Gallantry | Page 6

to be ashamed of either, and the last mode in these matters was
not prudish.
To such a person, enters Simon Orts, chaplain in ordinary to Lord
Rokesle, and Vicar of Heriz Magna, one of Lord Rokesle's livings.
I
"Now of a truth," said Simon Orts, "that is curious--undeniably that is
curious."
He stayed at the door for a moment staring back into the ill-lit corridor.
Presently he shut the door, and came forward toward the fireplace.
Lady Allonby, half-hidden in the depths of the big chair beside the
chimney-piece, a book in her lap, looked up inquiringly. "What is
curious, Mr. Orts?"
The clergyman stood upon the hearth, warming his hands, and diffusing
an odor of tobacco and stale alcohol. "Faith, that damned rascal--I beg
your pardon, Anastasia; our life upon Usk is not conducive to a

mincing nicety of speech. That rascal Punshon made some difficulty
over admitting me; you might have taken him for a sentinel, with
Stornoway in a state of siege. He ruffled me,--and I don't like it,"
Simon Orts said, reflectively, looking down upon her. "No, I don't like
it. Where's your brother?" he demanded on a sudden.
"Harry and Lord Rokesle are at cards, I believe. And Mrs. Morfit has
retired to her apartments with one of her usual headaches, so that I have
been alone these two hours. You visit Stornoway somewhat late, Mr.
Orts," Anastasia Allonby added, without any particular concealment of
the fact that she considered his doing so a nuisance.
He jerked his thumb ceilingward. "The cloth is at any rascal's beck and
call. Old Holles, my Lord's man, is dying up yonder, and the whim
seized him to have a clergyman in. God knows why, for it appears to
me that one knave might very easily make his way to hell without
having another knave to help him. And Holles?--eh, well, from what I
myself know of him, the rogue is triply damned." His mouth puckered
as he set about unbuttoning his long, rain-spattered cloak, which, with
his big hat, he flung aside upon a table. "Gad!" said Simon Orts, "we
are most of us damned on Usk; and that is why I don't like it--" He
struck his hand against his thigh. "I don't like it, Anastasia."
"You must pardon me," she languidly retorted, "but I was never good at
riddles."
He turned and glanced about the hall, debating. Lady Allonby
meanwhile regarded him, as she might have looked at a frog or a
hurtless snake. A small, slim, anxious man, she found him; always
fidgeting, always placating some one, but never without a covert sneer.
The fellow was venomous; his eyes only were honest, for even while
his lips were about their wheedling, these eyes flashed malice at you;
and their shifting was so unremittent that afterward you recalled them
as an absolute shining which had not any color. On Usk and
thereabouts they said it was the glare from within of his damned soul,
already at white heat; but they were a plain-spoken lot on Usk.
To-night Simon Orts was all in black; and his hair, too, and his gross
eyebrows were black, and well-nigh to the cheek-bones of his

clean-shaven countenance the thick beard, showed black through the
skin.
Now he kept silence for a lengthy interval, his arms crossed on his
breast, gnawing meanwhile at the fingernails of his left hand in an
unattractive fashion he had of meditating. When words came it was in a
torrent.
"I will read you my riddle, then. You are a widow, rich; as women go,
you are not so unpleasant to look at as most of 'em. If it became a
clergyman to dwell upon such matters, I would say that your fleshly
habitation is too fine for its tenant, since I know you to be a
good-for-nothing jilt. However, you are God's handiwork, and
doubtless He had His reasons for constructing you. My Lord is poor;
last summer at Tunbridge you declined to marry him. I am in his
confidence, you observe. He took your decision in silence--'ware
Rokesle when he is quiet! Eh, I know the man,--'tisn't for nothing that
these ten years past I have studied his whims, pampered his vanity, lied
to him, toadied him! You admire my candor?--faith, yes, I am very
candid. I am Rokesle's hanger-on; he took me out of the gutter, and in
my fashion I am grateful. And you?--Anastasia, had you treated me
more equitably fifteen years ago, I would have gone to the stake for
you, singing; now I don't value you the flip of a farthing. But, for old
time's sake, I warn you. You and your brother are Rokesle's guests--on
Usk! Harry Heleigh [Footnote: Henry Heleigh, thirteenth Earl of
Brudenel, who succeeded his cousin the twelfth