L. Muhlbach - "Joseph II. and His Court"

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Annie Payson Call - "As A Matter Of Course"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




'Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise,'

was due to the newness of her situation, or to her knowledge
that De Stancy had usurped Mild's part of her lover, he could
not guess. De Stancy appeared, and Somerset felt grim as he
listened to the gallant captain's salutation of the Princess,
and her response.

De S. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
Paula. Fair, I give you back again: and welcome, I have
not yet.

Somerset listened to this and to all that which followed of
the same sort, with the reflection that, after all, the
Princess never throughout the piece compromised her dignity by
showing her love for the King; and that the latter never
addressed her in words in which passion got the better of
courtesy. Moreover, as Paula had herself observed, they did
not marry at the end of the piece, as in Shakespeare's other
comedies. Somewhat calm in this assurance, he waited on while
the other couples respectively indulged in their love-making,
and banter, including Mrs. Camperton as the sprightly
Rosaline. But he was doomed to be surprised out of his humour
when the end of the act came on. In abridging the play for
the convenience of representation, the favours or gifts from
the gentlemen to the ladies were personally presented: and
now Somerset saw De Stancy advance with the necklace fetched
by Paula from London, and clasp it on her neck.

This seemed to throw a less pleasant light on her hasty
journey. To fetch a valuable ornament to lend it to a poorer
friend was estimable; but to fetch it that the friend's
brother should have something magnificent to use as a lover's
offering to herself in public, that wore a different
complexion. And if the article were recognized by the
spectators as the same that Charlotte had worn at the ball,
the presentation by De Stancy of what must seem to be an
heirloom of his house would be read as symbolizing a union of
the families.

De Stancy's mode of presenting the necklace, though
unauthorized by Shakespeare, had the full approval of the
company, and set them in good humour to receive Major
Camperton as Armado the braggart. Nothing calculated to
stimulate jealousy occurred again till the fifth act; and then
there arose full cause for it.

The scene was the outside of the Princess's pavilion. De
Stancy, as the King of Navarre, stood with his group of
attendants awaiting the Princess, who presently entered from
her door. The two began to converse as the play appointed, De
Stancy turning to her with this reply--

'Rebuke me not for that which you provoke;
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.'

So far all was well; and Paula opened her lips for the set
rejoinder. But before she had spoken De Stancy continued--

'If I profane with my unworthy hand
(Taking her hand)
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this--
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.'

Somerset stared. Surely in this comedy the King never
addressed the Princess in such warm words; and yet they were
Shakespeare's, for they were quite familiar to him. A dim
suspicion crossed his mind. Mrs. Goodman had brought a copy
of Shakespeare with her, which she kept in her lap and never
looked at: borrowing it, Somerset turned to 'Romeo and
Juliet,' and there he saw the words which De Stancy had
introduced as gag, to intensify the mild love-making of the
other play. Meanwhile De Stancy continued--

'O then, dear Saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg'd!'

Could it be that De Stancy was going to do what came next in
the stage direction--kiss her? Before there was time for
conjecture on that point the sound of a very sweet and long-
drawn osculation spread through the room, followed by loud
applause from the people in the cheap seats. De Stancy
withdrew from bending over Paula, and she was very red in the
face. Nothing seemed clearer than that he had actually done
the deed. The applause continuing, Somerset turned his head.
Five hundred faces had regarded the act, without a
consciousness that it was an interpolation; and four hundred
and fifty mouths in those faces were smiling. About one half
of them were tender smiles; these came from the women. The
other half were at best humorous, and mainly satirical; these
came from the men. It was a profanation without parallel, and
his face blazed like a coal.

The play was now nearly at an end, and Somerset sat on,
feeling what he could not express. More than ever was he
assured that there had been collusion between the two
artillery officers to bring about this end. That he should
have been the unhappy man to design those picturesque dresses
in which his rival so audaciously played the lover to his,
Somerset's, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He
could hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a
consenting party to this startling interlude; but her
otherwise unaccountable wish that his own love should be
clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her
sincerity. The ghastly thought that she had merely been
keeping him on, like a pet spaniel, to amuse her leisure
moments till she should have found appropriate opportunity for
an open engagement with some one else, trusting to his sense
of chivalry to keep secret their little episode, filled him
with a grim heat.



