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+{"text":" \n# THE PLAYS OF OSCAR WILDE\n\n## Oscar Wilde\n\n## CONTENTS\n\nThe Importance of Being Earnest\n\nLady Windermere's Fan\n\nA Woman of No Importance\n\nAn Ideal Husband\n\nSalom\u00e9\n\nThe Duchess of Padua\n\nVera, or the Nihilists\n\nA Florentine Tragedy\n\nLa Sainte Courtisane, or the Woman Covered with Jewels\n\nAbout the Author\n\nAbout the Series\n\nCopyright\n\nAbout the Publisher\n\n## The Importance of Being Earnest\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nJOHN WORTHING, J.P.\n\nALGERNON MONCRIEFF\n\nREV. CANON CHASUBLE, D.D.\n\nMR. GRIBSBY, Solicitor\n\nMERRIMAN, Butler\n\nLANE, Manservant\n\nMOULTON, Gardener\n\nLADY BRACKNELL\n\nHON. GWENDOLEN FAIRFAX\n\nCECILY CARDEW\n\nMISS PRISM, Governess\n\n### Act One\n\nSCENE: _Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street, London, W._ TIME: _The present. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room._\n\nLANE _is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased_ , ALGERNON _enters._\n\nALGERNON: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?\n\nLANE: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.\n\nALGERNON: I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately \u2013 any one can play accurately \u2013 but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: Ahem! Where are they?\n\nLANE: Here, sir. ( _Shows plate._ )\n\nALGERNON ( _inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa_ ): Oh!...by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.\n\nALGERNON: Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.\n\nLANE: I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.\n\nALGERNON: Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?\n\nLANE: I believe it _is_ a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.\n\nALGERNON ( _languidly_ ): I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.\n\nLANE: No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself.\n\nALGERNON: Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you.\n\nLANE: Thank you, sir (LANE _moves to go out._ )\n\nALGERNON: Ah!...just give me another cucumber sandwich.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir. ( _Returns and hands plate._ )\n\nLANE _goes out._\n\nALGERNON: Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.\n\n_Enter_ LANE.\n\nLANE: Mr. Ernest Worthing.\n\n_Enter_ JACK. LANE _goes out._\n\nALGERNON: How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?\n\nJACK: Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy!\n\nALGERNON ( _stiffly_ ): I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?\n\nJACK ( _sitting down on the sofa_ ): Oh! in the country.\n\nALGERNON: What on earth do you do there?\n\nJACK ( _pulling off his gloves_ ): When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.\n\nALGERNON: And who are the people you amuse?\n\nJACK: ( _airily_ ): Oh, neighbours, neighbours.\n\nALGERNON: Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?\n\nJACK: Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.\n\nALGERNON: How immensely you must amuse them! ( _Goes over and takes a sandwich._ ) By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?\n\nJACK: Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea?\n\nALGERNON: Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.\n\nJACK: How perfectly delightful!\n\nALGERNON: Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won't quite approve of your being here.\n\nJACK: May 1 ask why?\n\nALGERNON: My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.\n\nJACK: I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.\n\nALGERNON: I thought you had come up for pleasure?...I call that business.\n\nJACK: How utterly unromantic you are!\n\nALGERNON: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.\n\nJACK: I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in heaven \u2013 (JACK _puts out his hand to take a sandwich._ ALGERNON _at once interferes._ ) Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. ( _Takes one and eats it._ )\n\nJACK: Well, you have been eating them all the time.\n\nALGERNON: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. ( _Takes plate from below._ ) Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.\n\nJACK: ( _advancing to table and helping himself_ ): And very good bread and butter it is too.\n\nALGERNON: Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be.\n\nJACK: Why on earth do you say that?\n\nALGERNON: Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.\n\nJACK: Oh, that is nonsense!\n\nALGERNON: It isn't. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don't give my consent.\n\nJACK: Your consent! What utter nonsense you talk!\n\nALGERNON: My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily.\n\nJACK: Cecily! What on earth do you mean? (ALGERNON _goes to the bell and rings it. Then returns to tea-table and eats another sandwich._ ) What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily! I don't know any one of the name of Cecily...as far as I remember.\n\n_Enter_ LANE.\n\nALGERNON: Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nLANE _goes out._\n\nJACK: Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up.\n\nJACK: There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found.\n\n_Enter_ LANE _with the cigarette case on a salver._ ALGERNON _takes it at once._ LANE _goes out._\n\nALGERNON: I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. ( _Opens case and examines it._ ) However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn't yours after all.\n\nJACK: Of course it's mine. ( _Moving to him._ ) You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. One should read everything. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.\n\nJACK: I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss modern culture. It isn't the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back.\n\nALGERNON: Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from some one of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't know any one of that name.\n\nJACK: Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt.\n\nALGERNON: Your aunt!\n\nJACK: Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy.\n\nALGERNON ( _retreating to back of sofa_ ): But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? ( _Reading._ ) 'From little Cecily with her fondest love.'\n\nJACK ( _moving to sofa and kneeling upon it_ ): My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. ( _Follows_ ALGERNON _round the room._ )\n\nALGERNON: Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 'From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.' There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is Ernest.\n\nJACK: It isn't Ernest; it's Jack.\n\nALGERNON: You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. ( _Taking it from case._ ) 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B.4, The Albany, W.' I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else. ( _Puts the card in his pocket._ )\n\nJACK: Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.\n\nALGERNON: Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear Uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.\n\nJACK: My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression.\n\nALGERNON: Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.\n\nJACK: Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?\n\nALGERNON: I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country.\n\nJACK: Well, produce my cigarette case first.\n\nALGERNON: Here it is. ( _Hands cigarette case._ ) Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. ( _Sits on sofa._ )\n\nJACK: My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact, it's perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, under rather peculiar circumstances, and left me all the money I possess, made me in his will guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.\n\nALGERNON: Where is that place in the country, by the way?\n\nJACK: That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited...I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.\n\nALGERNON: I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?\n\nJACK: My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It's one's duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness if carried to excess, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.\n\nALGERNON: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!\n\nJACK: That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.\n\nALGERNON: Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.\n\nJACK: What on earth do you mean?\n\nALGERNON: You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.\n\nJACK: What nonsense.\n\nALGERNON: It isn't nonsense. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at the Savoy to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.\n\nJACK: I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.\n\nALGERNON: I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.\n\nJACK: Well, I can't dine at the Savoy. I owe them about \u00a3700. They are always getting judgments and things against me. They bother my life out.\n\nALGERNON: Why on earth don't you pay them? You have got heaps of money.\n\nJACK: Yes, but Ernest hasn't, and I must keep up Ernest's reputation. Ernest is one of those chaps who never pays a bill. He gets writted about once a week.\n\nALGERNON: Well, let us dine at Willis's.\n\nJACK: You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.\n\nALGERNON: I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent...and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.\n\nJACK: I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. She is always asking me to forgive him, and that sort of thing. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr....with your invalid friend who has the absurd name.\n\nALGERNON: Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.\n\nJACK: That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.\n\nALGERNON: Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.\n\nJACK ( _sententiously_ ): That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.\n\nALGERNON: Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.\n\nJACK: For heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy to be cynical.\n\nALGERNON: My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about. ( _The sound of an electric bell is heard._ ) Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner. Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so that you can have an opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine with you to-night at Willis's?\n\nJACK: I suppose so, if you want to.\n\nALGERNON: Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.\n\n_Enter_ LANE.\n\nLANE: Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.\n\nALGERNON _goes forward to meet them. Enter_ LADY BRACKNELL _and_ GWENDOLEN.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Good-afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.\n\nALGERNON: I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. ( _Sees_ JACK _and bows to him with icy coldness._ )\n\nALGERNON ( _to_ GWENDOLEN): Dear me, you are smart!\n\nGWENDOLEN: I am always smart! Am I not, Mr. Worthing?\n\nJACK: You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions. (GWENDOLEN _and_ JACK _sit down together in the corner._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.\n\nALGERNON: Certainly, Aunt Augusta. ( _Goes over to tea-table._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Thanks, mamma, I'm quite comfortable where I am.\n\nALGERNON ( _picking up empty plate in horror_ ): Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.\n\nLANE ( _gravely_ ): There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.\n\nALGERNON: No cucumbers!\n\nLANE: No, sir. Not even for ready money.\n\nALGERNON: That will do, Lane, thank you.\n\nLANE: Thank you, sir. ( _Goes out._ )\n\nALGERNON: I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.\n\nALGERNON: I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: It certainly has changed its colour. From what cause I, of course, cannot say. (ALGERNON _crosses and hands tea._ ) Thank you. I've quite a treat for you to-night, Algernon. I am going to send you down with Mary Farquhar. She is such a nice woman, and so attentive to her husband. It's delightful to watch them.\n\nALGERNON: I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you to-night after all.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: ( _frowning_ ): I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that.\n\nALGERNON: It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment to me, but the fact is I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. ( _Exchanges glances with_ JACK.) They seem to think I should be with him.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: It is very strange. This Mr. Bunbury seems to suffer from curiously bad health.\n\nALGERNON: Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice...as far as any improvement in his ailments goes. Well, Algernon, of course if you are obliged to be beside the bedside of Mr. Bunbury, I have nothing more to say. But I would be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.\n\nALGERNON: I'll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you he'll be all right by Saturday. Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk. But I'll run over the programme I've drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a moment.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Thank you, Algernon. It is very thoughtful of you. ( _Rising and following_ ALGERNON.) I'm sure the programme will be delightful, after a few expurgations. French songs I cannot possibly allow. People always seem to think that they are improper, and either look shocked, which is vulgar, or laugh, which is worse. But German sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe is so. Gwendolen, you will accompany me.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Certainly, mamma.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL _and_ ALGERNON _go into the music-room_ , GWENDOLEN _remains behind._\n\nJACK: Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.\n\nJACK: I do mean something else.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.\n\nJACK: And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell's temporary absence...\n\nGWENDOLEN: I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.\n\nJACK _nervously_ : Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl...I have ever met since...I met you.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. (JACK _looks at her in amazement._ ) We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has now reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you. The name, fortunately for my peace of mind, is, as far as my own experience goes, extremely rare.\n\nJACK: You really love me, Gwendolen?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Passionately!\n\nJACK: Darling! You don't know how happy you've made me.\n\nGWENDOLEN: My own Ernest! ( _They embrace._ )\n\nJACK: But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest?\n\nGWENDOLEN: But your name is Ernest.\n\nJACK: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?\n\nGWENDOLEN: ( _glibly_ ): Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.\n\nJACK: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don't much care about the name of Ernest...I don't think the name suits me at all.\n\nGWENDOLEN: It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.\n\nJACK: Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Jack?...No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations...I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would have a very tedious life with him. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.\n\nJACK: Gwendolen, I must get christened at once \u2013 I mean we must get married at once. There is no time to be lost.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Married, Mr. Worthing?\n\nJACK: ( _astounded_ ): Well...surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I adore you. But you haven't proposed to me yet. Nothing has been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on.\n\nJACK: Well...may I propose to you now?\n\nGWENDOLEN: I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you.\n\nJACK: Gwendolen!\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me?\n\nJACK: You know what I have got to say to you.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, but you don't say it.\n\nJACK: Gwendolen, will you marry me? ( _Goes on his knees._ )\n\nGWENDOLEN: Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.\n\nJACK: My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! They are quite, quite blue. I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when there are other people present.\n\n_Enter_ LADY BRACKNELL.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Mamma! ( _He tries to rise; she restrains him._ ) I must beg you to retire. This is no place for you. Besides, Mr. Worthing has not quite finished yet.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Finished what, may I ask?\n\nGWENDOLEN: I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma. ( _They rise together._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself...And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing!\n\nJACK: I shall be charmed to reply to any questions, Lady Bracknell.\n\nGWENDOLEN: You mean if you know the answers to them. Mamma's questions are sometimes peculiarly inquisitorial.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I intend to make them very inquisitorial. And while I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _reproachfully_ ): Mamma!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: In the carriage, Gwendolen!\n\nGWENDOLEN _goes to the door. She and_ JACK _blow kisses to each other behind_ LADY BRACKNELL'S _back._ LADY BRACKNELL _looks vaguely about as if she could not understand what the noise was. Finally turns round._\n\nGwendolen, the carriage!\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, mamma. ( _goes out, looking back at_ JACK.)\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _sitting down_ ): You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing.\n\n_Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil._\n\nJACK: Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _pencil and note-book in hand_ ): I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?\n\nJACK: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?\n\nJACK: Twenty-nine.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?\n\nJACK: ( _after some hesitation_ ): I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income?\n\nJACK: Between seven and eight thousand a year.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: ( _makes a note in her book_ ): In land, or in investments?\n\nJACK: In investments, chiefly.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.\n\nJACK: I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I don't depend on that for my real income. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the only people who make anything out of it.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point can be cleared up afterwards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country.\n\nJACK: Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham. Of course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six months' notice.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Lady Bloxham? I don't know her.\n\nJACK: Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in years.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What number in Belgrave Square?\n\nJACK: 149.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: ( _shaking her head_ ): The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could easily be altered.\n\nJACK: Do you mean the fashion, or the side?\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: ( _sternly_ ): Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your politics?\n\nJACK: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening at any rate. You have, of course, no sympathy of any kind with the Radical Party?\n\nJACK: Oh! I don't want to put the asses against the classes, if that is what you mean, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That is exactly what I do mean...ahem!...Are your parents living?\n\nJACK: I have lost both my parents.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Both?...To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune...to lose both seems like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?\n\nJACK: I am afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me...I don't actually know who I am by birth. I was...\n\nwell, I was found.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Found!\n\nJACK: The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?\n\nJACK: ( _gravely_ ): In a hand-bag.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: A hand-bag?\n\nJACK: ( _very seriously_ ): Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag \u2013 a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it \u2013 an ordinary hand-bag in fact.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?\n\nJACK: In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: The cloak-room at Victoria Station?\n\nJACK: Yes. The Brighton line.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion \u2013 has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now \u2013 but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.\n\nJACK: May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.\n\nJACK: Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter \u2013 a girl brought up with the utmost care \u2013 to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel. (JACK _starts indignantly._ ) Kindly open the door for me sir. You will of course understand that for the future there is to be no communication of any kind between you and Miss Fairfax.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL _sweeps out in majestic indignation._ ALGERNON, _from the other room, strikes up the Wedding March._ JACK _looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door._\n\nJACK: For goodness' sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy! How idiotic you are!\n\n_The music stops and_ ALGERNON _enters cheerily._\n\nALGERNON: Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.\n\nJACK: Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon...I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair...I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before you.\n\nALGERNON: My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.\n\nJACK: Ah! I haven't got any relations. Don't know anything about relations.\n\nALGERNON: You are a lucky fellow. Relations never lend one any money, and won't give one credit, even for genius. They are a sort of aggravated form of the public.\n\nJACK: And after all, what does it matter whether a man ever had a father and mother or not? Mothers, of course, are all right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills. I don't know a single chap at the club who speaks to his father.\n\nALGERNON: Yes! Fathers are certainly not popular just at present.\n\n( _Takes up the evening newspaper._ )\n\nJACK: Popular! I bet you anything you like that there is not a single chap, of all the chaps that you and I know, who would be seen walking down St. James' Street with his own father. ( _Apause._ ) Anything in the papers?\n\nALGERNON: ( _still reading._ ) Nothing.\n\nJACK: What a comfort.\n\nALGERNON: There is never anything in the papers, as far as I can see.\n\nJACK: I think there is usually a great deal too much in them. They are always bothering one about people one doesn't know, one has never met, and one doesn't care twopence about. Brutes!\n\nALGERNON: I think people one hasn't met are charming. I'm very much interested at present in a girl I have never met; very much interested indeed.\n\nJACK: Oh, that is nonsense!\n\nALGERNON: It isn't!\n\nJACK: Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.\n\nALGERNON: That is exactly what things were originally made for.\n\nJACK: Upon my word, if I thought that, I'd shoot myself...( _A pause._ ) You don't think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?\n\nALGERNON: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.\n\nJACK: Is that clever?\n\nALGERNON: It is perfectly phrased! And quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.\n\nJACK: I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.\n\nALGERNON: We have.\n\nJACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?\n\nALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course.\n\nJACK: What fools.\n\nALGERNON: By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?\n\nJACK ( _in a very patronising manner_ ): My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of think one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!\n\nALGERNON: The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.\n\nJACK: Oh, that is nonsense.\n\nALGERNON: What about the young lady whose guardian you are! Miss Cardew? What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?\n\nJACK: Oh! Cecily is all right. Before the end of the week I shall have got rid of my brother...I think I'll probably kill him in Paris.\n\nALGERNON: Why Paris?\n\nJACK: Oh! Less trouble: no nonsense about a funeral and that sort of thing \u2013 yes, I'll kill him in Paris...Apoplexy will do perfectly well. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don't they?\n\nALGERNON: Yes, but it's hereditary, my dear fellow. It's a sort of thing that runs in families.\n\nJACK: Good heavens! Then I certainly won't choose that. What can I say?\n\nALGERNON: Oh! Say influenza.\n\nJACK: Oh, no! that wouldn't sound probable at all. Far too many people have had it.\n\nALGERNON: Oh well! Say anything you choose. Say a severe chill. That's all right.\n\nJACK: You are sure a severe chill isn't hereditary, or anything dreadful of that kind?\n\nALGERNON: Of course it isn't.\n\nJACK: Very well then. That is settled.\n\nALGERNON: But I thought you said that...Miss Cardew was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won't she feel his loss a good deal?\n\nJACK: Oh! that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.\n\nALGERNON: I would rather like to see Cecily.\n\nJACK: I will take very good care you never do. And you are not to speak of her as Cecily.\n\nALGERNON: Ah! I believe she is plain. Yes: I know perfectly well what she is like. She is one of those dull, intellectual girls one meets all over the place. Girls who have got large minds and large feet. I am sure she is more than usually plain, and I expect she is about thirty-nine, and looks it.\n\nJACK: She happens to be excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.\n\nALGERNON: Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only eighteen?\n\nJACK: Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Life is a question of tact. One leads up to the thing gradually. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.\n\nALGERNON: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis's, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?\n\nJACK: ( _irritably_ ): Oh! it always is nearly seven.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I'm hungry.\n\nJACK: I never knew you when you weren't...However, all right. I'll go round to the Albany and meet you at Willis's at eight. You can call for me on your way, if you like.\n\nALGERNON: What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre?\n\nJACK: Oh, no! I loathe listening.\n\nALGERNON: Well, let us go to the Club?\n\nJACK: Oh, no! I hate talking.\n\nALGERNON: Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?\n\nJACK: Oh, no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly.\n\nALGERNON: Well, what shall we do?\n\nJACK: Nothing!\n\nALGERNON: It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind...\n\n_Enter_ Lane.\n\nLANE: Miss Fairfax.\n\n_Enter_ GWENDOLEN. LANE _goes out._\n\nALGERNON: Gwendolen, upon my word!\n\nGWENDOLEN: Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing. As it is somewhat of a private matter, you will of course listen.\n\nALGERNON: Really, Gwendolen, I don't think I can allow this at all.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. (ALGERNON _retires to the fireplace._ )\n\nJACK: My own darling.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on mamma's face I fear we never shall. Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife, and I may marry some one else, and marry often, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you.\n\nJACK: Dear Gwendolen!\n\nGWENDOLEN: The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me. Your town address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the country?\n\nJACK: The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire.\n\nALGERNON, _who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide._\n\nGWENDOLEN: There is a good postal service, I suppose? It may be necessary to do something desperate. That, of course, will require serious consideration. I will communicate with you daily.\n\nJACK: My own one!\n\nGWENDOLEN: How long do you remain in town?\n\nJACK: Till Monday.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Good! Algy, you may turn round now.\n\nALGERNON: Thanks, I've turned round already.\n\nGWENDOLEN: You may also ring the bell.\n\nJACK: You will let me see you to your carriage, my own darling?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Certainly.\n\nJACK: ( _to_ LANE, _who now enters_ ): I will see Miss Fairfax out.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nJACK _and_ GWENDOLEN _go off._\n\nLANE _presents several letters on a salver to_ ALGERNON. _It is to be surmised that they are bills, as_ ALGERNON, _after looking at the envelopes, tears them up._\n\nALGERNON: A glass of sherry, Lane.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: To-morrow, Lane, I'm going Bunburying.\n\nLANE: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: I shall probably not be back till Monday. You can put up my dress clothes, my smoking jacket, and all the Bunbury suits...\n\nLANE: Yes, sir. ( _Handing sherry._ )\n\nALGERNON: I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane.\n\nLANE: It never is, sir.\n\nALGERNON: Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.\n\nLANE: I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.\n\n_Enter_ JACK. LANE _goes off._\n\nJACK: There's a sensible, intellectual girl! the only girl I ever cared for in my life. (ALGERNON _is laughing immoderately._ ) What on earth are you so amused at?\n\nALGERNON: Oh, I'm a little anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all.\n\nJACK: If you don't take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a serious scrape some day.\n\nALGERNON: I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.\n\nJACK: Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.\n\nALGERNON: Nobody ever does.\n\nJACK _looks indignantly at him and leaves the room._ ALGERNON _lights a cigarette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _Garden at the Manor House, Woolton. A flight of grey stone steps leads up to the house. The garden, an old-fashioned one, full of roses. Time of year, July. Basket chairs, and a table covered with books, are set under a large yew-tree._\n\nMISS PRISM _discovered seated at the table._ CECILY _is at the back watering flowers._\n\nMISS PRISM ( _calling_ ): Cecily, Cecily! Surely such a utilitarian occupation as the watering of flowers is rather Moulton's duty than yours? Especially at a moment when intellectual pleasures await you. Your German grammar is on the table. Pray open it at page fifteen. We will repeat yesterday's lesson.\n\nCECILY: Oh! I wish you would give Moulton the German lesson instead of me. Moulton!\n\nMOULTON: ( _looking out from behind a hedge, with a broad grin on his face_ ): Eh, Miss Cecily?\n\nCECILY: Wouldn't you like to know German, Moulton? German is the language talked by people who live in Germany.\n\nMOULTON ( _shaking his head_ ): I don't hold with them furrin tongues, miss. ( _Bowing to_ MISS PRISM.) No offence to you, ma'am. ( _Disappears behind hedge._ )\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily, this will never do. Pray open your Schiller at once.\n\nCECILY ( _coming over very slowly_ ): But I don't like German. It isn't at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.\n\nMISS PRISM: Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should improve yourself in every way. He laid particular stress on your German, as he was leaving for town yesterday. Indeed, he always lays stress on your German when he is leaving for town.\n\nCECILY: Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious! Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well.\n\nMISS PRISM: ( _drawing herself up_ ): Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commended in one so comparatively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and responsibility.\n\nCECILY: I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we three are together.\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily! I am surprised at you. Mr. Worthing has many troubles in his life. Idle merriment and triviality would be out of place in his conversation. You must remember his constant anxiety about that unfortunate young man his brother.\n\nCECILY: I wish Uncle Jack would allow that unfortunate young man, his brother, to come down here sometimes. We might have a good influence over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you certainly would. You know German, and geology, and things of that kind influence a man very much.\n\nCECILY _begins to write in her diary._\n\nMISS PRISM ( _shaking her head_ ): I do not think that even I could produce any effect on a character that according to his own brother's admission is irretrievably weak and vacillating. Indeed I am not sure that I would desire to reclaim him. I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice. As a man sows so let him reap.\n\nCECILY: But men don't sew, Miss Prism...And if they did, I don't see why they should be punished for it. There is a great deal too much punishment in the world. German is a punishment, certainly, and there is far too much German. You told me yourself yesterday that Germany was over-populated.\n\nMISS PRISM: That is no reason why you should be writing your diary instead of translating 'William Tell'. You must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don't see why you should keep a diary at all.\n\nCECILY: I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them.\n\nMISS PRISM: Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.\n\nCECILY: Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.\n\nMISS PRISM: Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.\n\nCECILY: Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.