SCENE II

Sir Jasper Standish halted on the flags of the Royal Crescent in front of his own door and his face darkened. He took a pinch of snuff.

"Now! I shall find my lady in tears. What a strange world it is! The girl you woo is as merry as a May day: the wife you wed is like naught but early November. Equinoctial gales and water enough to drown the best spirits that ever were stilled. 'Tis a damp life," said Sir Jasper, "and a depressing."

He sighed as the door was thrown open by the footman, and crossed the hall into the morning-room, where he had left his lady weeping. He beheld a flowered brocade, a very shapely back, and a crisp powdered head outlined against the window, and thought he had come upon a visitor unawares.

"I crave ten thousand pardons," quoth he, and swept from his gallant head his knowing three-cornered hat. But slowly the figure at the window turned and he saw his wife's eyes strangely brilliant over two pink cheeks, beneath the snow of her up-piled hair.

"Julia!" said he in amaze, and stared and stared again. ("And did I doubt my own taste?" thought he to himself. "Why, she is the prettiest woman in Bath!") "Expecting visitors, Julia?" He smiled as he spoke: in another minute that arm, shining pearl-like from the hanging lace of her sleeve, would be round his neck, and those lips (how red they were, and what a curve!) would be upon his. Well, a loving woman had her uses.

"No," said Lady Standish to his query. She dropped the word with a faintly scornful smile, and a dimple came and went at the corner of her lip. There was a patch just above the dimple. Then she turned away and looked forth into the still, solemn, grey and green Crescent as before.

Sir Jasper stood bewildered. Then he put his hat upon a table and came up to his wife and placed his arm round her waist.

"My sweet life," said he, "your gown is vastly becoming."

"Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, "you do me proud." She slipped from his embrace, sketched a curtesy, and moved to the next window.

Sir Jasper passed his hand across his brow. That was Julia, Julia his wife, sure enough; and yet, faith, it was a woman he did not know!

"You are mightily interested in the Crescent," said he, with some humour.

My lady shrugged her shoulders.

"I believe you were vexed with me this morning, love," said he.

"I, vexed?" said she. "Nay, why should I be vexed?" and then she tapped her foot and looked at the clock. "These servants grow monstrous unpunctual," she said; "are we not to dine to-day?"

He glanced down at the tapping shoe, its little pointing toe and curving heel. 'Twas a smart shoe, and boasted a diamond buckle in a knot of rose-coloured ribbon.

"Egad!" said he, "I doubt if there is another foot in Bath that could slip into that case."

And Sir Jasper was a connoisseur! His opinion of himself, his faith in his own discrimination (which had waned sadly these last days) began to rise again, not disagreeably. He smirked. My Lady Standish, who, after a way that only women can practise, seemed absorbed in the contemplation of the empty Crescent the while she was intent upon each shade of expression upon her husband's countenance, felt a sudden glow of confidence in her own powers that she had never known before. The game she had started with a beating heart and a dry throat began to have a certain charm of its own. Was it so easy really? Was a man so lightly swayed? There was contempt in the thought, and yet pleasure. Was all a woman's loving heart to count for so little, and a pretty gown, a new shoe, a coquettish manner for so much? Ah, there was bitterness in that! But yet the immediate result of this new method: that look in his eye, that softening of his lip, it was too sweet to be forborne. Kitty was right!

Sir Jasper took her hand.

"It wants," said he, "full half-an-hour to dinner-time, love. Nay, do not draw your hand away. You are vexed with me? I left you weeping, 'twas unkind."

"Weeping?" said Julia, and her heart fluttered to her throat, so that she could hardly speak, and Kitty's maxims kept dancing before her eyes as if written in letters of fire. "Make him jealous—oh, if you make him jealous you will win the rubber yet!"

"If I wept," said she, "must my tears have been for you?"

"How now?" said Sir Jasper, and dropped the little hand that struggled so gently yet determinedly to be free.

"Oh, dear me," said Lady Standish, "how droll you men are!" She shrugged her shoulders and laughed affectedly. Like all budding actresses she over-did the part. But Sir Jasper was too much stirred, too much bewildered to be critical. Moreover his armour was not without vulnerable joints, and with a wanton word she had found one at the first pass.