IX.

At the back of the room the applause had been loud at the
moment of the kiss, real or counterfeit. The cause was partly
owing to an exceptional circumstance which had occurred in
that quarter early in the play.

The people had all seated themselves, and the first act had
begun, when the tapestry that screened the door was lifted
gently and a figure appeared in the opening. The general
attention was at this moment absorbed by the newly disclosed
stage, and scarcely a soul noticed the stranger. Had any one
of the audience turned his head, there would have been
sufficient in the countenance to detain his gaze,
notwithstanding the counter-attraction forward.

He was obviously a man who had come from afar. There was not
a square inch about him that had anything to do with modern
English life. His visage, which was of the colour of light
porphyry, had little of its original surface left; it was a
face which had been the plaything of strange fires or
pestilences, that had moulded to whatever shape they chose his
originally supple skin, and left it pitted, puckered, and
seamed like a dried water-course. But though dire
catastrophes or the treacherous airs of remote climates had
done their worst upon his exterior, they seemed to have
affected him but little within, to judge from a certain
robustness which showed itself in his manner of standing.

The face-marks had a meaning, for any one who could read them,
beyond the mere suggestion of their origin: they signified
that this man had either been the victim of some terrible
necessity as regarded the occupation to which he had devoted
himself, or that he was a man of dogged obstinacy, from sheer
sang froid holding his ground amid malign forces when others
would have fled affrighted away.

As nobody noticed him, he dropped the door hangings after a
while, walked silently along the matted alley, and sat down in
one of the back chairs. His manner of entry was enough to
show that the strength of character which he seemed to possess
had phlegm for its base and not ardour. One might have said
that perhaps the shocks he had passed through had taken all
his original warmth out of him. His beaver hat, which he had
retained on his head till this moment, he now placed under the
seat, where he sat absolutely motionless till the end of the
first act, as if he were indulging in a monologue which did
not quite reach his lips.

When Paula entered at the beginning of the second act he
showed as much excitement as was expressed by a slight
movement of the eyes. When she spoke he turned to his next
neighbour, and asked him in cold level words which had once
been English, but which seemed to have lost the accent of
nationality: 'Is that the young woman who is the possessor of
this castle--Power by name?'

His neighbour happened to be the landlord at Sleeping-Green,
and he informed the stranger that she was what he supposed.

'And who is that gentleman whose line of business seems to be
to make love to Power?'

'He's Captain De Stancy, Sir William De Stancy's son, who used
to own this property.'

'Baronet or knight?'

'Baronet--a very old-established family about here.'

The stranger nodded, and the play went on, no further word
being spoken till the fourth act was reached, when the
stranger again said, without taking his narrow black eyes from
the stage: 'There's something in that love-making between
Stancy and Power that's not all sham!'

'Well,' said the landlord, 'I have heard different stories
about that, and wouldn't be the man to zay what I couldn't
swear to. The story is that Captain De Stancy, who is as poor
as a gallicrow, is in full cry a'ter her, and that his on'y
chance lies in his being heir to a title and the wold name.
But she has not shown a genuine hanker for anybody yet.'

'If she finds the money, and this Stancy finds the name and
blood, 'twould be a very neat match between 'em,--hey?'

'That's the argument.'

Nothing more was said again for a long time, but the
stranger's eyes showed more interest in the passes between
Paula and De Stancy than they had shown before. At length the
crisis came, as described in the last chapter, De Stancy
saluting her with that semblance of a kiss which gave such
umbrage to Somerset. The stranger's thin lips lengthened a
couple of inches with satisfaction; he put his hand into his
pocket, drew out two half-crowns which he handed to the
landlord, saying, 'Just applaud that, will you, and get your
comrades to do the same.'

The landlord, though a little surprised, took the money, and
began to clap his hands as desired. The example was
contagious, and spread all over the room; for the audience,
gentle and simple, though they might not have followed the
blank verse in all its bearings, could at least appreciate a
kiss. It was the unusual acclamation raised by this means
which had led Somerset to turn his head.