\n\nMISS PRISM: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.\n\nCECILY: I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel ever published?\n\nMISS PRISM: Alas! no. The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned. (CECILY _starts._ ) I use the word in the sense of lost or mislaid. To your work, child, these speculations are profitless.\n\nCECILY ( _smiling_ ): But I see Dr. Chasuble coming up through the garden.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _rising and advancing_ ): Dr. Chasuble! This is indeed a pleasure.\n\n_Enter_ CANON CHASUBLE.\n\nCHASUBLE: And how are we this morning? Miss Prism, you are, I trust, well?\n\nCECILY: Miss Prism has just been complaining of a slight headache. I think it would do her so much good to have a short stroll with you in the Park, Dr. Chasuble.\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily, I have not mentioned anything about a headache.\n\nCECILY: No, dear Miss Prism, I know that, but I felt instinctively that you had a headache. Indeed I was thinking about that, and not about my German lesson, when the Rector came in.\n\nCHASUBLE: I hope, Cecily, you are not inattentive.\n\nCECILY: Oh, I am afraid I am.\n\nCHASUBLE: That is strange. Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's pupil, I would hang upon her lips (MISS PRISM _glares._ ) I spoke metaphorically. My metaphor was drawn from bees. Ahem! Mr. Worthing, I suppose, has not returned from town yet?\n\nMISS PRISM: We do not expect him till Monday afternoon.\n\nCHASUBLE: Ah yes, he usually likes to spend his Sunday in London. He is not one of those whose sole aim is enjoyment, as, by all accounts, that unfortunate young man his brother seems to be. But I must not disturb Egeria and her pupil any longer.\n\nMISS PRISM: Egeria? My name is Laetitia, Doctor.\n\nCHASUBLE ( _homing_ ): A classical allusion merely, drawn from the Pagan authors. I shall see you both no doubt at Evensong?\n\nMISS PRISM: I think, dear Doctor, I will have a stroll with you. I find I have a headache after all, and a walk might do it good.\n\nCHASUBLE: With pleasure, Miss Prism, with pleasure. We might go as far as the schools and back.\n\nMISS PRISM: That would be delightful. Cecily, you will read your Political Economy in my absence. The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational for a young girl. Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side.\n\nCHASUBLE: Reading Political Economy, Cecily? It is wonderful how girls are educated nowadays. I suppose you know all about relations between Capital and Labour?\n\nCECILY: I am afraid I am not learned at all. All I know is about the relations between Capital and Idleness \u2013 and that is merely from observation. So I don't suppose it is true.\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily, that sounds like Socialism! And I suppose you know where Socialism leads to?\n\nCECILY: Oh, yes! That leads to Rational Dress, Miss Prism. And I suppose that when a woman is dressed rationally, she is treated rationally. She certainly deserves to be.\n\nCHASUBLE: A wilful lamb! Dear child!\n\nMISS PRISM ( _smiling_ ): A sad trouble sometimes.\n\nCHASUBLE: I envy you such tribulation.\n\n_Goes down the garden with_ MISS PRISM.\n\nCECILY ( _picks up books and throws them back on table_ ): Horrid Political Economy! Horrid Geography! Horrid, horrid German!\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN _with a card on a salver._\n\nMERRIMAN: Mr. Ernest Worthing has just driven over from the station. He has brought his luggage with him.\n\nCECILY ( _takes the card and reads it_ ): 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B.4, The Albany, W.' Uncle Jack's brother! Did you tell him Mr. Worthing was in town?\n\nMERRIMAN: Yes, Miss. He seemed very much disappointed. I mentioned that you and Miss Prism were in the garden. He said he was anxious to speak to you privately for a moment.\n\nCECILY ( _to herself_ ): I don't think Miss Prism would like my being alone with him. So I had better send for him at once, before she comes in. ( _To_ MERRIMAN.) Ask Mr. Ernest Worthing to come here. I suppose you had better talk to the housekeeper about a room for him.\n\nMERRIMAN: I have already sent his luggage up to the Blue Room, Miss: next to Mr. Worthing's own room.\n\nCECILY: Oh! That is all right.\n\nMERRIMAN _goes off._\n\nI have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like everyone else.\n\n_Enter_ ALGERNON, _very gay and debonair._\n\nHe does!\n\nALGERNON ( _raising his hat_ ): You are my little cousin Cecily, I'm sure.\n\nCECILY: You are under some strange mistake. I am not little. In fact, I believe I am more than usually tall for my age. (ALGERNON _is rather taken aback._ ) But I am your cousin Cecily. You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack's brother, my cousin Ernest, my wicked cousin Ernest.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn't think that I am wicked.\n\nCECILY: If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. You have made Uncle Jack believe that you are very bad. I hope that you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.\n\nALGERNON ( _looks at her in amazement_ ): Oh! Of course I have been rather reckless.\n\nCECILY: I am glad to hear it.\n\nALGERNON: In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.\n\nCECILY: I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.\n\nALGERNON: It is much pleasanter being here with you.\n\nCECILY: I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack telegraphed to you yesterday at the Albany that he would see you for the last time at six o'clock. He lets me read all the telegrams he sends you. I know some of them by heart.\n\nALGERNON: The fact is I didn't get the telegram till it was too late. Then I missed him at the Club, and the Hall Porter said he thought he had come down here. So, of course, I followed as I knew he wanted to see me.\n\nCECILY: He won't be back till Monday afternoon.\n\nALGERNON: That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the first train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am anxious...to miss!\n\nCECILY: Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London?\n\nALGERNON: No: the appointment is in London.\n\nCECILY: Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating.\n\nALGERNON: About my what?\n\nCECILY: Your emigrating. He has gone up to buy your outfit.\n\nALGERNON: I certainly wouldn't let Jack buy my outfit. He has no taste in neckties at all.\n\nCECILY: I don't think you will require neckties. Uncle Jack is sending you to Australia.\n\nALGERNON: Australia! I'd sooner die.\n\nCECILY: Well, he said at dinner on Wednesday night, that you would have to choose between this world, the next world, and Australia.\n\nALGERNON: Oh, well! The accounts I have received of Australia and the next world, are not particularly encouraging. This world is good enough for me, cousin Cecily.\n\nCECILY: Yes, but are you good enough for it?\n\nALGERNON: I'm afraid I'm not that. That is why I want you to reform me. You might make that your mission, if you don't mind, cousin Cecily.\n\nCECILY: How dare you suggest that I have a mission?\n\nALGERNON: I beg your pardon: but I thought that every woman had a mission of some kind, nowadays.\n\nCECILY: Every female has! No woman. Besides, I have no time to reform you this afternoon.\n\nALGERNON: Well, would you mind my reforming myself this afternoon?\n\nCECILY: It is rather Quixotic of you. But I think you should try.\n\nALGERNON: I will. I feel better already.\n\nCECILY: You are looking a little worse.\n\nALGERNON: That is because I am hungry.\n\nCECILY: How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals. Miss Prism and I lunch at two, off some roast mutton.\n\nALGERNON: I fear that would be too rich for me.\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack, whose health has been sadly undermined by the late hours you keep in town, has been ordered by his London doctor to have pate de foie gras sandwiches and 1889 champagne at twelve. I don't know if such invalid fare would suit you.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! I will be quite content with '89 champagne.\n\nCECILY: I am glad to see you have such simple tastes. This is the dining-room.\n\nALGERNON: Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole first? I never have any appetite unless I have a buttonhole first.\n\nCECILY: A Mar\u00e9chal Niel? ( _Picks up scissors._ )\n\nALGERNON: No, I'd sooner have a pink rose.\n\nCECILY: Why? ( _Cuts a flower._ )\n\nALGERNON: Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily.\n\nCECILY: I don't think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. Miss Prism never says such things to me.\n\nALGERNON: Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady. (CECILY _puts the rose in his buttonhole._ ) You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.\n\nCECILY: Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.\n\nALGERNON: They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.\n\nCECILY: Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.\n\n_They pass into the house._ MISS PRISM _and_ DR. CHASUBLE _return._\n\nMISS PRISM: You are too much alone, dear Dr. Chasuble. You should get married. A misanthrope I can understand \u2013 a womanthrope, never!\n\nCHASUBLE ( _with a scholar's shudder_ ): Believe me, I do not deserve so neologistic a phrase. The precept as well as the practice of the Primitive Church was distinctly against matrimony.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _sententiously_ ): That is obviously the reason why the Primitive Church has not lasted up to the present day. And you do not seem to realise, dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful; this very celibacy leads weaker vessels astray.\n\nCHASUBLE: But is a man not equally attractive when married?\n\nMISS PRISM: No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.\n\nCHASUBLE: And often, I've been told, not even to her.\n\nMISS PRISM: That depends on the intellectual sympathies of the woman. Maturity can always be depended on. Ripeness can be trusted. Young women are green. (DR. CHASUBLE _starts._ ) I spoke horticulturally. My metaphor was drawn from fruit. But where is Cecily?\n\nCHASUBLE: Perhaps she followed us to the schools.\n\n_Enter_ JACK _slowly from the back of the garden. He is dressed in the deepest mourning, with crepe hatband and black gloves._\n\nMISS PRISM: Mr. Worthing!\n\nCHASUBLE: Mr. Worthing?\n\nMISS PRISM: This is indeed a surprise. We did not look for you till Monday afternoon.\n\nJACK ( _shakes_ MISS PRISM'S _hand in a tragic manner_ ): I have returned sooner than I expected. Dr. Chasuble, I hope you are well?\n\nCHASUBLE: Dear Mr. Worthing, I trust this garb of woe does not betoken some terrible calamity?\n\nJACK: My brother.\n\nMISS PRISM: More shameful debts and extravagance?\n\nCHASUBLE: Still leading his life of pleasure?\n\nJACK ( _shaking his head_ ): Dead!\n\nCHASUBLE: Your brother Ernest dead?\n\nJACK: Quite dead.\n\nMISS PRISM: What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it.\n\nCHASUBLE: Death is the inheritance of us all, Miss Prism. Nor should we look on it as a special judgment, but rather as a general providence. Life were incomplete without it...Mr. Worthing, I offer you my sincere condolence. You have at least the consolation of knowing that you were always the most generous and forgiving of brothers.\n\nJACK: Poor Ernest! He had many faults, but it is a sad, sad blow.\n\nCHASUBLE: Very sad indeed. Were you with him at the end?\n\nJACK: No. He died abroad; in Paris, in fact. I had a telegram last night from the manager of the Grand Hotel.\n\nCHASUBLE: Was the cause of death mentioned?\n\nJACK: A severe chill, it seems.\n\nMISS PRISM: As a man sows, so shall he reap.\n\nCHASUBLE ( _raising his hand_ ): Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity! None of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts. Will the interment take place here?\n\nJACK: No. He seems to have expressed a desire to be buried in Paris.\n\nCHASUBLE: In Paris! ( _Shakes his head._ ) I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last. You would no doubt wish me to make some slight allusion to this tragic domestic affliction next Sunday. (JACK _presses his hand convulsively._ ) My sermon on the meaning of the manna in the wilderness can be adapted to almost any occasion, joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing. ( _All sigh._ ) I have preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations, on days of humiliation and festal days. The last time I delivered it was in the Cathedral, as a charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders. The Bishop, who was present, was much struck by some of the analogies I drew.\n\nJACK: Ah! that reminds me, you mentioned christenings, I think, Dr. Chasuble? I suppose you know how to christen all right? (DR. CHASUBLE _looks astounded._ ) I mean, of course, you are continually christening, aren't you?\n\nMISS PRISM: It is, I regret to say, one of the Rector's most constant duties in this parish. I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject. But they don't seem to know what thrift is.\n\nCHASUBLE: The Church rejects no babe, Miss Prism. In every child, there is the making of a saint. But is there any particular infant in whom you are interested, Mr. Worthing? Your brother was, I believe, unmarried, was he not?\n\nJACK: Oh yes.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _bitterly_ ): People who live entirely for pleasure usually are.\n\nJACK: But it is not for any child, dear Doctor. I am very fond of children. No! the fact is, I would like to be christened myself, this afternoon, if you have nothing better to do.\n\nCHASUBLE: But surely, Mr. Worthing, you have been christened already?\n\nJACK: I don't remember anything about it.\n\nCHASUBLE: But have you any grave doubts on the subject?\n\nJACK: I have the very gravest doubts. There are circumstances, unnecessary to mention at present, connected with my birth and early life that make me think I was a good deal neglected. I certainly wasn't properly looked after, at any rate. Of course I don't know if the thing would bother you in any way, or if you think I am a little too old now.\n\nCHASUBLE: Oh! I am not by any means a bigoted Paedobaptist. The sprinkling and, indeed, the immersion of adults was a common practice of the Primitive Church.\n\nJACK: Immersion! You don't mean to say that...\n\nCHASUBLE: You need have no apprehensions. Sprinkling is all that is necessary, or indeed I think advisable. Our weather is so changeable. At what hour would you wish the ceremony performed?\n\nJACK: Oh, I might trot round about five if that would suit you.\n\nCHASUBLE: Perfectly, perfectly! In fact, I have two similar ceremonies to perform at that time. A case of twins that occurred recently in one of the outlying cottages on your own estate. Poor Jenkins the carter, a most hard-working man.\n\nJACK: Oh! I don't see much fun in being christened along with other babies. It would be childish. Would half-past five do?\n\nCHASUBLE: Admirably! Admirably! ( _Takes out watch._ ) And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.\n\nMISS PRISM: This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.\n\n_Enter_ CECILY _from the house._\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack! Oh, I am pleased to see you back. But what horrid clothes you have got on! Do go and change them.\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily!\n\nCHASUBLE: My child! my child!\n\nCECILY _goes towards_ JACK; _he kisses her brow in a melancholy manner._\n\nCECILY: What is the matter, Uncle Jack? Do look happy! You look as if you had toothache, and I have got such a surprise for you. Who do you think is in the dining-room? Your brother!\n\nJACK: Who?\n\nCECILY: Your brother Ernest. He arrived about half an hour ago.\n\nJACK: What nonsense! I haven't got a brother.\n\nCECILY: Oh, don't say that. However badly he may have behaved to you in the past he is still your brother. You couldn't be so heartless as to disown him. I'll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with him, won't you, Uncle Jack? ( _Runs back into the house._ )\n\nCHASUBLE: These are very joyful tidings. That telegram from Paris seems to have been a somewhat heartless jest by one who wished to play upon your feelings.\n\nMISS PRISM: After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden return seems to me peculiarly distressing.\n\nJACK: My brother is in the dining-room? I don't know what it all means. I think it is perfectly absurd.\n\n_Enter_ ALGERNON _and_ CECILY _hand in hand. They come slowly up to_ JACK.\n\nJACK: Good heavens! ( _Motions_ ALGERNON _away._ )\n\nALGERNON: Brother John, I have come down from town to tell you that I am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I intend to lead a better life in the future. (JACK _glares at him and does not take his hand._ )\n\nCHASUBLE: ( _to_ MISS PRISM): There is good in that young man. He seems to be sincerely repentant.\n\nMISS PRISM: These sudden conversions do not please me. They belong to Dissent. They savour of the laxity of the Nonconformist.\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack, you are not going to refuse your own brother's hand?\n\nJACK: Nothing will induce me to take his hand. I think his coming down here disgraceful. He knows perfectly well why.\n\nCHASUBLE: Young man, you have had a very narrow escape of your life. I hope it will be a warning to you. We were mourning your demise when you entered.\n\nALGERNON: Yes, I see Jack has got a new suit of clothes. They don't fit him properly. His necktie is wrong.\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack, do be nice. There is some good in everyone. Ernest has just been telling me about his poor invalid friend Mr. Bunbury whom he goes to visit so often. And surely there must be some good in one who is kind to an invalid, and leaves the pleasures of London to sit by a bed of pain.\n\nJACK: Oh! he has been talking about Bunbury has he?\n\nCECILY: Yes, he has told me all about poor Mr. Bunbury, and his terrible state of health.\n\nJACK: Bunbury! Well, I won't have him talk to you about Bunbury or about anything else. It is enough to drive one perfectly frantic.\n\nCHASUBLE: Mr. Worthing, your brother has been unexpectedly restored to you by the mysterious dispensations of providence, who seems to desire your reconciliation. And indeed it is good for brothers to dwell together in amity.\n\nALGERNON: Of course I admit that the faults were all on my side. But I must say that I think that Brother John's coldness to me is peculiarly painful. I expected a warmer welcome, especially considering it is the first time I have come here.\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack, if you don't shake hands with Ernest I will never forgive you.\n\nJACK: Never forgive me?\n\nCECILY: Never, never, never!\n\nJACK: I suppose I must then. ( _Shakes hands and glares._ ) You young scoundrel! You must get out of this place as soon as possible. I don't allow any Bunburying here.\n\nCHASUBLE: It's pleasant, is it not, to see so perfect a reconciliation? You have done a beautiful action to-day, dear child.\n\nMISS PRISM: We must not be premature in our judgments.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: I have put Mr. Ernest's things in the room next to yours, sir. I suppose that is all right?\n\nJACK: What?\n\nMERRIMAN: Mr. Ernest's luggage, sir. I have unpacked it and put it in the room next to your own.\n\nJACK: His luggage?\n\nMERRIMAN: Yes, sir. Three portmanteaus, a dressing case, two hat-boxes, and a large luncheon-basket.\n\nALGERNON: I am afraid I can't stay more than a week this time.\n\nMERRIMAN ( _to_ ALGERNON): I beg your pardon, sir, there is an elderly gentleman wishes to see you. He has just come in a cab from the station. ( _Hands card on salver._ )\n\nALGERNON: To see me?\n\nMERRIMAN: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: ( _reads card_ ): Parker and Gribsby, Solicitors. I don't know anything about them. Who are they?\n\nJACK: ( _takes card_ ): Parker and Gribsby. I wonder who they can be. I expect, Ernest, they have come about some business for your friend Bunbury. Perhaps Bunbury wants to make his will and wishes you to be executor. ( _To_ MERRIMAN.) Show the gentleman in at once.\n\nMERRIMAN: Very good, sir.\n\nMERRIMAN _goes out._\n\nJACK: I hope, Ernest, that I may rely on the statement you made to me last week when I finally settled all your bills for you. I hope you have no out-standing accounts of any kind.\n\nALGERNON: I haven't any debts at all, dear Jack. Thanks to your generosity I don't owe a penny, except for a few neckties, I believe.\n\nJACK: I am sincerely glad to hear it.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: Mr. Gribsby.\n\nMERRIMAN _goes out. Enter_ GRIBSBY.\n\nGRIBSBY ( _to_ DR. CHASUBLE): Mr. Ernest Worthing?\n\nMISS PRISM: This is Mr. Ernest Worthing.\n\nGRIBSBY: Mr. Ernest Worthing?\n\nALGERNON: Yes.\n\nGRIBSBY: Of B.4., The Albany?\n\nALGERNON: Yes, that is my address.\n\nGRIBSBY: I am very sorry, sir, but we have a writ of attachment for twenty days against you at the suit of the Savoy Hotel Co. Limited for \u00a3762 14 _s_. 2 _d._\n\nALGERNON: Against me?\n\nGRIBSBY: Yes, sir.\n\nALGERNON: What perfect nonsense! I never dine at the Savoy at my own expense. I always dine at Willis's. It is far more expensive. I don't owe a penny to the Savoy.\n\nGRIBSBY: The writ is marked as having been served on you personally at The Albany on May the 27th. Judgment was given in default against you on the fifth of June. Since then we have written to you no less than fifteen times, without receiving any reply. In the interest of our clients we had no option but to obtain an order for committal of your person.\n\nALGERNON: Committal! What on earth do you mean by committal? I haven't the smallest intention of going away. I am staying here for a week. I am staying with my brother. If you imagine I am going up to town the moment I arrive you are extremely mistaken.\n\nGRIBSBY: I am merely a solicitor myself. I do not employ personal violence of any kind. The officer of the Court, whose function it is to seize the person of the debtor, is waiting in the fly outside. He has considerable experience in these matters. That is why we always employ him. But no doubt you will prefer to pay the bill.\n\nALGERNON: Pay it? How on earth am I going to do that? You don't suppose I have got any money? How perfectly silly you are. No gentleman ever has any money.\n\nGRIBSBY: My experience is that it is usually relations who pay.\n\nALGERNON: Jack, you really must settle this bill.\n\nJACK: Kindly allow me to see the particular items, Mr. Gribsby...( _turns over immense folio_ )...\u00a3762 14 _s_. 2 _d._ since last October. I am bound to say I never saw such reckless extravagance in all my life. ( _Hands it to_ DR. CHASUBLE.)\n\nMISS PRISM: \u00a3762 for eating! There can be little good in any young man who eats so much, and so often.\n\nCHASUBLE: We are far away from Wordsworth's plain living and high thinking.\n\nJACK: Now, Dr. Chasuble, do you consider that I am in any way called upon to pay this monstrous account for my brother.\n\nCHASUBLE: I am bound to say that I do not think so. It would be encouraging his profligacy.\n\nMISS PRISM: As a man sows, so let him reap. This proposed incarceration might be most salutary. It is to be regretted that it is only for twenty days.\n\nJACK: I am quite of your opinion.\n\nALGERNON: My dear fellow, how ridiculous you are! You know perfectly well that the bill is really yours.\n\nJACK: Mine?\n\nALGERNON: Yes, you know it is.\n\nCHASUBLE: Mr. Worthing, if this is a jest, it is out of place.\n\nMISS PRISM: It is gross effrontery. Just what I expected from him.\n\nCECILY: And it is ingratitude. I didn't expect that.\n\nJACK: Never mind what he says. This is the way he always goes on. You mean now to say that you are not Ernest Worthing, residing at B.4., The Albany. I wonder, as you are at it, that you don't deny being my brother at all. Why don't you?\n\nALGERNON: Oh! I am not going to do that, my dear fellow. It would be absurd. Of course I'm your brother. And that is why you should pay this bill for me.\n\nJACK: I will tell you quite candidly that I have not the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. Dr. Chasuble, the worthy Rector of this parish, and Miss Prism, in whose admirable and sound judgment I place great reliance, are both of the opinion that incarceration would do you a great deal of good. And I think so, too.\n\nGRIBSBY ( _pulls out watch_ ): I am sorry to disturb this pleasant family meeting, but time presses. We have to be at Holloway not later than four o'clock; otherwise it is difficult to obtain admission. The rules are very strict.\n\nALGERNON: Holloway!\n\nGRIBSBY: It is at Holloway that detentions of this character take place always.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I really am not going to be imprisoned in the suburbs for having dined in the West End.\n\nGRIBSBY: The bill is for suppers, not for dinners.\n\nALGERNON: I really don't care. All I say is that I am not going to be imprisoned in the suburbs.\n\nGRIBSBY: The surroundings I admit are middle class; but the gaol itself is fashionable and well-aired; and there are ample opportunities of taking exercise at certain stated hours of the day. In the case of a medical certificate, which is always easy to obtain, the hours can be extended.\n\nALGERNON: Exercise! Good God! No gentleman ever takes exercise. You don't seem to understand what a gentleman is.\n\nGRIBSBY: I have met so many of them, sir, that I am afraid I don't. There are the most curious varieties of them. The result of cultivation, no doubt. Will you kindly come now, sir, if it will not be inconvenient to you.\n\nALGERNON ( _appealingly_ ): Jack!\n\nMISS PRISM: Pray be firm, Mr. Worthing.\n\nCHASUBLE: This is an occasion on which any weakness would be out of place. It would be a form of self-deception.\n\nJACK: I am quite firm, and I don't know what weakness or deception of any kind is.\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack! I think you have a little money of mine, haven't you? Let me pay this bill. I wouldn't like your own brother to be in prison.\n\nJACK: Oh! I couldn't possibly let you pay it, Cecily. That would be absurd.\n\nCECILY: Then you will, won't you? I think you would be sorry if you thought your own brother was shut up. Of course, I am quite disappointed with him.\n\nJACK: You won't speak to him again, Cecily, will you?\n\nCECILY: Certainly not, unless, of course, he speaks to me first. It would be very rude not to answer him.\n\nJACK: Well, I'll take care he doesn't speak to you. I'll take care he doesn't speak to anybody in this house. The man should be cut. Mr. Gribsby...\n\nGRIBSBY: Yes, sir.\n\nJACK: I'll pay this bill for my brother. It is the last bill I shall ever pay for him, too. How much is it?\n\nGRIBSBY: \u00a3762 14 _s_. 2 _d._ Ah! The cab will be five-and-ninepence extra: hired for the convenience of the client.\n\nJACK: All right.\n\nMISS PRISM: I must say that I think such generosity quite foolish.\n\nCHASUBLE ( _with a wave of the hand_ ): The heart has its wisdom as well as the head, Miss Prism.\n\nJACK: Payable to Parker and Gribsby, I suppose?\n\nGRIBSBY: Yes, sir. Kindly don't cross the cheque. Thank you. ( _To_ DR. CHASUBLE) Good day. (DR. CHASUBLE _bows coldly._ ) Good Day. (MISS PRISM _bows coldly._ ) ( _To_ ALGERNON.) I hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again.\n\nALGERNON: I sincerely hope not. What ideas you have of the sort of society a gentleman wants to mix in. No gentleman ever wants to know a solicitor who wants to imprison one in the suburbs.\n\nGRIBSBY: Quite so, quite so.\n\nALGERNON: By the way, Gribsby: Gribsby, you are not to go back to the station in that cab. That is my cab. It was taken for my convenience. You have got to walk to the station. And a very good thing, too. Solicitors don't walk nearly enough. I don't know any solicitor who takes sufficient exercise. As a rule they sit in stuffy offices all day long neglecting their business.\n\nJACK: You can take the cab, Mr. Gribsby.\n\nGRIBSBY: Thank you, sir.\n\nGRIBSBY _goes out._\n\nCECILY: The day is getting very sultry, isn't it, Dr. Chasuble?\n\nCHASUBLE: There is thunder in the air.\n\nMISS PRISM: The atmosphere requires to be cleared.\n\nCHASUBLE: Have you read 'The Times' this morning, Mr. Worthing? There is a very interesting article on the growth of religious feeling among the laity.\n\nJACK: I am keeping it for after dinner.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: Luncheon is on the table, sir.\n\nALGERNON: Ah! That is good news. I am excessively hungry.\n\nCECILY: ( _interposing_ ): But you have lunched already.\n\nJACK: Lunched already?\n\nCECILY: Yes, Uncle Jack. He had some p\u00e2t\u00e9 de foie gras sandwiches, and a small bottle of that champagne that your doctor ordered for you.\n\nJACK: My '89 champagne!\n\nCECILY: Yes. I thought you would like him to have the same one as yourself.\n\nJACK: Oh! Well, if he has lunched once, he can't be expected to lunch twice. It would be absurd.\n\nMISS PRISM: To partake of two luncheons in one day would not be liberty. It would be licence.\n\nCHASUBLE: Even the pagan philosophers condemned excess in eating. Aristotle speaks of it with severity. He uses the same terms about it as he does about usury.\n\nJACK: Doctor, will you escort the ladies into luncheon?\n\nCHASUBLE: With pleasure.\n\n_He goes into the house with_ MISS PRISM _and_ CECILY.\n\nJACK: Your Bunburying has not been a great success after all, Algy. I don't think it is a good day for Bunburying, myself.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! There are ups and downs in Bunburying, just as there are in everything else. I'd be all right if you would let me have some lunch. The main thing is that I have seen Cecily and she is a darling.\n\nJACK: You are not to talk of Miss Cardew like that. I don't like it.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It is perfectly childish to be in deep mourning for a man who is actually staying for a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque.\n\nJACK: You are certainly not staying with me for a whole week as a guest or anything else. You have got to leave...by the four-five train.\n\nALGERNON: I certainly won't leave you so long as you are in mourning. It would be most unfriendly. If I were in mourning you would stay with me, I suppose. I should think it very unkind if you didn't.\n\nJACK: Well, will you go if I change my clothes?\n\nALGERNON: Yes, if you are not too long. I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.\n\nJACK: Well, at any rate, that is better than being always over-dressed as you are.\n\nALGERNON: If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.\n\nJACK: Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town. This Bunburying, as you call it, has not been a great success for you. ( _Goes into the house._ )\n\nALGERNON: I think it has been a great success. I'm in love with Cecily, and that is everything. It is all very well, but one can't Bunbury when one is hungry. I think I'll join them at lunch. ( _Goes towards door._ )\n\n_Enter_ CECILY.\n\nCECILY: I promised Uncle Jack that I wouldn't speak to you again, unless you asked me a question. I can't understand why you don't ask me a question of some kind. I am afraid you are not quite so intellectual as I thought you were at first.\n\nALGERNON: Cecily, mayn't I come in to lunch?\n\nCECILY: I wonder you can look me in the face after your conduct.\n\nALGERNON: I love looking you in the face.\n\nCECILY: But why did you try to put your horrid bill on poor Uncle Jack? I think that was inexcusable of you.\n\nALGERNON: I know it was; but the fact is I have a most wretched memory. I quite forgot I owed the Savoy \u00a3762 14 _s_. 2 _d._\n\nCECILY: Well, I admit I am glad to hear that you have a bad memory. Good memories are not a quality that women admire much in men.\n\nALGERNON: Cecily, I am fearfully hungry.\n\nCECILY: I can't understand your being so hungry, considering all you have had to eat since last October.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! Those suppers were for poor Bunbury. Late suppers are the only things his doctor allows him to eat.\n\nCECILY: Well, I don't wonder then that Mr. Bunbury is always so ill, if he eats suppers for six or eight people every night of the week.\n\nALGERNON: That is what I always tell him. But he seems to think his doctors know best. He's perfectly silly about doctors.\n\nCECILY: Of course I don't want you to starve, so I have told the butler to send you out some lunch.\n\nALGERNON: Cecily, what a perfect angel you are! May I not see you again before I go?\n\nCECILY: Miss Prism and I will be here after lunch. I always have my afternoon noon lessons under the yew-tree.\n\nALGERNON: Can't you invent something to get Miss Prism out of the way?\n\nCECILY: Do you mean invent a falsehood?\n\nALGERNON: Oh! Not a falsehood, of course. Simply something that is not quite true, but should be.\n\nCECILY: I am afraid I couldn't possibly do that. I shouldn't know how. People never think of cultivating a young girl's imagination. It is the great defect of modern education. Of course, if you happened to mention that dear Dr. Chasuble was waiting somewhere to see Miss Prism, she would certainly go to meet him. She never likes to keep him waiting. And she has so few opportunities of doing so.\n\nALGERNON: What a capital suggestion!\n\nCECILY: I didn't suggest anything, Cousin Ernest. Nothing would induce me to deceive Miss Prism in the smallest detail. I merely pointed out that if you adopted a certain line of conduct, a certain result would follow.\n\nALGERNON: Of course. I beg your pardon, Cousin Cecily. Then I shall come here at half-past three. I have something very serious to say to you.\n\nCECILY: Serious?\n\nALGERNON: Yes: very serious.\n\nCECILY: In that case I think we had better meet in the house. I don't like talking seriously in the open air. It looks so artificial.\n\nALGERNON: Then where shall we meet?\n\n_Enter_ JACK.\n\nJACK: The dog-cart is at the door. You have got to go. Your place is by Bunbury. ( _Sees_ Cecily.) Cecily! Don't you think, Cecily, that you had better return to Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble?\n\nCECILY: Yes, Uncle Jack. Good-bye, Cousin Ernest. I am afraid I shan't see you again, as I shall be doing my lessons with Miss Prism in the drawing-room at half-past three.\n\nALGERNON: Good-bye, Cousin Cecily. You have been very kind to me.\n\nCECILY _goes out._\n\nJACK: Now look here, Algy. You have got to go, and the sooner you go the better. Bunbury is extremely ill, and your place is by his side.\n\nALGERNON: I can't go at the present moment. I must first just have my second lunch. And you will be pleased to hear that Bunbury is very much better.