A Great Success | Page 5

forget the anxiety of the first lecture--the difficulty she had had in
making him finish it--his careless, unbusiness-like management of the
whole affair? But then had come the burst of praise and popularity; and

Arthur was a new man. No difficulty--or scarcely--in getting him to
work since then! Applause, so new and intoxicating, had lured him on,
as she had been wont to lure the black pony of her childhood with a
handful of sugar. Yes, her Arthur was a genius; she had always known
it. And something of a child too--lazy, wilful, and sensuous--that, too,
she had known for some time. And she loved him with all her heart.
"But I won't have him spoilt by those fine ladies!" she said to herself,
with frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him.
Now, then, I'd better write to Lady Dunstable. Of course she ought to
have written to me!"
So she sat down and wrote:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind
invitation, and I will let you know our train later. I have no maid, so--
But at this point Mrs. Meadows, struck by a sudden idea, threw down
her pen.
"Heavens!--suppose I took Jane? Somebody told me the other day that
nobody got any attention at Crosby Ledgers without a maid. And it
might bribe Jane into staying. I should feel a horrid snob--but it would
be rather fun--especially as Lady Dunstable will certainly be
immensely surprised. The fare would be only about five shillings--Jane
would get her food for two days at the Dunstables' expense--and I
should have a friend. I'll do it."
So, with her eyes dancing, Doris tore up her note, and began again:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind
invitation, and I will let you know our train later. As you kindly permit
me, I will bring a maid.
Yours sincerely, DORIS MEADOWS.
* * * * *

The month which elapsed between Lady Dunstable's invitation and the
Crosby Ledgers party was spent by Doris first in "doing up" her frock,
and then in taking the bloom off it at various dinner-parties to which
they were already invited as the "celebrities" of the moment; in making
Arthur's wardrobe presentable; in watching over the tickets and receipts
of the weekly lectures; in collecting the press cuttings about them; in
finishing her illustrations; and in instructing the awe-struck Jane, now
perfectly amenable, in the mysteries that would be expected of her.
Meanwhile Mrs. Meadows heard various accounts from artistic and
literary friends of the parties at Crosby Ledgers. These accounts were
generally prefaced by the laughing remark, "But anything I can say is
ancient history. Lady Dunstable dropped us long ago!"
Anyway, it appeared that the mistress of Crosby Ledgers could be
charming, and could also be exactly the reverse. She was a creature of
whims and did precisely as she pleased. Everything she did apparently
was acceptable to Lord Dunstable, who admired her blindly. But in one
point at least she was a disappointed woman. Her son, an unsatisfactory
youth of two-and-twenty, was seldom to be seen under his parents' roof,
and it was rumoured that he had already given them a great deal of
trouble.
"The dreadful thing, my dear, is the games they play!" said the wife of
a dramatist, whose one successful piece had been followed by years of
ill-fortune.
"_Games?_" said Doris. "Do you mean cards--for money?"
"Oh, dear no! Intellectual games. _Bouts-rimés;_ translations--Lady
Dunstable looks out the bits and some people think the
words--beforehand; paragraphs on a subject--in a particular
style--Pater's, or Ruskin's, or Carlyle's. Each person throws two slips
into a hat. On one you write the subject, on another the name of the
author whose style is to be imitated. Then you draw. Of course Lady
Dunstable carries off all the honours. But then everybody believes she
spends all the mornings preparing these things. She never comes down
till nearly lunch."

"This is really appalling!" said Doris, with round eyes. "I have
forgotten everything I ever knew."
As for her own impressions of the great lady, she had only seen her
once in the semi-darkness of the lecture-room, and could only
remember a long, sallow face, with striking black eyes and a pointed
chin, a general look of distinction and an air of one accustomed to the
"chief seat" at any board--whether the feasts of reason or those of a
more ordinary kind.
As the days went on, Doris, for all her sturdy self-reliance, began to
feel a little nervous inwardly. She had been quite well-educated, first at
a good High School, and then in the class-rooms of a provincial
University; and, as the clever daughter of a clever doctor in large
practice, she had always been in touch with the intellectual