When the play had ended the stranger was the first to rise,
and going downstairs at the head of the crowd he passed out of
doors, and was lost to view. Some questions were asked by the
landlord as to the stranger's individuality; but few had seen
him; fewer had noticed him, singular as he was; and none knew
his name.

While these things had been going on in the quarter allotted
to the commonalty, Somerset in front had waited the fall of
the curtain with those sick and sorry feelings which should be
combated by the aid of philosophy and a good conscience, but
which really are only subdued by time and the abrading rush of
affairs. He was, however, stoical enough, when it was all
over, to accept Mrs. Goodman's invitation to accompany her to
the drawing-room, fully expecting to find there a large
company, including Captain De Stancy.

But none of the acting ladies and gentlemen had emerged from
their dressing-rooms as yet. Feeling that he did not care to
meet any of them that night, he bade farewell to Mrs. Goodman
after a few minutes of conversation, and left her. While he
was passing along the corridor, at the side of the gallery
which had been used as the theatre, Paula crossed it from the
latter apartment towards an opposite door. She was still in
the dress of the Princess, and the diamond and pearl necklace
still hung over her bosom as placed there by Captain De
Stancy.

Her eye caught Somerset's, and she stopped. Probably there
was something in his face which told his mind, for she invited
him by a smile into the room she was entering.

'I congratulate you on your performance,' he said
mechanically, when she pushed to the door.

'Do you really think it was well done?' She drew near him
with a sociable air.

'It was startlingly done--the part from "Romeo and Juliet"
pre-eminently so.'

'Do you think I knew he was going to introduce it, or do you
think I didn't know?' she said, with that gentle sauciness
which shows itself in the loved one's manner when she has had
a triumphant evening without the lover's assistance.

'I think you may have known.'

'No,' she averred, decisively shaking her head. 'It took me
as much by surprise as it probably did you. But why should I
have told!'

Without answering that question Somerset went on. 'Then what
he did at the end of his gag was of course a surprise also.'

'He didn't really do what he seemed to do,' she serenely
answered.

'Well, I have no right to make observations--your actions are
not subject to my surveillance; you float above my plane,'
said the young man with some bitterness. 'But to speak
plainly, surely he--kissed you?'

'No,' she said. 'He only kissed the air in front of me--ever
so far off.'

'Was it six inches off?'

'No, not six inches.'

'Nor three.'

'It was quite one,' she said with an ingenuous air.

'I don't call that very far.'

'A miss is as good as a mile, says the time-honoured proverb;
and it is not for us modern mortals to question its truth.'

'How can you be so off-hand?' broke out Somerset. 'I love you
wildly and desperately, Paula, and you know it well!'

'I have never denied knowing it,' she said softly.

'Then why do you, with such knowledge, adopt an air of levity
at such a moment as this! You keep me at arm's-length, and
won't say whether you care for me one bit, or no. I have
owned all to you; yet never once have you owned anything to
me!'

'I have owned much. And you do me wrong if you consider that
I show levity. But even if I had not owned everything, and
you all, it is not altogether such a grievous thing.'

'You mean to say that it is not grievous, even if a man does
love a woman, and suffers all the pain of feeling he loves in
vain? Well, I say it is quite the reverse, and I have grounds
for knowing.'

'Now, don't fume so, George Somerset, but hear me. My not
owning all may not have the dreadful meaning you think, and
therefore it may not be really such a grievous thing. There
are genuine reasons for women's conduct in these matters as
well as for men's, though it is sometimes supposed to be
regulated entirely by caprice. And if I do not give way to
every feeling--I mean demonstration--it is because I don't
want to. There now, you know what that implies; and be
content'

'Very well,' said Somerset, with repressed sadness, 'I will
not expect you to say more. But you do like me a little,
Paula?'

'Now!' she said, shaking her head with symptoms of tenderness
and looking into his eyes. 'What have you just promised?
Perhaps I like you a little more than a little, which is much
too much! Yes,--Shakespeare says so, and he is always right.
Do you still doubt me? Ah, I see you do!'

'Because somebody has stood nearer to you to-night than I.'

'A fogy like him!--half as old again as either of us! How can
you mind him? What shall I do to show you that I do not for a
moment let him come between me and you?'