\n\nJACK: Well, you will have to go at three-fifty, at any rate. I ordered your things to be packed and the dog-cart to come round.\n\nACT DROP\n\n### Act Three\n\nSCENE: _The drawing-room at the Manor House._ CECILY _and_ MISS PRISM _discovered; each writing at a separate table._\n\nMISS PRISM: Cecily! (CECILY _makes no answer._ ) Cecily! You are again making entries in your diary. I think I have had occasion more than once to speak to you about that morbid habit of yours.\n\nCECILY: I am merely, as I always do, taking you for my example, Miss Prism.\n\nMISS PRISM: When one has thoroughly mastered the principles of Bimetallism one has the right to lead an introspective life. Hardly before. I must beg you to return to your Political Economy.\n\nCECILY: In one moment, dear Miss Prism. The fact is I have only chronicled the events of to-day up till two-fifteen, and it was at two-thirty that the fearful catastrophe occurred.\n\nMISS PRISM: Pardon me, Cecily, it was exactly at two-forty-five that Dr. Chasuble mentioned the very painful views held by the Primitive Church on Marriage.\n\nCECILY: I was not referring to Dr. Chasuble at all. I was alluding to the tragic exposure of poor Mr. Ernest Worthing.\n\nMISS PRISM: I highly disapprove of Mr. Ernest Worthing. He is a thoroughly bad young man.\n\nCECILY: I fear he must be. It is the only explanation I can find of his strange attractiveness.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _rising_ ): Cecily, let me entreat of you not to be led away by whatever superficial qualities this unfortunate young man may possess.\n\nCECILY: Ah! Believe me, dear Miss Prism, it is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.\n\nMISS PRISM: Child! I do not know where you get such ideas. They are certainly not to be found in any of the improving books that I have procured for you.\n\nCECILY: Are there ever any ideas in improving books? I fear not. I get my ideas...in the garden.\n\nMISS PRISM: Then you should certainly not be so much in the open air. The fact is, you have fallen lately, Cecily, into a bad habit of thinking for yourself. You should give it up. It is not quite womanly...Men don't like it.\n\n_Enter_ ALGERNON.\n\nMr. Worthing, I thought, I may say I was in hopes that you had already returned to town.\n\nALGERNON: My departure will not long be delayed. I have come to bid you good-bye, Miss Cardew. I am informed that a dog-cart has been already ordered for me. I have no option but to go back again into the cold world.\n\nCECILY: I hardly know, Mr. Worthing, what you can mean by using such an expression. The day, even for the month of July, is unusually warm.\n\nMISS PRISM: Profligacy is apt to dull the senses.\n\nALGERNON: No doubt. I am far from defending the weather. I think however that it is only my duty to mention to you, Miss Prism, that Dr. Chasuble is expecting you in the vestry.\n\nMISS PRISM: In the vestry! That sounds serious. It can hardly be for any trivial purpose that the Rector selects for an interview a place of such peculiarly solemn associations. I do not think that it would be right to keep him waiting, Cecily?\n\nCECILY: It would be very, very wrong. The vestry is, I am told, excessively damp.\n\nMISS PRISM: True! I had not thought of that, and Dr. Chasuble is sadly rheumatic. Mr. Worthing, we shall probably not meet again. You will allow me, I trust, to express a sincere hope that you will now turn over a new leaf in life.\n\nALGERNON: I have already begun an entire volume, Miss Prism.\n\nMISS PRISM: I am delighted to hear it. ( _Puts on a large unbecoming hat._ ) And do not forget that there is always hope even for the most depraved. Do not be idle, Cecily.\n\nCECILY: I have no intention of being idle. I realise only too strongly that I have a great deal of serious work before me.\n\nMISS PRISM: Ah! that is quite as it should be, dear.\n\nMISS PRISM _goes out._\n\nALGERNON: This parting, Miss Cardew, is very painful.\n\nCECILY: It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.\n\nALGERNON: Thank you.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: The dog-cart is at the door, sir.\n\nALGERNON _looks appealing at_ CECILY.\n\nCECILY: It can wait, Merriman, for five minutes.\n\nMERRIMAN: Yes, Miss.\n\n_Exit_ MERRIMAN.\n\nALGERNON: I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.\n\nCECILY: I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary. ( _Goes over to table and begins writing in diary._ )\n\nALGERNON: Do you really keep a diary? I'd give anything to look at it. May I?\n\nCECILY: Oh, no. ( _Puts her hand over it._ ) You see, it is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don't stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached 'absolute perfection'. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.\n\nALGERNON: ( _somewhat taken aback_ ): Ahem! Ahem!\n\nCECILY: Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough. ( _Writes as_ ALGERNON _speaks._ )\n\nALGERNON: ( _speaking very rapidly_ ): Miss Cardew, ever since half-past twelve this afternoon, when I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have not merely been your abject slave and servant, but, soaring upon the pinions of a possibly monstrous ambition, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly.\n\nCECILY: ( _laying down her pen_ ): Oh! please say that all over again. You speak far too fast and far too indistinctly. Kindly say it all over again.\n\nALGERNON: Miss Cardew, ever since you were half-past twelve \u2013 I mean ever since it was half-past twelve, this afternoon, when I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty...\n\nCECILY: Yes, I have got that, all right.\n\nALGERNON: ( _stammering_ ): I \u2013 I \u2013\n\nCECILY _lays down her pen and looks reproachfully at him._  \n( _Desperately._ ) I have not merely been your abject slave and servant, but, soaring on the pinions of a possibly monstrous ambition, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. ( _Takes out his watch and looks at it._ )\n\nCECILY ( _after writing for some time, looks up_ ): I have not taken down 'hopelessly'. It doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? ( _A slight pause._ )\n\nALGERNON: ( _starting back_ ): Cecily!\n\nCECILY: Is that the beginning of an entirely new paragraph? Or should it be followed by a note of admiration?\n\nALGERNON: ( _rapidly and romantically_ ): It is the beginning of an entirely new existence for me, and it shall be followed by such notes of admiration that my whole life shall be a subtle and sustained symphony of Love, Praise and Adoration combined.\n\nCECILY: Oh, I don't think that makes any sense at all. The fact is that men should never try to dictate to women. They never know how to do it, and when they do do it, they always say something particularly foolish.\n\nALGERNON: I don't care whether what I say is foolish or not. All that I know is that I love you, Cecily. I love you, I want you. I can't live without you, Cecily! You know I love you. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife? ( _Rushes over to her and puts his hand on hers._ )\n\nCECILY: ( _rising_ ): Oh, you have made me make a blot! And yours is the only real proposal I have ever had in all my life. I should like to have entered it neatly.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: The dog-cart is waiting, sir.\n\nALGERNON: Tell it to come round next week at the same hour.\n\nMERRIMAN: ( _looks at_ CECILY _who makes no sign_ ): Yes, sir. ( _Merriman retires_ )\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying on till next week, at the same hour.\n\nALGERNON: Oh! I don't care about Jack! I don't care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you. Cecily! you will marry me, won't you?\n\nCECILY: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.\n\nALGERNON: For the last three months?\n\nCECILY: Three months all but a few days. ( _Looks at diary, turns over page._ ) Yes; it will be exactly three months on Thursday.\n\nALGERNON: I didn't know.\n\nCECILY: Very few people nowadays ever realise the position in which they are placed. The age is, as Miss Prism often says, a thoughtless one.\n\nALGERNON: But how did we become engaged?\n\nCECILY: Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I dare say it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest.\n\nALGERNON: Darling! And when was the engagement actually settled?\n\nCECILY: On the 14th of February last. Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and after a long struggle with myself I accepted you one evening in the garden. The next day I bought this little ring in your name. You see I always wear it, Ernest, and though it shows that you are sadly extravagant, still I have long ago forgiven you for that. Here in this drawer are all the little presents I have given you from time to time, neatly numbered and labelled. This is the pearl necklace you gave me on my birthday. And this is the box in which I keep all your letters. ( _Opens box and produces letters tied up with blue ribbon._ )\n\nALGERNON: My letters! But my own sweet Cecily, I have never written you any letters.\n\nCECILY: You need hardly remind me of that, Ernest. I remember it only too well. I grew tired of asking the postman every morning if he had a London letter for me. My health began to give way under the strain and anxiety. So I wrote your letters for you, and had them posted to me in the village by my maid. I wrote always three times a week and sometimes oftener.\n\nALGERNON: Oh, do let me read them, Cecily.\n\nCECILY: Oh, I couldn't possibly. They would make you far too conceited. The three you wrote me after I had broken off the engagement are so beautiful and so badly spelt that even now I can hardly read them without crying a little.\n\nALGERNON: But was our engagement ever broken off?\n\nCECILY: Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the entry if you like. ( _Shows Diary._ ) 'Today I broke off my engagement with Ernest. I feel it is better to do so. The weather still continues charming.'\n\nALGERNON: But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming.\n\nCECILY: Men seem to forget very easily. I should have thought you would have remembered the violent letter you wrote to me because I danced with Lord Kelso at the county ball.\n\nALGERNON: But I did take it all back, Cecily, didn't I?\n\nCECILY: Of course you did. Otherwise I wouldn't have forgiven you or accepted this little gold bangle with the turquoise and diamond heart, that you sent me the next day. ( _Shows bangle._ )\n\nALGERNON: Did I give you this, Cecily? It's very pretty, isn't it?\n\nCECILY: Yes. You have wonderfully good taste, Ernest. I have always said that of you. It's the excuse I've always given for your leading such a bad life.\n\nALGERNON: My own one! So we have been engaged for three months, Cecily!\n\nCECILY: Yes; how the time has flown, hasn't it?\n\nALGERNON: I don't think so. I have found the days very long and very dreary without you.\n\nCECILY: You dear romantic boy...( _puts her fingers through his hair._ ) I hope your hair curls naturally. Does it?\n\nALGERNON: Yes darling, with a little help from others.\n\nCECILY: I am so glad.\n\nALGERNON: You'll never break off our engagement again, Cecily?\n\nCECILY: I don't think that I could break it off now that I have actually met you. Besides, of course, there is the question of your name.\n\nALGERNON: Yes, of course. ( _Nervously._ )\n\nCECILY: You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest.\n\nALGERNON _rises_ , CECILY _also._\n\nThere is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence. I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest.\n\nALGERNON: But, my dear child, do you mean to say you could not love me if I had some other name?\n\nCECILY: But what name?\n\nALGERNON: Oh, any name you like \u2013 Algernon \u2013 for instance...\n\nCECILY: But I don't like the name of Algernon.\n\nALGERNON: Well, my own dear, sweet, loving little darling, I really can't see why you should object to the name of Algernon. It is not at all a bad name. In fact, it is rather an aristocratic name. Half of the chaps who get into the Bankruptcy Court are called Algernon. But seriously, Cecily \u2013 ( _moving to her_ ) \u2013 if my name was Algy, couldn't you love me?\n\nCECILY: ( _rising_ ): I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention.\n\nALGERNON: Ahem! Cecily! ( _Picking up hat._ ) Your Rector here is, I suppose, thoroughly experienced in the practice of all the rites and ceremonials of the Church?\n\nCECILY: Oh, yes. Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man. He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.\n\nALGERNON: I must see him at once on a most important christening \u2013 I mean on most important business.\n\nCECILY: Oh!\n\nALGERNON: I shan't be away more than half an hour.\n\nCECILY: Considering that we have been engaged since February the 14th, and that I only met you to-day for the first time, I think it is rather hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour. Couldn't you make it twenty minutes?\n\nALGERNON: I'll be back in no time. ( _Kisses her hand and rushes out._ )\n\nCECILY: What an impetuous boy he is! I like his hair so much. I must enter his proposal in my diary.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: A Miss Fairfax has just called to see Mr. Worthing. On very important business, Miss Fairfax states.\n\nCECILY: Isn't Mr. Worthing in his library?\n\nMERRIMAN: Mr. Worthing went over in the direction of the Rectory some time ago.\n\nCECILY: Pray ask the lady to come in here; Mr. Worthing is sure to be back soon. And you can bring tea.\n\nMERRIMAN: Yes, Miss. ( _Goes out._ )\n\nCECILY: Miss Fairfax! I suppose one of the many good elderly women who are associated with Uncle Jack in some of his Philanthropic work in London. I don't quite like women who are interested in Philanthropic work. I think it is so forward of them.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: Miss Fairfax.\n\n_Enter_ GWENDOLEN. _Exit_ MERRIMAN.\n\nCECILY ( _advancing to meet her_ ): Pray let me introduce myself to you. My name is Cecily Cardew.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Cecily Cardew? ( _Moving to her and shaking hands._ ) What a very sweet name! Something tells me that we are going to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong.\n\nCECILY: How nice of you to like me so much after we have known each other such a comparatively short time. Pray sit down.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _still standing up_ ): I may call you Cecily, may I not?\n\nCECILY: With pleasure!\n\nGWENDOLEN: And you will always call me Gwendolen, won't you?\n\nCECILY: If you wish.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Then that is all quite settled, is it not?\n\nCECILY: I hope so.\n\n_A pause. They both sit down together._\n\nGWENDOLEN: Perhaps this might be a favourable opportunity for my mentioning who I am. My father is Lord Bracknell. You have never heard of papa, I suppose?\n\nCECILY: I don't think so.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And, certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very attractive. Cecily, mamma, whose views on education are remarkably strict, has brought me up to be extremely short-sighted; it is part of her system; so do you mind my looking at you through my glasses?\n\nCECILY: Oh! not at all, Gwendolen. I am very fond of being looked at.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _after examining_ CECILY _carefully through a lorgnette_ ): You are here on a short visit, I suppose.\n\nCECILY: Oh no! I live here.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _severely_ ): Really? Your mother, no doubt, or some female relative of advanced years, resides here also?\n\nCECILY: Oh no! I have no mother, nor, in fact, any relations.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Indeed?\n\nCECILY: My dear guardian, with the assistance, of Miss Prism, has the arduous task of looking after me.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Your guardian?\n\nCECILY: Yes, I am Mr. Worthing's ward.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Oh! It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a ward. How secretive of him! He grows more interesting hourly. I am not sure, however, that the news inspires me with feelings of unmixed delight. ( _Rising and going to her._ ) I am very fond of you, Cecily; I have liked you ever since I met you! But I am bound to state that now that I know that you are Mr. Worthing's ward, I cannot help expressing a wish you were \u2013 well, just a little older than you seem to be \u2013 and not quite so very alluring in appearance. In fact, if I may speak candidly \u2013\n\nCECILY: Pray do! I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than unusually plain for your age. Ernest has a strong upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and honour. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable.\n\nCECILY: I beg your pardon, Gwendolen, did you say Ernest?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes.\n\nCECILY: Oh, but it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is my guardian. It is his brother \u2013 his elder brother.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _sitting down again_ ): Ernest never mentioned to me that he had a brother.\n\nCECILY: I am sorry to say they have not been on good terms for a long time.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Ah! that accounts for it. And now that I think of it I have never heard any man mention his brother. The subject seems distasteful to most men. Cecily, you have lifted a load from my mind. I was growing almost anxious. It would have been terrible if any cloud had come across a friendship like ours, would it not? Of course you are quite, quite sure that it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is your guardian?\n\nCECILY: Quite sure. ( _A pause._ ) In fact, I am going to be his.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _inquiringly_ ): I beg your pardon?\n\nCECILY ( _rather shy and confidingly_ ): Dearest Gwendolen, there is no reason why I should make a secret of it to you. Our little county newspaper is sure to chronicle the fact next week. Mr. Ernest Worthing and I are engaged to be married.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _quite politely, rising_ ): My darling Cecily, I think there must be some slight error. Mr. Ernest Worthing is engaged to me. The announcement will appear in the _Morning Post_ on Saturday at the latest.\n\nCECILY ( _very politely, rising_ ): I am afraid you must be under some misconception. Ernest proposed to me exactly ten minutes ago. ( _Shows diary._ )\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _examines diary through her lorgnette carefully_ ): It is certainly very curious, for he asked me to be his wife yesterday afternoon at 5.30. If you would care to verify the incident, pray do so. ( _Produces diary of her own._ ) I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. I am so sorry, dear Cecily, if it is any disappointment to you, but I am afraid I have the prior claim.\n\nCECILY: It would distress me more than I can tell you, dear Gwendolen, if it caused you any mental or physical anguish, but I feel bound to point out that since Ernest proposed to you he clearly changed his mind.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _meditatively_ ): If the poor fellow has been entrapped into any foolish promise I shall consider it my duty to rescue him at once, and with a firm hand.\n\nCECILY ( _thoughtfully and sadly_ ): Whatever unfortunate entanglement my dear boy may have got into, I will never reproach him with it after we are married.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement? You are presumptuous. On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.\n\nCECILY: Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _satirically_ ): I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN, _followed by the footman. He carries a salver, table cloth, and plate stand._ CECILY _is about to retort. The presence of the servants exercises a restraining influence, under which both girls chafe._\n\nMERRIMAN: Shall I lay the tea here as usual, Miss?\n\nCECILY ( _sternly, in a calm voice_ ): Yes, as usual.\n\nMERRIMAN _begins to clear table and lay cloth. A long pause._ CECILY _and_ GWENDOLEN _glare at each other._\n\nGWENDOLEN: Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss Cardew?\n\nCECILY: Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Five counties! I don't think I should like that; I hate crowds.\n\nCECILY ( _sweetly_ ): I suppose that is why you live in town?\n\nGWENDOLEN _bites her lip, and beats her foot nervously with her parasol._\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _looking round_ ): Quite a charming room this is of yours, Miss Cardew.\n\nCECILY: So glad you like it, Miss Fairfax.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I had no idea there was anything approaching good taste in the more remote country districts. It is quite a surprise to me.\n\nCECILY: I am afraid you judge of the country from what one sees in town. I believe most London houses are extremely vulgar.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I suppose they do dazzle the rural mind. Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country \u2013 if anybody who is anybody does. The country always bores me to death.\n\nCECILY: Ah! This is what the newspapers call agricultural depression, is it not? I believe the aristocracy are suffering very much from it just at present. It is almost an epidemic amongst them, I have been told. May I offer you some tea, Miss Fairfax?\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _with elaborate politeness_ ): Thank you. ( _Aside._ ) Detestable girl! But I require tea!\n\nCECILY ( _sweetly_ ): Sugar?\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _superciliously_ ): No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more.\n\nCECILY _looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup._\n\nCECILY ( _severely_ ): Cake or bread and butter?\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _in a bored manner_ ): Bread and butter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.\n\nCECILY ( _cuts a very large slice of cake and puts it on the tray_ ): Hand that to Miss Fairfax.\n\nMERRIMAN _does so, and goes out with footman._ GWENDOLEN _drinks the tea and makes a grimace. Puts down cup at once, reaches out her hand to the bread and butter, looks at it, and finds it is cake. Rises in indignation._\n\nGWENDOLEN: You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.\n\nCECILY ( _rising_ ): To save my poor, innocent, trusting boy from the machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go.\n\nGWENDOLEN: From the moment I saw you I distrusted you. I felt that you were false and deceitful. I am never deceived in such matters. My first impressions of people are invariably right.\n\nCECILY: It seems to me, Miss Fairfax, that I am trespassing on your valuable time. No doubt you have many other calls of a similar character to make in the neighbourhood.\n\n_Enter_ JACK.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _catching sight of him_ ): Ernest! My own Ernest!\n\nJACK: Gwendolen! Darling! ( _Offers to kiss her._ )\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _drawing back_ ): A moment! May I ask if you are engaged to be married to this young lady? ( _Points to_ CECILY.)\n\nJACK ( _laughing_ ): To dear little Cecily! Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Thank you. You may! ( _Offers her cheek._ )\n\nCECILY ( _very sweetly_ ): I knew there must be some misunderstanding, Miss Fairfax. The gentleman whose arm is at present round your waist is my guardian, Mr. John Worthing.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I beg your pardon?\n\nCECILY: This is Uncle Jack.\n\nGWENDOLEN: ( _receding_ ): Jack! Oh!\n\n_Enter_ ALGERNON.\n\nCECILY: Here is Ernest.\n\nALGERNON ( _goes over to_ CECILY _without noticing anyone else_ ): My own love: ( _Offers to kiss her._ )\n\nCECILY ( _drawing back_ ): A moment, Ernest! May I ask you \u2013 are you engaged to be married to this young lady?\n\nALGERNON ( _looking round_ ): To what young lady? Good heavens! Gwendolen!\n\nCECILY: Yes! to good heavens, Gwendolen, I mean to Gwendolen.\n\nALGERNON ( _laughing_ ): Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?\n\nCECILY: Thank you. ( _Presenting her cheek to be kissed._ ) You may. (ALGERNON ( _kisses her._ )\n\nGWENDOLEN: I felt there was some slight error, Miss Cardew. The gentleman who is now embracing you is my cousin, Mr. Algernon Moncrieff.\n\nCECILY ( _breaking away from_ ALGERNON): Algernon Moncrieff! Oh!\n\n_The two girls move towards each other and put their arms round each other's waists as if for protection._\n\nCECILY: Are you called Algernon?\n\nALGERNON: I cannot deny it.\n\nCECILY: Oh!\n\nGWENDOLEN: Is your name really John?\n\nJACK ( _standing rather proudly_ ): I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked. But my name certainly is John. It has been John for years.\n\nCECILY ( _to_ GWENDOLEN): A gross deception has been practised on both of us.\n\nGWENDOLEN: My poor wounded Cecily!\n\nCECILY: My sweet wronged Gwendolen!\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _slowly and seriously_ ): You will call me sister, will you not?\n\n_They embrace._ JACK _and_ ALGERNON _groan and walk up and down._\n\nCECILY ( _rather brightly_ ): There is just one question I would like to be allowed to ask my guardian.\n\nGWENDOLEN: An admirable idea! Mr. Worthing, there is just one question I would like to be permitted to put to you. Where is your brother Ernest? We are both engaged to be married to your brother Ernest, so it is a matter of some importance to us to know where your brother Ernest is at present.\n\nJACK ( _slowly and hesitatingly_ ): Gwendolen \u2013 Cecily \u2013 it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. However, I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest. I have no brother at all. I never had a brother in my life, and I certainly have not the smallest intention of ever having one in the future.\n\nCECILY ( _surprised_ ): No brother at all?\n\nJACK ( _cheerily_ ): None!\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _severely_ ): Had you never a brother of any kind?\n\nJACK ( _pleasantly_ ): Never. Not even of any kind.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is engaged to be married to any one.\n\nCECILY: It is not a very pleasant position for a young girl suddenly to find herself in. Is it?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Let us go into the garden. They will hardly venture to come after us there.\n\nCECILY: No, men are so cowardly, aren't they?\n\n_They retire into the garden with scornful looks._\n\nJACK: Pretty mess you have got me into.\n\nALGERNON _sits down at tea table and pours outs some tea. He seems quite unconcerned._\n\nWhat on earth do you mean by coming down here and pretending to be my brother? Perfectly monstrous of you!\n\nALGERNON ( _eating muffin_ ): What on earth do you mean by pretending to have a brother! It was absolutely disgraceful! ( _Eats another muffin._ )\n\nJACK: I told you to go away by the three-fifty. I ordered the dog-cart for you. Why on earth didn't you take it?\n\nALGERNON: I hadn't had my tea.\n\nJACK: This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?\n\nALGERNON: Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.\n\nJACK: Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here.\n\nALGERNON: That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.\n\nJACK: Serious Bunburyist! Good heavens!\n\nALGERNON: Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life. I happen to be serious about Bunburying. What on earth you are serious about I haven't got the remotest idea. About everything, I should fancy. You have such an absolutely trivial nature.\n\nJACK: Well, the only small satisfaction I have in the whole of this wretched business is that your friend Bunbury is quite exploded. You won't be able to run down to the country quite so often as you used to do, dear Algy. And a very good thing too.\n\nALGERNON: Your brother is a little off colour, isn't he, dear Jack? You won't be able to disappear to London quite so frequently as your wicked custom was. And not a bad thing either.\n\nJACK: As for your conduct towards Miss Cardew, I must say that your taking in a sweet, simple, innocent girl like that is quite inexcusable. To say nothing of the fact that she is my ward.\n\nALGERNON: I can see no possible defence at all for your deceiving a brilliant, clever, thoroughly experienced young lady like Miss Fairfax. To say nothing of the fact that she is my cousin.\n\nJACK: I wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all. I love her.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily. I adore her.\n\nJACK: There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew.\n\nALGERNON: I don't think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united.\n\nJACK: Well, that is no business of yours.\n\nALGERNON: If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.\n\nJACK: How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.\n\nALGERNON: Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.\n\nJACK: I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.\n\nALGERNON: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. ( _Rising._ )\n\nJACK ( _rising_ ): Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. ( _Takes muffins from_ ALGERNON.)\n\nALGERNON: ( _offering tea-cake_ ): I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don't like tea-cake.\n\nJACK: Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own house!\n\nALGERNON: But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.\n\nJACK: I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.\n\nALGERNON: That may be. But the muffins are the same. ( _He seizes the muffin-dish_ _from_ JACK.)\n\nJACK: Algy, I wish to goodness you would go.\n\nALGERNON: You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that. Besides, I have just made arrangements with Dr. Chasuble to be christened at a quarter to six under the name of Ernest.\n\nJACK: My dear fellow, the sooner you give up that nonsense the better. I made arrangements this morning with Dr. Chasuble to be christened myself at 5.30, and I naturally will take the name of Ernest. Gwendolen would wish it. We can't both be christened Ernest. It's absurd. Besides, I have a perfect right to be christened if I like. There is no evidence at all that I have ever been christened by anybody. I should think it extremely probable I never was, and so does Dr. Chasuble. It is entirely different in your case. You have been christened already.\n\nALGERNON: Yes, but I have not been christened for years.\n\nJACK: Yes, but you have been christened. That is the important thing.\n\nALGERNON: Quite so. So I know my constitution can stand it. If you are not quite sure about your ever having been christened, I must say I think it rather dangerous your venturing on it now. It might make you very unwell. You can hardly have forgotten that some one very closely connected with you was very nearly carried off this week in Paris by a severe chill.\n\nJACK: Yes; but you said yourself it was not hereditary, or anything of that kind.\n\nALGERNON: It usen't to be, I know \u2013 but I dare say it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things.\n\nJACK: May I ask, Algy, what on earth do you propose to do?\n\nALGERNON: Nothing. That is what I have been trying to do for the last ten minutes, and you have kept on doing everything in your power to distract my attention from my work.\n\nJACK: Well, I shall go out into the garden, and see Gwendolen. I feel quite sure she expects me.\n\nALGERNON: I know from her extremely cold manner that Cecily expects me so I certainly shan't go out into the garden. When a man does exactly what a woman expects him to do she doesn't think much of him. One should always do what a woman doesn't expect, just as one should always say what she doesn't understand. The result is invariably perfect sympathy on both sides.\n\nJACK: Oh, that is nonsense. You are always talking nonsense.\n\nALGERNON: It is much cleverer to talk nonsense than to listen to it, my dear fellow, and a much rarer thing too, in spite of all the public may say.\n\nJACK: I don't listen to you. I can't listen to you.\n\nALGERNON: Oh, that is merely false modesty. You know perfectly well you could listen to me if you tried. You always under-rate yourself, an absurd thing to do nowadays when there are such a lot of conceited people about. Jack, you are eating the muffins again! I wish you wouldn't. There are only two left. ( _Removes plate._ ) I told you I was particularly fond of muffins.\n\nJACK: But I hate tea-cake.\n\nALGERNON: Why on earth do you allow tea-cake to be served up to your guests, then? What ideas you have of hospitality!\n\nJACK: ( _irritably_ ): Oh! That is not the point. We are not discussing teacakes. ( _Crosses._ ) Algy! you are perfectly maddening. You never can stick to the point in any conversation.\n\nALGERNON ( _slowly_ ): No: it always hurts me.\n\nJACK: Good heavens! What affectation! I loathe affectation.\n\nALGERNON: Well, my dear fellow, if you don't like affectation, I really don't see what you can like. Besides, it isn't affectation. The point always does hurt me, and I hate physical pain, of any kind.\n\nJACK ( _glares at_ ALGERNON: _walks up and down stage. Finally comes up to table_ ): Algy! I have already told you to go. I don't want you here. Why don't you go?\n\nALGERNON: I haven't quite finished my tea yet. And there is still one muffin left. ( _Takes the last muffin._ )\n\nJACK _groans and sinks down in a chair and buries his face in his hands._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _The same._ JACK _and_ ALGERNON _discovered in the same position as at the close of Act THREE. Enter behind_ , GWENDOLEN _and_ CECILY.\n\nGWENDOLEN: The fact that they did not follow us at once into the garden, as any one else would have done, seems to me to show that they have some sense of shame left.\n\nCECILY: They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _after a pause_ ): They don't seem to notice us at all. Couldn't you cough?\n\nCECILY: But I haven't got a cough.\n\nGWENDOLEN: They're looking at us. What effrontery!\n\nCECILY: They're approaching. That's very forward of them.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Let us preserve a dignified silence.\n\nCECILY: Certainly. It's the only thing to do now.\n\nJACK _and_ ALGERNON _whistle some dreadful popular air from a British Opera._\n\nGWENDOLEN: This dignified silence seems to produce an unpleasant effect.\n\nCECILY: A most distasteful one.\n\nGWENDOLEN: But we will not be the first to speak.\n\nCECILY: Certainly not.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Mr. Worthing, I have something very particular to ask you. Much depends on your reply.