"How now?" said he. "Madam, and what might that mean?"

Lady Standish trilled the bar of a song, and again directed her attention to the view.

"Julia," said her husband in a deep voice. "Julia," he repeated with a threatening growl of passion.

"Sir?" she said, and tilted her little head.

"Who then were your tears for, if they were not for me? What signify these manners? What do these insinuations mean? By Jupiter, I will have the truth!" His face flushed, the veins on his temples swelled, his nostrils became dilated.

Lady Standish lifted the hanging lace of her sleeve with one hand and examined it minutely.

"I would rather," she said, and her voice shook, "I would rather you did not question me, Sir Jasper." Then she flashed upon him in anger, swift and lovely, as he had never seen her flash before. "You go your own way free enough," she said. "These last three weeks you have not spent one evening in my company, and half your days are given to others of whom I know nothing, Oh, I am not complaining, sir! I did complain, but that is over. I was wrong, for I see adversities have their advantages." Here she smiled. (Had the man but known how near she was to tears!) "Your neglect leaves me free."

"Free!" cried Sir Jasper, and choked. "Free! Good heavens, free! What in the name of God do you mean? Free, madam?"

"Sir Jasper," said Lady Standish, looking at him very earnestly, "you will never hear me ask again whose society it is you find so much more attractive than your wife's."

"Indeed," cried Sir Jasper, and hesitated upon a gust of anger, at a loss in which direction to drive it forth.

"No," said my lady, "and I expect the same good taste from you. 'Tis not too much to ask. Indeed you should rejoice if I have found consolation for your absence."

He broke out with a fearful oath, and almost leaped upon her.

"Consolation!" He plunged his hands into his powdered hair, and quivered into silence for the very impotence of words.

"I said 'if,'" said she. She was surprised to find how readily the words came to her; and yet her hands were clammy with fright, and her breath ran short between her rouged lips. "Let us leave it at the 'if.'"

She turned to the window and leant against it, drew her kerchief and fanned herself.

Passing along the railings opposite the Crescent, not twelve yards distant, a tall, slender young gentleman of attractive appearance, though very dark in complexion, caught sight of her lovely glowing face, stared first in unconscious admiration, then with recognition, and finally, blushing swarthily, saluted with some appearance of agitation. Lady Standish, aware that her husband had approached close behind her, and hearing in every creak of his satin coat the flattering emotion of his senses, felt herself driven more and more by the unknown demon of mischief that had taken possession of her. She fluttered her little handkerchief back at the young gentleman with a gesture that almost indicated the wafting of a kiss.

"Death and damnation," cried Sir Jasper, "before my very eyes!"

He seized her by the wrist and flung her down upon the settee. "Nay," he cried, "there may be husbands that would put up with this, but I am not of them. So that is the Consoler! That is the Beau for whom you prink yourself with such fine feathers, whom you lie in wait for at the window to make signals to and smirk at! Oh, my innocent country daisy! Faugh! I might have known you were too fond—hypocrite!" He dashed at the window and burst its fastenings.

"Hey! you, you my Lord Verney, a word with you!" Sir Jasper was already foaming at the mouth.

The slim gentleman paused, surprised.

"Oh, heavens!" cried Lady Standish, "what have I done? Sir Jasper! my husband!" She threw herself upon him. "Sir Jasper, what do you suspect? Oh, heavens!" She was half fainting and scarce could articulate a coherent word. "It was all to tease you. It was but the sport of an idle moment. Oh, I implore you, believe me, believe me!"

"Ay, deny!" cried he. "Deny what I have seen with my own eyes! Let me go, madam." He thrust her aside, and, bareheaded, dashed down the stairs and out of the house towards Lord Verney, who, with a bashful, yet a pleasant smile, began to retrace his steps.

"'Tis a fair day, Sir Jasper," said he courteously, and then became aware of Sir Jasper's convulsed face, and noted that Lady Standish, whom but a moment before he had beheld all smiling beauty, now clung despairingly to the window-post, her countenance ghastly behind her rouge.

Lord Verney was a shy young man.

