It had grown dusk; his eyes glowed like smouldering coals. Lady Joan looked up at him in silence, absently, and again contrasted him with Darcy. "What were you and Mr. Darcy so absorbed about, if I may ask?” said Lady Wilmington, later. "Come and warm your feet in my dressing-room, Again she looked at him, cheek on child, you look so cold. I felt almost hand, white and calm. "There are many considerations," he began. The door flew open. "Joan!" cried Lady Wilmington's ringing voice; "Mr. Holcroft is dying to hear you sing. Will you come now, or wait till after dinner?" "I can come now," said Joan, with indifference. She went slowly, as in a dream, not further noticing Darcy. II. MR. HOLCROFT once flippantly answered to some query the rudeness of which was disguised by a silvery accent "I specs I grow'd.” He had, in fact, risen from the ranks, but was now, at two-and-thirty, M.P. for the Castle Hamlets. His fluency had "caught on; "moreover, he was reported rich enough to buy up the House which he adorned. The ladies' gallery, when he spoke, was uncomfortably crowded. In person he was tall and broad, with a ruddy complexion, an abundance of black hair, and bright dark eyes. A more decided physical contrast to Lady Joan's companion in the library could hardly exist. This thought flashed across her as she followed Lady Wilmington to the drawingroom. Flashed merely; she was too much absorbed in other subjects to dwell upon it. ashamed to interrupt you. He seemed quite confused; and you were gazing with all your soul in your face, as the novels say. Do pray condescend to my inquisitiveness." "It was nothing of much consequence to you, at least. I did not know that you had Mr. Darcy's photograph, Julia. May I see?" She took a framed vignette from a motley collection above the mantelpiece. "It is rather a beautiful face when one looks into it," she said, with the same musing abstraction. "My dear Joan! You heighten my curiosity! It is a clever face, certainly and some might consider it interesting. But - beautiful! it has not one perfect feature." "Features are secondary," said Lady Joan. The face which she was studying was thin and brown, with a rugged nose of aquiline tendency, a strong mouth, and eyes set somewhat deeply under level brows. "You can have it, if you like," said Lady Wilmington, smilingly watching her. "I want the frame for Mr. Hol croft." "Thank you. If you would turn out this face for Mr. Holcroft's, you are certainly not worthy of it." She was dimly aware of Mr. Hol- "My dear child, when did you decroft's stepping forward to thank her,velop this penchant for Mr. Darcy ?” Joan, | said Lady Joan. "It's not a penchant," said sitting down, and clasping her behind her straw-colored head. "His work has interested me for seven years. I was only fourteen when first I heard of his coming of age, and going away to live in some dreadful part of Loudon among the poor. People were laughing and wondering how soon he would get tired. He never did get tired, you see, in the way they meant. I knew he never would.” "You had the gift of prescience, I conclude, my dear, since, whatever you heard as a child, you made his actual acquaintance, for the first time very slightly, five months ago." "Here is your photo "I told you that the frame must be cleared for Mr. Holcroft," cried Lady Wilmington, laughing. But the door had softly closed. Joan was gone. III. SHORTLY before his departure on the following morning, Darcy was crossing the hall, when a low voice called to him. "Mr. Darcy, may I speak to you?" Lady Joan stood in the entrance of the billiard-room. He remembered his simile of a little white spirit. Her childlike face was resolutely set, her clear eyes looked full into his own." "No one will come. They are shooting. I want to see you alone." Certainly," returned Darcy, with heightened color. 66 "You had better take care, dear," said Lady Wilmington affably. "It is all very well up here, alone with me." Lady Joan fixed her clear gaze uponing against the table. her cousin. A moment later they were shut in together, she seated at the end of the long room, he standing before her, lean "What is all very well?" "We were interrupted yesterday. Did you realize that I was in earnest ? There is no one else - no one at allwho would stir a finger to deliver me. But Will you contrive that I may be the helper who is wanted ?" "This interest in Mr. Darcy." "In Mr. Darcy's work." "That is all very well too. when a girl and a young man "Is he a young man ?” "My dear Joan ! " Darcy hesitated not in his mind; but the answer upon which, during a "I never thought of him in that wakeful night he had resolved, seemed light." Her face changed suddenly. stood up, dignified and grave. She "I thought of him merely as a fellow-being, living out a great purpose, whose disciple I would wish to be." "The less you mention him in this exalted strain, the better, if you will take my advice." The world is even more absurd than I imagined it, then. But I will have courage to rise above the world." "Something more than courage is required for that, my dear; your little powers would hardly come off as you anticipate in the contest. But why, after all, blame the poor world? What you need, Joan, is common sense." "I shall be late if I don't dress,' VOL. VI. 262 LIVING AGE. hard to utter. "You