him. Well, well, we must open his eyes for him. Life is insect life backwards, and who knows but that this torn butterfly of sentiment may sober down into the plainest caterpillar of commonsense that ever crawled under the tuition of time--and me."

Time works wonders certainly, and the following evening Ichabod addressed himself again, in hopes, to the task of testing the virgin soil with which he would have to deal. A youth fresh from home, a fine old country place, where, in the heart of pleasant scenery, he had dreamed, and planned, and romanced, and studied away his boyhood in the company of several sympathetic sisters. This phase of his life, of which he kept one invaluable memento in his dog, Tony already looked back upon with the wistful regret one feels towards one's first past, though far too full of enjoyment of the present to distress himself much about past or future. In love at first sight with the world in general, and one of its charming women in particular, such, apparently, was Tony's case. There was everything still for Ichabod to do.

The Princess-Royal was a new theatre, with all the glory of youth and regardlessness of expense still upon it and its decorations and appointments. The lobby was refreshing, the interior exhilarating, the orchestra intoxicating. Tony, that is to say, found them so. In less than ten minutes, as Ichabod perceived with dismay, lights, flowers, colours, and sound, had made away with all that was strictly rational in his companion's young mind.

The performances opened with a little operetta, light as air, sparkling as soda water, merely a musical, scenic costume joke-a kind of intellectual bitters, just to whet the dramatic appetite. Tony gave in helplessly to its ephemeral charm,

applauding vehemently, and taking for granted the sympathy of his neighbour, who contented himself so far with a few light shafts of ridicule on painted complexions, gaily-dressed dolls, ill-streaked

canvas, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.

A short drama followed, mainly interesting for the appearance in it of a star actor of veteran celebrity -a master of his genre-the seriocomic (not the highest school perhaps, but perfection in any school is always precious), and with genius's privilege of being equally dear to the thoughtless many and the critical few. His entrance was the signal for a shout of applause that jarred on Ichabod's ears like the creaking of a slate pencil.

But he must watch the play proceeding victoriously. The audience, now mute, hung on their favourite's every sentence. And indeed the old Thespian was at his best tonight, and held the house in thrall, convulsed, inspirited, tickled, and moved them by turns, rousing some latent feeling in the most pachydermatous.

Ichabod only excepted. When at the conclusion the artist was recalled again and again, Tony turned round with a radiant expression, saying, "Wasn't it magnificent? Did you ever see such admirable acting in your life?" Ichabod quickly followed up his careless acquiescence by a suggestion put, as it were, half in jest.

"But isn't it a swindle, in a sense. The pickpocket takes your purse under your very eyes, and you may admire his skill. So I admire the actor who makes free with our feelings by means of a false show that ought to give him no right of way to the heart at all. For what

are

we raving about? A welltrained voice repeating by rote the words of another man, set off by certain airs and gestures studied in

66

a glass beforehand. He is a puppet, and we puppets in his hands. We ought to be ashamed of any excitement he can produce in us, it seems to me; hide it if we can." Instead of which we pay half a guinea for the pleasure of having it trotted out," said Tony, comfortably looking about the house with his opera glass.

"Yes," returned Ichabod," people like to exercise their emotions, I suppose, just as they like to exercise their arms in rowing and their legs in skating. It shows how purely mechanical all our feelings are. I do believe that if men would turn their attention to stamping them out, a generation or two hence we should have got rid of them altogether."

"What a halt and maimed lot that generation would be, though," said Tony, carelessly, whom Ichabod's suggestions appeared amuse, nevertheless. It had not yet occurred to him to take them seriously.

to

"That depends, you know," replied Ichabod, in the same tone, "whether you look upon them as helps to us, or hindrances that dwarf or cripple our judgment. Perhaps it might arise as a generation of giants."

"Perhaps," repeated Tony, doubtfully, as the music struck up again. "That's the overture. Now for the Enchanted World and Mrs. Adair."

The concluding piece was one of those delicious unrealities of which the raison d'être seems to be that they refresh the thirsty fancy already sated with the present and the possible-a delicate dish of nonsense, flavoured with sense, which of all earthly things appears best to answer the requirements of the spirit at 9.30 p.m.

Mrs. Adair flashed on to the stage with the unassuming confidence of a favourite perfectly sure

of her reception. Had she been handsome Ichabod could have for

given the round of applause. There is something genuine and matterof-fact about a handsome woman. But Catherine Adair had no great beauty beyond a tall and graceful figure. She was thin, and her face in repose was almost plain. It was only in speaking and acting that her fairness appeared, and then, indeed, it shone out like the sun, suddenly and in full force.

