None Other Gods

and Thursdays, when the family are not in residence, and on Tuesdays only, from two

l, and the new house that is actually lived in on the right. It is of every conceivable date (the housekeeper will supply details) from the British mound on which the keep stands, to the Georgian smoking-room built by the grandfather of the present earl; but the main body of the house, with which we are principally concerned-the long gray pile facing south down to the lake, and northwards into the c

hie Guiseley (Viscount Merefield), and Dick Guiseley, his

about for ten minutes, waiting for the gong, and they were ta

erved Archie, "and the doctor won't let h

y arrived from town himself by the 6.17),

ver to do," continued

g it up precisely as once more he addressed himself to the

ut Frank," continued the other.

nod

ve him home again, and tha

is eyebrows i

that.... I think Frank had better keep out of the way, though, fo

say to it all?" a

enny l

ifferent, wore that same particular form of mask that is fashionable just now. Each had a look in his eyes as if the blinds were down-rather insolent and yet rather pleasant. Each moved in the

e was more or less tied to his father, except in the autumn-for Archie drew the line at Homburg, and went about for short visits, returning continually to look after the estate; Dick lived in a flat in town on six hundred a year, allowed him by his mother, and

ntly, the door suddenly o

superbly, looking taller than she really was. Her eyes, particularly bright just now, were of a vivid blue, wide-open and well set in her face; her mouth was stron

t there's something wrong. Clarkson ran out to tell us that Lord T

en he was gone, swiftly, but not

she said. "I heard Clarkson mention his

n his cue acr

o," he said. "Archie wa

p chair on the hearth, threw

her I should say he was in a passion.

inst the table,

rank!"

again, mo

rank! He's always in

me," observed Dick. "What did he

's always

is happens to be jus

d at him

ord Talgarth was so deeply religio

t it is just his one obsessio

" said Jenny, "that that was an ad

what'll

d her hea

Frank'll find out, and then we sh

meant

a month or two. I daresay he'll come to

ething violent? He's

l right. I'm very sensible indeed, yo

was s

you thi

nk w

m very s

ttle movement

my uncle cuts him off with a shilling? He's quite

shall talk

suppose

him a sw

ter it's been shown with all the other wedding-pr

atic jewelry," said Dick very gra

lgarth wouldn't make up his mind.

s Je

es

if there was a real row-a permanent o

I tell you there's not going to be a

pose the

ood up a

imagine absurdities. What do you want me to say? Do you wan

would be o

t it? You can take it as said....

side; and the next moment the door opened suddenly, and Lord Ta

I

a nobleman on the stage of the Adelphi. He had a handsome inflamed face, with an aquiline nose and white eyebrows that moved up and down, and all the other things; he was stout and tall, suffered from the gout, and carried with him in the house a black stick with an india-rubber pad on the end.

ructions as to how to deal with him. And the hint of defiant obstinacy on the part of Frank-the fact, indeed, that he had taken his father at his word-had thrown that father into a yet more violent fit of passion. Jenny had heard him spluttering and exclamatory with anger

ally be carried out; but the situation-to one of Lord Talgarth's temperament-demanded that the threats should be made, and that Frank should pretend to be crushed by them. That the boy should have behaved like this brought a reality of passion into the affair-disconcerting and infuriating-as if an actor should find his enemy on the stage was armed with a real sword. There was but one possibility left-which Lord Ta

gates-Lord Talgarth found himself in a chair, with Jenny seated opposite, and the rest of the company gone to dinner. He did not quite realize how it

gain about his "graceless son," and "the young villain," and "not a penn

ny began

the right way to work. (It's very impertinent of me, isn't it?

