The Mission of Mr. Eustace Greyne | Page 2

what was really wrong.
Miss Eugenia Hannibal-Barker sailed upon his horizon, and he struck
his flag to matrimony. Ever since then he had been her husband, and
had never, even for one second, emerged beyond the boundaries of the
most intellectual respectability. He was the most innocent of men,
although he knew all the important editors in London. Swaddled in
money by his successful wife, he considered her a goddess. She poured
the thousands into Coutts' Bank, and with the arrival of each fresh
thousand he was more firmly convinced that she was a goddess. To say
he looked up to her would be too mild. As the Cockney tourist in
Chamounix peers at the summit of Mont Blanc, he peered at Mrs.
Greyne. And when, finally, she bought the lease of the mansion in
Belgrave Square, he knew her Delphic.
So now he appeared in the oracle's retreat respectfully, "What is it,
Eugenia?" upon his admiring lips.
"Sit down, my husband," she murmured.
Mr. Greyne subsided by the fire, placing his pointed patent-leather toes
upon the burnished fender. Without the fog grew deeper, and the chorus
of the muffin bells more plaintive. The fire-light, flickering over Mrs.
Greyne's majestic features, made them look Rembrandtesque. Her large,
oxlike eyes were fixed and thoughtful. After a pause, she said:
"Eustace, I shall have to send you upon a mission."
"A mission, Eugenia!" said Mr. Greyne in great surprise.
"A mission of the utmost importance, the utmost delicacy."
"Has it anything to do with Romeike & Curtice?"

"No."
"Will it take me far?"
"That is my trouble. It will take you very far."
"Out of London?"
"Oh, yes."
"Out of--not out of England?"
"Yes; it will take you to Algeria."
"Good gracious!" cried Mr. Greyne.
Mrs. Greyne sighed.
"Good gracious!" Mr. Greyne repeated after a short interval. "Am I to
go alone?" "Of course you must take Darrell." Darrell was Mr.
Greyne's valet.
"And what am I to do at Algiers?"
"You must obtain for me there the whole of the material for book six of
'Catherine's Repentance,'" "Catherine's Repentance" was the gigantic
novel upon which Mrs. Greyne was at that moment engaged.
"I will not disguise from you, Eustace," continued Mrs. Greyne,
looking increasingly Rembrandtesque, "that, in my present work, I am
taking a somewhat new departure."
"Well, but we are very comfortable here," said Mr. Greyne.
With each new book they had changed their abode. "Harriet" took them
from Phillimore Gardens to Queensgate Terrace; "Jane's Desire" moved
them on to a corner house in Sloane Street; with "Isobel's Fortune" they
passed to Curzon Street; "Susan's Vanity" landed them in Coburg Place;
and, finally, "Margaret's Involution" had planted them in Belgrave

Square. Now, with each of these works of genius Mrs. Greyne had
taken what she called "a new departure." Mr. Greyne's remark is,
therefore, explicable.
"True. Still, there is always Park Lane."
She mused for a moment. Then, leaning more heavily upon the carved
lions of her chair, she continued:
"Hitherto, although I have sometimes dealt with human frailty, I have
treated it gently. I have never betrayed a Zola-spirit."
"Zola! My darling!" cried Mr. Eustace Greyne. "You are surely not
going to betray anything of that sort now!"
"If she does we shall soon have to move off to West Kensington," was
his secret thought.
"No. But in book six of 'Catherine' I have to deal with sin, with tumult,
with African frailty. It is inevitable."
She sighed once more. The burden of the new book was very heavy
upon her.
"African frailty!" murmured the astonished Eustace Greyne.
"Now, neither you nor I, my husband, know anything about this."
"Certainly not, my darling. How should we? We have never explored
beyond Lucerne."
"We must, therefore, get to know about it--at least you must. For I
cannot leave London. The continuity of the brain's travelling must not
be imperiled by any violent bodily activity. In the present stage of my
book a sea journey might be disastrous."
"Certainly you should keep quiet, my love. But then---"
"You must go for me to Algiers. There you must get me what I want. I

fear you will have to poke about in the native quarters a good deal for it,
so you had better buy two revolvers, one for yourself and one for
Darrell."
Mr. Greyne gasped. The calmness of his wife amazed him. He was not
intellectual enough to comprehend fully the deep imaginings of a
mighty brain, the obsession work is in the worker.
"African frailty is what I want," pursued Mrs. Greyne. "One hundred
closely-printed pages of African frailty. You will collect for me the raw
material, and I shall so manipulate it that it will fall discreetly, even
elevatingly, into the artistic whole. Do you understand me, Eustace?"
"I am to