Poor Relations

the crowded gangways there was the usual rain of ultimate kisses, from the quayside the usual gale of speeding handkerchiefs. Ladies in blanket-coats handed

ort skirts, tam o' shanters, brightly colored jumpers, and big bows to their shoes were already on familiar terms with one of the junior ship's officers, and their laughter (which would soon become one of those unending oceanic accompaniments that make land so pleasant again) was already competing with the noise of the crew. Everybody boasted aloud that they fed you really well on the Murmania, and hoped silently

timentality so persistently laid against his work by superior critics was rebutted out of the very mouth of real life. He looked round at his fellow passengers as though he would congratulate them on conforming to his later and more profitable theory of art; and if occasionally he could not help seeing a stewardess with a

ore lunch, steward?"

ill go in about tw

d for this voyage; and presently he was sitting in the barber shop, wondering at first why anybody should be expected to buy any of the miscellaneous articles exposed for sale at

er. "I laid in a stock once at Gib., when we

over,

n te

er te

rd's a bit strong, sir

was up rather ea

y razo

a description justi

es, safety razors ... they've all come in our time ... yes, sir, just a l

my th

her thin round the temples. Would you like something to brisken up the growth a

e ever spoke. The barber seemed to repl

lt child. "Flowers-and-honey? Eau-de-quinine? Or perhaps a frict

John declar

d not bear to hurt even the most superficial emotions of a barber, c

lained in jerks how every time he went ashore in New York or Liverpool he was in the habit of searching about for

Well, that's a

suppos

cy was the natura

ainfully natura

rush, promised to meditate the purchase of the rope-soled shoes, and stepped jauntily in the direction of the luncheon bugle. If John Touchwood had not been a successful romantic playwright and an unsuccessful realistic novelist, he might have found in the spectacle of the first lunch of an Atlantic voyage an illustration of human madness and the destructive will of the gods. As it was, his capacity for rapidly covering the domestic offices of the brain with the crimson-ramblers of a lush idealism made him forget the base fabric so prettily if obviously concealed. As it was, he found an exhilaration in all this berser

her chair when she declined his offer; but of course the chair was fixed, and the only sign of her distaste for pickles or conversation was a faint quiver, which to any one less rosy than John might have suggested abhorrence, but which struck him as

of these flowers," said

ers at our end of the

, in these as yet unvexed waters, of anything but repletion; finally, hoping that the much powdered lady opposite swathed in mauve chiffons was getting the discredit for the fragrance, he stayed where he was. Nevertheless, the exhilaration had departed; his neighbors all seemed dull folk; and congratulating him

as too forbidding a name for such pleasantly nutritious communications. His agent had sent him the returns of the second week; and playing to capacity in one of the largest New York theaters is nearer to a material paradise than anything outside the Mohammedan religion. Then there was an offer from one of the chief film companies to produce his romantic drama of two years ago, that wonderful riot of color and Biblical phraseology, The Fall of Babylon. They ventured to think that the cinematographer would do his imagination more justice than the theater, particularly as upon their dramatic ranch in California they now had more than a hundred real camels and eight real elephants. John chuckled at the idea of a few anima

THENON

etress: Mis

er 10

d a success with Lucrezia in New York. I don't think it would suit me from what I read about it. You know how particular my public is. That's why I'm so anxious to play the Maid. When will Lucrezia be produced in London, and where? There are many rumours. Do come and see me when you get back to England, and I'll tell you who I've thought of to play Gilles. I think you'll find him very intelligent. But of cou

erely and

et

e was fixed upon the bowl of salad he began to compose Act II. Scene I-Open country. Enter Joan on horseback. From the summit of a grassy knoll she searches the horizon. So fixedly was John regarding his heroine on top of the salad that the head steward came over and asked anxiously if t

ILL

n's Woo

obe

s but she didn't, and of course I understand you're busy only I should have liked to have had a letter ourselves. James asks me to tell you that he is probably going to do a book on the Cymbalist

tionate si

CE TOU

y fellow he is! Always full of schemes for books and articles. Wonderful really, to go on writing for an audience of about

er; which he found was fro

A HO

Court Squ

obe

nd Janet. Such a selfish actress. She literally doesn't think of any one but herself. There's a chance I may get a decent part on tour with Lambton this autumn. George isn't very well, and it's been rather miserable this wet summer in the boarding house as Bertram and Viola were ill and kept away from school. I would have suggested their going do

EA

John sighed. "But she's a plucky woman. I must w

is new country house in Hampshire, that county house which he had coveted for so long and to w

BL

sford,

obe

such a bad influence for Harold and so I told her that I did not think you would like her to take possession of your new house before you'd had time to live in it yourself. Besides, so many children all at once would have disturbed poor Mama. Edith drove over w

ectionat

A CU

along its mellow red-brick garden walls. "I shall be in time to see the colouring of the woods," he thought. The Murmania answered his aspiration with a plun