"It is a face with many faces in it," said Tony, to himself, " as if it belonged to a person with more souls than one." She was a woman of about thirty, but to whom her best time, perhaps, had come now, in her maturity. It was impossible, as it always is with superlatively attractive people, to analyse the charm. She was charming exactly as a child is charming without a thought about it. This, together with a dash of real talent that coloured the smallest touches of her acting, made her irresistible on the stage. Tony was in heaven. There for the present Ichabod left him, amusing himself meanwhile by sketching a satirical pamphlet, "On the Emotions as Stirred by the Theatre." It would be so easy, so delicious, to show up its absurdities. For instance, what could be more palpably ridiculous than for an upstart nineteenth century adventurer to don crown and ermine to gravely address us in the name of King Charles the Martyr, or for а respectable butcher's daughter to beg us kindly to look upon her for the time being as Cleopatra, or to let an attorney's wife with a large family enamour our fanoy as the fifteen-year-old princess in the fairy tale?

Again, what can be the rationale of pleasure derived from such gross optical delusions as scenepainting, to say nothing of paying

that ballet girl for singing and smiling us into thinking her a useful member of society, or of applauding a mock heroic tumble as though it were the leap of Marcus Curtius, and not a common acrobatic trick? But no matter; we must all dance to the old tune of custom and folly, and those in whom false deaths, false tears, and false smiles provoke laughter and criticism are cried down as dull and heartless Philistines.

The curtain fell when our dramatic critic had got thus far, and the next moment he was roused by the familiar voice of Hammond in the stalls behind, accosting him.

"Good evening, Ichabod. Glad to see you haven't entirely renounced the world you were reviling the other night. So you still keep your old partiality for the stage."

"Scarcely," said Ichabod, with a laugh. "I came, to say the truth, to accompany my young friend here, Mr. Sebright."

"Is he one of the Sebrights of -shire ?" asked Hammond, who had joined them, aside. Ichabod nodded. 66 Do I know them? Intimately. Not this young fellow, but his family."

Is your father well, Mr. Sebright? It is a long while since I had the pleasure of meeting him, but I remember him perfectly."

Dick Hammond was a gentleman who belonged to the order of amateur social detectives. He never forgot a face or an anecdote, and could invariably enlighten a man about his dearest friends and his nearest relations. He knew everything and everybody, and was therefore invaluable in a difficultynever kept an enemy, and played in society the part of green in nature, that of harmonising all opposite tints-the missing link, wherever and whenever such thing was found wanting.

a

Tony was still raving about Mrs.

Adair, and unable or unwilling to stop himself. Hammond listened patronisingly. "You've good taste," said he. "Poor Cathy! Ah, she's a very old friend of mine, indeed. This is her at home' night, by the way. I suppose I must be there in half an hour or so. Oh, I always go. She couldn't give a supper party without me. I'm as indispensable there as the gas or the champagne cup." What, do you know her?" said Tony, his wistful eye sparkling with envy. "Do tell me what is she like off the stage?"

"How if you were to come and see for yourself," said Hammond, good humouredly, laughing a little at the lad's earnestness. I can take you, and you, too, of course, Ichabod, if you like. I've carte blanche to introduce friends. I don't often, but I know you'll be welcome. She said she wanted men for her party to-night," he added mentally.

He's

Tony burst into a profusion of thanks. 'One moment, Hammond," said Ichabod annoyed, aside; "this lad is an utter stranger to London and London life. young in every sense of the word, and I've undertaken to look after him a little. I should like him to keep out of scrapes for the present, at least while I'm there to look on, you understand.”

"Perfectly, perfectly, my dear fellow," said Hammond cheerfully; "but it's all right. If I'd time I'd explain. I know all about Cathy Adair and her history. It's quite natural that saints and sinners should dispute which is to have her, for the fact remains that there's not a truer or an honester soul in

that Belgravia or Bohemia (both of which, if I recollect right, you despise equally). And if your young friend never gets into worse society than he meets at her house, he'll do uncommonly well. You may trust one who knows what's what."

"If I cross him now," thought Ichabod, who was inwardly tickled by the apparent exaggerated solicitude he had suddenly shown for Tony's morals, "I forfeit my influence for good and all. He is stage struck, and sure sooner or later to find his way behind the scenes. Then he is in love with an ideal in the distance, and can only be cured by a nearer view. Hammond opens the short cut to disenchantment. By all means let him take it."

CHAPTER VI.

HAMMOND entered Mrs. Adair's doors with the peculiar tread of the habitué. The house stood in a pleasant, semi-suburban neighbourhood, and was chiefly remarkable for that atmosphere of ease that the best efforts and intentions so often try for in vain. Mrs. Adair held that a certain irregularity of arrangement, and not over-much light, were two most important elements. "Un beau désordre est un trésor de l'art" was a maxim she appreciated. A drawing-room is apt to look like an upholsterer's shop and uninhabitable. Her's was characteristic. Things there must blend, but never match. Of pairs and "sets" she had a horror, and made a point of having no two chairs or ornaments exactly alike.

