'For a whole twelvemonth, Elsie. Let us brave everything, get married at once, live in a garret, and have a splendid time--for a whole twelvemonth--on my two hundred pounds.'

'And am I to give up my painting?'

'Well, dear, you know you have not yet had a commission from anybody.'

'How can you say so, George? I have painted you--and my sister--and my mother--and your sisters. I am sure that no studio even of an R.A. could make a braver show of work. Well--I will give it up--until Prudence returns. Is it to be a garret? A real garret, with sloping walls, where you can only stand upright in the middle?'

'We call it a garret. It will take the form, I suppose, of a tiny house in a cheap quarter. It will have six rooms, a garden in front and a garden behind. The rent will be thirty pounds. For a whole twelvemonth it will be a real slice of Eden, Elsie, and you shall be Eve.'

Elsie laughed. 'It will be great fun. We will make the Eden last longer than a twelvemonth. I daresay I shall like it. Of course I shall have to do everything for myself. To clean the doorstep will be equivalent to taking exercise in the fresh air: to sweep the floors will be a kind of afternoon dance or a game of lawn-tennis: to wash up the cups and saucers will be only a change of amus.e.m.e.nt.--There is one thing, George--one thing'--she became very serious--'I suppose you never--did you ever witness the scouring of a frying-pan? I don't think I _could_ do that. And did you ever see beef-steaks before they are cooked? They suggest the animal in the most terrible way. I don't really think I could handle those bleeding lumps.'

'You shan't touch a frying-pan, and we will have nothing roasted or fried. We will live on cold Australian beef eaten out of its native tin: the potatoes shall be boiled in their skins. And perhaps--I don't know--with two hundred pounds a year we could afford a servant--a very little one--just a girl warranted not to eat too much.'

'What shall we do when our clothes are worn out?'

'The little maid will make some more for you, I suppose. We certainly shall not be able to buy new things--not nice things, that is--and you must have nice things, mustn't you?'

'I do like things to be nice,' she replied, smoothing her dainty skirts with her dainty hand. 'George, where shall we find this house--formerly Eve's own country villa before she--resigned her tenancy, you know?'

'There are places in London where whole streets are filled with families living on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Checkley--the chief's private clerk--lives in such a place: he told me so himself. He says there is n.o.body in his parish who has got a bigger income than himself: he's a little king among them because he gets four hundred pounds a year, besides what he has saved--which is enormous piles. Elsie, my dear, we must give up our present surroundings, and take up with gentility in its cheapest form.'

'Can we not go on living among our own friends?'

George shook his head wisely. 'Impossible. Friendship means equality of income. You can't live with people unless you do as they do. People of the same means naturally live together. Next door to Lady Dering is another rich Madam, not a clerk's wife. For my own part I shall sell my dress clothes for what they will fetch--you can exchange your evening things for morning things. That won't matter much. Who cares where we live, or how we live, so that we live together? What do you say, Elsie dear?'

'The garret I don't mind--nor the door-steps--and since you see your way out of the difficulty of the frying-pan----'

'You will be of age next week, when you can please yourself.'

'Hilda gives me no peace nor rest. She says that there can be no happiness without money. She has persuaded my mother that I am going to certain starvation. She promises the most splendid establishment if I will only be guided by her.'

'And marry a man fifty years older than yourself with one foot already well in----'

'She says she has always been perfectly happy.--Well, George, you know all that. Next Wednesday, which is my birthday, I am to have a grand talk with my guardian. My mother hopes that he will bring me to my senses. Hilda says that she trusts entirely to Mr. Dering's good sense.

I shall arm myself with all my obstinacy. Perhaps, George--who knows?--I may persuade him to advance your salary.'

'No, Elsie. Not even you would persuade Mr. Dering to give a managing clerk more than two hundred pounds a year. But arm yourself with all you have got--don't forget any piece of that armour, child. The breastplate--there was a poor damsel once who forgot that and was caught by an appeal to her heart--nor the helmet--another poor damsel was once caught by an appeal to her reason after forgetting the helmet. The shield, of course, you will not forget--and for weapons, my dear, take your sweet eyes and your lovely face and your winning voice--and I swear that you will subdue even Mr. Dering himself--that hardened old parchment.'

This was the kind of talk which these lovers held together whenever they met. George was poor--the son of a clergyman, whose power of advancing him ceased when he had paid the fees for admission. He was only a clerk, and he saw no chance of being anything else but a clerk. Elsie could bring nothing to the family nest, unless her mother made her an allowance. Of this there could be no hope. The engagement was considered deplorable: marriage, under the circ.u.mstances, simple madness. And Hilda had done so well for herself, and could do so much for a sister so pretty, so bright as Elsie! Oh! she was throwing away all her chances.

Did one ever hear of anything so lamentable? No regard for the family: no ambition: no sense of what a girl owes to herself: no recognition nor grat.i.tude for the gift of good looks--as if beauty was given for the mere purpose of pleasing a penniless lover! And to go and throw herself away upon a twopenny lawyer's clerk!

'George,' she said seriously, 'I have thought it all out. If you really mean it--if you really can face poverty--mind--it is harder--much--for a man than a woman----'

'I can face everything--with you, Elsie,' replied the lover. Would he have been a lover worth having if he had not made that answer? And, indeed, he meant it, as every lover should.

