloo Place Gazette, and went out to Africa. I'm sure 1 don't know why I cared. She wasn't worth it; sho had given mo every encouragement had even allowed me to kiss her. I suppose there was a richer fellow on hand, or one whose father didn't happen to keep a shop!" Fleming rose, shrugging his shoulders. Addenbrooke remained silent.- Tho voice of- Mrs. Baxter, announcing that t h portmanteau was in Lawrence's room, cauio as a relief to both. "By the by," said Johnny, in a low-voice, low-voice, as the other felt for his keys, "all this took place-at -the Meades' in Warwickshire,- from" March tho 2Sih on wards?" - ."Oh," answered Lawrence, with somo vexation, pausingon his way to the door, "I suppose you know all about it like tho rest of the world!" And he went from the room. IV. Addenbrooke remained behind, pacing the ridiculous, incongruous apartment, while an unwonted storm of emotion raged within him. The parts of the puzzle lay, fitted together, to-gether, in I113 hand; it only remained for him to step forward and proclaim the solution of a most commonplace enigma. An inefficient postman, a careless housemaidon house-maidon some such undignified trifio had the whole complication hung, like many another complication before it. No doubt, sooner or later, the missing clew would come to light, when lie himself him-self had made itsdiscovery of no importance import-ance whatever. Had he been of a melodramatic turn of raind, Addenbrooke might have laughed laugh-ed aloud at the irony of the situation. His own dream was shattered forever; but of that for the moment he scarcely thought. What he saw most clearly was this: that, by his own act, he must make Lydia over into the hands of a man unworthy un-worthy of her unlikely to make her happy; to think of whom in connection with her seemed contamination. But the man whom Lydia loved withal! There was the sting, the shock, tint forlho moment took away his breath, end rpade hirh pause, pale, motioiiles.-;, in his walk. Then suddenly, before the modest an 1 uncritical mind of Addenbrooke flashed in vivid colors the imago of two men of himself and his friend. He saw Lawrence Fleming with Ins showy, unreliable cleverness, his moral coarseness; the man stood before him revealed re-vealed in all his second rateness. And he saw himself, John Adden brooke, as he bad. always been, in the dignity of his it-reproachful life of his honest, patient l.ilx,r. He louke.l on this picture and on that, and knew each for what it was worth. Then ensued in the peaceful breast of Aihlcnlu-ooke a terrible war of thoughts and emotions. ' Life, which had hitherto been a simple matter enough, a mere case of doing your duty and minding your own business, busi-ness, had assumed a complexion of cruel difficulty. And yet he knew that the more obvious ob-vious aspect of the matter was not a complicated one. Lydia no more belonged to him than a dog who had followed him homo ami had been claimed by its master. ITe was bound, in common honor, to reveal the facts of which he had accidentally acci-dentally become possessed. Should he go to Lydia and say: "This man, whoui you prefer so infinitely to myself, is far less worthy of yon than I. He has not led a bad life, as men go. b'-l ! he has not led a good one." Men of the world do not do such things, but then Addenbrooke was not a man of the world. j And if he had no other right over Lydia, had he not that of his own lifelong life-long love. and her three weeks' tolerance of it? Tho door opened to admit Lawrence f leming. He had changed his coat, and bore a bundle of papers and a pipe in his hand. "Any tobacco?" he said, faking the empty seat at the writing table. Addenbrooke nodded toward a jar dn the mantelpiece, continuing his troubled promenade across the room. It was dawning, painfully, but- surely, on his mind that his hands were indeed tied; that it only remained for Lydia to choose between them. "But it i3 1 who would have made her happy!" thought poor, obstinate Johnny. "Any matches?" said Fleming, with his fingers in the tobacco jar. Johnny made no answer, and the other fumbled in the pocket of his coat. "By George!" This time Addenbrooke was roused, and came over to the table. "What's up?" he said. Fleming pointed in silence toastampi-d and addressed