\n\nCECILY: Gwendolen, your common sense is invaluable. Mr. Moncrieff, kindly answer me the following question. Why did you pretend to be my guardian's brother?\n\nALGERNON: In order that I might have an opportunity of meeting you.\n\nCECILY ( _to_ GWENDOLEN): That certainly seems a satisfactory explanation, does it not?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Yes, dear, if you can believe him.\n\nCECILY: I don't. But that \u2013 does not affect the wonderful beauty of his answer.\n\nGWENDOLEN: True. In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. Mr. Worthing, what explanation can you offer to me for pretending to have a brother? Was it in order that you might have an opportunity of coming up to town to see me as often as possible?\n\nJACK: Can you doubt it, Miss Fairfax?\n\nGWENDOLEN: I have the greatest doubts upon the subject. But I intend to crush them. This is not the moment for German scepticism. ( _Moving to_ CECILY.) Their explanations appear to be quite satisfactory, especially Mr. Worthing's. That seems to me to have the stamp of truth upon it.\n\nCECILY: I am more than content with what Mr. Moncrieff said. His voice alone inspires one with absolute credulity.\n\nGWENDOLEN: Then you think we should forgive them?\n\nCECILY: Yes. I mean no.\n\nGWENDOLEN: True! I had forgotten. There are principles at stake that one cannot surrender. Which of us should tell them? The task is not a pleasant one.\n\nCECILY: Could we not both speak at the same time?\n\nGWENDOLEN: An excellent idea! I always speak at the same time as other people. Will you take the time from me?\n\nCECILY: Certainly.\n\nGWENDOLEN _beats time with uplifted finger._\n\nGWENDOLEN _and_ CECILY ( _speaking together_ ): Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier. That is all!\n\nJACK _and_ AGERNON ( _speaking together_ ): Our Christian names! Is that all? But we are going to be christened this afternoon.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _to_ JACK): For my sake you are prepared to do this terrible thing?\n\nJACK: I am.\n\nCECILY ( _to_ ALGERNON): To please me you are ready to face this fearful ordeal?\n\nALGERNON: I am!\n\nGWENDOLEN: How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us.\n\nJACK: We are. ( _Clasps hands with_ ALGERNON.)\n\nCECILY: They have moments of physical courage of which we women know absolutely nothing.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _to_ JACK): Darling.\n\nALGERNON ( _to_ CECILY): Darling!\n\n_They fall into each other's arms._\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN. _When he enters he coughs loudly, seeing the situation._\n\nMERRIMAN: Ahem! Ahem! Lady Bracknell!\n\nJACK: Good heavens!\n\n_Enter_ LADY BRACKNELL. _The couples separate in alarm. Exit_ MERRIMAN.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Gwendolen! What does this mean?\n\nGWENDOLEN: Merely that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Worthing, mamma.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Come here. Sit down. Sit down immediately. Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old. ( _Turns to_ JACK.) Apprised, sir, of my daughter's sudden flight by her trusty maid, whose confidence I purchased by means of a small coin, I followed her at once by a luggage train. Her unhappy father is, I am glad to say, under the impression that she is attending a more than usually lengthy lecture by the University Extension Scheme on the Influence of a permanent income on Thought. I do not propose to undeceive him. Indeed I have never undeceived him on any question. I would consider it wrong. But, of course, you will clearly understand that all communication between yourself and my daughter must cease immediately from this moment. On this point, as indeed on all points, I am firm.\n\nJACK: I am engaged to be married to Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: You are nothing of the kind, sir. And now, as regards Algernon!...Algernon!\n\nALGERNON: Yes, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: May I ask if it is in this house that your invalid friend Mr. Bunbury resides?\n\nALGERNON ( _stammering_ ): Oh! No! Bunbury doesn't live here. Bunbury is somewhere else at present. In fact, Bunbury is dead.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Dead! When did Mr. Bunbury die? His death must have been extremely sudden.\n\nALGERNON ( _airily_ ): Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: What did he die of?\n\nALGERNON: Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity.\n\nALGERNON: My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean \u2013 so Bunbury died.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice. And now that we have finally got rid of this Mr. Bunbury, may I ask, Mr. Worthing, who is that young person whose hand my nephew Algernon is now holding in what seems to me a peculiarly unnecessary manner?\n\nJACK: That lady is Miss Cecily Cardew, my ward.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL _bows coldly to_ CECILY.\n\nALGERNON: I am engaged to be married to Cecily, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I beg your pardon?\n\nCECILY: Mr. Moncrieff and I are engaged to be married, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: ( _with a shiver, crossing to the sofa and sitting down_ ): I do not know whether there is anything peculiarly exciting in the air of this particular part of Hertfordshire, but the number of engagements that go on seems to me considerably above the proper average that statistics have laid down for our guidance. I think some preliminary inquiry on my part would not be out of place. Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all connected with any of the larger railway stations in London? I merely desire information. Until yesterday I had no idea that there were any families or persons whose origin was a Terminus.\n\nJACK _looks perfectly furious, but restrains himself_\n\nJACK ( _in a clear, cold voice_ ): Miss Cardew is the grand-daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Cardew of 149 Belgrave Square, S.W. ; Gervase Park, Dorking, Surrey; and the Sporran, Fifeshire, N.B.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That sounds not unsatisfactory. Three addresses always inspire confidence, even in tradesmen. But what proof have I of their authenticity?\n\nJACK: I have carefully preserved the Court Guides of the period. They are open to your inspection, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _grimly_ ): I have known strange errors in that publication.\n\nJACK: Miss Cardew's family solicitors are Messrs. Markby, Markby, and Markby of 149a Lincoln's Inn Fields, Western Central District, London. I have no doubt they will be happy to supply you with any further information. Their office hours are from ten till four.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Markby, Markby and Markby? A firm of the very highest position in their profession. Indeed I am told that one of the Mr. Markbys is occasionally to be seen at dinner parties. So far I am satisfied.\n\nJACK: ( _very irritably_ ): How extremely kind of you, Lady Bracknell! I have also in my possession, you will be pleased to hear, certificates of Miss Cardew's birth, baptism, whooping cough, registration, vaccination, confirmation, and the measles; both the German and the English variety.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Ah! A life crowded with incident, I see; though perhaps somewhat too exciting for a young girl. I am not myself in favour of premature experiences. ( _Rises, looks at her watch._ ) Gwendolen! the time approaches for our departure. We have not a moment to lose. As a matter of form, Mr. Worthing, I had better ask you if Miss Cardew has any little fortune?\n\nJACK: Oh! About a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds. That is all. Good-bye, Lady Bracknell. So pleased to have seen you.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _sitting down again_ ): A moment, Mr. Worthing. A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, any of the qualities that last, and improve with time. We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces. ( _To_ CECILY): Come over here, dear. (CECILY _goes across._ ) Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left it. But we can soon alter all that. A thoroughly experienced French maid produces a really marvellous result in a very brief space of time. I remember recommending one to young Lady Lancing, and after three months her own husband did not know her.\n\nJACK: And after six months nobody knew her.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _glares at_ JACK _for a few moments. Then bends, with a practised smile, to_ CECILY): Kindly turn round, sweet child. (CECILY _turns completely round._ ) No, the side view is what I want. (CECILY _presents her profile._ ) Yes, quite as I expected. There are distinct social possibilities in your profile. The two weak points in our age are its want of principle and its want of profile. The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present. Algernon!\n\nALGERNON: Yes, Aunt Augusta!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: There are distinct social possibilities in Miss Cardew's profile.\n\nALGERNON: Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don't care twopence about social possibilities.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that. ( _To_ CECILY): Dear child, of course you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon. But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way. Well, I suppose I must give my consent.\n\nALGERNON: Thank you, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Cecily, you may kiss me!\n\nCECILY ( _kisses her_ ): Thank you, Lady Bracknell.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: You may also address me as Aunt Augusta for the future.\n\nCECILY: Thank you, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: The marriage, I think, had better take place quite soon.\n\nALGERNON: Thank you, Aunt Augusta.\n\nCECILY: Thank you, Aunt Augusta.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.\n\nJACK: I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question. I am Miss Cardew's guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age. That consent I absolutely decline to give.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Upon what grounds, may I ask? Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?\n\nJACK: It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful.\n\nALGERNON _and_ CECILY _look at him in indignant amazement._\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian.\n\nJACK: I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter. This afternoon during my temporary absence in London on an important question of romance, he obtained admission to my house by means of the false pretence of being my brother. Under an assumed name he drank, I've just been informed by my butler, an entire pint bottle of my Perrier-Jouet, Brut, '89; wine I was specially reserving for myself. Continuing his disgraceful deception, he succeeded in the course of the afternoon in alienating the affections of my only ward. He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured every single muffin. And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don t intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so myself yesterday afternoon.\n\nCECILY: But, dear Uncle Jack, for the last year you have been telling us all that you had a brother. You dwelt continually on the subject. Algy merely corroborated your statement. It was noble of him.\n\nJACK: Pardon me, Cecily, you are a little too young to understand these matters. To invent anything at all is an act of sheer genius, and, in a commercial age like ours, shows considerable physical courage. Few of our modern novelists dare to invent a single thing. It is an open secret that they don't know how to do it. Upon the other hand, to corroborate a falsehood is a distinctly cowardly action. I know it is a thing that the newspapers do one for the other, every day. But it is not the act of a gentleman. No gentleman ever corroborates anything.\n\nALGERNON ( _furiously_ ): Upon my word Jack!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Ahem! Mr. Worthing, after careful consideration I have decided entirely to overlook my nephew's conduct to you.\n\nJACK: That is very generous of you, Lady Bracknell. My own decision, however, is unalterable. I decline to give my consent.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _to_ CECILY): Come here, sweet child. (CECILY _goes over)._ How old are you, dear?\n\nCECILY: Well, I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty when I go to evening parties.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: You are perfectly right in making some slight alteration. Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating...( _In a meditative manner._ ) Eighteen, but admitting to twenty at evening parties. Well, it will not be very long before you are of age and free from the restraints of tutelage. So I don't think your guardian's consent is, after all, a matter of any importance.\n\nJACK: Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather's will Miss Cardew does not come legally of age till she is thirty-five.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now. I see no reason why our dear Cecily should not be even still more attractive at the age you mention than she is at present. There will be a large accumulation of property.\n\nCECILY ( _to_ JACK): You are quite sure that I can't marry without your consent till I am thirty-five?\n\nJACK: That is the wise provision of your grandfather's will, Cecily. He undoubtedly foresaw the sort of difficulty that would be likely to occur.\n\nCECILY: Then grandpapa must have had a very extraordinary imagination. Algy...could you wait for me till I was thirty-five? Don't speak hastily. It is a very serious question, and much of my future happiness, as well as all of yours, depends on your answer.\n\nALGERNON: Of course I could, Cecily. How can you ask me such a question? I could wait for ever for you. You know I could.\n\nCECILY: Yes, I felt it instinctively, but I couldn't wait all that time. I hate waiting even five minutes for anybody. It always makes me rather cross. I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others, and waiting, even to be married, is quite out of the question.\n\nALGERNON: Then what is to be done, Cecily?\n\nCECILY: I don't know, Mr. Moncrieff.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: My dear Mr. Worthing, as Miss Cecily states positively that she cannot wait till she is thirty-five \u2013 a remark which I am bound to say seems to me to show a somewhat impatient nature \u2013 I would beg of you to reconsider your decision.\n\nJACK: But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own hands. The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _rising and drawing herself up_ ): You must be quite aware that what you propose is out of the question.\n\nJACK: Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen. Algernon, of course, can choose for himself. ( _Pulls out her watch._ ) Come, dear \u2013 (GWENDOLEN _rises_ ) \u2013 we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform.\n\n_Enter_ DR. CHASUBLE.\n\nCHASUBLE: Everything is quite ready for the christenings.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: The christenings, sir! Is not that somewhat premature?\n\nCHASUBLE: ( _looking rather puzzled, and pointing to_ JACK _and_ ALGERNON): Both these gentleman have expressed a desire for immediate baptism.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: At their age? The idea is grotesque and irreligious! Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized. I will not hear of such excess. Lord Bracknell would be highly displeased if he learned that that was the way in which you wasted your time and money.\n\nCHASUBLE: Am I to understand then that there are to be no christenings at all this afternoon?\n\nJACK: I don't think that, as things are now, it would be of much practical value to either of us, Dr. Chasuble.\n\nCHASUBLE: I am grieved to hear such sentiments from you, Mr. Worthing. They savour of the heretical views of the Anabaptists, views that I have completely refuted in four of my unpublished sermons. Baptismal regeneration is not to be lightly spoken of. Indeed by the unanimous opinion of the fathers, baptism is a form of new birth. However, where adults are concerned, compulsory christening, except in the case of savage tribes, is, I regret to say, uncanonical, so I shall return to the church at once. Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in the vestry.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _starting_ ): Miss Prism! Did I hear you mention a Miss Prism?\n\nCHASUBLE: Yes, Lady Bracknell. I am on my way to join her.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Pray allow me to detain you for a moment. This matter may prove to be one of vital importance to Lord Bracknell and myself. Is this Miss Prism a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with education?\n\nCHASUBLE ( _somewhat indignantly_ ): She is the most cultivated of ladies, and the very picture of respectability.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: It is obviously the same person. May I ask what position she holds in your household?\n\nCHASUBLE: ( _severely_ ): I am a celibate, madam.\n\nJACK ( _interposing_ ): Miss Prism, Lady Bracknell has been for the last three years Miss Cardew's esteemed governess and valued companion.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: In spite of what I hear of her, I must see her at once. Let her be sent for.\n\nCHASUBLE ( _looking off_ ): She approaches; she is nigh.\n\n_Enter_ MISS PRISM _hurriedly._\n\nMISS PRISM: I was told you expected me in the vestry, dear Canon. I have been waiting for you there for an hour and three-quarters. ( _Catches sight of_ LADY BRACKNELL, _who has fixed her with a stony glare._ MISS PRISM _grows pale and quails. She looks anxiously round as if desirous to escape._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _in a severe, judicial voice_ ): Prism! (MISS PRISM _bows her head in shame._ ) Come here, Prism! (MISS PRISM _approaches in a humble manner._ ) Prism! Where is that baby? ( _General consternation. The_ CANON _starts back in horror._ ALGERNON _and_ JACK _pretend to be anxious to shield_ CECILY _and_ GWENDOLEN _from hearing the details of a terrible public scandal._ ) Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Bracknell's house, Number 104, Upper Grosvenor Street, in charge of a perambulator that contained a baby of the male sex. You never returned. A few weeks later, through the elaborate investigations of the Metropolitan police, the perambulator was discovered at midnight standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater. It contained the manuscript of a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality. (MISS PRISM _starts in involuntary indignation._ ) But the baby was not there. ( _Every one looks at_ MISS PRISM.) Prism! Where is that baby? ( _A pause._ )\n\nMISS PRISM: Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know. I only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these. On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator. I had also with me a somewhat old, capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours. In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I never can forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the basinette, and placed the baby in the hand-bag.\n\nJACK ( _who has been listening attentively_ ): But where did you deposit the hand-bag?\n\nMISS PRISM: Do not ask me, Mr. Worthing.\n\nJACK: Miss Prism, this is a matter of no small importance to me. I insist on knowing where you deposited the hand-bag that contained that infant.\n\nMISS PRISM: I left it in the cloak-room of one of the larger railway stations in London.\n\nJACK: What railway station?\n\nMISS PRISM ( _quite crushed_ ): Victoria. The Brighton line. ( _Sinks into a chair._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _looking at_ JACK): I sincerely hope nothing improbable is going to happen. The improbable is always in bad, or at any rate, questionable taste.\n\nJACK: I must retire to my room for a moment.\n\nCHASUBLE: This news seems to have upset you, Mr. Worthing. I trust your indisposition is merely temporary.\n\nJACK: I will be back in a few moments, dear Canon. Gwendolen! Wait here for me!\n\nGWENDOLEN: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.\n\n_Exit_ JACK _in great excitement._\n\nCHASUBLE: What do you think this means, Lady Bracknell?\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I dare not even suspect, Dr. Chasuble. I need hardly tell you that in families of high position strange coincidences are not supposed to occur. They are hardly considered the thing.\n\n_Noises heard overhead as if some one was throwing trunks about. Every one looks up._\n\nCECILY: Uncle Jack seems strangely agitated.\n\nCHASUBLE: Your guardian has a very emotional nature.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: This noise is extremely unpleasant. It sounds as if he was having an argument with the furniture. I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.\n\nCHASUBLE: ( _looking up_ ): It has stopped now. ( _The noise is re-doubled._ )\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I wish he would arrive at some conclusion.\n\nGWENDOLEN: This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.\n\n_Enter_ JACK _with a hand-bag of black leather in his hand._\n\nJACK ( _rushing over_ to MISS PRISM): Is this the hand-bag, Miss Prism? Examine it carefully before you speak. The happiness of more than one life depends on your answer.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _calmly_ ): It seems to be mine. Yes, here is the injury it received through the upsetting of a Gower Street omnibus in younger and happier days. Here is the stain on the lining caused by the explosion of a temperance beverage, an incident that occurred at Leamington. And here, on the lock, are my initials. I had forgotten that in an extravagant mood I had had them placed there. The bag is undoubtedly mine. I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years.\n\nJACK ( _in a pathetic voice_ ): Miss Prism, more is restored to you than this hand-bag. I was the baby you placed in it.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _amazed_ ): You?\n\nJACK ( _embracing her_ ): Yes...mother!\n\nMISS PRISM ( _recoiling in indignant astonishment_ ): Mr. Worthing, I am unmarried!\n\nJACK: Unmarried! I do not deny that is a serious blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for men, and another for women? Mother, I forgive you. ( _Tries to embrace her again._ )\n\nMISS PRISM ( _still more indignant_ ): But Mr. Worthing, there is some error. Maternity has never been an incident in my life. The suggestion, if it were not made before such a large number of people, would be almost indelicate. ( _Pointing to_ LADY BRACKNELL.) There stands the lady who can tell you who you really are. ( _Retires to back of stage._ )\n\nJACK ( _after a pause_ ): Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I am afraid that the news I have to give you will not altogether please you. You are the son of my poor sister, Mrs. Moncrieff, and consequently Algernon's elder brother.\n\nJACK: Algy's elder brother! Then I have a brother after all. I knew I had a brother! I always said I had a brother! Cecily, \u2013 how could you have ever doubted that I had a brother! ( _Seizes hold of_ ALGERNON.) Dr. Chasuble, my unfortunate brother. Miss Prism, my unfortunate brother. Gwendolen, my unfortunate brother. Algy, you young scoundrel, you will have to treat me with more respect in the future. You have never behaved to me like a brother in all your life.\n\nALGERNON: Well, not till to-day, old boy, I admit. ( _Shakes hands._ ) I did my best, however, though I was out of practice.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _to_ JACK): Darling!\n\nJACK: Darling!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Under these strange and unforeseen circumstances you can kiss your Aunt Augusta.\n\nJACK: ( _staying where he is_ ): I am dazed with happiness. ( _Kisses_ GWENDOLEN) I hardly know who I am kissing.\n\nALGERNON _takes the opportunity to kiss_ CECILY.\n\nGWENDOLEN: I hope that will be the last time I shall ever hear you make such an observation.\n\nJACK: It will, darling.\n\nMISS PRISM ( _advancing, after coughing slightly_ ): Mr. Worthing, \u2013 Mr. Moncrieff as I should call you now \u2013 after what has just occurred I feel it my duty to resign my position in this household. Any inconvenience I may have caused you in your infancy through placing you inadvertently in this hand-bag I sincerely apologise for.\n\nJACK: Don't mention it, dear Miss Prism. Don't mention anything. I am sure I had a very pleasant time in your nice hand-bag in spite of the slight damage it received through the overturning of an omnibus in your happier days. As for leaving us, the suggestion is absurd.\n\nMISS PRISM: It is my duty to leave. I have really nothing more to teach dear Cecily. In the very difficult accomplishment of getting married I fear my sweet and clever pupil has far outstripped her teacher.\n\nCHASUBLE: A moment \u2013 Laetitia!\n\nMISS PRISM: Dr. Chasuble!\n\nCHASUBLE: Laetitia, I have come to the conclusion that the Primitive Church was in error on certain points. Corrupt readings seem to have crept into the text. I beg to solicit the honour of your hand.\n\nMISS PRISM: Frederick, at the present moment words fail me to express my feelings. But I will forward you, this evening, the three last volumes of my diary. In these you will be able to peruse a full account of the sentiments that I have entertained towards you for the last eighteen months.\n\n_Enter_ MERRIMAN.\n\nMERRIMAN: Lady Bracknell's flyman says he cannot wait any longer.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _rising_ ): True! I must return to town at once. ( _Pulls out watch._ ) I see I have now missed no less than nine trains. There is only one more.\n\nMERRIMAN _goes out._ LADY BRACKNELL _moves towards the door._\n\nPrism, from your last observation to Dr. Chasuble, I learn with regret that you have not yet given up your passion for fiction in three volumes. And, if you really are going to enter into the state of matrimony which at your age seems to me, I feel bound to say, rather like flying in the face of an all-wise Providence, I trust you will be more careful of your husband than you were of your infant charge, and not leave poor Dr. Chasuble lying about at railway stations in hand-bags or receptacles of any kind. Cloak-rooms are notoriously draughty places. (MISS PRISM _bows her head meekly._ ) Dr. Chasuble, you have my sincere good wishes, and if baptism be, as you say it is, a form of new birth, I would strongly advise you to have Miss Prism baptised without delay. To be born again would be of considerable advantage to her. Whether such a procedure be in accordance with the practice of the Primitive Church I do not know. But it is hardly probable, I should fancy, that they had to grapple with such extremely advanced problems. ( _Turning sweetly to_ CECILY _and patting her cheek._ ) Sweet child! We will expect you at Upper Grosvenor Street in a few days.\n\nCECILY: Thank you, Aunt Augusta!\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Come, Gwendolen.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _to_ JACK): My own! But what own are you? What is your Christian name, now that you have become some one else?\n\nJACK: Good heavens!...I had quite forgotten that point. Your decision on the subject of my name is irrevocable, I suppose?\n\nGWENDOLEN: I never change, except in my affections.\n\nCECILY: What a noble nature you have, Gwendolen!\n\nJACK: Then the question had better be cleared up at once. Aunt Augusta, a moment. At the time when Miss Prism left me in the hand-bag, had I been christened already? Pray be calm, Aunt Augusta. This is a terrible crisis and much depends on your answer.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _quite calmly_ ): Every luxury that money could buy, including christening, had been lavished on you by your fond and doting parents.\n\nJACK: Then I was christened! That is settled. Now, what name was I given? Let me know the worst.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _after a pause_ ): Being the eldest son you were naturally christened after your father.\n\nJACK ( _irritably_ ): Yes, but what was my father's Christian name? Pray don't be so calm, Aunt Augusta. This is a terrible crisis and everything hangs on the nature of your reply. What was my father's Christian name?\n\nLADY BRACKNELL ( _meditatively_ ): I cannot at the present moment recall what the General's Christian name was. Your poor dear mother always addressed him as 'General'. That I remember perfectly. Indeed, I don't think she would have dared to have called him by his Christian name. But I have no doubt he had one. He was violent in his manner, but there was nothing eccentric about him in any way. That was rather the result of the Indian climate, and marriage, and indigestion, and other things of that kind. In fact he was rather a martinet about the little details of daily life. Too much so, I used to tell my sister.\n\nJACK: Algy! Can't you recollect what our father's Christian name was?\n\nALGERNON: My dear boy, we were never even on speaking terms. He died before I was a year old.\n\nJACK: His name would appear in the Army Lists of the period, I suppose, Aunt Augusta?\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life. But I have no doubt his name would appear in any military directory.\n\nJACK: The Army Lists for the last forty years are here. ( _Rushes to the book-case and tears the books out. Distributes them rapidly._ ) Here, Dr. Chasuble \u2013 Miss Prism, two for you \u2013 Cecily, Cecily, an Army List. Make a precis of it at once. Algernon, pray search English history for our father's Christian name if you have the smallest filial affection left. Aunt Augusta, I beg you to bring your masculine mind to bear on this subject. Gwendolen \u2013 no, it would agitate you too much. Leave these researches to less philosophic natures like ours.\n\nGWENDOLEN ( _heroically_ ): Give me six copies of any period, this century or the last. I do not care which!\n\nJACK: Noble girl! Here are a dozen. More might be an inconvenience to _you. (Brings her a pile of Army Lists \u2013 rushes through them himself, taking each one from her hands as she tries to examine it._ ) No, just let me look. No, allow me, dear. Darling, I think I can find it out sooner. Just allow me, my love.\n\nCHASUBLE: What station, Mr. Moncrieff, did you say you wished to go to?\n\nJACK ( _pausing in despair_ ): Station! Who on earth is talking about a station? I merely want to find out my father's Christian name.\n\nCHASUBLE: But you have handed me a Bradshaw. ( _Looks at it._ ) Of 1869, I observe. A book of considerable antiquarian interest: but not in any way bearing on the question of the names usually conferred on Generals at baptism.\n\nCECILY: I am so sorry, Uncle Jack. But Generals don't seem to be even alluded to in the 'History of our own times', although it is the best edition. The one written in collaboration with the type-writing machine.\n\nMISS PRISM: To me, Mr. Moncrieff, you have given two copies of the Price Lists of the Civil Service Stores. I do not find Generals marked anywhere. There seems to be either no demand or no supply.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: This treatise, 'The Green Carnation', as I see it is called, seems to be a book about the culture of exotics. It contains no reference to Generals in it. It seems a morbid and middle-class affair.\n\nJACK ( _very irritable indeed_ ): Good Heavens! And what nonsense are you reading, Algy? ( _Takes book from him._ ) The Army List? Well, I don't suppose you knew it was the Army List. And you have got it open at the wrong page. Besides, there is the thing staring you in the face. M. Generals...Malam \u2013 what ghastly names they have \u2013 Markby, Migsby, Mobbs, Moncrieff, Moncrieff! Lieutenant 1840, Captain, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, General 1860. Christian names, Ernest John. ( _Puts book quietly down and speaks quite calmly._ ) I always told you Gwendolen, my name was Ernest, didn't I? Well, it is Ernest after all. I mean it naturally is Ernest.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: Yes, I remember now that the General was called Ernest. I knew I had some particular reason for disliking the name. Come, Gwendolen. ( _Goes out._ )\n\nGWENDOLEN: Ernest! My own Ernest! I felt from the first that you could have no other name!\n\nJACK: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?\n\nGWENDOLEN: I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.\n\nJACK: My own one!\n\nCHASUBLE ( _to_ MISS PRISM): Laetitia! ( _Embraces her._ )\n\nMISS PRISM ( _enthusiastically_ ): Frederick! At last!\n\nALGERNON: Cecily! ( _Embraces her._ ) At last!\n\nJACK: Gwendolen! ( _Embraces her._ ) At last!\n\n_Enter_ LADY BRACKNELL.\n\nLADY BRACKNELL: I have missed the last train! \u2013 My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.\n\nJACK: On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.\n\nTABLEAU\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## Lady Windermere's Fan\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nLORD WINDERMERE.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS LORTON\n\nMR. DUMBY\n\nMR. CECIL GRAHAM\n\nMR. HOPPER\n\nPARKER, BUTLER\n\nLADY WINDERMERE\n\nTHE DUCHESS OF BERWICK\n\nLADY AGATHA CARLISLE\n\nLADY PLYMDALE\n\nLADY STUTFIELD\n\nLADY JEDBURGH\n\nMRS. COWPER-COWPER\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE\n\nROSALIE, MAID\n\n### ACT ONE\n\nSCENE: _Morning-room of Lord Windermere's house in Carlton House Terrace, London. The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours, beginning on a Tuesday afternoon at five o'clock, and ending the next day at 1.30 p.m._ TIME: _The present. Doors C. and R. Bureau with books and papers R. Sofa with small tea-table L. Window opening on to terrace L. Table R._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _is at table R., arranging roses in a blue bowl._\n\n_Enter_ PARKER.\n\nPARKER: Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes \u2013 who has called?\n\nPARKER: Lord Darlington, my lady.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _hesitates for a moment_ ): Show him up \u2013 and I'm at home to any one who calls.\n\nPARKER: Yes, my lady. ( _Exit C._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: It's best for me to see him before to-night. I'm glad he's come.\n\n_Enter_ PARKER _C._\n\nPARKER: Lord Darlington.