She had already passed from her fantastic costume into orthodox evening dress. She received Hammond without ceremony. Evidently his footing, just as he had intimated, was that of the tame cat or dog; all sorts of petty liberties allowed, on the tacit understanding that he should never aspire to anything serious.

"Good evening," he began. "You perceive, Mrs. Adair, that I've taken you at your word tonight, and brought two valuable additions to your party-Mr. Anthony Sebright and Mr. Ichabod,

my oldest friend, and one of your most enthusiastic admirers."

And Hammond retreated to enjoy the study of Ichabod's disconcerted face.

Now, Mrs. Adair, to whom compliments, sonnets, banquets, and all the bill of fare of flattery came as daily bread, never doubting Ichabod's devotion, gave him an encouraging smile, and stood expectant, waiting, perhaps unconsciously, for some pretty speech often heard before, about her incomparable talent; a "long-coveted acquaintance;" welcome opportu nity of expressing inexpressible admiration, and quite ready with an appropriate response. But this time the speech came not. "Shy," she thought, and began talking rapidly to set him at his ease. But all those genial words and ways of hers, that had never before failed to melt the most rigid, when poured here upon her humble servant, seemed to fall off again like water from a duck's back. A cold, critical chill penetrated through his politest replies, perceptible enough to strike her, here, at her court, as a kind of insolence. Half puzzled, half annoyed, she turned to his young companion, whose appealing look had not escaped her, with a gracious, "Did I not see you in the stalls to-night ?"

'Oh, I was there," replied Tony readily. "I would see myself there every night if I could."

"Why, really," she said, laughing, and looking at him, "you seem rather partial to those stalls."

"Indeed, I believed them quite the best possible place to be in,” he replied; " and so they were for me-until now

"

Upon my word," thought Ichabod, surprised, "this is pretty well for a boy and a beginner."

For Tony, in fact, was quite a modern boy, and ecstacy had not

with him the old-fashioned effect of tying his tongue. He answered with a ready unconventional aptitude that delighted Mrs. Adair, who rewarded him by a seat on the sofa at her side, and by letting him talk to her a little.

Ichabod threw himself into a chair and watched them furtively. "Just as I feared," he thought, "so there he must go, like a fly to the sundew-but, ah me, fools of flies a toilette from Paris, cosmetics from Turkey, peasant's head of hair from Germany-add to these a woman, almost any woman, arrange, and you have a drug warranted to destroy our common-sense. She's uncommonly civil to him. No doubt she knows, Hammond knows, that her fly has brilliant expectations;" and he looked critically round the room seeking subjects for vivisection.

The party was not what he had expected. Instead of the crowd of vulgar women and swaggering men, he saw a small select coterie including several choice spirits from the artistic world that lesser folk would go many a mile to meet. Conversation flourished of course. One or two professional musicians dropped in as the evening wore on who played and sang their best for Mrs. Adair.

Ichabod was secretly disappointed to find so unexceptionable a gathering with no more than that dash of Bohemianism and laissez aller about it than is required to deliver us from dulness. There seemed no immediate danger for Tony's morals to be apprehended. "So much the worse,' thought Ichabod, "he will go home with his belief in angels on earth, and terrestrial paradises confirmed. Heigho, I suppose I must give him his fling;" and he took out his watch mechanically, as if to time the process.

Now, Mrs. Adair, who was not

so engrossed with Mr. Sebright as to forget her other guests-saw this little movement and could put but one interpretation upon it. "Poor man, he knows nobody," she thought, compassionately. "Hammond, what can Hammond be about? He was the steward

at her entertainments, and had orders to see that nobody was bored, a duty he diligently fulfilled.

Hammond was at the other end of the room talking to a young lady. But Mrs. Adair caught his eye, and hers signalled, plainly, "Are you asleep? Look after your friend, introduce him to somebody at once."

He nodded, said something to his companion, and then came flying to do the hostess's bidding.

"Ichabod," he said, with a little significance in his intonation, "there's a young lady here who is very anxious to be introduced to you. She's a particular friend of mine, and I know you and she will suit each other exactly. I want you to talk to her about your rootand-branch philosophy, It's too

deep for me, but she's a girl who likes and understands that sort of thing. Preach it to her and she'll respond, I'll answer for that."

And before Ichabod could reply, the Universal Friend had borne off his victim, shifted him into the seat he himself had just vacated in one of the innumerable corners of that room, bracketted him there, so to speak, for the next ten minutes without escape, with the young lady.

"Miss Ianthe Lee," said Hammond, introducing them, and vanished.