'Then--George--what in the whole world is there for me unless I can make my dear boy happy? I will marry you as soon as you please, rich or poor, for better for worse--whatever they may say at home.--Will that do for you, George?'

Since man is so const.i.tuted that his happiness wholly depends upon the devotion of a woman, I believe that no dear boy ever had a better chance of happiness than George Austin--only a managing clerk--with his Elsie.

And so this history begins where many end, with an engagement.

CHAPTER II

IN THE OFFICE

'I'll take in your ladyship's name. There is no one with him at this moment.--Oh yes, my lady,' Checkley smiled superior. 'We are always busy. We have been busy in this office for fifty years and more.--But I am sure he'll see you. Take a chair, my lady. Allow me.'

Checkley, the old clerk, had other and younger clerks with him; but he kept in his own hands the duty, or the privilege, of going to the private room of the chief. He was sixty-seven when last we saw him.

Therefore, he was now seventy-five; a little more bent in the shoulders, a little more feeble; otherwise unaltered. In age we either shrivel or we swell. Those live the longest who shrivel; and those who shrivel presently reach a point when they cease to shrink any more till they reach the ninetieth year. Checkley was bowed and bent and lean: his face was lined mult.i.tudinously: his cheeks were shrunken: but not more so than eight years before. He wrote down the name of the caller--Lady Dering--on a square piece of paper, and opened the door with an affectation of extreme care not to disturb the chief's nerves by a sharp turn of the handle, stepped in as if it was most important that no one should be able to peep into the room, and closed the door softly behind him. Immediately he reappeared, and held the door wide open, inviting the lady to step in. She was young; of good stature and figure, extremely handsome in face; of what is called the cla.s.sical type, and very richly dressed. Her carriage might have been seen, on looking out of the window, waiting in the square.

'Lady Dering, sir,' said Checkley. Then he swiftly vanished, closing the door softly behind him.

'I am glad to see you, Hilda.' The old lawyer rose, tall and commanding, and bowed, offering his hand with a stately and old-fashioned courtesy which made ladies condone his unmarried condition. 'Why have you called this morning? You are not come on any business, I trust. Business with ladies who have wealthy husbands generally means trouble of some kind.

You are not, for instance, in debt with your dressmaker?'

'No--no. Sir Samuel does not allow of any difficulties or awkwardness of that kind. It is not about myself that I am here, but about my sister, Elsie.'

'Yes? What about her? Sit down, and let me hear.'

'Well, you know Elsie has always been a trouble to us on account of her headstrong and wilful ways. She will not look on things from a reasonable point of view. You know that my mother is not rich, as I have learnt to consider rich, though of course she has enough for a simple life and a man-servant and a one-horse brougham. Do you know,' she added pensively, 'I have often found it difficult not to repine at a Providence which removes a father when he was beginning so well, and actually on the high-road to a great fortune.'

'It is certainly difficult to understand the wisdom of these disappointments and disasters. We must accept, Hilda, what we cannot escape or explain.'

'Yes--and my mother had nothing but a poor thousand a year!--though I am sure that she has greatly bettered her circ.u.mstances by her transactions in the City. Well--I have done all I can, by precept and by example, to turn my sister's mind into the right direction. Mr. Dering'--by long habit Hilda still called her guardian, now her brother-in-law, by his surname--'you would hardly believe the folly that Elsie talks about money.'

'Perhaps because she has none. Those who have no property do not understand it. Young people do not know what it means or what it commands. And whether they have it or not, young people do not know what the acquisition of property means--the industry, the watchfulness, the carefulness, the self-denial. So Elsie talks folly about money--well, well'--he smiled indulgently--'we shall see.'

'It is not only that she talks, but she acts. Mr. Dering, we are in despair about her. You know the Rodings?'

'Roding Brothers? Everybody knows Roding Brothers.'

'Algy Roding, the eldest son of the senior partner--enormously rich--is gone--quite gone--foolish about Elsie. He has been at me a dozen times about her. He has called at the house to see her. He cares nothing at all about her having no money. She refuses even to hear his name mentioned. Between ourselves, he has not been, I believe, a very steady young man; but of course he would settle down; we could entirely trust to a wife's influence in that respect: the past could easily be forgotten--in fact, Elsie need never know it: and the position would be splendid. Even mine would not compare with it.'

'Why does she object to the man?'

'Says he is an ugly little sn.o.b. There is a becoming spirit for a girl to receive so rich a lover! But that is not all. She might have him if she chose, sn.o.b or not, but she prefers one of your clerks--actually, Mr. Dering, one of your clerks.'

'I have learned something of this from your mother. She is engaged, I am told, to young Austin, one of my managing clerks.'

'Whose income is two hundred pounds a year. Oh! think of it! She refuses a man with ten thousand a year at the very least, and wants to marry a man with two hundred.'

'I suppose they do not propose to marry on this--this pittance--this two hundred a year?'

'They are engaged: she refuses to break it off: he has no money to buy a partnership: he must therefore continue a clerk on two hundred.'

'Managing clerks get more, sometimes; but, to be sure, the position is not good, and the income must always be small.'