\n\n_Enter_ LORD DARLINGTON _C. Exit_ PARKER.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: How do you do, Lady Windermere?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How do you do, Lord Darlington? No, I can't shake hands with you. My hands are all wet with these roses. Aren't they lovely? They came up from Selby this morning.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: They are quite perfect. ( _Sees a fan lying on the table._ ) And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Do. Pretty, isn't it? It's got my name on it, and everything. I have only just seen it myself. It's my husband's birthday present to me. You know to-day is my birthday?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: No? Is it really?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes, I'm of age to-day. Quite an important day in my life, isn't it? That is why I am giving this party to-night. Do sit down. ( _Still arranging flowers._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: ( _sitting down_ ): I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady Windermere. I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on. They are made for you. ( _A short pause._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I, Lady Windermere?\n\n_Enter_ PARKER _and_ FOOTMAN C, _with tray and tea things._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Put it there, Parker. That will do. ( _Wipes her hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table L., and sits down._ ) Won't you come over, Lord Darlington?\n\n_Exit_ PARKER _C._\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _takes chair and goes across L.C._ ): I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere. You must tell me what I did. ( _Sits down at table L._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _smiling_ ): Ah, nowadays we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay _are_ compliments. They're the only things we _can_ pay.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _shaking her head_ ): No, I am talking very seriously. You mustn't laugh, I am quite serious. I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Ah, but I did mean them. ( _Takes tea which she offers him._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _gravely_ ): I hope not. I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington. I like you very much, you know that. But I shouldn't like you at all if I thought you were what most other men are. Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why do you make that your special one? ( _Still seated at table L._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _still seated L.C._ ): Oh, nowadays so many conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Don't you _want_ the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: No, not the world. Who are the people the world takes seriously? All the dull people one can think of, from the Bishops down to the bores. I should like _you_ to take me very seriously, Lady Windermere, _you_ more than any one else in life.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why \u2013 why me?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _after a slight hesitation_ ): Because I think we might be great friends. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why do you say that?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Oh! \u2013 we all want friends at times.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I think we're very good friends already, Lord Darlington. We can always remain so as long as you don't \u2013\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Don't what?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Don't spoil it by saying extravagant silly things to me. You think I am a Puritan, I suppose? Well, I have something of the Puritan in me. I was brought up like that. I am glad of it. My mother died when I was a mere child. I lived always with Lady Julia, my father's elder sister, you know. She was stern to me, but she taught me what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong. _She_ allowed of no compromise. _I_ allow of none.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: My dear Lady Windermere!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _leaning back on the sofa_ ): You look on me as being behind the age. Well, I am ! I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You think the age very bad?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Nowadays people seem to look on life as a speculation. It is not a speculation. It is a sacrament. Its ideal is Love. Its purification is Sacrifice.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _smiling_ ): Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _leaning forward_ ): Don't say that.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I do say it. I felt it \u2013 I know it.\n\n_Enter_ PARKER _C_.\n\nPARKER: The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You don't think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I won't hear of its raining on your birthday.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Tell them to do it at once, Parker.\n\n_Exit_ PARKER _C._\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _still seated_ ): Do you think then \u2013 of course I am only putting an imaginary instance \u2013 do you think that in the case of a young married couple, say about two years married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman of \u2013 well, more than doubtful character \u2013 is always calling upon her, lunching with her, and probably paying her bills \u2013 do you think that the wife should not console herself?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _frowning_ ): Console herself?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Yes, I think she should \u2013 I think she has the right.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Because the husband is vile \u2013 should the wife be vile also?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can't help belonging to them.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Now, Lord Darlington. ( _Rising and crossing R., front of him._ ) Don't stir, I am merely going to finish my flowers. ( _Goes to table R.C._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _rising and moving chair_ ): And I must say I think you are very hard on modern life, Lady Windermere. Of course there is much against it, I admit. Most women, for instance, nowadays, are rather mercenary.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Don't talk about such people.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Well then, setting mercenary people aside, who, of course, are dreadful, do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _standing at table_ ): I think they should never be forgiven.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: And men? Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Certainly!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: If we had 'these hard and fast rules,' we should find life much more simple.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You allow of no exceptions?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: None!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, Lady Windermere!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: The adjective was unnecessary, Lord Darlington.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I couldn't help it. I can resist everything except temptation.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You have the modern affectation of weakness.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: ( _looking at her_ ): It's only an affectation, Lady Windermere.\n\n_Enter_ PARKER _C._\n\nPARKER: The Duchess of Berwick and Lady Agatha Carlisle.\n\n_Enter the_ DUCHESS OF BERWICK _and_ LADY AGATHA CARLISLE _C._\n\n_Exit_ PARKER _C._\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _coming down C. and shaking hands_ ): Dear Margaret, I am so pleased to see you. You remember Agatha, don't you? ( _Crossing L.C._ ) How do you do, Lord Darlington? I won't let you know my daughter, you are far too wicked.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Don't say that, Duchess. As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life. Of course they only say it behind my back.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Isn't he dreadful? Agatha, this is Lord Darlington. Mind you don't believe a word he says. (LORD DARLINGTON _crosses_ R.C.) No, no tea, thank you, dear. ( _Crosses and sits on sofa._ ) We have just had tea at Lady Markby's. Such bad tea, too. It was quite undrinkable. I wasn't at all surprised. Her own son-in-law supplies it. Agatha is looking forward so much to your ball to-night, dear Margaret.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _seated L. C_ ): Oh, you mustn't think it is going to be a ball, Duchess. It is only a dance in honour of my birthday. A small and early.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _standing L.C._ ): Very small, very early, and very select, Duchess.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _on sofa L._ ): Of course it's going to be select. But we know _that,_ dear Margaret, about _your_ house. It is really one of the few houses in London where I can take Agatha, and where I feel perfectly secure about dear Berwick. I don't know what society is coming to. The most dreadful people seem to go everywhere. They certainly come to my parties \u2013 the men get furious if one doesn't ask them. Really, some one should make a stand against it.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I will, Duchess. I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _R.C_ ): Oh don't say that, Lady Windermere. I should never be admitted! ( _Sitting_ ).\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Oh, men don't matter. With women it is different. We're good. Some of us are, at least. But we are positively getting elbowed into the corner. Our husbands would really forget our existence if we didn't nag at them from time to time, just to remind them that we have a perfect legal right to do so.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: It's a curious thing, Duchess, about the game of marriage \u2013 a game, by the way, that is going out of fashion \u2013 the wives hold all the honours, and invariably lose the odd trick.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: The odd trick? Is that the husband, Lord Darlington?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: It would be rather a good name for the modern husband.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Lord Darlington, how thoroughly depraved you are!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington is trivial.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Ah, don't say that, Lady Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why do you _talk_ so trivially about life, then?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. ( _Moves up C._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: What does he mean? Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _coming down back of table_ ): I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. Good-bye! ( _Shakes hands with_ DUCHESS.) And now \u2013 ( _goes up stage_ ) \u2013 Lady Windermere, good-bye. I may come to-night, mayn't I? Do let me come.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _standing up stage with_ LORD DARLINGTON): Yes, certainly. But you are not to say foolish, insincere things to people.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _smiling_ ): Ah! You are beginning to reform me. It is a dangerous thing to reform any one, Lady Windermere. ( _Bows, and exit C._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _who has risen, goes C_ ): What a charming wicked creature! I like him so much. I'm quite delighted he's gone! How sweet you're looking! Where _do_ you get your gowns? And now I must tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Margaret. ( _Crosses to sofa and sits with_ LADY WINDERMERE. ) Agatha, darling!\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. ( _Rises._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Will you go and look over the photograph album that I see there?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. ( _Goes to table up L._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear girl! She is so fond of photographs of Switzerland. Such a pure taste, I think. But I really am so sorry for you, Margaret.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _smiling_ ): Why, Duchess?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Oh, on account of that horrid woman. She dresses so well, too, which makes it much worse, sets such a dreadful example. Augustus \u2013 you know my disreputable brother \u2013 such a trial to us all \u2013 well, Augustus is completely infatuated about her. It is quite scandalous, for she is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Whom are you talking about, Duchess?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: About Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne? I never heard of her, Duchess. And what _has_ she to do with me?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: My poor child! Agatha, darling!\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Will you go out on the terrace and look at the sunset?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma. ( _Exit through window L._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Sweet girl! So devoted to sunsets! Shows such refinement of feeling, does it not? After all, there is nothing like Nature, is there?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: But what is it, Duchess? Why do you talk to me about this person?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Don't you really know? I assure you we're all so distressed about it. Only last night at dear Lady Jansen's every one was saying how extraordinary it was that, of all men in London, Windermere should behave in such a way.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: My husband \u2013 what has _he_ got to do with any woman of that kind?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Ah, what indeed, dear? That is the point. He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time, and while he is there she is not at home to any one. Not that many ladies call on her, dear, but she has a great many disreputable men friends \u2013 my own brother particularly, as I told you \u2013 and that is what makes it so dreadful about Windermere. We looked upon _him_ as being such a model husband, but I am afraid there is no doubt about it. My dear nieces \u2013 you know the Saville girls, don't you? \u2013 such nice domestic creatures \u2013 plain, dreadfully plain, \u2013 but so good \u2013 well, they're always at the window doing fancy work, and making ugly things for the poor, which I think so useful of them in these dreadful socialistic days, and this terrible woman has taken a house in Curzon Street, right opposite them \u2013 such a respectable street, too! I don't know what we're coming to! And they tell me that Windermere goes there four and five times a week \u2013 they _see_ him. They can't help it \u2013 and although they never talk scandal, they \u2013 well, of course \u2013 they remark on it to every one. And the worst of it all is that I have been told that this woman has got a great deal of money out of somebody, for it seems that she came to London six months ago without anything at all to speak of, and now she has this charming house in Mayfair, drives her ponies in the Park every afternoon and all \u2013 well, all \u2013 since she had known poor dear Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh, I can't believe it!\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: But it's quite true, my dear. The whole of London knows it. That is why I felt it was better to come and talk to you, and advise you to take Windermere away at once to Homburg or to Aix, where he'll have something to amuse him, and where you can watch him all day long. I assure you, my dear, that on several occasions after I was first married, I had to pretend to be very ill, and was obliged to drink the most unpleasant mineral waters, merely to get Berwick out of town. He was so extremely susceptible. Though I am bound to say he never gave away any large sums of money to anybody. He is far too high-principled for that!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _interrupting_ ): Duchess, Duchess, it's impossible! ( _Rising and crossing stage to C_ ): We are only married two years. Our child is but six months old. ( _Sits in chair R. of L. table._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Ah, the dear pretty baby! How is the little darling? Is it a boy or a girl? I hope a girl \u2013 ah, no, I remember it's a boy! I'm so sorry. Boys are so wicked. My boy is excessively immoral. You wouldn't believe at what hours he comes home. And he's only left Oxford a few months \u2013 I really don't know what they teach them there.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Are _all_ men bad?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Windermere and I married for love.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Yes, we begin like that. It was only Berwick's brutal and incessant threats of suicide that made me accept him at all, and before the year was out, he was running after all kinds of petticoats, every colour, every shape, every material. In fact, before the honeymoon was over, I caught him winking at my maid, a most pretty, respectable girl. I dismissed her at once without a character. No, I remember I passed her on to my sister; poor dear Sir George is so short-sighted, I thought it wouldn't matter. But it did, though \u2013 it was most unfortunate. ( _Rises._ ) And now, my dear child, I must go, as we are dining out. And mind you don't take this little aberration of Windermere's too much to heart. Just take him abroad, and he'll come back to you all right.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Come back to me? (C.)\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: ( _L.C._ ): Yes, dear, these wicked women get our husbands away from us, but they always come back, slightly damaged, of course. And don't make scenes, men hate them!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell all this. But I can't believe that my husband is untrue to me.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. (LADY WINDERMERE _rings bell._ ) The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You needn't be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: That's quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha, darling!\n\nLADY AGATHA ( _entering L._ ): Yes, mamma. ( _Stands back of table L.C._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Come and bid good-bye to Lady Windermere, and thank her for your charming visit. ( _Coming down again._ ): And by the way, I must thank you for sending a card to Mr. Hopper \u2013 he's that rich young Australian people are taking such notice of just at present. His father made a great fortune by selling some kind of food in circular tins \u2013 most palatable, I believe \u2013 I fancy it is the thing the servants always refuse to eat. But the son is quite interesting. I think he's attracted by dear Agatha's clever talk. Of course, we should be very sorry to lose her, but I think that a mother who doesn't part with a daughter every season has no real affection. We're coming to-night, dear. (PARKER _opens C. doors._ ) And remember my advice, take the poor fellow out of town at once, it is the only thing to do. Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha.\n\n_Exeunt_ DUCHESS _and_ LADY AGATHA _C._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. Oh! It can't be true \u2013 she spoke of enormous sums of money paid to this woman. I know where Arthur keeps his bank book \u2013 in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I _will_ find out. ( _Opens drawer._ ) No, it is some hideous mistake. ( _Rises and goes C._ ) Some silly scandal! He loves _me_! He loves _me_! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! ( _Returns to bureau, takes out book and examines it page by page, smiles and gives a sigh of relief._ ) I knew it! There is not a word of truth in this stupid story. ( _Puts book back in drawer. As she does so, starts and takes out another book._ ) A second book \u2013 private \u2013 locked! ( _Tries to open it, but fails.) Sees paper knife on bureau, and with it cuts cover from book. Begins to start at the first page._ ) 'Mrs. Erlynne \u2013 \u00a3600 \u2013 Mrs. Erlynne \u2013 \u00a3700 \u2013 Mrs. Erlynne \u2013 \u00a3400.' Oh! It is true! It is true! How horrible! ( _Throws book on floor._ )\n\n_Enter_ LORD WINDERMERE _C._\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Well, dear, has the fan been sent home yet? ( _Going R. C. Sees book._ ) Margaret, you have cut my bank book. You have no right to do such a thing!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You think it wrong that you are found out, don't you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I think it wrong that a wife should spy on her husband.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I did not spy on you. I never knew of this woman's existence till half an hour ago. Some one who pitied me was kind enough to tell me what every one in London knows already \u2013 your daily visits to Curzon Street, your mad infatuation, the monstrous sums of money you squander on this infamous woman! ( _Crossing L._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret! Don't talk like that of Mrs. Erlynne, you don't know how unjust it is!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: ( _turning to him_ ): You are very jealous of Mrs. Erlynne's honour. I wish you had been as jealous of mine.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Your honour is untouched, Margaret. You don't think for a moment that \u2013 ( _Puts book back into desk._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I think that you spend your money strangely. That is all. Oh, don't imagine I mind about the money. As far as I am concerned, you may squander everything we have. But what I _do_ mind is that you have loved me, you who have taught me to love you, should pass from the love that is given to the love that is bought. Oh, it's horrible! ( _Sits on sofa._ ) And it is I who feel degraded! _You_ don't feel anything. I feel stained, utterly stained. You can't realise how hideous the last six months seems to me now \u2013 every kiss you have given me is tainted in my memory.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _crossing to her_ ): Don't say that, Margaret. I never loved any one in the whole world but you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _rises_ ): Who is this woman, then? Why do you take a house for her?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I did not take a house for her.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You gave her the money to do it, which is the same thing.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Is there a Mr. Erlynne \u2013 or is he a myth?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Her husband died many years ago. She is alone in the world.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: No relations? ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: None.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Rather curious, isn't it? ( _L._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _L.C._ ): Margaret, I was saying to you \u2013 and I beg you to listen to me \u2013 that as far as I have known Mrs. Erlynne, she has conducted herself well. If years ago \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh! ( _Crossing R.C._ ) I don't want details about her life!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _C._ ): I am not going to give you any details about her life. I tell you simply this \u2013 Mrs. Erlynne was once honoured, loved, respected. She was well born, she had position \u2013 she lost everything \u2013 threw it away, if you like. That makes it all the more bitter. Misfortunes one can endure \u2013 they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults \u2013 ah! There is the sting of life. It was twenty years ago, too. She was little more than a girl then. She had been a wife for even less time than you have.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I am not interested in her \u2013 and \u2013 you should not mention this woman and me in the same breath. It is an error of taste. ( _Sitting R. at desk._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you could save this woman. She wants to get back into society, and she wants you to help her. ( _Crossing to her._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Me!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Yes, you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How impertinent of her! ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, I came to ask you a great favour, and I still ask it of you, though you have discovered what I had intended you should never have known, that I have given Mrs. Erlynne a large sum of money. I want you to send her an invitation for our party to-night. ( _Standing L. of her._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You are mad! ( _Rises._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I entreat you. People may chatter about her, do chatter about her, of course, but they don't know anything definite against her. She has been to several houses \u2013 not to houses where you would go, I admit, but still to houses where women who are in what is called Society nowadays do go. That does not content her. She wants you to receive her once.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: As a triumph for her, I suppose?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: No; but because she knows that you are a good woman \u2013 and that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a happier, a surer life than she has had. She will make no further effort to know you. Won't you help a woman who is trying to get back?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: No! If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I beg of you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _crossing to door R._ ): I am going to dress for dinner, and don't mention the subject again this evening. Arthur \u2013 ( _going to him C._ ) \u2013 you fancy because I have no father or mother that I am alone in the world, and that you can treat me as you choose. You are wrong, I have friends, many friends.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _L.C._ ): Margaret, you are talking foolishly, recklessly. I won't argue with you, but I insist upon your asking Mrs. Erlynne to-night.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _R.C._ ): I shall do nothing of the kind. ( _Crossing L.C._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You refuse? ( _C._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Absolutely!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Ah, Margaret, do this for my sake; it is her last chance.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: What has that to do with me?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: How hard good women are!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How weak bad men are!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, none of us men may be good enough for the women we marry \u2013 that is quite true \u2013 but you don't imagine I would ever \u2013 oh, the suggestion is monstrous!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why should _you_ be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over _some_ shameful passion.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I am not one of them.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I am not sure of that!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You are sure in your heart. But don't make chasm after chasm between us. God knows the last few minutes have thrust us wide enough apart. Sit down and write the card.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Nothing in the whole world would induce me.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _crossing to bureau_ ): Then I will! ( _Rings electric bell, sits and writes card._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You are going to invite this woman? ( _Crossing to him._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Yes.\n\n_Pause. Enter_ PARKER.\n\nParker!\n\nPARKER: Yes, my lord. ( _Comes down L.C._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Have this note sent to Mrs. Erlynne at No. 84A Curzon Street. ( _Crossing to L.C. and giving note to_ PARKER.) There is no answer!\n\n_Exit_ PARKER _C._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, if that woman comes here, I shall insult her.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, don't say that.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I mean it.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Child, if you did such a thing, there's not a woman in London who wouldn't pity you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: There is not a _good_ woman in London who would not applaud me. We have been too lax. We must make an example. I propose to begin to-night. ( _Picking up fan._ ) Yes, you gave me this fan to-day; it was your birthday present. If that woman crosses my threshold, I shall strike her across the face with it.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you couldn't do such a thing.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You don't know me! ( _Moves R._ )\n\n_Enter_ PARKER.\n\nParker!\n\nPARKER: Yes, my lady.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I shall dine in my own room. I don't want dinner, in fact. See that everything is ready by half-past ten. And, Parker, be sure you pronounce the names of the guests very distinctly to-night. Sometimes you speak so fast that I miss them. I am particularly anxious to hear the names quite clearly, so as to make no mistake. You understand, Parker?\n\nPARKER: Yes, my lady.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: That will do!\n\n_Exit_ PARKER _C._\n\n( _Speaking to_ LORD WINDERMERE): Arthur, if that woman comes here \u2013 I warn you \u2013\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, you'll ruin us!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Us! From this moment my life is separate from yours. But if you wish to avoid a public scandal, write at once to this woman, and tell her that I forbid her to come here!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I will not \u2013 I cannot \u2013 she must come!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Then I shall do exactly as I have said. ( _Goes R._ ) You leave me no choice. ( _Exit R._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _calling after her_ ): Margaret! Margaret! ( _A pause._ ) My God! What shall I do? I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The shame would kill her. ( _Sinks down into a chair and buries his face in his hands._ )\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _Drawing-room in Lord Windermere's house. Door R. U. opening into ball-room, where band is playing. Door L. through which guests are entering. Door L. U. opens on to illuminated terrace. Palms, flowers, and brilliant lights. Room crowded with guests. Lady Windermere is receiving them._\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _up C._ ): So strange Lord Windermere isn't here. Mr. Hopper is very late, too. You have kept those five dances for him, Agatha? ( _Comes down._ )\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _sitting on sofa_ ): Just let me see your card. I'm so glad Lady Windermere has revived cards. They're a mother's only safeguard. You dear simple little thing! ( _Scratches out two names._ ) No nice girl should ever waltz with such particularly younger sons! It looks so fast! The last two dances you might pass on the terrace with Mr. Hopper.\n\n_Enter_ MR. DUMBY _and_ LADY PLYMDALE _from the ballroom._\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _fanning herself_ ): The air is so pleasant there.\n\nPARKER: Mrs. Cowper-Cowper. Lady Stutfield. Sir James Royston. Mr. Guy Berkeley.\n\n_These people enter as announced._\n\nDUMBY: Good evening, Lady Stutfield. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: I suppose so, Mr. Dumby. It's been a delightful season, hasn't it?\n\nDUMBY: Quite delightful! Good evening, Duchess. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: I suppose so, Mr. Dumby. It has been a very dull season, hasn't it?\n\nDUMBY: Dreadfully dull! Dreadfully dull!\n\nMRS. COWPER-COWPER: Good evening, Mr. Dumby. I suppose this will be the last ball of the season?\n\nDUMBY: Oh, I think not. There'll probably be two more. ( _Wanders back to_ LADY PLYMDALE.)\n\nPARKER: Mr. Rufford. Lady Jedburgh and Miss Graham. Mr. Hopper.\n\n_These people enter as announced._\n\nHOPPER: How do you do, Lady Windermere? How do you do, Duchess? ( _Bows to_ LADY AGATHA.)\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Mr. Hopper, how nice of you to come so early. We all know how you are run after in London.\n\nHOPPER: Capital place, London! They are not nearly so exclusive in London as they are in Sydney.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Ah! We know your value, Mr. Hopper. We wish there were more like you. It would make life so much easier. Do you know, Mr. Hopper, dear Agatha and I are so much interested in Australia. It must be so pretty with all the dear little kangaroos flying about. Agatha has found it on the map. What a curious shape it is! Just like a large packing case. However, it is a very young country, isn't it?\n\nHOPPER: Wasn't it made at the same time as the others, Duchess?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: How clever you are, Mr. Hopper. You have a cleverness quite of your own. Now I mustn't keep you.\n\nHOPPER: But I should like to dance with Lady Agatha, Duchess.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Well, I _hope_ she has a dance left. Have you a dance left, Agatha?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: The next one?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nHOPPER: May I have the pleasure? (LADY AGATHA _bows._ )\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Mind you take great care of my little chatter-box, Mr. Hopper.\n\nLADY AGATHA _and_ MR. HOPPER _pass into the ballroom._\n\n_Enter_ LORD WINDERMERE _L._\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Margaret, I want to speak to you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: In a moment. ( _The music stops._ )\n\nPARKER: Lord Augustus Lorton.\n\n_Enter_ LORD AUGUSTUS.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Good evening, Lady Windermere.