are too young, Lady Joan." "You were just my age when you sold your land and gave the price and yourself to south London." "The two cases cannot be compared. I am a mau." "But if you directed me they might turn out much the same, though I am a woman." Darcy's eyes fell before those guileless ones; his flush rose. "Don't think me ungrateful," he said; "I quite understand. I have been considering. Your offer is most kind.” "Kind!" Lady Joan clenched her hands. "But I cannot accept it," said Darcy, walking to a window. "I must submit "Good-bye," he returned mechan to be thought ungracious, unsympa- ically. His clasp lingered upon her thizing -- what you will. You are out passive fingers. "Don't misjudge me, of your teens, certainly; but I know Lady Joan." how persistently quiet you have been." "Because I was keeping myself for this," said the girl, with suppressed passion. "The dog-cart is come round, sir," announced a servant. "Must you really go, Mr. Darcy ?" cried Lady Wilmington's voice. The "I know also that Lady Wilmington girl turned and flitted away by a side feels she has hardly done her duty to door. As Darcy drove from the house, you that now, her elder daughters he glanced up and saw her face in a being married, she means to devote high window, looking gravely after herself more exclusively to-to-your him. "Good-bye," her silent eyes interests. You scarcely realize your seemed to repeat. position as so great an heiress, in addition to your rank. I should be simply a hound to take advantage of your ignorance before you have had more opportunity "For what?" asked Lady Joan, with stateliness. "Shall I write and explain?" he thought. He lashed the horse; the railway was soon in view. A few hours and he was back in his lodgings, chosen for their position in the heart of the great underworld, to whose service he had pledged himself. Beyond the grimy windows the sun was setting in dun clouds, an hour earlier, it ap Darcy hurriedly altered his sentence. "Before, in short, you know what you are about. I could not, Lady peared, than at Somersby. Two slipJoan, indeed." He returned to the table, his self-control now complete. "In two years' time-this is my resolve if in two years you are still of the same mind, I will come to you and ask perhaps I must then entreat what now you offer." shod lads were jeering at a half-tipsy costermonger as he tried to kick his donkey. A blear-eyed girl, with matted locks below a battered hat, was hawking limp chrysanthemums. luxurious library, the scented fire, and the white little figure silent in its glow, The He did not look at her; but rose with vivid recollection before blankly she looked at him. Darcy. To that question, still inwardly resounding, he answered: "No." "I can't understand," she said, after a short silence; "I read your speech in July, when your new hall was opened. Have you changed in such a little while? Would you really wish -or any one - to throw away two whole years?" "As for wishing," said Darcy, his eyes upon the ground, "I know my present duty; that is enough." me Lady Joan stood up, still and calm. "I suppose it must be true that familiarity with pain makes people callous," she said. "But, from your talk with Mr. Holcroft, I never could have believed you callous you! Still, two years! Think of the thousands I might help, who will be dead or worse in two years!" Her eyes grew wide. "SHALL you be in town this winter, Lady Joan ?" The gentlemen had just entered from the dining-room. Lady Joan, "Good-bye, Mr. Darcy." She held who sat partly hidden by a huge palm, out a cold little hand. looked up slowly. "I wonder whether you would come | my opinion all the miseries of the out to the East End now and then, and world proceed from the usurper, Caste. sing at my People's Concerts? Your voice would waft those poor things to Paradise! I am organizing a series of entertainments in connection with my Thrift Union." I "What is your Thrift Union ?" asked Lady Joan. She was still as ever, but the forlornness left her eyes. "Ah! thereby hangs a tale. might weary you," said Mr. Holcroft. "I could never weary of plans for the people. You did not mention it in your talk with Mr. Darcy." My aim is to form the masses into an invincible phalanx which the so-called upper ranks will have to recognize as brother men. Am I going too far for you, Lady Joan ?" "No." She sat motionless, fascinated. "But first they must learn where their power lies. Darcy would heal our social wounds by salves - I, by probing. I know my own people. Certain unfortunate habits in themselves undermine their chances. My "No; Darcy has his own ideas, and Thrift Union aims at habits directly I have mine. My Thrift Union is the opposite, and in consequence at formaapple of my eye. You see, I judge of tion of property. It has several thrift by experience. I had not Darcy's branches; a bank, with artisan sharepreliminary advantages. I was tum-holders, a loan office, building and tembled into the world; I climbed myself, and now I will help others to climb." "But Mr. Darcy does that too." "By the way, climbing is not his idea for them. He goes to work - naturally, of course - on the old conservative lines. His efforts are splendid as to relieving distress, combating vice, overcrowding, and so forth. He and I are two that's all." Lady Joan looked