The Eagle's Shadow

coeur? Depend upon it, she had; for was she not already past thirteen?

In like manner, I dare say that a deal passed between Desdemona and Cassio that the honest Moor never knew of; and that Lucrece was probably very pleasant and agreeable to Tarquin, as a well-bred hostess should be; and that Helen had that little affair with Theseus before she ever thought of Paris; and that if Cleopatra died for love of Antony it was not until she had previously lived a great while with C?sar.

So Felix Kennaston had his hour. Now Margaret has gone into Selwoode, flame-faced and quite unconscious that she is humming under her breath the words of a certain inane old song:

'Oh, she sat for me a chair;  She has ringlets in her hair;  She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother'—

Only she sang it 'father.' And afterward, she suddenly frowned and stamped her foot, did Margaret.

'I hate him!' said she; but she looked very guilty.

X

In the living-hall of Selwoode Miss Hugonin paused. Undeniably there were the accounts of the Ladies' League for the Edification of the Impecunious to be put in order; her monthly report as treasurer was due in a few days, and Margaret was in such matters a careful, painstaking body, and not wholly dependent upon her secretary; but she was entirely too much out of temper to attend to that now.

It was really all Mr. Kennaston's fault, she assured a pricking conscience, as she went out on the terrace before Selwoode. He had bothered her dreadfully.

There she found Petheridge Jukesbury smoking placidly in the effulgence of the moonlight; and the rotund, pasty countenance he turned toward her was ludicrously like the moon's counterfeit in muddy water. I am sorry to admit it, but Mr. Jukesbury had dined somewhat injudiciously. You are not to stretch the phrase; he was merely prepared to accord the universe his approval, to pat Destiny upon the head, and his thoughts ran clear enough, but with Aprilian counter-changes of the jovial and the lachrymose.

'Ah, Miss Hugonin,' he greeted her, with a genial smile, 'I am indeed fortunate. You find me deep in meditation, and also, I am sorry to say, in the practise of a most pernicious habit. You do not object? 

Ah, that is so like you. You are always kind, Miss Hugonin. Your kindness, which falls, if I may so express myself, as the gentle rain from Heaven upon all deserving charitable institutions, and daily comforts the destitute with good advice and consoles the sorrowing with blankets, would now induce you to tolerate an odour which I am sure is personally distasteful to you.'

'But really I don't mind,' was Margaret's protest.

'I cannot permit it,' Mr. Jukesbury insisted, and waved a pudgy hand in the moonlight. 'No, really, I cannot permit it. We will throw it away, if you please, and say no more about it,' and his glance followed the glowing flight of his cigar-end somewhat wistfully. 'Your father's cigars are such as it is seldom my privilege to encounter; but, then, my personal habits are not luxurious, nor my private income precisely what my childish imaginings had pictured it at this comparatively advanced period of life. Ah, youth, youth!—as the poet admirably says, Miss Hugonin, the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, but its visions of existence are rose-tinged and free from care, and its conception of the responsibilities of manhood—such as taxes and the water-rate—I may safely characterise as extremely sketchy. But pray be seated, Miss Hugonin,' Petheridge Jukesbury blandly urged.

Common courtesy forced her to comply. So Margaret seated herself on a little red rustic bench. In the moonlight—but I think I have mentioned how Margaret looked in the moonlight; and above her golden head the Eagle, sculptured over the door-way, stretched his wings to the uttermost, half-protectingly, half-threateningly, and seemed to view Mr. Jukesbury with a certain air of expectation.

'A beautiful evening,' Petheridge Jukesbury suggested, after a little cogitation.

She conceded that this was undeniable.

'Where Nature smiles, and only the conduct of man is vile and altogether what it ought not to be,' he continued, with unction—'ah, how true that is and how consoling! It is a good thing to meditate upon our own vileness, Miss Hugonin—to reflect that we are but worms with naturally the most vicious inclinations. It is most salutary. 

Even I am but a worm, Miss Hugonin, though the press has been pleased to speak most kindly of me. Even you—ah, no!' cried Mr. Jukesbury, kissing his finger-tips, with gallantry; 'let us say a worm who has burst its cocoon and become a butterfly—a butterfly with a charming face and a most charitable disposition and considerable property!'

Margaret thanked him with a smile, and began to think wistfully of the Ladies' League accounts. Still, he was a good man; and she endeavoured to persuade herself that she considered his goodness to atone for his flabbiness and his fleshiness and his interminable verbosity—which she didn't.

Mr. Jukesbury sighed.

'A naughty world,' said he, with pathos—'a very naughty world, which really does not deserve the honour of including you in its census reports. Yet I dare say it has the effrontery to put you down in the tax-lists; it even puts me down—me, an humble worker in the vineyard, with both hands set to the plough. And if I don't pay up it sells me out. A very naughty world, indeed! I dare say,' Mr. Jukesbury observed, raising his eyes—not toward heaven, but toward the Eagle, 'that its conduct, as the poet says, creates considerable distress among the angels. I don't know. I am not acquainted with many angels. My wife was an angel, but she is now a lifeless form. She has been for five years. I erected a tomb to her at considerable personal expense, but I don't begrudge it—no, I don't begrudge it, Miss Hugonin. She was very hard to live with. But she was an angel, and angels are rare. Miss Hugonin,' said Petheridge Jukesbury, with emphasis, 'you are an angel.'

'Oh, dear, dear!' said Margaret, to herself; 'I do wish I'd gone to bed directly after dinner!'

Above them the Eagle brooded.

'Surely,' he breathed, 'you must know what I have so long wanted to tell you—'

'No,' said Margaret, 'and I don't want to know, please. You make me awfully tired, and I don't care for you in the least. Now, you let go my hand—let go at once!'

He detained her. 'You are an angel,' he insisted—'an angel with a large property. I love you, Margaret! Be mine!—be my blushing bride, I entreat you! Your property is far too large for an angel to look after. You need a man of affairs. I am a man of affairs. I am forty-five, and have no bad habits. My press-notices are, as a rule, favourable, my eloquence is accounted considerable, and my dearest aspiration is that you will comfort my declining years. I might add that I adore you, but I think I mentioned that before. Margaret, will you be my blushing bride?'

'No!' said Miss Hugonin emphatically. 'No, you tipsy old beast—no!'

There was a rustle of skirts. The door slammed, and the philanthropist was left alone on the terrace.

XI

In the living-hall Margaret came upon Hugh Van Orden, who was searching in one of the alcoves for a piece of music that Adele Haggage wanted and had misplaced.

The boy greeted her miserably.

'Miss Hugonin,' he lamented, 'you're awfully hard on me.'

'I am sorry,' said Margaret, 'that you consider me discourteous to a guest in my own house.' Oh, I grant you Margaret was in a temper now.

'It isn't that,' he protested; 'but I never see you alone. And I've had something to tell you.'

'Yes?' said she, coldly.

He drew near to her. 'Surely,' he breathed, 'you must know what I have long wanted to tell you—'

'Yes, I should think I did!' said Margaret, 'and if you dare tell me a word of it I'll never speak to you again. It's getting a little monotonous. Good-night, Mr. Van Orden.'

Half way up the stairs she paused and ran lightly back.