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Sir James, will you take me into the ballroom? Augustus has been dining with us to-night. I really have had quite enough of dear Augustus for the moment.\n\nSIR JAMES ROYSTON _gives the_ DUCHESS _his arm and escorts her into the ballroom._\n\nPARKER: Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bowden. Lord and Lady Paisley. Lord Darlington.\n\n_These people enter as announced._\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _coming up to_ LORD WINDERMERE): Want to speak to you particularly, dear boy. I'm worn to a shadow. Know I don't look it. None of us men do look what we really are. Demmed good thing, too. What I want to know is this. Who is she? Where does she come from? Why hasn't she got any demmed relations! Demmed nuisance, relations! But they make one so demmed respectable.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You are talking of Mrs. Erlynne, I suppose? I only met her six months ago. Till then, I never knew of her existence.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: You have seen a good deal of her since then.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _coldly_ ): Yes, I have seen a good deal of her since then. I have just seen her.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Egad! The women are very down on her. I have been dining with Arabella this evening! By Jove! You should have heard what she said about Mrs. Erlynne. She didn't leave a rag on her...( _Aside._ ) Berwick and I told her that didn't matter much, as the lady in question must have an extremely fine figure. You should have seen Arabella's expression...But, look here, dear boy. I don't know what to do about Mrs. Erlynne. Egad! I might be married to her; she treats me with such demmed indifference. She's deuced clever, too! She explains everything. Egad! She explains you. She has got any amount of explanations for you \u2013 and all of them different.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: No explanations are necessary about my friendship with Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Hem! Well, look here, dear old fellow. Do you think she will ever get into this demmed thing called Society? Would you introduce her to your wife? No use beating about the confounded bush. Would you do that?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne is coming here to-night.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Your wife has sent her a card?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne has received a card.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Then she's all right, dear boy. But why didn't you tell me that before? It would have saved me a heap of worry and demmed misunderstandings!\n\nLADY AGATHA _and_ MR. HOPPER _cross and exit on terrace L. U.E._\n\nPARKER: Mr. Cecil Graham!\n\n_Enter_ MR. CECIL GRAHAM.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _bows to_ LADY WINDERMERE, _passes over and shakes hands with_ LORD WINDERMERE): Good evening, Arthur. Why don't you ask me how I am? I like people to ask me how I am. It shows a wide-spread interest in my health. Now, to-night I am not at all well. Been dining with my people. Wonder why it is one's people are always so tedious? My father would talk morality after dinner. I told him he was old enough to know better. But my experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all. Hullo, Tuppy! Hear you're going to be married again; thought you were tired of that game.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: You're excessively trivial, my dear boy, excessively trivial!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: By the way, Tuppy, which is it? Have you been twice married and once divorced, or twice divorced and once married? I say you've been twice divorced and once married. It seems so much more probable.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: I have a very bad memory. I really don't remember which. ( _Moves away R._ )\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: Lord Windermere, I've something most particular to ask you.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I am afraid \u2013 if you will excuse me \u2013 I must join my wife.\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: Oh, you mustn't dream of such a thing. It's most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when they're alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life. But I'll tell you what it is at supper. ( _Moves towards door of ballroom._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _C._ ): Margaret! I must speak to you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Will you hold my fan for me, Lord Darlington? Thanks. ( _Comes down to him._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _crossing to her_ ): Margaret, what you said before dinner was, of course, impossible?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: That woman is not coming here to-night.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _R.C._ ): Mrs. Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret, only trust me! A wife should trust her husband!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _C._ ): London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so thoroughly unhappy. I am not going to be one of them ( _Moves up._ ) Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks...A useful thing a fan, isn't it?...I want a friend to-night, Lord Darlington; I didn't know I would want one so soon.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Lady Windermere! I knew the time would come some day; but why to-night?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I _will_ tell her. I must. It would be terrible if there were any scene. Margaret...\n\nPARKER: Mrs. Erlynne!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE _starts._ MRS. ERLYNNE _enters, very beautifully dressed and very dignified._ LADY WINDERMERE _clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. She bows coldly to_ MRS. ERLYNNE, _who bows to her sweetly in turn, and sails into the room._\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You have dropped your fan, Lady Windermere. ( _Picks it up and hands it to her._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE (C): How do you do, again, Lord Windermere? How charming your sweet wife looks! Quite a picture!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _in a low voice_ ): It was terribly rash of you to come!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _smiling_ ): The wisest thing I ever did in my life. And, by the way, you must pay me a good deal of attention this evening. I am afraid of the women. You must introduce me to some of them. The men I can always manage. How do you do, Lord Augustus? You have quite neglected me lately. I have not seen you since yesterday. I am afraid you're faithless. Every one told me so.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _R._ ): Now really, Mrs. Erlynne, allow me to explain.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _R.C._ ): No, dear Lord Augustus, you can't explain anything. It is your chief charm.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Ah! If you find charms in me, Mrs. Erlynne \u2013\n\n_They converse together._ LORD WINDERMERE _moves uneasily about the room watching_ MRS. ERLYNNE.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _to_ LADY WINDERMERE): How pale you are!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Cowards are always pale!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You look faint. Come out on the terrace.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. ( _To_ PARKER): Parker, send my cloak out.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _crossing to her_ ): Lady Windermere, how beautifully your terrace is illuminated. Reminds me of Prince Doria's at Rome.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _bows coldly, and goes off with_ LORD DARLINGTON.\n\nOh, how do you do, Mr. Graham? Isn't that your aunt, Lady Jedburgh? I should so much like to know her.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _after a moment's hesitation and embarrassment_ ): Oh, certainly, if you wish it. Aunt Caroline, allow me to introduce Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: So pleased to meet you, Lady Jedburgh. ( _Sits beside her on the sofa._ ) Your nephew and I are great friends. I am so much interested in his political career. I think he's sure to be a wonderful success. He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays. He's such a brilliant talker, too. But we all know from whom he inherits that. Lord Allandale was saying to me only yesterday, in the Park, that Mr. Graham talks almost as well as his aunt.\n\nLADY JEDBURGH ( _R._ ): Most kind of you to say these charming things to me! (MRS. ERLYNNE _smiles, and continues conversation._ )\n\nDUMBY ( _to_ CECIL GRAHAM): Did you introduce Mrs. Erlynne to Lady Jedburgh?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Had to, my dear fellow. Couldn't help it! That woman can make one do anything she wants. How, I don't know.\n\nDUMBY: Hope to goodness she won't speak to me! ( _Saunters towards_ LADY PLYMDALE.)\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _C. To_ LADY JEDBURGH): On Thursday? With great pleasure. ( _Rises, and speaks to_ LORD WINDERMERE, _laughing._ ) What a bore it is to have to be civil to these old dowagers! But they always insist on it!\n\nLADY PLYMDALE ( _to_ MR. DUMBY): Who is that well-dressed woman talking to Windermere?\n\nDUMBY: Haven't got the slightest idea! Looks like an _edition de luxe_ of a wicked French novel, meant specially for the English market.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: So that is poor Dumby with Lady Plymdale? I hear she is frightfully jealous of him. He doesn't seem anxious to speak to me to-night. I suppose he is afraid of her. Those straw-coloured women have dreadful tempers. Do you know, I think I'll dance with you first, Windermere. (LORD WINDERMERE _bites his lip and frowns._ ) It will make Lord Augustus so jealous! Lord Augustus! (LORD AUGUSTUS _comes down._ ) Lord Windermere insists on my dancing with him first; as it's his own house, I can't well refuse. You know I would much sooner dance with you.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _with a low bow_ ): I wish I could think so, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You know it far too well. I can fancy a person dancing through life with you and finding it charming.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _placing his hand on his white waistcoat_ ): Oh, thank you, thank you. You are the most adorable of all ladies!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: What a nice speech! So simple and so sincere! Just the sort of speech I like. Well, you shall hold my bouquet. ( _Goes towards ballroom on_ LORD WINDERMERE'S _arm._ ) Ah, Mr. Dumby, how are you? I am so sorry I have been out the last three times you have called. Come and lunch on Friday.\n\nDUMBY: ( _with perfect nonchalance_ ): Delighted!\n\nLADY PLYMDALE _glares with indignation at_ MR. DUMBY. LORD AUGUSTUS _follows_ MRS. ERLYNNE _and_ LORD WINDERMERE _into the ballroom holding bouquet._\n\nLADY PLYMDALE ( _to_ MR. DUMBY): What an absolute brute you are! I never can believe a word you say! Why did you tell me you didn't know her? What do you mean by calling on her three times running? You are not to go to lunch there; of course you understand that?\n\nDUMBY: My dear Laura, I wouldn't dream of going!\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: You haven't told me her name yet! Who is she?\n\nDUMBY ( _coughs slightly and smooths his hair_ ): She's a Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: That woman!\n\nDUMBY: Yes; that is what every one calls her.\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. ( _Goes to door of ballroom and looks in._ ) I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing. You are to lunch there on Friday!\n\nDUMBY: Why?\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman's just the thing for him. He'll dance attendance upon her as long as she lets him, and won't bother me. I assure you, women of that kind are most useful. They form the basis of other people's marriages.\n\nDUMBY: What a mystery you are!\n\nLADY PLYMDALE ( _looking at him_ ): I wish _you_ were!\n\nDUMBY: I am \u2013 to myself. I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly; but I don't see any chance of it just at present.\n\n_They pass into the ballroom, and_ LADY WINDERMERE _and_ LORD DARLINGTON _enter from the terrace._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Yes. Her coming here is monstrous, unbearable. I know now what you meant to-day at tea time. Why didn't you tell me right out? You should have!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I couldn't! A man can't tell these things about another man! But if I had known he was going to make you ask her here tonight, I think I would have told you. That insult, at any rate, you would have been spared.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I did not ask her. He insisted on her coming \u2013 against my entreaties \u2013 against my commands. Oh! The house is tainted for me! I feel that every woman here sneers at me as she dances by with my husband. What have I done to deserve this? I gave him all my life. He took it \u2013 used it \u2013 spoiled it! I am degraded in my own eyes, and I lack courage \u2013 I am a coward! ( _Sits down on sofa._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: If I know you at all, I know that you can't live with a man who treats you like this! What sort of life would you have with him? You would feel that he was lying to you every moment of the day. You would feel that the look in his eyes was false, his voice false, his touch false, his passion false. He would come to you when he was weary of others; you would have to comfort him. He would come to you when he was devoted to others; you would have to charm him. You would have to be to him the mask of his real life, the cloak to hide his secret.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You are right \u2013 you are terribly right. But where am I to turn? You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington. Tell me, what am I to do? Be my friend now.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: No, no! ( _Rises._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Yes, I love you! You are more to me than anything in the whole world. What does your husband give you? Nothing. Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you before every one. I offer you my life \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: My life \u2013 my whole life. Take it, and do with it what\n\nyou will...I love you \u2013 love you as I have never loved any living thing.\n\nFrom the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then \u2013 you know it now! Leave this house tonight. I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely \u2013 or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! Oh, my love, choose.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _moving slowly away from him, and looking at him with startled eyes_ ): I have not the courage.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _following her_ ): Yes; you have the courage. There may be six months of pain, of disgrace even, but when you no longer bear his name, when you bear mine, all will be well. Margaret, my love, my wife that shall be some day \u2013 yes, my wife! You know it! What are you now? This woman has the place that belongs by right to you. Oh! Go \u2013 go out of this house, with head erect, with a smile upon your lips, with courage in your eyes. All London will know why you did it; and who will blame you? No one. If they do, what matter? Wrong? What is wrong? It's wrong for a man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman. It is wrong for a wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her. You said once you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I am afraid of being myself. Let me think. Let me wait! My husband may return to me. ( _Sits down on sofa._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: And you would take him back! You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. You would stand anything rather than face the censure of a world whose praise you would despise. In a week you will be driving with this woman in the Park. She will be your constant guest \u2013 your dearest friend. You would endure anything rather than break with one blow this monstrous tie. You are right. You have no courage; none!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Ah, give me time to think. I cannot answer you now. ( _Passes her hand nervously over her brow._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: It must be now or not at all.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: ( _rising from the sofa_ ): Then, not at all! ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You break my heart!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Mine is already broken. ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: To-morrow I leave England. This is the last time I shall ever look on you. You will never see me again. For one moment our lives met \u2013 our souls touched. They must never meet or touch again. Good-bye, Margaret. ( _Exit._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How alone I am in life. How terribly alone!\n\n_The music stops. Enter the_ DUCHESS OF BERWICK _and_ LORD PAISLEY _laughing and talking. Other guests come in from ballroom._\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Dear Margaret, I've just been having such a delightful chat with Mrs. Erlynne. I am so sorry for what I said to you this afternoon about her. Of course, she must be all right if _you_ invite her. A most attractive woman, and has such sensible views on life. Told me she entirely disapproved of people marrying more than once, so I feel quite safe about poor Augustus. Can't imagine why people speak against her. It's those horrid nieces of mine \u2013 the Saville girls \u2013 they're always talking scandal. Still, I should go to Homburg, dear, I really should. She is just a little too attractive. But where is Agatha? Oh, there she is. (LADY AGATHA and MR.HOPPER _enter from terrace L.U.E._ ) Mr. Hopper, I am very, very angry with you. You have taken Agatha out on the terrace, and she is so delicate.\n\nHOPPER ( _L.C._ ): Awfully sorry, Duchess. We went out for a moment and then got chatting together.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK (C.): Ah, about dear Australia, I suppose?\n\nHOPPER: Yes!\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Agatha, darling! ( _Beckons her over._ )\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma!\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _aside_ ): Did Mr. Hopper definitely \u2013\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: And what answer did you give him, dear child?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _affectionately_ ): My dear one! You always say the right thing. Mr. Hopper! James! Agatha has told me everything. How cleverly you have both kept your secret.\n\nHOPPER: You don't mind my taking Agatha off to Australia, then, Duchess?\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _indignantly_ ): To Australia? Oh, don't mention that dreadful vulgar place.\n\nHOPPER: But she said she'd like to come with me.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK ( _severely_ ): Did you say that, Agatha?\n\nLADY AGATHA: Yes, mamma.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: Agatha, you say the most silly things possible. I think on the whole that Grosvenor Square would be a more healthy place to reside in. There are lots of vulgar people live in Grosvenor Square, but at any rate there are no horrid kangaroos crawling about. But we'll talk about that to-morrow. James, you can take Agatha down. You'll come to lunch, of course, James. At half-past one, instead of two. The Duke will wish to say a few words to you, I am sure.\n\nHOPPER: I should like to have a chat with the Duke, Duchess. He has not said a single word to me yet.\n\nDUCHESS OF BERWICK: I think you'll find he will have a great deal to say to you to-morrow. ( _Exit_ LADY AGATHA _with_ MR. HOPPER.) And now good-night, Margaret. I'm afraid it's the old, old story, dear. Love \u2013 well, not love at first sight, but love at the end of the season, which is so much more satisfactory.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Good-night, Duchess.\n\n_Exit the_ DUCHESS OF BERWICK _on_ LORD PAISLEY'S _arm._\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: My dear Margaret, what a handsome woman your husband has been dancing with! I should be quite jealous if I were you! Is she a great friend of yours?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: No!\n\nLADY PLYMDALE: Really? Good-night, dear. ( _Looks at_ MR. DUMBY _and exit._ )\n\nDUMBY: Awful manners young Hopper has!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Ah! Hopper is one of Nature's gentlemen, the worst type of gentleman I know.\n\nDUMBY: Sensible woman, Lady Windermere. Lots of wives would have objected to Mrs. Erlynne coming. But Lady Windermere has that uncommon thing called common sense.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: And Windermere knows that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.\n\nDUMBY: Yes; dear Windermere is becoming almost modern. Never thought he would. ( _Bows to_ LADY WINDERMERE _and exit._ )\n\nLADY JEDBURGH: Good-night, Lady Windermere. What a fascinating woman Mrs. Erlynne is! She is coming to lunch on Thursday, won't you come too? I expect the Bishop and dear Lady Merton.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I am afraid I am engaged, Lady Jedburgh.\n\nLADY JEDBURGH: So sorry. Come, dear.\n\n_Exeunt_ LADY JEDBURGH _and_ MISS GRAHAM.\n\n_Enter_ MRS. ERLYNNE _and_ LORD WINDERMERE.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Charming ball it has been! Quite reminds me of old days. ( _Sits on sofa._ ) And I see that there are just as many fools in society as there used to be. So pleased to find that nothing has altered! Except Margaret. She's grown quite pretty. The last time I saw her \u2013 twenty years ago, she was a fright in flannel. Positive fright, I assure you. The dear Duchess! And that sweet Lady Agatha! Just the type of girl I like! Well, really, Windermere, if I am to be the Duchess's sister-in-law \u2013\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _sitting L. of her_ ): But are you \u2013?\n\n_Exit_ MR. CECIL GRAHAM _with rest of guests._ LADY WINDERMERE _watches, with a look of scorn and pain,_ MRS. ERLYNNE _and her husband. They are unconscious of her presence._\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh, yes! He's to call to-morrow at twelve o'clock. He wanted to propose to-night. In fact he did. He kept on proposing. Poor Augustus; you know how he repeats himself. Such a bad habit! But I told him I wouldn't give him an answer till to-morrow. Of course I am going to take him. And I dare say I'll make him an admirable wife, as wives go. And there is a great deal of good in Lord Augustus. Fortunately it is all on the surface. Just where good qualities should be. Of course you must help me in this matter.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I am not called on to encourage Lord Augustus, I suppose?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh, no! I do the encouraging. But you will make me a handsome settlement, Windermere, won't you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _frowning_ ): Is that what you want to talk to me about to-night?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _with a gesture of impatience_ ): I will not talk of it here.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _laughing_ ): Then we will talk of it on the terrace. Even business should have a picturesque background. Should it not, Windermere? With a proper background women can do anything.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Won't to-morrow do as well?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: No; you see, to-morrow I am going to accept him. And I think it would be a good thing if I was able to tell him that I had \u2013 well, what shall I say? \u2013 \u00a32000 a year left to me by a third cousin \u2013 or a second husband \u2013 or some distant relative of that kind. It would be an additional attraction, wouldn't it? You have a delightful opportunity now of paying me a compliment, Windermere. But you are not very clever at paying compliments. I am afraid Margaret doesn't encourage you in that excellent habit. It's a great mistake on her part. When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. But seriously, what do you say to \u00a32000? \u00a32500, I think. In modern life margin is everything. Windermere, don't you think the world an intensely amusing place? I do!\n\n_Exit on terrace with_ LORD WINDERMERE. _Music strikes up in ballroom._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: To stay in this house any longer is impossible. Tonight a man who loves me offered me his whole life. I refused it. It was foolish of me. I will offer him mine now. I will give him mine. I will go to him! ( _Puts on cloak and goes to the door, then turns back. Sits down at table and writes_ _a letter, puts it into an envelope, and leaves it on table._ ) Arthur has never understood me. When he reads this, he will. He may do as he chooses now with his life. I have done with mine as I think best, as I think right. It is he who has broken the bond of marriage \u2013 not I. I only break its bondage. ( _Exit._ )\n\nPARKER _enters L. and crosses towards the ballroom R. Enter_ MRS. ERLYNNE.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Is Lady Windermere in the ballroom?\n\nPARKER: Her ladyship has just gone out.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Gone out? She's not on the terrace?\n\nPARKER: No, madam. Her ladyship has just gone out of the house.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _starts, and looks at the servant with a puzzled expression in her face._ ): Out of the house?\n\nPARKER: Yes, madam \u2013 her ladyship told me she had left a letter for his lordship on the table.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: A letter for Lord Windermere?\n\nPARKER: Yes, madam.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Thank you.\n\n_Exit_ PARKER. _The music in the ballroom stops._\n\nGone out of her house! A letter addressed to her husband! ( _Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear._ ) No, no! It would be impossible! Life doesn't repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? ( _Tears letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish._ ) Oh, how terrible! The same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! and how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now! ( _Stillseated R._ )\n\n_Enter_ LORD WINDERMERE _L. U.E._\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Have you said good-night to my wife? ( _Comes C._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _crushing letter in her hand_ ): Yes.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Where is she?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said she had a headache.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I must go to her. You'll excuse me?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _rising hurriedly_ ): Oh, no! It's nothing serious. She's only very tired, that is all. Besides, there are people still in the supper-room. She wants you to make her apologies to them. She said she didn't wish to be disturbed. ( _Drops letter._ ) She asked me to tell you!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _picks up letter_ ): You have dropped something.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh yes, thank you, that is mine. ( _Puts out her hand to take it._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _still looking at letter_ ): But it's my wife's handwriting isn't it?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _takes the letter quickly_ ): Yes, it's \u2013 an address. Will you ask them to call my carriage, please?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Certainly. ( _Goes L. and Exit._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Thanks! What can I do? What can I do? I feel a passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it mean? The daughter must not be like the mother \u2013 that would be terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? Windermere must be got out of the house; that is absolutely necessary. ( _Goes L._ ) But how shall I do it? It must be done somehow. Ah!\n\n_Enter_ LORD AUGUSTUS _R. U.E. carrying bouquet._\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Dear Lady, I am in such suspense! May I not have an answer to my request?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Lord Augustus, listen to me. You are to take Lord Windermere down to your club at once, and keep him there as long as possible. You understand?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: But you said you wished me to keep early hours!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _nervously_ ): Do what I tell you. Do what I tell you.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: And my reward?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Your reward? Your reward? Oh! Ask me that to-morrow. But don't let Windermere out of your sight to-night. If you do I will never forgive you. I will never speak to you again. I'll have nothing to do with you. Remember you are to keep Windermere at your club, and don't let him come back to-night. ( _Exit L._ )\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Well, really, I might be her husband already. Positively I might. ( _Follows her in a bewildered manner._ )\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT THREE\n\nSCENE: _Lord Darlington's rooms. A large sofa is in front of fireplace R. At the back of the stage a curtain is drawn across the window. Doors L. and R. Table R. with writing materials. Table C. with syphons, glasses, and Tantalus frame. Table L. with cigar and cigarette box. Lamps lit._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _standing by the fireplace_ ): Why doesn't he come? This waiting is horrible. He should be here. Why is he not here, to wake by passionate words some fire within me? I am cold \u2013 cold as a loveless thing. Arthur must have read my letter by this time. If he cared for me, he would have come after me, would have taken me back by force. But he doesn't care. He's entrammelled by this woman \u2013 fascinated by her \u2013 dominated by her. If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make gods of men and they leave us. Other make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is!...Oh! It was mad of me to come here, horribly mad. And yet, which is the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves one, or the wife of a man who in one's own house dishonours one? What woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him? Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go back \u2013 no; I can't go back, my letter has put me in their power \u2013 Arthur would not take me back! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow. I will go with him \u2013 I have no choice. ( _Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak._ ) No, no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can't wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington. Oh! Here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible...Oh! ( _Hides her face in her hands._ )\n\n_Enter_ MRS. ERLYNNE _L._\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Lady Windermere! (LADY WINDERMERE _starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt._ ) Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband's house immediately.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Must?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _authoritatively_ ): Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Don't come near me!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once; my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa._\n\nWhat are you doing?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest \u2013 rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! You don't think that \u2013 you can't.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world's tongue. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: No \u2013 no \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes! He shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me \u2013 I was going back \u2013 but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger \u2013 oh! It was infamous \u2013 infamous.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _C_ ): Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly \u2013 you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn't know you are here \u2013 he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _R._ ): Never read it!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: No \u2013 he knows nothing about it.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: How simple you think me! ( _Going to her._ ) You are lying to me!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _restraining herself_ ): I am not. I am telling you the truth.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: If my husband didn't read my letter, how is it that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. ( _Crosses L._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _R.C._ ): Your husband has never seen the letter. I \u2013 saw it, I opened it. I \u2013 read it.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _turning to her_ ): You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn't dare!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Dare! Oh! To save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. ( _Going to fireplace._ ) It should never have been written. ( _Tears it and throws it into the fire._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _with infinite contempt in her voice and look_ ): How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think that commonest device can take me in!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! Why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now _was_ your letter. I swear it to you!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _slowly_ ): You took good care to burn it before I had examined it. I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, how could you speak the truth about anything? ( _Sits down._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _hurriedly_ ): Think as you like about me \u2013 say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _sullenly_ ): I do _not_ love him!