THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY, 1872.

SATANELLA.

A STORY OF PUNCHESTOWN.

BY G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE, AUTHOR OF "THE GLADIATORS," &c.

CHAPTER VIII.

INSATIABLE.

Y DEAR GENERAL,-As I know it is impossible to catch you for luncheon, come and see me at three, before I go out.-Yours most sincerely,

No date, of course.

"CLARA LUSHINGTON."

The General, nevertheless, ordered his hack at half-past two, in confident expectation of finding his correspondent at home.

He was ushered into perhaps the prettiest boudoir in London-a nest of muslin, filagree, porcelain, and exotics, with a miniature aviary in one window, a miniature aquarium in the other, a curtain over the door, and a fountain opposite the fire-place. Here he had an opportunity of admiring her taste before the fair owner appeared, examining in turn all the ornaments on her chimney-piece and writing table, amongst which, with pardonable ostentation, a beautifully mounted photograph of her husband was put in the most conspicuous place.

He was considering what on earth could have induced her to marry its original, when the door opened for the lady in person, who appeared, fresh, smiling, and exceedingly well-dressed. Though she had kept her visitor waiting, he could not grudge the time thus spent, when he observed how successful it had been turned to

account.

VOL. VIII., N.S. 1872.

K

"You got my note," said she, pulling a low chair for him close to the sofa on which she seated herself. I wonder if you wondered why I wanted to see you!"

The experience of St. Josephs had taught him it is well to let these lively fish run out plenty of line before they are checked, so he bowed, and said, "He hoped she had found something in which he could be of use."

"Use!" repeated the lady. "Then you want me to think you consider yourself more useful than ornamental. General, I should like to know if you are the least bit vain."

"A little, perhaps, of your taking me up," he replied, laughing; "of nothing else, I think, in the world."

She stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes, none the less effective that these had been darkened before she came down. "And yet, I am sure, you might be," she said softly, with something of a sigh.

The process, he thought, was by no means unpleasant; a man could undergo it a long time without being tired.

"Do you know I'm interested about you?" she continued, looking frankly in his face. "For your own sake-a little; for somebody else's—a great deal. Have you never heard of flowers that waste their sweetness on the desert air?'"

"And blush unseen?" he replied. "I'm blushing now. Don't you think it's becoming?"

"Do be serious!" she interposed, laying a slim white hand on his sleeve. "I tell you I have your welfare at heart. That's the reason you are here now. If I cannot be happy myself, at least I like to help others. Everybody ought to marry the right person. Don't you think so? You've got a right person. Why don't you marry

her?"

Watching him narrowly, she perceived, by the catch of his breath, the quiver of his eye-lid, that for all his self-command her thrust had gone straight home.

His was too manly a nature to deny its allegiance. "Do you think she would have me," said he, simply and frankly, "if I was to ask her?"

Mrs. Lushington never liked him better than now. To this worldly weary, manœuvring woman, there was something inexpressibly refreshing in his unaffected self-depreciation. "What a fool the girl is!" she thought; "why, she ought to jump at him!" But what he said, was-" Qui cherche trouve. If you don't put the question,

dear

how can you expect to have an answer? Are you so spoilt, my General, that you expect women to drop into your mouth like overripe fruit? What we enjoy is, to be worried and teased over and over again, till at last we are bored into saying 'Yes' in sheer weariness, and to get rid of the subject. How can you be refused, much more accepted, if you won't even make an offer?"

"Do you know what it is to care for somebody very much?" said he, smoothing his hat with his elbow, as a village-maiden on the stage plaits the hem of her apron. "What you suggest seems the boldest game no doubt; but it is like putting all one's fortune on a single throw. Suppose the dice come up against me, can you wonder I am a little afraid to lift the box?"

"I cannot fancy you afraid of anything," she answered with an admiring glance; "not even of failure, though it would probably be a new sensation. You know what Mr. Walters says-(he winced, and she saw it)—'When you go to a fighting-house, you should take a fighting man.' So I say, 'When you are in a tangle about women, ask a woman to get you out of it.' Put yourself in my hands, and when you dress for dinner, you shall be a proud and a happy General !"

His face brightened. "I should be very happy," said he, "I honestly confess, if Miss Douglas would consent to be my wife. Do you advise me to ask her at once?"

"This very day, without losing a minute!" was the answer.

"Let

me have to congratulate her when I call to drive her out at halfpast five."