"Ah—ah, good morning," said he, bowed politely, and turned with celerity.

Sir Jasper flung a look of infinite derision and contempt towards his wife.

"You have chosen," it seemed to say, "a pretty hare!" Then he arrested the slim swift figure with an aggressive shout:

"Stand—stand, Lord Verney—Lord Verney—a word with you."

The youth stopped, wheeled round, and:

"I am at your service," said he. A certain pallor had replaced the ingenuous young blushes upon his cheek, but into his eye there sprang a fine spark of spirit.

Sir Jasper marched upon him and only halted when his six feet of sinewy bulk were within a yard of the stripling's willowy shape. His hot red-brown eyes shot fire and fury, death and annihilation upon the innocent young peer. His full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage distorted them to a grimace through which his white teeth shone forth ferociously.

"Come, come, we understand each other," said he; "will you walk with me? There is no time like the present and a couple of friends are easy to come by."

"'Tis vastly well," said Lord Verney with an attempt at dignity that betrayed the boy in every line of him. Then all at once colour flushed into his face again, and his rigid demeanour was broken up. "Come, devil take it all, Sir Jasper," said he, "and what is it about?"

Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards.

"This fellow," quoth he, appealing to Heaven—"oh! this pretty fellow! You want reasons, my Lord Verney?"

Lord Verney blushed and stammered. Gad, he'd like to know what he had done. He was at Sir Jasper's disposition, of course, but before drawing swords on a man——

Sir Jasper uttered a sound which was between a groan and a roar. He indicated with sweeping gesture the figure of Lady Standish strained in anguish watching, clinging still to the window-post. Then he hissed:

"I know!"

"Sir Jasper!"

"I know, I tell you," repeated Sir Jasper, "let that suffice."

"Good heavens," gasped Lord Verney, "here is some most grievous mistake. Do you mean, sir—am I to understand, Sir Jasper—? 'Tis monstrous." White dismay and crimson confusion chased each other across his candid brow. "Surely you do not mean me to understand that Lady Standish has any connection with this extraordinary scene?"

Sir Jasper's trembling hand was furiously uplifted, then blindly sought his sword hilt, and then dropped in impotent disgust at his side.

"My lord," said he, "Lady Standish is the pearl of womanhood, I would have you know it! There never breathed a female more virtuously attached to her husband and her duty—I would have you know it!" His face was quite horrible to look at in its withering sarcasm. "My quarrel with you, sir, is—" He paused and cast a roving eye upon the young gentleman, who now began to show unequivocal signs of fear. A jealous husband, a contingency that may have to be met any day—but a raving maniac! ...

"'Tis the shape of your leg that mispleases me, sir. You have a vile calf, I cannot endure that so offensive an outline should pass and repass my windows."

"I understand, Sir Jasper, yes, yes," said Lord Verney soothingly, backing as he spoke and casting nervous eyes round the empty street. "And so, good-morning."

He bowed and turned.

"Rat!" cried Sir Jasper, and shot forth a clutching hand.

"I will bear it in mind," cried Lord Verney. "Good-morning, good-morning!"

He was fleeing away on a swift foot.

"Rat! Rat!" screamed the enraged baronet, starting in pursuit. But his passion made him clumsy. He stumbled, lurched, struck his foot against a stone, fell upon his knee and rose in another mood: one of darkling sullen determination for revenge.

Lord Verney was a timid young man. Had it been with anyone else that this scene in the Royal Crescent had taken place all Bath would have known within the hour that Sir Jasper Standish had been seized with sudden lunacy. But Lord Verney was of those who turn a word over three times before they speak and then say something else. Moreover, he was not sure that he himself had cut a brilliant figure in the amazing duologue, so he held his tongue upon it.

As the day grew, however, he began to have a curious recollection of Lady Standish's lovely smiling greeting and of that little gesture with the white handkerchief, which had almost seemed like the blowing of a kiss (here his very ears would grow hot), then of Sir Jasper's inexplicable wrath, and of the stricken figure by the window! Could it be? Twas impossible! Nay, but such things had been. When the dusk fell he made up his mind and sought the counsels of that fashionable friend who was kind enough to pilot his