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You do, and you know that he loves you.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do \u2013 but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back. Dear Heaven! What a life I would have then! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _with a gesture of despair_ ): Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere, don't say such terrible things. You don't know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust. Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext \u2013 never to see him \u2013 never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him \u2013\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _rising_ ): Ah! You admit you have a hold!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You expect me to believe that?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You must believe it! It is true. It is his love for you that has made him submit to \u2013 Oh! call it what you like, tyranny, threats, anything you choose. But it is his love for you. His desire to spare you \u2013 shame, yes, shame and disgrace.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _humbly_ ): Nothing. I know it \u2013 but I tell you that your husband loves you \u2013 that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life \u2013 that such love you will never meet \u2013 and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you. Oh! Arthur loves you!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Arthur? And you tell me there is nothing between you?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you! And I \u2013 I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his \u2013 oh! Died, gladly died! ( _Moves away to sofa R._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. ( _Sits L.C._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _starts, with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where_ LADY WINDERMERE _is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her_ ): Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment's sorrow. But don't spoil your beautiful young life on my account! You don't know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don't know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at \u2013 to be an outcast! To find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one's face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don't know what it is. One pays for one's sin, and then one pays again, and all one's life one pays. You must never know that. As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for tonight you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it. But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You \u2013 why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. (LADY WINDERMERE _rises._ ) God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere \u2013 your husband loves you! He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child. If he abandoned you, your place is with your child.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands._\n\n( _Rushing to her_ ): Lady Windermere!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a child might do_ ): Take me home. Take me home.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _is about to embrace her. Then restrains herself. There is a look of wonderful joy in her face_ ): Come! Where is your cloak? ( _Getting it from sofa_ ): Here. Put it on. Come at once!\n\n_They go to the door._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Stop! Don't you hear voices?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: No, no! There is no one!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes, there is! Listen! Oh! That is my husband's voice! He is coming in! Save me! Oh, it's some plot! You have sent for him.\n\n_Voices outside._\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Silence! I'm here to save you, if I can. But I fear it is too late! There! ( _Points to the curtain across the window._ ) The first chance you have slip out, if you ever get a chance!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: But you?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh! never mind me. I'll face them.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _hides herself behind the curtain._\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _outside_ ): Nonsense, dear Windermere, you must not leave me!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Lord Augustus! Then it is I who am lost! ( _Hesitates for a moment, then looks round and sees door R., and exit through it._ )\n\n_Enter_ LORD DARLINGTON, MR. DUMBY, LORD WINDERMERE, LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON, _and_ MR. CECIL GRAHAM.\n\nDUMBY: What a nuisance their turning us out of the club at this hour! It's only two o'clock. ( _Sinks into a chair._ ) The lively part of the evening is only just beginning. ( _Yawns and closes his eyes._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: It is very good of you, Lord Darlington, allowing Augustus to force our company on you, but I'm afraid I can't stay long.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Really! I am so sorry! You'll take a cigar, won't you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Thanks! ( _Sits down._ )\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _to_ LORD WINDERMERE): My dear boy, you must not dream of going. I have a great deal to talk to you about, of demmed importance, too. ( _Sits down with him at L. table._ )\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Oh! We all know what that is! Tuppy can't talk about anything but Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Well, that is no business of yours, is it, Cecil?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: None! That is why it interests me. My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Have something to drink, you fellows. Cecil, you'll have a whisky and soda?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Thanks. ( _Goes to table with_ LORD DARLINGTON): Mrs. Erlynne looked very handsome to-night, didn't she?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: I am not one of her admirers.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: I usen't to be, but I am now. Why! She actually made me introduce her to poor dear Aunt Caroline. I believe she is going to lunch there.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _in surprise_ ): No?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: She is, really.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Excuse me, you fellows. I'm going away to-morrow. And I have to write a few letters. ( _Goes to writing-table and sits down._ )\n\nDUMBY: Clever woman, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Hallo, Dumby! I thought you were asleep.\n\nDUMBY: I am, I usually am!\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: A very clever woman. Knows perfectly well what a demmed fool I am \u2013 knows it as well as I do myself.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM _comes towards him laughing._\n\nAh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is a great thing to come across a woman who thoroughly understands one.\n\nDUMBY: It is an awfully dangerous thing. They always end by marrying one.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: But I thought, Tuppy, you were never going to see her again! Yes! You told me so yesterday evening at the club. You said you'd heard \u2013\n\n_Whispering to him._\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Oh, she's explained that.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: And the Wiesbaden affair?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: She's explained that too.\n\nDUMBY: And her income, Tuppy? Has she explained that?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _in a very serious voice_ ): She's going to explain that to-morrow.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM _goes back to C. table._\n\nDUMBY: Awfully commercial, women nowadays. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mills, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _puffing a cigar_ ): Mrs. Erlynne has a future before her.\n\nDUMBY: Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: I prefer women with a past. They're always so demmed amusing to talk to.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Well, you'll have lots of topics of conversation with _her,_ Tuppy. ( _Rising and going to him._ )\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: You're getting annoying, dear boy; you're getting demmed annoying.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _puts his hands on his shoulders_ ): Now, Tuppy, you've lost your figure and you've lost your character. Don't lose your temper; you have only got one.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: My dear boy, if I wasn't the most good-natured man in London \u2013\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: We'd treat you with more respect, wouldn't we, Tuppy? ( _Strolls away._ )\n\nDUMBY: The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS _looks round angrily._\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy.\n\nDUMBY: Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don't really know anything about her, and you're always talking scandal against her.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _coming towards him L.C._ ): My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. _I_ only talk gossip.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: What is the difference between scandal and gossip?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I'm glad to say.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: My dear boy, when I was your age \u2013\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. ( _Goes up to C._ ) I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You'll play, Arthur, won't you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: No thanks, Cecil.\n\nDUMBY ( _with a sigh_ ): Good heavens! How marriage ruins a man! It's as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: You'll play, of course, Tuppy?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table_ ): Can't, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _rising from R. Table, where he has been writing letters_ ): They always do find us bad!\n\nDUMBY: I don't think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ( _Sits down at C. table._ )\n\nDUMBY: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn't. ( _Glances instinctively at_ LORD WINDERMERE _while he speaks._ )\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: A married woman, then! Well, there's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It's a thing no married man knows anything about.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Oh! She doesn't love me. She is a good woman. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: The only good woman you have ever met in your life?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Yes!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _lighting a cigarette_ ): Well, you are a lucky fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good women. To know them is a middle-class education.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: This woman has purity and innocence. She has everything we men have lost.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.\n\nDUMBY: She doesn't really love you then?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: No, she does not!\n\nDUMBY: I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: A woman who didn't love me? Oh, all my life!\n\nDUMBY: So could I. But it's so difficult to meet one.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: How can you be so conceited, Dumby?\n\nDUMBY: I didn't say it as a matter of conceit. I said it as a matter of regret. I have been wildly, madly adored. I am sorry I have. It has been an immense nuisance. I should like to be allowed a little time to myself now and then.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _looking round_ ): Time to educate yourself, I suppose.\n\nDUMBY: No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important, dear Tuppy.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS _moves uneasily in his chair._\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: What cynics you fellows are!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: What is a cynic? ( _Sitting on the back of the sofa._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You always amuse me, Cecil. You talk as if you were a man of experience.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: I am. ( _Moves up to front of fireplace._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You are far too young!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: That is a great error. Experience is a question of instinct about life. I have got it. Tuppy hasn't. Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes. That is all.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS _looks round indignantly._\n\nDUMBY: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _standing with his back to the fireplace_ ): One shouldn't commit any. ( _Sees_ LADY WINDERMERE'S _fan on sofa._ )\n\nDUMBY: Life would be very dull without them.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Cecil, if one really loves a woman, all other women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one. Love changes one \u2013 I am changed.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Dear me! How very interesting! Tuppy, I want to talk to you.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS _takes no notice._\n\nDUMBY: It's no use talking to Tuppy. You might just as well talk to a brick wall.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: But I like talking to a brick wall \u2013 it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me! Tuppy!\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Well, what is it? What is it? ( _Rising and going over to_ CECIL GRAHAM.)\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Come over here. I want you particularly. ( _Aside._ ) Darlington has been moralising and talking about the purity of love, and that sort of thing, and he has got some woman in his rooms all the time.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: No, really! Really!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM ( _in a low voice_ ): Yes, here is her fan. ( _Points to the fan._ )\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _chuckling_ ): By Jove! By Jove!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _up by door_ ): I am really off now, Lord Darlington. I am sorry you are leaving England so soon. Pray call on us when you come back! My wife and I will be charmed to see you!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _up stage with_ LORD WINDERMERE): I am afraid I shall be away for many years. Good-night!\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Arthur!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: What?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: I want to speak to you for a moment. No, do come!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _putting on his coat_ ): I can't \u2013 I'm off.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: It is something very particular. It will interest you enormously.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _smiling_ ): It is some of your nonsense, Cecil.\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: It isn't! It isn't really.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _going to him_ ): My dear fellow, you mustn't go yet. I have a lot to talk to you about. And Cecil has something to show you.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _walking over_ ): Well, what is it?\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms. Here is her fan. Amusing, isn't it? ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Good God! ( _Seizes the fan_ \u2013 DUMBY _rises._ )\n\nCECIL GRAHAM: What is the matter?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington!\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _turning round_ ): Yes!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: What is my wife's fan doing here in your rooms? Hands off, Cecil. Don't touch me.\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: Your wife's fan?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Yes, here it is?\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _walking towards him_ ): I don't know!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You must know. I demand an explanation. Don't hold me, you fool. ( _To_ CECIL GRAHAM.)\n\nLORD DARLINGTON ( _aside_ ): She is here after all!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Speak, sir! Why is my wife's fan here? Answer me! By God! I'll search your rooms, and if my wife's here, I'll \u2013 ( _Moves._ )\n\nLORD DARLINGTON: You shall not search my rooms. You have no right to do so. I forbid you!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You scoundrel! I'll not leave your room till I have searched every corner of it! What moves behind that curtain? ( _Rushes forward towards the curtain C._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _enters behind R._ ): Lord Windermere!\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Mrs. Erlynne!\n\n_Every one starts and turns round._ LADY WINDERMERE _slips out from behind the curtain and glides from the room L._\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I am afraid I took your wife's fan in mistake for my own, when I was leaving your house to-night. I am so sorry. ( _Takes fan from him._ LORD WINDERMERE _looks at her in contempt._ LORD DARLINGTON _in mingled astonishment and anger._ LORD AUGUSTUS _turns away. The other men smile at each other._ )\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _Same as in Act One._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _lying on sofa_ ): How can I tell him? I can't tell him. It would kill me. I wonder what happened after I escaped from that horrible room. Perhaps she told them the true reason of her being there, and the real meaning of that \u2013 fatal fan of mine. Oh, if he knows \u2013 how can I look him in the face again? He would never forgive me. ( _Touches bell._ ) How securely one thinks one lives \u2013 out of reach of temptation, sin, folly. And then suddenly \u2013 Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.\n\n_Enter_ ROSALIE _R._\n\nROSALIE: Did your ladyship ring for me?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Have you found out at what time Lord Windermere came in last night?\n\nROSALIE: His lordship did not come in till five o'clock.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Five o'clock? He knocked at my door this morning, didn't he?\n\nROSALIE: Yes, my lady \u2013 at half-past nine. I told him your ladyship was not awake yet.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Did he say anything?\n\nROSALIE: Something about your ladyship's fan. I didn't quite catch what his lordship said. Has the fan been lost, my lady? I can't find it, and Parker says it was not left in any of the rooms. He has looked in all of them and on the terrace as well.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: It doesn't matter. Tell Parker not to trouble. That will do.\n\n_Exit_ ROSALIE.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _rising_ ): She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine?...How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. She accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me...There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women...Oh, what a lesson! And what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn't tell, I must. Oh! The shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless...Oh! ( _Starts as_ LORD WINDERMERE _enters._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _kisses her_ ): Margaret \u2013 how pale you look!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I slept very badly.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _sitting on sofa with her_ ): I am so sorry. I came in dreadfully late, and didn't like to wake you. You are crying, dear.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes, I am crying, for I have something to tell you, Arthur.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: My dear child, you are not well. You've been doing too much. Let us go away to the country. You'll be all right at Selby. The season is almost over. There is no use staying on. Poor darling! We'll go away to-day, if you like. ( _Rises._ ) We can easily catch the 3.40. I'll send a wire to Fannen. ( _Crosses and sits down at table to write a telegram._ )\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes; let us go away to-day. No; I can't go to-day, Arthur. There is some one I must see before I leave town \u2013 some one who has been kind to me.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _rising and leaning over sofa_ ): Kind to you?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Far more than that. ( _Rises and goes to him._ ) I will tell you, Arthur, but only love me, love me as you used to love me.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Used to? You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night? ( _Coming round and sitting R. of her._ ): You don't still imagine \u2013 no, you couldn't.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I don't. I know now I was wrong and foolish.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: It was very good of you to receive her last night \u2013 but you are never to see her again.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why do you say that? ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _holding her hand_ ): Margaret, I thought Mrs. Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place that she had lost by a moment's folly, to lead again a decent life. I believed what she told me \u2013 I was mistaken in her. She is bad \u2013 as bad as a woman can be.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any woman. I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman \u2013 I know she's not.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: My dear child, the woman's impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. She is inadmissible anywhere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: But I want to see her. I want her to come here.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Never!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: She came here once as _your_ guest. She must come now as _mine._ That is but fair.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: She should never have come here.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _rising_ ): It is too late, Arthur, to say that now. ( _Moves away._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _rising_ ): Margaret, if you knew where Mrs. Erlynne went last night, after she left this house, you would not sit in the same room with her. It was absolutely shameless, the whole thing.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, I can't bear it any longer. I must tell you. Last night \u2013\n\n_Enter_ PARKER _with a tray on which lie_ LADY WINDERMERE'S _fan and a card._\n\nPARKER: Mrs. Erlynne has called to return your ladyship's fan which she took away by mistake last night. Mrs. Erlynne has written a message on the card.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh, ask Mrs. Erlynne to be kind enough to come up. ( _Reads card._ ) Say I shall be very glad to see her.\n\n_Exit_ PARKER.\n\nShe wants to see me, Arthur.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _takes card and looks at it_ ): Margaret, I _beg_ you not to. Let me see her first, at any rate. She's a dangerous woman. She is the most dangerous woman I know. You don't realise what you're doing.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: It is right that I should see her.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: My child, you may be on the brink of a great sorrow. Don't go to meet it. It is absolutely necessary that I should see her before you do.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Why should it be necessary?\n\n_Enter_ PARKER.\n\nPARKER: Mrs. Erlynne.\n\n_Enter_ MRS. ERLYNNE. _Exit_ PARKER.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: How do you do, Lady Windermere? ( _To_ LORD WINDERMERE): How do you do? Do you know, Lady Windermere, I am so sorry about your fan. I can't imagine how I made such a silly mistake. Most stupid of me. And as I was driving in your direction, I thought I would take the opportunity of returning your property in person with many apologies for my carelessness, and of bidding you good-bye.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Good-bye? ( _Moves towards sofa with_ MRS. ERLYNNE _and sits down beside her._ ) Are you going away, then, Mrs. Erlynne?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes; I am going to live abroad again. The English climate doesn't suit me. My \u2013 heart is affected here, and that I don't like. I prefer living in the south. London is too full of fogs and \u2013 and serious people, Lord Windermere. Whether the fogs produce the serious people or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know, but the whole thing rather gets on my nerves, and so I'm leaving this afternoon by the Club Train.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: This afternoon? But I wanted so much to come and see you.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: How kind of you! But I am afraid I have to go.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Shall I never see you again, Mrs. Erlynne?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I am afraid not. Our lives lie too far apart. But there is a little thing I would like you to do for me. I want a photograph of you, Lady Windermere \u2013 would you give me one? You don't know how gratified I should be.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh, with pleasure. There is one on that table. I'll show it to you. ( _Goes across to the table._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _coming up to_ MRS. ERLYNNE _and speaking in a low voice_ ): It is monstrous your intruding yourself here after your conduct last night.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _with an amused smile_ ): My dear Windermere, manners before morals!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _returning_ ): I'm afraid it is very flattering \u2013 I am not so pretty as that. ( _Showing photograph._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You are much prettier. But haven't you got one of yourself with your little boy?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I have. Would you prefer one of those?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I'll go and get it for you, if you'll excuse me for a moment. I have one upstairs.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: So sorry, Lady Windermere, to give you so much trouble.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _moves to door R._ ): No trouble at all, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Thanks so much.\n\n_Exit_ LADY WINDERMERE _R._\n\nYou seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I can't bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I have not told _her_ the truth, you mean.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _standing C_ ): I sometimes wish you had. I should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the last six months. But rather than my wife should know \u2013 that the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living \u2013 a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be \u2013 rather than that, I was ready to supply you with money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever had with my wife. You don't understand what that means to me. How could you? But I tell you that the only bitter words that ever came from those sweet lips of hers were on your account, and I hate to see you next her. You sully the innocence that is in her. ( _Moves L.C._ ) And then I used to think that with all your faults you were frank and honest. You are not.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Why do you say that?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You made me get you an invitation to my wife's ball.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: For my daughter's ball \u2013 yes.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You came, and within an hour of your leaving the house you are found in a man's rooms \u2013 you are disgraced before every one. ( _Goes up stage C._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _turning round on her_ ): Therefore I have a right to look upon you as what you are \u2013 a worthless, vicious woman. I have the right to tell you never to enter this house, never to attempt to come near my wife \u2013\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _coldly_ ): My daughter, you mean.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You have no right to claim her as your daughter. You left her, abandoned her when she was but a child in the cradle, abandoned her for your lover, who abandoned you in turn.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _rising_ ): Do you count that to his credit, Lord Windermere \u2013 or to mine?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: To his, now that I know you.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Take care \u2013 you had better be careful.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Oh, I am not going to mince words for you. I know you thoroughly.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _looking steadily at him_ ): I question that.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I _do_ know you. For twenty years of your life you lived without your child, without a thought of your child. One day you read in the papers that she had married a rich man. You saw your hideous chance. You knew that to spare her the ignominy of learning that a woman like you was her mother, I would endure anything. You began your blackmailing.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _shrugging her shoulders_ ): Don't use ugly words, Windermere. They are vulgar. I saw my chance, it is true, and took it.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Yes, you took it \u2013 and spoiled it all last night by being found out.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _with a strange smile_ ): You are quite right, I spoiled it all last night.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: And as for your blunder in taking my wife's fan from here and then leaving it about in Darlington's rooms, it is unpardonable. I can't bear the sight of it now. I shall never let my wife use it again. The thing is soiled for me. You should have kept it and not brought it back.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I think I _shall_ keep it. ( _Goes up._ ) It's extremely pretty. ( _Takes up fan._ ) I shall ask Margaret to give it to me.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I hope my wife will give it to you.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Oh, I'm sure she will have no objection.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I wish that at the same time she would give you a miniature she kisses every night before she prays. It's the miniature of a young innocent-looking girl with beautiful _dark_ hair.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Ah, yes, I remember. How long ago that seems! ( _Goes to sofa and sits down._ ) It was done before I was married. Dark hair and an innocent expression were the fashion then, Windermere! ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: What do you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object? ( _Crossing L.C. and sitting._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _with a note of irony in her voice_ ): To bid good-bye to my dear daughter, of course.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE _bites his under lip in anger._ MRS. ERLYNNE _looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In her accents as she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself._\n\nOh, don't imagine I am going to have a pathetic scene with her, weep on her neck and tell her who I am, and all that kind of thing. I have no ambition to play the part of a mother. Only once in my life have I known a mother's feelings. That was last night. They were terrible \u2013 they made me suffer \u2013 they made me suffer too much. For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless \u2013 I want to live childless still. ( _Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh._ ) Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother with a grown-up daughter? Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most. Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not. So you see what difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless mother. Why should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard enough to keep my own. I lost one illusion last night. I thought I had no heart. I find I'have, and a heart doesn't suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn't go with modern dress. It makes one look old. ( _Takes up handmirror from table and looks into it._ ) And it spoils one's career at critical moments.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: You fill me with horror \u2013 with absolute horror.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _rising_ ): I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don't do such things \u2013 not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No \u2013 what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake \u2013 I discovered that last night.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: A fatal mistake.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _smiling_ ): Almost fatal.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones \u2013 that is the difference between us.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I don't trust you. I _will_ tell my wife. It's better for her to know, and from me. It will cause her infinite pain \u2013 it will humiliate her terribly, but it's right that she should know.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You propose to tell her?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I am going to tell her.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _going up to him_ ): If you do, I will make my name so infamous that it will mar every moment of her life. It will ruin her, and make her wretched. If you dare to tell her, there is no depth of degradation I will not sink to, no pit of shame I will not enter. You shall not tell her \u2013 I forbid you.