Rodens Corner | Page 8

perhaps even
women, who will give largely in order that their names may appear
largely and handsomely in the select subscription lists. He also knew
that an invitation card in the present is as sure a bait as the promise of
bliss hereafter. So Lady Ferriby announced by card (in an open
envelope with a halfpenny stamp) that she should be "at home" to
certain persons on a certain evening. And the good and the great
flocked to Cambridge Terrace. The good and great are, one finds, a
little mixed, from a social point of view.
There were present at Lady Ferriby's, for instance, a number of
ministers, some cabinet, others dissenting. Here, a man leaning against
the wall wore a blue ribbon across his shirt front. There, another,
looking bigger and more self-confident, had no shirt front at all. His
was the cheap distinction of unsuitable clothes.
"Ha! Miss Ferriby, glad to see you," he said as he entered, holding out a
hand which had the usual outward signs of industrial honesty.
Joan shook the hand frankly, and its possessor passed on.
"Is that the gas-man?" inquired Major White, gravely. He had been

standing beside her ever since his arrival, seeking, it seemed, the
protection of one who understood these social functions. It is to be
presumed that the major was less bewildered than he looked.
"Hush!" And Joan said something hurriedly in White's large ear.
"Everybody has him," she concluded; and the explanation brought
certain calm into the mildly surprised eye behind the eye-glass. White
recognized the phrase and its conclusive contemporary weight.
"Here's a flat-backed man!" he exclaimed, with a ring of relief. "Been
drilled, this man. Gad! He's proud!" added the major, as the new-comer
passed Joan with rather a cold bow.
"Oh, that's the detective," explained Joan. "So many people, you know;
and so mixed. Everybody has them. Here's Tony--at last."
Tony Cornish was indeed making his way through the crowd towards
them. He shook hands with a bishop as he elbowed a path across the
room, and did it with the pious face of a self-respecting curate. The
next minute he was prodding a sporting baronet in the ribs at the
precise moment when that nobleman reached the point of his little story
and on the precise rib where he expected to be prodded. It is always
wise to do the expected.
At the sight of Tony Cornish, Joan's face became grave, and she turned
towards him with her little frown of preoccupation, such as one might
expect to find upon the face of a woman concerned in the great
movements of the day. But before Tony reached her the expression
changed to a very feminine and even old-fashioned one of annoyance.
"Oh, here comes mother!" she said, looking beyond Cornish, who was
indeed being pursued by a wizened little old lady.
Lady Ferriby, it seemed, was not enjoying herself. She glanced
suspiciously from one face to another, as if she was seeking a friend
without any great hope of finding one. Perhaps, like many another, she
looked upon the world from that point Of view.

Cornish hurried up and shook hands. "Plenty of people," he said.
"Oh yes," answered Joan, earnestly. "It only shows that there is, after
all, a great deal of good in human nature, that in such a movement as
this rich and poor, great and small, are all equal."
Cornish nodded in his quick sympathetic way, accepting as we all
accept the social statements of the day, which are oft repeated and
never weighed. Then he turned to White and tapped that soldier's arm
emphatically.
"Way to get on nowadays," he said, "is to be prominent in some great
movement for benefiting mankind." Joan heard the words, and, turning,
looked at Cornish with a momentary doubt.
"And I mean to get on in the world, my dear Joan," he said, with a
gravity which quite altered his keen, fair face. It passed off instantly, as
if swept away by the ready smile which came again. A close observer
might have begun to wonder under which mask lay the real Tony
Cornish.
Major White looked stolidly at his friend. His face, on the contrary
never changed.
Lady Ferriby joined them at this moment--a silent, querulous-looking
woman in black silk and priceless lace, who, despite her white hair and
wrinkled face, yet wore her clothes with that carefulness which
commands respect from high and low alike. The world was afraid of
Lady Ferriby, and had little to say to her. It turned aside, as a rule,
when she approached. And when she had passed on with her suspicious
glance, her bent and shaking head, it whispered that there walked a
woman with a romantic past. It is, moreover, to be hoped that the