envelope lying at his feet. Johnny picked it up, with a dull sense ! of relief that matters had been more or less taken out of his hands. He knew, before he looked at it, that it was addressed ad-dressed to Miss Grey, and that it was Fleming's customary carelessness in the matter of posting his letters which had wrought the mischief. Lawrence was much excited. "It had slipped behind the lining of tho pocket! I have just taken the coat from my portmanteau. port-manteau. O, that poor girl! that poor girl! what must she have thought of me all this time?" . Addenbrooke faced him suddenly "Do you intend," he said, in ft low "vote "endeavoring to repair the mischief:" It is possible that lie had a low opinion of Fleming's constancy. "1 will go to her to-morrow!" cried Lawrence. A sudden pang of personal anguish, an intolerable sense of bereavement, shot 'through Addenbrooke. Ho thought: "After all, perhaps, I am nothing hi, f a jealous devil who beg fudges my girl her happiness." Aloud, he said: "There may be difficulties diffi-culties at first. In fact, .Miss Grey is engaged en-gaged to be married." Fleming rose, w ith an exclamation. The two men stood facing oneanother; Law rence, llushc-d. excited; Johnny, pale, with tense eves and nostrils. "Lydia engaged! Lydia! The women are all alike. Gould sho have no patience, no trust, but she nut-t needs throw herself her-self away in a fit of pique on some follow who is not- worthy of her!" "She is engaged to me!" cried Addenbrooke, Adden-brooke, with sudden passion. "And, by Heaven, 1 think it is I who am too good for her!" The passion of such men as Addenbrooke Adden-brooke is a terrible thing. Fleming quailed before it. He gathered gath-ered up his papers in silence and went from the room. v.- Mrs. Grey swept up to Addenbrooke as-he stood with his hand on the knob of the drawing room door. "Oh, Professor Addenbrooke, I am so sorry," she cried "So am I," he answered, curtly. It was two days after the events of the hist chapter. Lydia had made her choice, and now, at her own request, was to talie farewell of Addenbrooke. As she came forward, with Hushed cheeks and shining eyes, to meet him, it struck him that she resembled the picture of a Bacchante he had seen somewhere. A Bacchante in a tarlor'tnade gown, with the neatest-of cutTa and collars-poor collars-poor Johnny! "I wished,'rshe said, when their greeting greet-ing was over, "to thank you wjth all my heart."' "And J," he said, ."wish 'to tell you this. Do not think that -I merely took advantage of you. . I believed I hat I could make you '" happv 1 believe it still." She smiled sadly, and Addenbrooke broke into a sort of laugh." "Oh, Johnny, Johnny!'' she cried.- He had no intention of being pitied, even by Lydia. j "Don't distress yourself about me. Lydia," lie said; "I have had ray chance. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I dn not think you have chosen the better man.'" They talked a little aimlessly; then Addenbrooke held out both bis hands in farewell. It was Lydia, who, drawing him towards her, kissed his face for the last time. She knew, as he stood there facing her, that he was passing out of her life forever. for-ever. For the moment he seemed trans- j figured, no longer insignificant; a tender ! but inscrutable presence pityjnej. ironical. ironi-cal. Some inarticulate voice in her heart cried out to him not to have ho':; unconsciously uncon-sciously khe put out her hand, and then he was gone. Not long after Fleming was. w-ith her, He had his arm around her waist and was kissing her lips as Addenbrooke had , never kissed them. Amy Levy in Bel-cravia. Bel-cravia. . - : trusively in doorways for the purpose of saying good night to her, and was always at hand to fill - ux vacancies. She had been aware of it, but had given it little heed; now, in her loneliness, her sorrow, the thought of that devotion moved her strangely. She had seen herself .drifting on to middleage, haggard, loveless, unloved; the sorriest of spectacles, the emotional woman whose emotions have wrecked her. Addenbrooke , and Addenbrooke's love interposed themselves like a shield between her and her fate. She had given hiu no answer, but she knew by now what tier answer would be. The door opened, and Mrs. Grey, her mother, came into the