The General looked at the clock, smoothing his hat more vigorously than ever. "It's nearly four now," said he, in a faltering voice. "Mrs. Lushington, I am really most grateful. It's too kind of you to take such an interest in my affairs. Would you mind telling me? Women understand these things much better than men. If you were in my place, do you think I ought? I mean what is the best plan? In short, would you advise me to call, and ask her point-blank, or to-to write a line, you know-very explicit and respectful, of course, and tell the servant to wait for an answer?"

She was very near laughing in his face, but mastered her gravity, after a moment's reflection, and observed sententiously—

"Perhaps in your case a few lines would be best. You can write them here if you like, or at your club. The shorter the better. And," she added, shaking hands with him very kindly, while he rose to take leave, "whichever way it goes, you will let me know the result."

As the street-door closed, she opened her blotting-book, and scribbled off the following despatch :

"DEAREST BLANCHE,

"Alarms! A skirmish! I write to put you on your guard. The General, your General, has been here for an hour. He seems to have made up his mind, so prepare yourself for it at any moment. I think you ought to accept him. He would relapse into a quiet, kind, and respectable husband. Your own position, too, would be improved and what I call established. Don't be obstinate, there's a dear. In haste. Ever your own loving

"CLARA L

"You mustn't forget you dine here. Nobody but ourselves, Uncle John, the two Gordon girls (Bessie has grown so pretty), and Daisy Walters, who starts for Ireland to-morrow. As soon after eight as you can."

Then she rang the bell, and sent off her note with directions for its immediate transmission. Henry must take it at once. If Miss Douglas was not at home, let him find out where she had gone, and follow her. There was no answer, only he must be quite sure she got it; and pretty Mrs. Lushington sank back on her sofa, with the pleasing reflection that she had done what she called "a neat stroke of business, vigorous, conclusive, and compromising nobody if it was ever found out!"

She saw her way now clearly enough. On Satanella's refusal of her veteran admirer, she calculated as surely as on her acceptance of an invitation to meet Daisy at dinner, particularly with so dangerous a competitor as Bessie Gordon in the field. That last touch she considered worthy of her diplomacy. But, judging by herself, she was of opinion that Miss Douglas would so modify her negative as to retain the General in the vicinity of her charms, contemplating from day to day the fair prospect that was never to be his own. In such an ignominious state men are to be caught on the rebound, and he must ere long prove an easy victim to her kinder fascinations, and take his place submissively enough with the other captives in the train of his conqueror. It would be very nice, she thought, to secure him, and after that she could turn her attention to Daisy, for Mrs. Lushington was never so happy as when she had succeeded in detaching a gentleman from the lady of his affections, if, in so doing, she inflicted on the latter the sorrow of a wounded spirit and the pain of a vexed heart.

Therefore had she many enemies of her own sex, ever on the

watch to catch her tripping, and, once down, must have expected no quarter from these gentle combatants.

A generous, masculine-minded woman, who is above such petty vanities and rivalries, enjoys considerable immunity in that society of which the laws are made by her sisters-in-arms, but they will not forgive the greedy, unreasonable spoiler, who eyes, covets, and abstracts the property of others—who, to use their own expressive words, "takes their men from them, while all the time she has got enough and to spare of her own!"

CHAPTER IX.

OFF AND ON.

BUT even a woman cannot calculate with certainty on what another woman will or will not do under given circumstances. The greatest generals have been defeated by unforeseen obstacles. A night's rain or a sandy road may foil the wisest strategy, destroy the nicest combinations.

Miss Douglas never came to dinner after all, and Daisy, too, was absent. Mrs. Lushington, outwardly deploring the want of a "young man" for the "Gordon girls," inwardly puzzled her brains to account for the joint desertion of her principal performers, a frightful suspicion crossing her mind that she might have been too vigorous in her measures, and so frightened Satanella into carrying Daisy off with her, nolens volens, once for all. She had short notes of excuse, indeed, from both; but with these she was by no means satisfied: the lady pleading headache, the gentleman a pre-engagement, since called to mind-this might mean anything. But if they had gone away together, she thought, never would she meddle in such matters again.

Not till dinner was over, and Bessie Gordon had sat down to sing plaintive ballads in the drawing-room, did she feel reassured; but the last post brought a few lines from the General, in fulfilment of his pledge to let her know how his wooing had sped.

"Congratulate me," he wrote, "my dear Mrs. Lushington, on having taken your advice. You were right about procrastination (the General loved a long word, and was indeed somewhat pompous when he put pen to paper). I am convinced that but for your kind counsels I should hardly have done justice to myself or the lady for whom I entertain so deep and lasting a regard. I feel I may now venture to hope Time will do much-constant devotion, more. At