The Third. Volume. Hume Fergus
still in the market. I wasn't rich enough for the New Zealand belles."
"Eh! You have five hundred a year, independent of your earnings as an engineer."
"What is the use of setting up house on a thousand a year all told," retorted Claude coolly; "but the fact is, despite my inflammability, which you are pleased to reproach, I have not yet seen the woman I care to make Mrs. Larcher."
"Perhaps it is just as well for the woman," answered Tait dryly. "I don't think you are cut out for a domestic life."
"I have had no experience of it, so I can't say," said Larcher, a shade passing over his face. "You must not forget that I was left an orphan at five years of age, Tait. If it had not been for old Hilliston, the lawyer, who looked after me and my small fortune, I don't know what would have become of me. All things considering, I think I have turned out fairly decent. I have worked hard at my profession, I have not spent my substance in riotous living, and have seen much more of life than most young men. All of which is self-praise, and that we know being no recommendation, give me another cup of coffee."
Tait laughed and obeyed. "What are you going to do now?" he demanded, after a pause; "stay in town, or make another dash for the wilds?"
"I'll be here for a few months, till something turns up," said Larcher carelessly. "I did very well out of that Maori land business, and bought some land there with the proceeds. I suppose I'll go and look up Mr. Hilliston, see all the theaters, worry you, and hunt for a wife."
"I shan't assist you in the last," retorted Tait, testily. "However, as you are here you must stay with me for the day. What are your immediate plans?"
"Oh, I wish to call at the club and see if there are any letters! Then I am at your disposal, unless you have a prior engagement."
"I have a luncheon at Richmond, but I'll put that off. It is not very important, and a wire will arrange matters. Finish your breakfast while I dress."
"Go, you effete dandy of an exhausted civilization. I saw you looking at my rig-out, and I dare say it is very bad. It has been packed away for the last five years. However, you can take me to your tailor and I'll get a fresh outfit. You won't walk down Bond Street with me unless I assume a tall hat, patent leathers, and a frock coat."
"Oh, by the way, would you like to go to the Curtain Theater to-night?" asked Tait, vouchsafing no reply to this speech. "They are playing a good piece, and I sent for a seat for myself."
"You selfish little man; just send for two while you're about it."
"With pleasure," replied Tait, who permitted Larcher more freedom of speech than he did any other of his friends. "I won't be more than ten minutes dressing."
"Very good! I'll smoke a pipe during your absence, and see with what further fribbles you have adorned your rooms. Then we'll go to the club, and afterward to the tailor's. I don't suppose my letters will detain me long."
In this Larcher was wrong, for his letters detained him longer than he expected. This opened the way to a new course of life, of which at that moment he knew nothing. Laughing and jesting in his friend's rooms, heart-whole and untrammeled, he little knew what Fortune had in store for him on that fateful morning. It is just as well that the future is hidden from men, else they would hardly go forward with so light a step to face juries. Hitherto Larcher's life had been all sunshine, but now darknesses were rising above the horizon, and these letters, to which he so lightly alluded, were the first warnings of the coming storm.
CHAPTER II
A MYSTERIOUS COMMUNICATION
The Athenian Club was the most up-to-date thing of its kind in London. Although it had been established over eight years it was as new as on the day of its creation, and not only kept abreast of the times, but in many instances went ahead of them. The Athenians of old time were always crying out for something new; and their prototypes of London, following in their footsteps, formed a body of men who were ever on the look-out for novelty. Hence the name of this club, which adopted for its motto the classic cry, "Give us something new," and acted well up to the saying. The Athenian Club was the pioneer of everything.
It would take a long time to recount the vagaries for which this coterie had been responsible. If one more daring spirit than the rest invented a new thing or reinstated on old one, his fellows followed like a flock of intelligent sheep and wore the subject threadbare, till some more startling theory initiated a new movement. The opinion of the club took its color from the prevailing "fad" of the hour, and indeed many of the aforesaid "fads" were invented in its smoke room. It should have been called "The Ephemeral Club," from the rapidity with which its fanciers rose to popularity and vanished into obscurity.
After all, such incessant novelty is rather fatiguing. London is the most exhausting city in the world in which to live. From all quarters of the globe news is pouring in, every street is crowded with life and movement; the latest ideas of civilization here ripen to completion. It is impossible to escape from the contagion of novelty; it is in the air. Information salutes one at every turn; it pours from the mouths of men; it thrusts itself before the eye in countless daily and weekly newspapers; it clicks from every telegraph wire, until the brain is wearied with the flood of ephemeral knowledge. All this plethora of intellectual life was concentrated in the narrow confines of the Athenian Club House. No wonder its members complained of news.
"What is the prevailing passion with the Athenian at present?" asked Larcher as he stepped briskly along Piccadilly beside Tait.
"The New Literature!"
"What is that?"
"Upon my word, I can hardly tell you," replied Tait, after some cogitation. "It is a kind of impressionist school, I fancy. Those who profess to lead it insist upon works having no plot, and no action, or no dramatic situations. Their idea of a work is for a man and woman – both vaguely denominated 'he' and 'she' – to talk to one another through a few hundred pages. Good Lord, how they do talk, and all about their own feelings, their own woes, their own troubles, their own infernal egotisms! The motto of 'The New Literature' should be 'Talk! talk! talk!' for it consists of nothing else."
"Why not adopt Hamlet's recitation," suggested Larcher laughingly, "'Words! words! words!'"
"Oh, 'The New Literature' wants nothing from the past! Not even a quotation," said Tait tartly. "Woman – the new woman – is greatly to the fore in this latest fancy. She writes about neurotic members of her own sex, and calls men bad names every other page. The subjects mostly discussed in the modern novel by the modern woman, are the regeneration of the world by woman, the failure of the male to bridle his appetites, and the beginning of the millennium which will come when women get their own way."
"Haven't they got their own way now?"
"I should think so. I don't know what further freedom they want. We live in a world of petticoats nowadays. Women pervade everything like microbes. And they are such worrying creatures," pursued Tait plaintively, "they don't take things calmly like men do, but talk and rage and go into hysterics every other minute. If this sort of thing goes on I shall retire with Dormer to an uninhabited island."
"It is easily seen that you are not a friend to the new movement," said Larcher, with a smile, "but here we are. Wait in the smoke room, like a good fellow, while I see after my correspondence."
"You will find me in the writing room," replied Tait. "I have lost my morning pipe, and do not intend to smoke any more till after luncheon."
"I don't believe you're a man, Tait, but a clockwork figure wound up to act in the same manner at the same moment. And you are such a horribly vulgar piece of mechanism."
Tait laughed, gratified by this tribute to his methodical habits, so, leaving Larcher to see after his letters, he vanished into the writing room. Here he wrote an apologetic telegram to his friend Freak, and sent it off so that it might reach that gentleman before he started for Richmond. Then he scribbled a few notes on various trifling matters of business which called for immediate attention, and having thus disposed of his cares, ensconced himself in a comfortable armchair to wait for Claude.
In a few minutes Larcher made his appearance with a puzzled expression on his face, and two open letters in his hand. Taking