VICA

Candove

obe

e people like it, but unfortunately old Mrs. Paxton-you know who I mean-the patroness of the living-is so bigoted that Laurence has had a great deal of trouble with her. I'm sorry to say that dear little Frida is looking thin. We think it's the wet summer. Nothing but rain. Ambles was looking beautiful when we drove over last week, but Harold is a little bumptious and Hilda does not seem to see h

oving

IT

ut he often wished that she had not married a parson. Then he took up the la

HURC

tead,

nt. We as heard nothink from Emily since she as gone down to Hambles your other house, and we hope which is Maud, Elsa and myself you wont spend all you

edient

WOR

. charming trait really, for after all it means she appreciates

gence of smoke and gold; to think of the chrysanthemums in his little garden and of the sparrows' chirping in the Virginia-creeper that would soon be all aglow like a well banked-up fire against his coming. Five delightful letters really, every one of them full of g

ever been a poor relation yet,

had prepared himself with such well-buttered bread. Few currants? There was not a single one, unless Mrs. Worfolk's antagonism to the idea of Ambles might be considered a gritty shred of a currant. John rose at once when he had finished his letters, put them in his pocket, and followed the unconscious disturbers of his hearth on deck. He soon caught sight of them again where, arm in arm, they were pacing the sunlit starboard side and apparently enjoying the gusty southwest wind. John wondered how long it would be before he was given a suitable opportunity to make their acquaintance, and tried to regulate his promenade so that he should always meet them face to face either aft or forward, but never amidships where heavily muffled passengers reclined i

e glad that she was not. This relief was, of course, not at all due to any vision of himself in a more intimate relationship; but merely because he was glad to find that her personality, of which he was by now more definitely aware than of her beauty (well, not beauty, but charm, and yet perhaps after all he was being too grudging in not awarding her positive beauty) would be her own. There was something distinctly romantic in this beautiful young woman of nearly thirty leading her own life unimpeded by a loud-voiced husband. Of course, the husband might have had a gentle voice, but usually this type of woman seemed a prey to bluffness and bigness, as if to display her atmosphere charms she had need of a rugged landscape for a background. He found himself glibly thinking of her as a type; but with what type could she be classified? Surely she was attracting him by being exceptional rather than typical; and John soothed his alarmed celibacy by insisting that she appealed to him with a hint of virginal wisdom which promised a perfect intercourse, if only their acquaintanceship could be achieved naturally, that is to say, without the least suggestion of an ulterior object. She had never bee

, bad

s and turned round: it was quite easy after all, and he was glad that

y floating like a b

ow to fancy that swiftly vanishing, utterly inappropriate piece of concave tweed

cold," she added. "Ha

cs described as painstaking, his private life had been of a mild uniform pink, a pinkishness that recalled the chaste hospitality of the best spare bedroom. Never yet in that pink life had he let himself go to the extent of wearing a cap, which, even if worn afloat by a colored prizefighter crossing the Atlantic to defend or challenge supremacy, would have created an amused consternation, but which on the head of a well-known romantic playwright must arouse at least dismay and possibly panic. Yet this John (he had reached the point of regarding himself with objective surprise), the pinkishness of whose life, though it might b

een when I bought it that the checks were purple and not black I dare say I shouldn't have bought it-but, by Jove, I'm rather glad I didn't notice them. After all, I have a

ed to remark the well-groomed florid man before now asked who he was, and followed his

n who wore the unusual cap or to his being the man who had written The Fall of Babylon; nor, indeed, did he bother to make sure, for he

n this friendship? Have I? That's the question. I certainly told her a lot about myself, and I think she appreciated my confidence. Yet suppose that she's just an ordinary young woman and goes gossiping all over England about meeting me? I really must remember that I'm no longer a nonentity and that, though Miss Hamilton is not a journalist, her friend is, and, what is more, confessed that the sole object of her visit to America had been to interview d

f some part of a ship's furniture the name of which he did not know and did not like to ask, a long and pleasant talk, cozily wrapped in two rugs glistening faintly in the starlight with salty rime; he had come down from a successful elimination of Miss Merritt, his whole personality marinated in freedom, he might say; and now the mere thought of Liverpool was enough to disenchant him and to make him feel rather like a man who was recovering from a brilliant, a too brilliant revelation of himself provoked by champagne. He began to piece together the conversation and search for indiscretions. To begin with, he had certainly talked a great deal too much about himself; it was not dignified for a man in his position to be so prodigally frank with a young woman he had only known for f

deficient. He often used to chaff himself, but, of course, always without the least hint of ill

retaries ashore are very different propositions. Yes, you thought you were being very clever when you bought those rope-soled

ails upon the borders of sleep an excellent joke,

ston. He had carefully written down the Hamiltons' address with a view to calling on them one day, but even while he was writing the number of the square in Chelsea he was thinki

y. Most delightful trip across-see you both again soon, I hope. You

hen she laughed, for the briefest moment John felt a

good night's

g woman; but, as he once again told himself, the idea of a

to shout as the taxi buzzed away; he did

d, and without one sigh he busied himself