with sudden curiosity at the roughly handsome face. She was tired of conventional faces. The air of energy and hardihood in these strong features awakened a new interest. "Won't you sit down? What do you mean exactly by helping them to climb ?" "I have a vision," said Holcroft, taking a neighboring chair and leaning towards her, his arm throwu over its back, "of a world which might possibly shock you. I am very democratic, you know." perance societies. I shall bring to bear upon it all possible influences of literature, music, art—whatever, in fact, can impress the vast importance of thrift in the highest and widest senses of the word." "It is a grand idea. Who are your helpers? " Ah! We are a very young body. We want capital. I wish to interest as many as possible in your class of life. May I explain details ?" "Pray tell me the whole history. I might perhaps be of use." "You think so?" returned Holcroft eagerly. His eyes again glowed with a red light. He was evidently wrapped up in his noble schemes! His dash of personal audacity appeared to Lady Joan well-matched with their bold outlines. He went on relating, describing, with his fluent tongue. If he might meet her in the library, next morning, he would show her, he said, his papers, his list of shareholders, his "I am democratic too," said Lady lithographed plans. Joan. "He does not put me off and check A triumphant light gleamed in his me," she thought, with a little sigh. "If Mr. Darcy had only opened out in this way But that would be too eyes. "That speech sounds strange from your lips! But I may talk to you without reserve, then? What I advocate, what I try to impress upon the working classes, as upon the House, is the perfect equality of mankind. In good to be true." "Holcroft is a clever fellow," observed Lord Wilmington, one day. "Ten to one he will be in the ministry after the next election. And I hear one that his patent-which he took out the third week in January! But Mr. at two-and-twenty-is a Fortunatus's Holcroft must be in London when the purse to him." House meets; he cannot miss night of the first debates. And Easter is late this year; he has important work, which I must help him in, before Easter." "Joan might fare worse, after all," said his wife reflectively. "One never knows what her queerness might end in!" Lady Joan, meanwhile, was watching the autumnal sunset. Its crimson rays transfigured her young face. "Another sun going down," she thought; "and still I am doing nothing! And the millions under it crying for help! Crying and passing and my life flying away! Two years? Oh, how selfish!" V. "You will have rather a short honeymoon." "Honeymoon!" Detestable phrase ! "We shall stay away a fortnight," she replied frigidly. "But we shall have no honeymoon at all, It will be a working moon. Mr. Holcroft is at a committee meeting to-night, and he will take a large portmanteau of bluebooks and papers with him. I shall act as his secretary. I shall write and "AND to-morrow is your wedding read, under his direction, the whole day!" time." Lady Wilmington was giving a large At Home in her house at Princes Gate. Lady Joan, the supposed heroine of the evening, had done hard duty in receiving congratulations and introductions; now some infantine prodigy was attracting all the world to the concertroom, and she had lingered in a small boudoir, where only a few dowagers were chatting in low tones. At first she did not perceive that when others vanished, one figure still haunted the doorway. But presently she was aware of Mr. Darcy, who quietly approached her. She had not seen him since their parting at Somersby; but nothing in his manner recalled this fact. "I could not get near you, before. You were the centre of such admiring multitudes. And to-morrow is your wedding day!" he said. "Yes, to-morrow," said Lady Joan. A faint tinge, as of a delicate azalea, had risen to her fair cheek. She did not ask herself why, below her calmness, ached a foolish desire to explain her reasons for marrying-to make clear that she was not "in love; " oh, how she hated that phrase! Surely Mr. Darcy could not so misjudge her as to think that she was "in love!" "It is a little soon," she went on, as if talking of another person. Only Darcy smiled; as he had smiled in the Somersby library. "Aren't you glad, now, that I was firm about those two years, Lady Joan ?" Lady Joan lifted her eyes, and looked at him. His smile died. "No, I am sorry," she said. The azalea tints had faded. She was a white spirit once more; she might almost have risen suddenly, unsheathing hidden wings, and floated away. The fire burned in me just the same; I had wasted years enough. But if you had done as I asked — I would never have troubled you or interfered with you—I should have been so happy and so free!" She looked at him once more, with unconscious reproach; then down again, folding her hands. "Mr. Holcroft's ideas for the East End are very grand," she said. Darcy had listened silently, as the self-controlled sentences -a pause between each- were uttered. Now, drawing a little nearer, he said, in an elder brother's tone: "Lady Joan, if I am true to my trade, I must sometimes venture hits in the dark." "I don't at all know what you mean," said Lady Joan. "I mean," said Darcy gravely, very low, "that there are things worse than death." |