room. She sat down in silence a chill, comfortless com-fortless presence and regarded her daughter from the distance. , ' These two women lived together with- out profit or pleasure to either. Mrs. Grey was capable of making sacrifices, but, she Tacked the priceless gift of home making; while Lydia, on her part, chafed beneath the restrictions of alelatiouship in which-neither -affinity- nor affection bore a part "So it was tobe Johnny Addenbrooka arter aii," reflected Mi's. Grey; "a Gower street professor of no particular distinctions distinc-tions siWell, Lydia was getting on; and, if a girl means to marry, she had better manage to do 60 before she is five-and-twenty. And there had been nothing, it seemed, in that affair with young Fleming." Flem-ing." Mi's.. Grey .was- disappointed. It is true tlrat Fleming's faiher kept a glove shop inRegeut street, whereas the Ad-denbrookes Ad-denbrookes had been gentle folk3 for generations; but nobody minded that sort of (BiaJn these dsys. Lawrence Fleming Flem-ing went everywliere, did everything; his new book from Africa had made him more of " a lion- than ever; hence he was more to be desired as a husband than poor Johnny, who went nowhere to speak of, and.did nothing but his work. Lydia rose slowly and went over to the writing table. As she took up her pen the whimsical thought struck her that, when the other children had carried their pence to the sweet shop, Johnny had always preferred to invest his capital in mysterious com-jKiimds com-jKiimds at the chemist's. A faint smile hovered about her lips as she wrote. Wljen .the, letter,, was finished, she laid herjiead a moment on the desk and shut " her eyes. The old dream, from which she was turning forever, had rushed with cruel vividjies-j into her consciousness: conscious-ness: Behnt dieh Gott, eswarzu schoo gewesen; Beiiut dieh Gott, 33 hat Diclit sollen seiu. She rose, stiff and cold, and went over to her mother. Lyditfwaa :tf 'graceful creature, tall, slight, faintly colored; some people thought her beautiful, others could see noJrielnt kvhar wbatever. "Mamma," 6he said in her strange, pathetic voice, "Professor Addenbrooke has asked me to marry him, and I have w ritten to say 'yes.' " II. Addenbrooke was spending the evening even-ing as usual with Lydia at St. John's Wood. They were alone together, Mrs. GreyJMiaving discreetly retired to her own room, and the talk between them flowed with th&ease of intimacy and affection, af-fection, . . . , IFWaTBpwjBiree. weeks "since heir en-- en-- gagemenf'ahclalready something of Ad-denbrW-ke's calm 'happiness was beginning begin-ning tobe reflected. in LydiaV face. She appi;eciited1--what,only women can appreciate,, ap-preciate,, tlie. .consciousness of making ano'lher's.Uappiness "by the mere fact of her-eserjee. ,- That is, I think, a pleas-uire pleas-uire too.subtle .fori. the masculine palate. Nowj as she laid her hand lightly on his, she en joyed, as it were, reflection of the delight which she knew herself to be conferring by the act. - "Johnny,"" she . said, "will you let me tell you to-night what I have always meant to tell you? about myself and that other persdriT" She finished .her phrase thus vaguely, not doubting but that Addenbrooke had mentally rounded it oil with greater accuracy; somehow her lips refused to utter the name of Lawrence Fleming. - "ily dear," he answered gently, "tell me nothing which distresses you. I don't waDt to know. I know you have been very unhappy, but one day, I assure you, you are going to be happier than ever." She .smiled half sadly. "Johnny, let ' me tell you. I think I ought. Perhaps, when you have heard, you will want to go away from me from a woman who has been so, cruelly humiliated." - He laughed, drawing closer to her in the fire light. "Since that's, it, Lydia, perhaps you'd better tell met" He saw that she would never rest till she liad disburdened her inind of the old, unhappy things, about which personally ha had small desire to learn, . - - . , swered with bitterness; "that is the end of my story, - A week later I heard ho had gone abroad." Addenbrooke put his arm about Lydia and, drawing her head to his shoulder; stroked her hair backward and forward with his kind hand. Her recital had pained him. He knew the perfidity of