Thelma
bull of Basban, were unheard, as the office-boy below, profiting by a
few idle moments, had run across the street to buy some chestnuts at a
stall he particularly patronized. Beau thrashed on with increasing
enjoyment--Grubbs resisted him less and less, till finally he slipped
feebly down on the floor and grovelled there, gasping and groaning. Beau
gave him one or two more artistic cuts, and stood above him, with the
serene, triumphant smile of a successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal
of laughter echoed from the doorway,--a woman stood there, richly
dressed in silk and fur, with diamonds sparkling in her ears and
diamonds clasping the long boa at her throat. It was Violet Vere.
"Why, Snawley!" she cried with cheerful familiarity. "How are you? All
broken, and no one to pick up the pieces! Serve you right! Got it at
last, eh? Don't get up! You look so comfortable!"
"Bodily assault," gasped Grubbs. "I'll summons--call the police--call,"
his voice died away in inarticulate gurglings, and raising himself, he
sat up on the floor in a sufficiently abject and ludicrous posture,
wiping the tears of pain from his eyes. Beau looked at the female
intruder and recognized her at once. He saluted her with cold courtesy,
and turned again to Grubbs.
"_Will_ you apologize?"
"No--I--I _won't_!"
Beau made another threatening movement--Miss Vere interposed.
"Stop a bit," she said, regarding him with her insolent eyes, in which
lurked, however, an approving smile. "I don't know who you are, but you
seem a fighting man! Don't go at him again till I've had a word. I say,
Grubbs! you've been hitting at me in your trashy paper."
Grubbs still sat on the floor groaning.
"You must eat those words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with
sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has
nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,--not she! He's a duffer, a
regular stiff one--no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you
mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your oaths to yourself, will
you?"
Beau Lovelace was amused. Grubbs turned his watering eye from one to the
other in wretched perplexity. He made an effort to stand up and
succeeded.
"I'll have you arrested, sir!" he exclaimed shaking his fists at Beau,
and quivering with passion, "on a charge of bodily assault--shameful
bodily assault, sir!"
"All right!" returned Beau coolly. "If I were fined a hundred pounds for
it, I should think it cheap for the luxury of thrashing such a hound!"
Grubbs quaked at the determined attitude and threatening eye of his
assailant, and turned for relief to Miss Vere whose smile, however, was
not sympathetic.
"You'd better cave in!" she remarked airily. "You've got the worst of
it, you know!"
She had long been on confidential terms with the _Snake_ proprietor, and
she spoke to him now with the candor of an old friend.
"Dear me, what do you expect of me!" he almost whimpered. "I'm not to
blame! The paragraph was inserted without my knowledge by my
sub-editor--he's away just now, and--there! why?" he cried with sudden
defiance, "why don't you ask Sir Francis Lennox about it? He wrote the
whole thing."
"Well, he's dead," said Miss Vere with the utmost coolness. "So it
wouldn't be much use asking _him_. HE can't answer,--you'll have to
answer for him."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Grubbs. "He can't be dead!"
"Oh, yes, he can, and he _is_," retorted Violet. "And a good job too! He
was knocked over by a train at Charing Cross. You'll see it in to-day's
paper, if you take the trouble to look. And mind you contradict all that
stuff about me in your next number--do you hear? I'm going to America
with a Duke next month, and I can't afford to have my reputation
injured. And I won't be called a 'dama' for any penny-a-liner living."
She paused, and again broke out laughing, "Poor old Snawley! You do look
so sore! Ta-ta!" And she moved towards the door. Lovelace, always
courteous, opened it for her. She raised her hard, bright eyes, and
smiled.
"Thanks! Hope I shall see you again some day!"
"You are very good!" responded Beau gravely.
Either his tone, which was one chill indifference, or some thing in his
look, irritated her suddenly--for a rash of hot color crimsoned her
face, and she bit her lips vexedly as she descended the office-stairs.
"He's one of your high-and-mighty sort," she thought disdainfully, as
she entered her cosy brougham and was driven away. "Quite too awfully
moral!" She pulled a large, elaborately cut glass scent-bottle out of
the pocket of her cloak, and, unscrewing the gold top, applied it, not
to her nose but her mouth. It contained neat Cognac--and she drank a
goodly gulp of it with evident relish, swallowing a scented bon-bon
immediately afterwards to take away the suspicious odor. "Yes--quite too
awfully moral!" she repeated with a grin. "Not in my line at all! Lord!
It's lucky there are not many such fellows about, or what would become
of _me_? A precious poor business I should make of it!"
Meanwhile, Lovelace, left alone again with Mr. Grubbs, reiterated his
demand for an apology. Grubbs made a rush for the door, as soon as Miss
Vere had gone, with the full intention of summoning the police, but Beau
coolly placed his back against it with resolute firmness, and flourished
his whip defiantly.
"Come, sir, none of this nonsense!" he said sternly. "I don't mean to
leave this spot till I have satisfaction. If Sir Francis Lennox wrote
that scandalous paragraph the greater rascal he,--and the more shame to
you for inserting it.--You, who make it your business to know all the
dirty alleys and dark corners of life, must have known _his_ character
pretty thoroughly. There's not the slightest excuse for you. Will you
apologize?--and retract every word of that paragraph, in your next
issue?"
