The Parts Men Play

like a creditor, at unpropitious moments; and her voice, though not displeasing, gave the impression that it might become volcanic at any moment. She also possessed a considerable t

t protest, to invest the savings of a lifetime in an obscure Canadian silver-mine. To the surprise of every one (including its promoters), the mine produced high-grade ore in such abundance that the ironmonger became a man of means. Thereupon, at t

rely attracted by the agreeable expanse of lively femininity found in the fair Sybil. After a wedding that left her mother a triumphant wreck and appreciably hastened her father's demise, she was duly installed as the mistress of Roselawn, the Durwent family seat

y. She failed to hear the tongues in trees, and her dramatic sense was not satisfied with the little sta

and his habits. He was a pillar of the church, and always read a portion of Scripture from the reading-desk on Sunday mornings. His wife he treated with simple courtesy as the woma

had a

Durwent presented them with a garden fête; and the

ter there ca

Durwent gave them a garden fête; and he an

ater a second

n, followed by a garden

e was R

ish parent feels the time is ripe to send him away to school. The ironmon

t time, 'the boy is eight years of age, and no time must be lost in prep

with theatrical unrest

il you see what he wan

s old enough, he must go to Eton, my dear, and acquire the qual

county families which blessed the neighbourhood with their presence. She reviled Lord Durwent's habits, principally because they were habits, and thought it was high time some Durwent grew up who wasn't just a 'sticky, stuffy, starched, and bored porpoise-yes, PORPO

s own cravat and spoke in nicely modulated accents: 'Sybil, nothing can change me on this point. In spite of what

ng much the same effect on Lord Durwent's smoothly developing monolo

hat he should go to Eton. I shall take him next Tuesday to a preparatory

entleman, not knowing what had caused his mother's grief, sympathetically opened his thr

a juvenile mind with the pose of sophistication, and by twelve years of age achieves a code of thought and conduct that usually lasts

he sacred rites of 'what isn't done' were established, and the mother gradually found herself in the position of an outsider-a privileged

scenes, but she felt that they lacked spontane

any in the world (with the possible exception of that of the Turk), Lady Durwent was only dimly aware that her da

de with her swiftly varying moods. Her lower lip was full and red, the upper one firm and repressed with the dull crimson of a fading rose-petal. Her shapely arms and legs were restless, seemingly impatient to

ness who was personally recommended by Lady Chisworth, whose friend the Countess of Oxeter had

) decorum and French. Her pupil was openly irreverent about the first; and when the governess, after the time-honoured method, produced an endless vista

dull lack of vision belonging to men of his type, he failed to recognise the spirit of music lying in her breast, merely waiting the call to spring into life. He knew that her home was one where music was unheard, and his method of unfolding to the girl the most spiritual and fundamental of all the arts was to give her