his sex, but this particular particu-lar offender had gone beyond all recognized recog-nized limits; limits which, in his own person, Johnny had always refused to recognize. The thought of the misery inflicted on his proud, sensitive, passion-ate passion-ate Lydia made him sick with anger and speechless with sympathy. He rose at last and, buttoning up his coat, tried to speak in tones of reassuring cheerfulness. "By the by, Lydia, Fleming has come back. You remember Lawrence , Fleming? Flem-ing? They are making quite a lion of him on account of his new book. He's just the sort of man to enjoy being lionized." lion-ized." Lydia looked at him, speechless, and he went on: "I expect that.he will be turning up at my rooms in the course of a day or two. He left a portmanteau with my landlady before ho sailed.' Gopd night, my own dear girl." And he held out both his hands. . , . Lydia looked at him sharply and with rising vexation. She had found out long ago that subtle sub-tle hints were quite thrown away upon Johnny; but surely, surely he must know the truth. Either he was the most Consummate actor or" the densest person living. It was impossible to entertain seriously serious-ly the idea of Addenbrooke as a con sum-, mate actor. " " III. Addenbrooke had rooms in Gower Btreet; a sitting room and a bedroom, divided di-vided by folding doors. The whole apartment had begun life as what house agents call a spacious double drawing room, and bore yet the marks of its former state of existence. . The mantelpiece, which now support-, ed a host of bottles, variously shaped and filled, was of white marble, heavily carved summoned up to the imaginative imagina-tive mind visions of gilt clocks and candlesticks can-dlesticks under glass shades. The walls, hung with whito watered paper, were divided into panels by strips of gold beading, and from the ceiling a shrouded chandelier depended from a twelfth cake like decoration iu white and gold plaster. Addenbrooke had drawn his writing table, with the lamp on it, close to the fire, and had settled down to a long night's work. It was the evening following fol-lowing Lydia's confession, and ha was too busy to get up to St. John'3 Wood. He sighed at the thought of this, then plunged into the pile of. papers", which not only covered the table, but overflowed over-flowed into several neighboring chairs. He had not been long at work when the door was flung open, and a .man entered en-tered the room. ? "Still in these gilded halls, Johnny!" said a voice, which was not quite 60 drawling nor so full of qiiiet humor as the speaker seemed to intend. "Fleming, by all that'i wonderful!" cried Addenbrooke, rising with extended band. The new. corner. wa3 a large, heavily built young man, with dark hair, and a j complexion, originally florid, burnt crim I son by the African sun. He was distinctly handsome, though the lower part of the face was a trifle heavy, and there wa3 a lack of finish about the ears and nostrils. "Sit down," said Addenbrooke, clearing clear-ing a chair, and resuming his own seat. "Examinations, ugh!" Fleming flicked with his large finger at the papers on the desk. "If it's not your own exant3., it s other people's, poor old Johnny 1" Fleming had the greatest contempt fcr examinations, in which, indeed, ha had conspicuously failed to distinguish himself; him-self; the less brilliant Addenbrooke having hav-ing a commonplace knack of getting into the first class, which is often the way with your dull, plodding fellows. These two men had been friends, after a fashion, since their first term at tho University. In those days Fleming had been a raw, unhappy, self conscious young man, subject to miserable, hideous fits of shyness, and secretly ashamed of the paternal glove shop. Now, perhaps, he was too fond of talking talk-ing about the glove shop; of drawing jocose jo-cose comparisons between himself and a well known glover's son of Stratford-on-Avon; and the only remaining mark of his shyness was a certain emphasis of self confidence. Addenbrooke's affection folium fol-ium was rather a survival from earlier day3 than anything else, though Johnny, it must; be owned, was uncritical, and, Jjke many persons, imposed a far less severe se-vere standard of conduct on his friends than on himself. |