'It is not for me to suggest what you should do. Though what
you should permit ME to do is obvious enough.'

She dropped her voice: 'You mean, permit you to do really and
in earnest what he only seemed to do in the play.'

Somerset signified by a look that such had been his thought.

Paula was silent. 'No,' she murmured at last. 'That cannot
be. He did not, nor must you.'

It was said none the less decidedly for being spoken low.

'You quite resent such a suggestion: you have a right to. I
beg your pardon, not for speaking of it, but for thinking it.'

'I don't resent it at all, and I am not offended one bit. But
I am not the less of opinion that it is possible to be
premature in some things; and to do this just now would be
premature. I know what you would say--that you would not have
asked it, but for that unfortunate improvisation of it in the
play. But that I was not responsible for, and therefore owe
no reparation to you now. . . . Listen!'

'Paula--Paula! Where in the world are you?' was heard
resounding along the corridor in the voice of her aunt. 'Our
friends are all ready to leave, and you will surely bid them
good-night!'

'I must be gone--I won't ring for you to be shown out--come
this way.'

'But how will you get on in repeating the play tomorrow
evening if that interpolation is against your wish?' he asked,
looking her hard in the face.

'I'll think it over during the night. Come to-morrow morning
to help me settle. But,' she added, with coy yet genial
independence, 'listen to me. Not a word more about a--what
you asked for, mind! I don't want to go so far, and I will
not--not just yet anyhow--I mean perhaps never. You must
promise that, or I cannot see you again alone.'

'It shall be as you request.'

'Very well. And not a word of this to a soul. My aunt
suspects: but she is a good aunt and will say nothing. Now
that is clearly understood, I should be glad to consult with
you tomorrow early. I will come to you in the studio or
Pleasance as soon as I am disengaged.'

She took him to a little chamfered doorway in the corner,
which opened into a descending turret; and Somerset went down.
When he had unfastened the door at the bottom, and stepped
into the lower corridor, she asked, 'Are you down?' And on
receiving an affirmative reply she closed the top door.



X.

Somerset was in the studio the next morning about ten o'clock
superintending the labours of Knowles, Bowles, and Cockton,
whom he had again engaged to assist him with the drawings on
his appointment to carry out the works. When he had set them
going he ascended the staircase of the great tower for some
purpose that bore upon the forthcoming repairs of this part.
Passing the door of the telegraph-room he heard little sounds
from the instrument, which somebody was working. Only two
people in the castle, to the best of his knowledge, knew the
trick of this; Miss Power, and a page in her service called
John. Miss De Stancy could also despatch messages, but she
was at Myrtle Villa.

The door was closed, and much as he would have liked to enter,
the possibility that Paula was not the performer led him to
withhold his steps. He went on to where the uppermost masonry
had resisted the mighty hostility of the elements for five
hundred years without receiving worse dilapidation than half-
a-century produces upon the face of man. But he still
wondered who was telegraphing, and whether the message bore on
housekeeping, architecture, theatricals, or love.

Could Somerset have seen through the panels of the door in
passing, he would have beheld the room occupied by Paula
alone.

It was she who sat at the instrument, and the message she was
despatching ran as under:--

'Can you send down a competent actress, who will undertake the
part of Princess of France in "Love's Labour's Lost" this
evening in a temporary theatre here? Dresses already provided
suitable to a lady about the middle height. State price.'

The telegram was addressed to a well-known theatrical agent in
London.

Off went the message, and Paula retired into the next room,
leaving the door open between that and the one she had just
quitted. Here she busied herself with writing some letters,
till in less than an hour the telegraph instrument showed
signs of life, and she hastened back to its side. The reply
received from the agent was as follows:--

'Miss Barbara Bell of the Regent's Theatre could come. Quite
competent. Her terms would be about twenty-five guineas.'

Without a moment's pause Paula returned for answer:--

'The terms are quite satisfactory.'

Presently she heard the instrument again, and emerging from
the next room in which she had passed the intervening time as
before, she read:--

'Miss Barbara Bell's terms were accidentally understated.
They would be forty guineas, in consequence of the distance.
Am waiting at the office for a reply.'

Paula set to work as before and replied:--

'Quite satisfactory; only let her come at once.'