Grubbs, breathless with rage and fear, glared at him, but made no
answer.
"If you refuse to comply," went on Beau deliberately, balancing the
horsewhip lightly on his hand, "I'll just tell you what the consequences
will be. I've thrashed you once--and I'll thrash you again. I have only
to give the cue to several worthy fellows of my acquaintance, who don't
care how much they pay for their fun, and each of them in turn will
thrash you. As for an action for libel, don't expect it--but I swear
there shan't be a safe corner in London for you. If, however, you
publish next week a full retraction of your printed lie--why, then
I--shall be only too happy to forget that such an individual as yourself
burdens this planet. There are the two alternatives--choose!"
Grubbs hesitated, but coward fear made him quail the prospect of
unlimited thrashings.
"Very well," he said sullenly. "Write what you want put in--I'll attend
to it--I don't mind obliging Miss Vere. But all the same, I'll have
_you_ arrested!"
Beau laughed. "Do so by all means!" he said gaily. "I'll leave my
address with you!" He wrote rapidly a few lines on a piece of paper to
the following effect--
"We have to entirely contradict a statement we made last week respecting
a supposed forthcoming divorce case in which Sir Philip Bruce-Errington
was seriously implicated. There was no truth whatever in the statement,
and we herewith apologize most humbly and heartily for having
inadvertently given credence to a rumor which is now proved to be
utterly false and without the slightest shadow of a foundation."
He handed this to Grubbs.
"Insert that word for word, at the head of your paragraphs," he said,
"and you'll hear no more of me, unless you give me fresh provocation.
And I advise you to think twice before you have me arrested--for I'll
defend my own case, and--ruin you! I'm rather a dangerous customer to
have much to do with! However, you've got my card--you know where to
find me if you want me. Only you'd better send after me to-night if you
do--to-morrow I may be absent."
He smiled, and drew on his gloves leisurely, eyeing meanwhile the
discomfited editor, who was furtively rubbing his shoulder where the
lash had stung it somewhat severely.
"I'm exceedingly glad I've hurt you, Mr. Grubbs," he said blandly. "And
the next time you want to call me your brother in literature, pray
reflect on the manner in which my fraternal affection displayed itself!
_good_ morning!"
And he took his departure with a quiet step and serene manner, leaving
Snawley-Grubbs to his own meditations, which were far from agreeable. He
was not ignorant of the influence Beau Lovelace possessed, both on the
press and in society--he was a general favorite,--a man whose opinions
were quoted, and whose authority was accepted everywhere. If he appeared
to answer a charge of assault against Grubbs, and defended his own case,
he certainly would have the best of it. He might--he would have to pay a
fine, but what did he care for that? He would hold up the _Snake_ and
its proprietor to the utmost ridicule and opprobrium--his brilliant
satire and humor would carry all before it--and he, Snawley-Grubbs,
would be still more utterly routed and humiliated. Weighing all these
considerations carefully in his mind, the shrinking editor decided to
sit down under his horsewhipping in silence and resignation.
It was not a very lofty mode of action--still, it was the safest. Of
course Violet Vere would spread the story all through _her_ particular
"set"--it made him furious to think of this yet there was no help for
it. He would play the martyr, he thought--the martyr to the cause of
truth,--the injured innocent entrapped by false information--he might
possibly gain new supporters and sympathizers in this way if he played
his cards carefully. He turned to the daily paper, and saw there
chronicled the death of Sir Francis Lennox. It was true, then. Well! he
was not at all affected by it--he merely committed the dead man in the
briefest and strongest language to the very lowest of those low and
sulphurous regions over which Satan is supposed to have full sway. Not a
soul regretted Sir Francis--not even the Vere, whom he had kept and
surrounded with every luxury for five years. Only one person, a fair,
weary faced woman away in Germany shed a few tears over the lawyer's
black-bordered letter that announced his death to her--and this was the
deserted wife,--who had once loved him. Lady Winsleigh had heard the
news,--she shuddered and turned very pale when her husband gently and
almost pityingly told her of the sudden and unprepared end that had
overtaken her quondam admirer--but she said nothing. She was presiding
at the breakfast-table for the first time in many years--she looked
somewhat sad and listless, yet lovelier so than in all the usual pride
and assertive arrogance of her beauty. Lord Winsleigh read aloud the
brief account of the accident in the paper--she listened dreamily, still
mute. He watched her with yearning eyes.
"An awful death for such a man, Clara!" he said at last in a low tone.
She dared not look up--she was trembling nervously. How dreadful it was,
she thought, to be thankful that a man was dead!--to feel a relief at
his being no longer in this world! Presently her husband spoke again
more reservedly. "No doubt you are greatly shocked and grieved," he
said. "I should not have told you so suddenly--pardon me!"
"I am not grieved," she murmured unsteadily. "It sounds horrible to say
so--but I--I am afraid I am _glad_!"
"Clara!"
She rose and came tremblingly towards him. She knelt at his feet, though
he strove to prevent her,--she raised her large, dark eyes, full of dull
agony, to his.
"I've been a wicked woman, Harry," she said, with a strange, imploring
thrill of passion in her voice, "I am down--down in the dust before you!
Look at me--don't forgive me--I won't ask that--you _can't_ forgive