re a sensible girl, my dear. I've alw

is spoon. Then she took up her own. "Well, I think what you've done is exactly the thing to make Frank more obstinate than ever. You see, I know him very well. Now, if you'd

ll breathing rather heavily, and was ma

I say that, w

that would never do. You must keep it up-only you mustn

old man began to melt a little. He glanced up

with a kind of gruffness, "when you

a pauper," said Jenny. "

n that eight hundred a

ll very well, but it mustn't go too far. (Secretly she allowed to hersel

own affair," she s

th blazed u

undred a year is

nd the menu-card. He came very opportunely. And while her host was

begun to extend her influence, for the last year or two, even over the formidable lord of the manor himself, and, as has been seen, was engaged to his son. Her judgment was usually very sound and very sane, and the two men, with the Rector, had been pe

d gone out agai

he said, "for a day or tw

telegram," he growled. "Wha

iscretion, and that you h

ut

ly. But it'll do no harm, and

e boy does take

Jenny coolly. "I

at her agai

ith any real excuse. No one ever thwarted him. He even decided where his doctor should send him for his cure, and in what month, and for how long. And she was not, therefore, quite certain what would happe

onsented to marry such a chap

ll-" sa

I

ide of the house. They had not had the advantage, since the servants were in the room, of talking over the situation as they wished, and there was no knowing when

a fortnight or so, without saying or hearing anything of particular interest. He had been secretly delighted at his daughter's engagement, and had given his consent with gentle and reserved cordiality. He was a Tory, not exactly by choice, but simply-for the same reason as he was Church of England-because he was unable, in the fiber of him, to imagine anything else. Of course, Lord Talgarth was the principal personage in his world, simply because he was Lord Talgarth and owned practically the whole parish and two-thirds of the next. He regarded his daughter with the greatest respect, and left in her hands everything that

breeze died, the rosy sky paled, and the stars came out one by one, like diamonds in the clear blue.

arly every catastrophe since the Norman Conquest, and always on the winning side, except once-but it was difficult to enjoy the distinction as it deserved, living, as he did, in a flat in London all by himself. When his name was mentioned to a well-informed stranger, it was always greeted by the question as to whether he was one of the Guiseleys of Merefield, and it seemed to

they stood up as Jenny, very upright and pale in the twilight, with her host at her side, came up towards them. Dick noticed that the cigar his uncle carried was smoked dow

runt and laid his st

ed it," he said. "Jenny'

Lord Talgarth's extremely angry still, as he has every right to be,

n deferential silenc

" observed Lord Talgarth. "And

n to say-"

frowned ro

e said holds

must lie on it. I warned hi

here was absolutely no sign there of any perturbation. Certainly she looked white in t

se ought to be. And I'm going to write Frank a good long letter all by myself. Come a

I

d whisky had been drunk, and Archie had taken up hi

coming?" s

pau

race," he said. "It's a heavenly night, and I wan

k up, will you, when

the summer twilight, broken here by a line or two of yellow light behind shuttered windows, here with the big oriel window of

off sky alight with stars; and beneath him in the valley he could catch the glim

ick confessed to himself, frankly and openly for the

had skated with her, ridden with her, danced with her, and had only understood, with a sense of mild shock,

of hundred a year of her own. (And in this explanation I think he was quite correct.) Then he had begun to think of her himself a good deal-dramatically, rather than realistically-wondering what it would feel like to be engaged to her. If a younger son could marry her, surely a first cousin could-even of the Guiseleys. So it had gone on, littl

re, he tried to analyz

and Dick, very properly, asked himself what keepers were for except to do that kind of thing for you? There had been a bad row here, too, scarcely eighteen months ago; it had been something to do with a horse that was ill-treated, and Frank had cut a very absurd and ridiculous figure, getting hot and angry, and finally thrashing a groom, or somebody, with his own hands, and there had been uncomfortable

tory person, and it would do him no harm t

and was the occasion of his perceiving that he had come to no conclusion about anything, exce

ints that, strictly speaking, he ought not to have considered. He had wondered whether Frank would die; he had wondered whether, if he did not, Lord Talgarth would really be as good as his word; and, if so, what effect that would have on Jenny. Finally, he had wondered, with a good deal of intellectual application, what exactly Jenny ha

to the age of discretion, what exactly three lives between a man and a title stood for. Lord Talgarth was old and gouty

houghtful eyes, who at five minutes past twelve went up the two steps into the smoking-room, locked the doors, as he had been