She did not leave the room this time, but went to an arrow-
slit hard by and gazed out at the trees till the instrument
began to speak again. Returning to it with a leisurely
manner, implying a full persuasion that the matter was
settled, she was somewhat surprised to learn that

'Miss Bell, in stating her terms, understands that she will
not be required to leave London till the middle of the
afternoon. If it is necessary for her to leave at once, ten
guineas extra would be indispensable, on account of the great
inconvenience of such a short notice.'

Paula seemed a little vexed, but not much concerned she sent
back with a readiness scarcely politic in the circumstances: -

'She must start at once. Price agreed to.'

Her impatience for the answer was mixed with curiosity as to
whether it was due to the agent or to Miss Barbara Bell that
the prices had grown like Jack's Bean-stalk in the
negotiation. Another telegram duly came:--

'Travelling expenses are expected to be paid.'

With decided impatience she dashed off:--

'Of course; but nothing more will be agreed to.'

Then, and only then, came the desired reply:--

'Miss Bell starts by the twelve o'clock train.'

This business being finished, Paula left the chamber and
descended into the inclosure called the Pleasance, a spot
grassed down like a lawn. Here stood Somerset, who, having
come down from the tower, was looking on while a man searched
for old foundations under the sod with a crowbar. He was glad
to see her at last, and noticed that she looked serene and
relieved; but could not for the moment divine the cause.
Paula came nearer, returned his salutation, and regarded the
man's operations in silence awhile till his work led him to a
distance from them.

'Do you still wish to consult me?' asked Somerset.

'About the building perhaps,' said she. 'Not about the play.'

'But you said so?'

'Yes; but it will be unnecessary.'

Somerset thought this meant skittishness, and merely bowed.

'You mistake me as usual,' she said, in a low tone. 'I am not
going to consult you on that matter, because I have done all
you could have asked for without consulting you. I take no
part in the play to-night.'

'Forgive my momentary doubt!'

'Somebody else will play for me--an actress from London. But
on no account must the substitution be known beforehand or the
performance to-night will never come off: and that I should
much regret.'

'Captain De Stancy will not play his part if he knows you will
not play yours--that's what you mean?'

'You may suppose it is,' she said, smiling. 'And to guard
against this you must help me to keep the secret by being my
confederate.'

To be Paula's confederate; to-day, indeed, time had brought
him something worth waiting for. 'In anything!' cried
Somerset.

'Only in this!' said she, with soft severity. 'And you know
what you have promised, George! And you remember there is to
be no--what we talked about! Now will you go in the one-horse
brougham to Markton Station this afternoon, and meet the four
o'clock train? Inquire for a lady for Stancy Castle--a Miss
Bell; see her safely into the carriage, and send her straight
on here. I am particularly anxious that she should not enter
the town, for I think she once came to Markton in a starring
company, and she might be recognized, and my plan be
defeated.'

Thus she instructed her lover and devoted friend; and when he
could stay no longer he left her in the garden to return to
his studio. As Somerset went in by the garden door he met a
strange-looking personage coming out by the same passage--a
stranger, with the manner of a Dutchman, the face of a
smelter, and the clothes of an inhabitant of Guiana. The
stranger, whom we have already seen sitting at the back of the
theatre the night before, looked hard from Somerset to Paula,
and from Paula again to Somerset, as he stepped out. Somerset
had an unpleasant conviction that this queer gentleman had
been standing for some time in the doorway unnoticed, quizzing
him and his mistress as they talked together. If so he might
have learnt a secret.

When he arrived upstairs, Somerset went to a window commanding
a view of the garden. Paula still stood in her place, and the
stranger was earnestly conversing with her. Soon they passed
round the corner and disappeared.

It was now time for him to see about starting for Markton, an
intelligible zest for circumventing the ardent and coercive
captain of artillery saving him from any unnecessary delay in
the journey. He was at the station ten minutes before the
train was due; and when it drew up to the platform the first
person to jump out was Captain De Stancy in sportsman's attire
and with a gun in his hand. Somerset nodded, and De Stancy
spoke, informing the architect that he had been ten miles up
the line shooting waterfowl. 'That's Miss Power's carriage, I
think,' he added.