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Why?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _after a pause_ ): If I said to you that I cared for her, perhaps loved her even \u2013 you would sneer at me, wouldn't you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: I should feel it was not true. A mother's love means devotion, unselfishness, sacrifice. What could you know of such things?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You are right. What could I know of such things? Don't let us talk any more about it \u2013 as for telling my daughter who I am, that I do not allow. It is my secret, it is not yours. If I make up my mind to tell her, and I think I will, I shall tell her before I leave the house \u2013 if not, I shall never tell her.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _angrily_ ): Then let me beg of you to leave our house at once. I will make your excuses to Margaret.\n\n_Enter_ LADY WINDERMERE _R. She goes over to_ MRS. ERLYNNE _with the photograph in her hand._ LORD WINDERMERE _moves to back of sofa, and anxiously watches_ MRS. ERLYNNE _as the scene progresses._\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I am so sorry, Mrs. Erlynne, to have kept you waiting. I couldn't find the photograph anywhere. At last I discovered it in my husband's dressing-room \u2013 he had stolen it.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _takes the photograph from her and looks at it_ ): I am not surprised \u2013 it is charming. ( _Goes over to sofa with_ LADY WINDERMERE, _and sits down beside her. Looks again at the photograph._ ) And so that is your little boy! What is he called?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Gerard, after my dear father.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _laying the photograph down_ ): Really?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. It if had been a girl, I would have called it after my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: My name is Margaret too.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Indeed!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes. ( _Pause._ ) You are devoted to your mother's memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _shaking her head_ ): If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Everything?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes. ( _Pause._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Did your father often speak to you of your mother?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: No, it gave him too much pain. He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born. His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again. It made him suffer even to hear it. My father \u2013 my father really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _rising_ ): I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _rising_ ): Oh no, don't.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: I think I had better. My carriage must have come back by this time. I sent it to Lady Jedburgh's with a note.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come back?\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Pray don't trouble, Lord Windermere.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Yes, Arthur, do go, please.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE _hesitates for a moment and looks at_ MRS. ERLYNNE. _She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room._\n\n( _To_ MRS. ERLYNNE): Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night. ( _Goes towards her._ )\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Hush \u2013 don't speak of it.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I must speak of it. I can't let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: It is not your duty \u2013 at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: I owe you everything.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don't spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband's life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! How easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will _never_ tell him. I insist upon it.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _with bowed head_ ): It is your will, not mine.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child \u2013 I like to think of you as a mother. I like you to think of yourself as one.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _looking up_ ): I always will now. Only once in my life I have forgotten my own mother \u2013 that was last night. Oh, if I had remembered her I should not have been so foolish, so wicked.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _with a slight shudder_ ): Hush, last night is quite over.\n\n_Enter_ LORD WINDERMERE.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: It makes no matter. I'll take a hansom. There is nothing in the world so respectable as a good Shrewsbury and Talbot. And now, dear Lady Windermere, I am afraid it is really good-bye. ( _Moves up C._ ) Oh, I remember. You'll think me absurd, but do you know I've taken a great fancy to this fan that I was silly enough to run away with last night from your ball. Now, I wonder would you give it to me? Lord Windermere says you may. I know it is his present.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure. But it has my name on it. It has 'Margaret' on it.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: But we have the same Christian name.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Oh, I forgot. Of course, do have it. What a wonderful chance our names being the same!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: Quite wonderful. Thanks \u2013 it will always remind me of you. ( _Shakes hands with her._ )\n\n_Enter_ PARKER.\n\nPARKER: Lord Augustus Lorton. Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come.\n\n_Enter_ LORD AUGUSTUS.\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Good-morning, dear boy. Good-morning, Lady Windermere. ( _Sees_ MRS. ERLYNNE.) Mrs. Erlynne!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: How do you do, Lord Augustus? Are you quite well this morning?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _coldly_ ): Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: You don't look at all well, Lord Augustus. You stop up too late \u2013 it is so bad for you. You really should take more care of yourself. Good-bye, Lord Windermere. ( _Goes towards door with a bow to_ LORD AUGUSTUS. _Suddenly smiles and looks back at him._ ) Lord Augustus! Won't you see me to my carriage? You might carry the fan.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Allow me!\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE: No; I want Lord Augustus. I have a special message for the dear Duchess. Won't you carry the fan, Lord Augustus?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne.\n\nMRS. ERLYNNE ( _laughing_ ): Of course I do. You'll carry it so gracefully. You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus. ( _When she reaches the door she looks back for a moment at_ LADY WINDERMERE. _Their eyes meet. Then she turns, and exit C. followed by_ LORD AUGUSTUS.)\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you?\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _gravely_ ): She is better than one thought her.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: She is better than I am.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _smiling as he strokes her hair_ ): Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: Don't say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE ( _moves down with her_ ): Darling, why do you say that?\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _sits on sofa_ ): Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us \u2013\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: We were never separated.\n\nLADY WINDERMERE: We never must be again. O Arthur, don't love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red.\n\n_Enter_ LORD AUGUSTUS _C._\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS: Arthur, she has explained everything!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE _looks horribly frightened at this._ LORD WINDERMERE _starts._ LORD AUGUSTUS _takes_ WINDERMERE _by the arm and brings him to front of stage. He talks rapidly and in a low voice._ LADY WINDERMERE _stands watching them in terror._\n\nMy dear fellow, she has explained every demmed thing. We all wronged her immensely. It was entirely for my sake she went to Darlington's rooms. Called first at the Club \u2013 fact is, wanted to put me out of suspense \u2013 and being told I had gone on \u2013 followed \u2013 naturally frightened when she heard a lot of us coming in \u2013 retired to another room \u2013 I assure you, most gratifying to me, the whole thing. We all behaved brutally to her. She is just the woman for me. Suits me down to the ground. All the conditions she makes are that we live entirely out of England. A very good thing too. Demmed clubs, demmed climate, demmed cooks, demmed everything. Sick of it all!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _frightened_ ): Has Mrs. Erlynne \u2013?\n\nLORD AUGUSTUS ( _advancing towards her with a low bow_ ): Yes, Lady Windermere \u2013 Mrs. Erlynne has done me the honour of accepting my hand.\n\nLORD WINDERMERE: Well, you are certainly marrying a very clever woman!\n\nLADY WINDERMERE ( _taking her husband's hand_ ): Ah, you're marrying a very good woman!\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## A Woman of No Importance\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH\n\nSIR JOHN PONTEFRACT\n\nLORD ALFRED RUFFORD\n\nMR. KELVIL, M.P.\n\nTHE VEN. ARCHDEACON\n\nDAUBENY, D.D.\n\nGERALD ARBUTHNOT\n\nFARQUHAR, BUTLER\n\nFRANCIS, FOOTMAN\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON\n\nLADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT\n\nLADY STUTFIELD\n\nMRS. ALLONBY\n\nMISS HESTER WORSLEY\n\nALICE, MAID\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT\n\n### ACT ONE\n\nSCENE: _Lawn in front of the terrace at Hunstanton Chase. The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours._ TIME: _The present._\n\nSIR JOHN _and_ LADY CAROLINE PONTEFRACT, MISS WORSELY, _on chairs under large yew tree._\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I believe this is the first English country house you have stayed at, Miss Worsley?\n\nHESTER: Yes, Lady Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: You have no country houses, I am told, in America?\n\nHESTER: We have not many.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Have you any country? What we should call country?\n\nHESTER ( _smiling_ ): We have the largest country in the world, Lady Caroline. They used to tell us at school that some of our states are as big as France and England put together.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Ah! You must find it very draughty, I should fancy. ( _To_ SIR JOHN): John, you should have your muffler. What is the use of my always knitting mufflers for you if you won't wear them?\n\nSIR JOHN: I am quite warm, Caroline, I assure you.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. Well, you couldn't come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. ( _To_ SIR JOHN): Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle \u2013\n\nSIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one's life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. But Mrs. Allonby is hardly a very suitable person.\n\nHESTER: I dislike Mrs. Allonby. I dislike her more than I can say.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I am not sure, Miss Worsley, that foreigners like yourself should cultivate likes or dislikes about the people they are invited to meet. Mrs. Allonby is very well born. She is a niece of Lord Brancaster's. It is said, of course, that she ran away twice before she was married. But you know how unfair people often are. I myself don't believe she ran away more than once.\n\nHESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot is very charming.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Ah, yes! The young man who has a post in a bank. Lady Hunstanton is most kind in asking him here, and Lord Illingworth seems to have taken quite a fancy to him. I am not sure, however, that Jane is right in taking him out of his position. In my young days, Miss Worsley, one never met any one in society who worked for their living. It was not considered the thing.\n\nHESTER: In America those are the people we respect most.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I have no doubt of it.\n\nHESTER: Mr. Arbuthnot has a beautiful nature! He is so simple, so sincere. He has one of the most beautiful natures I have ever come across. It is a privilege to meet _him._\n\nLADY CAROLINE: It is not customary in England, Miss Worsley, for a young lady to speak with such enthusiasm of any person of the opposite sex. English women conceal their feelings till after they are married. They show them then.\n\nHESTER: Do you, in England, allow no friendship to exist between a young man and a young girl?\n\n_Enter_ LADY HUNSTANTON, _followed by_ FOOTMAN _with shawls and a cushion._\n\nLADY CAROLINE: We think it very inadvisable. Jane, I was just saying what a pleasant party you have asked us to meet. You have a wonderful power of selection. It is quite a gift.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Dear Caroline, how kind of you! I think we all do fit in very nicely together. And I hope our charming American visitor will carry back pleasant recollections of our English country life. ( _To Footman_ ): The cushion, there, Francis. And my shawl. The Shetland. Get the Shetland.\n\n_Exit Footman for shawl. Enter_ GERALD ARBUTHNOT.\n\nGERALD: Lady Hunstanton, I have such good news to tell you. Lord Illingworth has just offered to make me his secretary.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: His secretary? That is good news indeed, Gerald. It means a very brilliant future in store for you. Your dear mother will be delighted. I really must try and induce her to come up here to-night. Do you think she would, Gerald? I know how difficult it is to get her to go anywhere.\n\nGERALD: Oh! I am sure she would, Lady Hunstanton, if she knew Lord Illingworth had made me such an offer.\n\n_Enter Footman with shawl._\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I will write and tell her about it, and ask her to come up and meet him. ( _To Footman_ ): Just wait, Francis. ( _Writes letter._ )\n\nLADY CAROLINE: That is a very wonderful opening for so young a man as you are, Mr. Arbuthnot.\n\nGERALD: It is indeed, Lady Caroline. I trust I shall be able to show myself worthy of it.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I trust so.\n\nGERALD ( _to_ HESTER): _You_ have not congratulated me yet, Miss Worsley.\n\nHESTER: Are you very pleased about it?\n\nGERALD: Of course I am. It means everything to me \u2013 things that were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope's reach now.\n\nHESTER: Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But that may not be true.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I don't think that England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You are too nervous, Caroline. Believe me, you are too nervous. Besides, Lord Illingworth may marry any day. I was in hopes he would have married Lady Kelso. But I believe he said her family was too large. Or was it her feet? I forget which. I regret it very much. She was made to be an ambassador's wife.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: She certainly has a wonderful faculty of remembering people's names, and forgetting their faces.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, that is very natural, Caroline, is it not? ( _To Footman_ ): Tell Henry to wait for an answer. I have written a line to your dear mother, Gerald, to tell her your good news, and to say she really must come to dinner.\n\n_Exit Footman._\n\nGERALD: That is awfully kind of you, Lady Hunstanton. ( _To_ HESTER): Will you come for a stroll, Miss Worsley?\n\nHESTER: With pleasure. ( _Exit with_ GERALD.)\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I am very much gratified at Gerald Arbuthnot's good fortune. He is quite a _protege_ of mine. And I am particularly pleased that Lord Illingworth should have made the offer of his own accord without my suggesting anything. Nobody likes to be asked favours. I remember poor Charlotte Pagden making herself quite unpopular one season, because she had a French governess she wanted to recommend to every one.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I saw the governess, Jane. Lady Pagden sent her to me. It was before Eleanor came out. She was far too good-looking to be in any respectable household. I don't wonder Lady Pagden was so anxious to get rid of her.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, that explains it.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: John, the grass is too damp for you. You had better go and put on your overshoes at once.\n\nSIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline, I assure you.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: You must allow me to be the best judge of that, John. Pray do as I tell you.\n\nSIR JOHN _gets up and goes off._\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You spoil him, Caroline, you do indeed!\n\n_Enter_ MRS. ALLONBY _and_ LADY STUTFIELD.\n\n( _To_ MRS. ALLONBY): Well, dear, I hope you like the park. It is said to be well timbered.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The trees are wonderful, Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Quite, quite wonderful.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: But somehow, I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I assure you, dear, that the country has not that effect at all. Why, it was from Melthorpe, which is only two miles from here, that Lady Belton eloped with Lord Fethersdale. I remember the occurrence perfectly. Poor Lord Belton died three days afterwards of joy, or gout. I forget which. We had a large party staying here at the time, so we were all very much interested in the whole affair.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I think to elope is cowardly. It's running away from danger. And danger has become so rare in modern life.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: As far as I can make out, the young women of the present day seem to make it the sole object of their lives to be always playing with fire.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The one advantage of playing with fire, Lady Caroline, is that one never gets even singed: It is the people who don't know how to play with it who get burned up.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes; I see that. It is very, very helpful.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I don't know how the world would get on with such a theory as that, dear Mrs. Allonby.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Ah! The world was made for men and not for women.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, don't say that, Lady Stutfield. We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes; that is quite, quite true. I had not thought of that.\n\n_Enter_ SIR JOHN _and_ MR. KELVIL.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, Mr. Kelvil, have you got through your work?\n\nKELVIL: I have finished my writing for the day, Lady Hunstanton. It has been an arduous task. The demands on the time of a public man are very heavy nowadays, very heavy indeed. And I don't think they meet with adequate recognition.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: John, have you got your overshoes on?\n\nSIR JOHN: Yes, my love.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I think you had better come over here, John. It is more sheltered.\n\nSIR JOHN: I am quite comfortable, Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I think not, John. You had better sit beside me.\n\nSIR JOHN _rises and goes across._\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: And what have you been writing about this morning, Mr. Kelvil?\n\nKELVIL: On the usual subject, Lady Stutfield. On Purity.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: That must be such a very, very interesting thing to write about.\n\nKELVIL: It is the one subject of really national importance, nowadays, Lady Stutfield. I purpose addressing my constituents on the question before Parliament meets. I find that the poorer classes of this country display a marked desire for a higher ethical standard.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: How quite, quite nice of them.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Are you in favour of women taking part in politics, Mr. Kettle?\n\nSIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.\n\nKELVIL: The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life, Lady Caroline. Women are always on the side of morality, public and private.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: It is so very, very gratifying to hear you say that.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, yes! The moral qualities in women \u2013 that is the important thing. I am afraid, Caroline, that dear Lord Illingworth doesn't value the moral qualities in women as much as he should.\n\n_Enter_ LORD ILLINGWORTH.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: The world says that Lord Illingworth is very, very wicked.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: But what world says that, Lady Stutfield? It must be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms. ( _Sits down beside_ MRS. ALLONBY.)\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Every one _I_ know says you are very, very wicked.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Dear Lord Illingworth is quite hopeless, Lady Stutfield. I have given up trying to reform him. It would take a Public Company with a Board of Directors and a paid Secretary to do that. But you have the secretary already, Lord Illingworth, haven't you? Gerald Arbuthnot has told us of his good fortune; it is really most kind of you.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, don't say that, Lady Hunstanton. Kind is a dreadful word. I took a great fancy to young Arbuthnot the moment I met him, and he'll be of considerable use to me in something I am foolish enough to think of doing.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: He is an admirable young man. And his mother is one of my dearest friends. He has just gone for a walk with our pretty American. She is very pretty, is she not?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Far too pretty. These American girls carry off all the good matches. Why can't they stay in their own country? They are always telling us it is the Paradise of women.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is, Lady Caroline. That is why, like Eve, they are so extremely anxious to get out of it.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Who are Miss Worsley's parents?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: American women are wonderfully clever in concealing their parents.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear Lord Illingworth, what do you mean? Miss Worsley, Caroline, is an orphan. Her father was a very wealthy millionaire or philanthropist, or both, I believe, who entertained my son quite hospitably, when he visited Boston. I don't know how he made his money, originally.\n\nKELVIL: I fancy in American dry goods.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What are American dry goods?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: American novels.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: How very singular!...Well, from whatever source her large fortune came, I have a great esteem for Miss Worsley. She dresses exceedingly well. All Americans do dress well. They get their clothes in Paris.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, they go to America.\n\nKELVIL: I am afraid you don't appreciate America, Lord Illingworth. It is a very remarkable country, especially considering its youth.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years. To hear them talk one would imagine they were in their first childhood. As far as civilisation goes they are in their second.\n\nKELVIL: There is undoubtedly a great deal of corruption in American politics. I suppose you allude to that?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I wonder.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Politics are in a sad way, everywhere, I am told. They certainly are in England. Dear Mr. Cardew is ruining the country. I wonder Mrs. Cardew allows him. I am sure, Lord Illingworth, you don't think that uneducated people should be allowed to have votes?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I think they are the only people who should.\n\nKELVIL: Do you take no side then in modern politics, Lord Illingworth?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never take sides in anything, Mr. Kelvil. Taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore. However, the House of Commons really does very little harm. You can't make people good by Act of Parliament \u2013 that is something.\n\nKELVIL: You cannot deny that the House of Commons has always shown great sympathy with the sufferings of the poor.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: That is its special vice. That is the special vice of the age. One should sympathise with the joy, the beauty, the colour of life. The less said about life's sores the better, Mr. Kelvil.\n\nKELVIL: Still our East End is a very important problem.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Quite so. It is the problem of slavery. And we are trying to solve it by amusing the slaves.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Certainly, a great deal may be done by means of cheap entertainments, as you say, Lord Illingworth. Dear Dr. Daubeny, our rector here, provides, with the assistance of his curates, really admirable recreations for the poor during the winter. And much good may be done by means of a magic lantern, or a missionary, or some popular amusement of that kind.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I am not at all in favour of amusements for the poor, Jane. Blankets and coals are sufficient. There is too much love of pleasure amongst the upper classes as it is. Health is what we want in modern life. The tone is not healthy, not healthy at all.\n\nKELVIL: You are quite right, Lady Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I believe I am usually right.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Horrid word 'health.'\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Silliest word in our language, and one knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox \u2013 the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.\n\nKELVIL: May I ask, Lord Illingworth, if you regard the House of Lords as a better institution than the House of Commons?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: A much better institution, of course. We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.\n\nKELVIL: Are you serious in putting forward such a view?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Quite serious, Mr. Kelvil. ( _To_ MRS. ALLONBY): Vulgar habit that is people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. The only serious form of intellect I know is the British intellect. And on the British intellect the illiterates play the drum.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What are you saying, Lord Illingworth, about the drum?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I was merely talking to Mrs. Allonby about the leading articles in the London newspapers.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. ( _Rises with_ MRS. ALLONBY.)\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Are you going, Mrs. Allonby?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Just as far as the conservatory. Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear, I hope there is nothing of the kind. I will certainly speak to the gardener.\n\n_Exit_ MRS. ALLONBY _and_ LORD ILLINGWORTH.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Remarkable type, Mrs. Allonby.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: She lets her clever tongue run away with her sometimes.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Is that the only thing, Jane, Mrs. Allonby allows to run away with her?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I hope so, Caroline, I am sure.\n\n_Enter_ LORD ALFRED.\n\nDear Lord Alfred, do join us.\n\nLORD ALFRED _sits down beside_ LADY STUTFIELD.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: You believe good of every one, Jane. It is a great fault.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that one should believe evil of every one?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I think it is much safer to do so, Lady Stutfield. Until, of course, people are found out to be good. But that requires a great deal of investigation nowadays.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: But there is so much unkind scandal in modern life.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Lord Illingworth remarked to me last night at dinner that the basis of every scandal is an absolutely immoral certainty.\n\nKELVIL: Lord Illingworth is, of course, a very brilliant man, but he seems to me to be lacking in that fine faith in the nobility and purity of life which is so important in this century.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes, quite, quite important, is it not?\n\nKELVIL: He gives me the impression of a man who does not appreciate the beauty of our English home-life. I would say that he was tainted with foreign ideas on the subject.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: There is nothing, nothing like the beauty of home-life, is there?\n\nKELVIL: It is the mainstay of our moral system in England, Lady Stutfield. Without it we would become like our neighbours.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: That would be so, so sad, would it not?\n\nKELVIL: I am afraid, too, that Lord Illingworth regards woman simply as a toy. Now, I have never regarded woman as a toy. Woman is the intellectual helpmeet of man in public as in private life. Without her we should forget the true ideals. ( _Sits down beside_ LADY STUTFIELD.)\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: I am so very, very glad to hear you say that.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: You are a married man, Mr. Kettle?\n\nSIR JOHN: Kelvil, dear, Kelvil.\n\nKELVIL: I am married, Lady Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Family?\n\nKELVIL: Yes.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: How many?\n\nKELVIL: Eight.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD _turns her attention to_ LORD ALFRED.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Mrs. Kettle and the children are, I suppose, at the seaside?\n\nSIR JOHN _shrugs his shoulders._\n\nKELVIL: My wife is at the seaside with the children, Lady Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: You will join them later on, no doubt?\n\nKELVIL: If my public engagements permit me.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Your public life must be a great source of gratification to Mrs. Kettle.\n\nSIR JOHN: Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD ( _to_ LORD ALFRED): How very, very charming those gold-tipped cigarettes of yours are, Lord Alfred.\n\nLORD ALFRED: They are awfully expensive. I can only afford them when I'm in debt.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: It must be terribly, terribly distressing to be in debt.\n\nLORD ALFRED: One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about. All the chaps I know are in debt.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: But don't the people to whom you owe the money give you a great, great deal of annoyance?\n\n_Enter Footman._\n\nLORD ALFRED: Oh, no, they write; I don't.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: How very, very strange.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, here is a letter, Caroline, from dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. She won't dine. I am so sorry. But she will come in the evening. I am very pleased, indeed. She is one of the sweetest of women. Writes a beautiful hand, too, so large, so firm. ( _Hands letter to_ LADY CAROLINE.)\n\nLADY CAROLINE ( _looking at it_ ): A little lacking in femininity, Jane. Femininity is the quality I admire most in women.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _taking back letter and leaving it on table_ ): Oh! She is very feminine, Caroline, and so good, too. You should hear what the Archdeacon says of her. He regards her as his right hand in the parish. ( _Footman speaks to her._ ) In the Yellow Drawing-room. Shall we all go in? Lady Stutfield, shall we go in to tea?\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: With pleasure, Lady Hunstanton.\n\n_They rise and proceed to go off._ SIR JOHN _offers to carry_ LADY STUTFIELD'S _cloak._\n\nLADY CAROLINE: John! If you would allow your nephew to look after Lady Stutfield's cloak, you might help me with my work-basket.\n\n_Enter_ LORD ILLINGWORTH _and_ MRS. ALLONBY.\n\nSIR JOHN: Certainly, my love.\n\n_Exeunt._\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people's husbands.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Or the want of it in the man.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You are quite right. In a Temple every one should be serious, except the thing that is worshipped.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: And that should be man?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Women kneel so gracefully; men don't.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: You are thinking of Lady Stutfield!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I assure you I have not thought of Lady Stutfield for the last quarter of an hour.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Is she such a mystery?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: She is more than a mystery \u2013 she is a mood.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Moods don't last.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is their chief charm.\n\n_Enter_ HESTER _and_ GERALD.\n\nGERALD: Lord Illingworth, every one has been congratulating me, Lady Hunstanton and Lady Caroline, and...every one. I hope I shall make a good secretary.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You will be the pattern secretary, Gerald. ( _Talks to him._ )\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: You enjoy country life, Miss Worsley?\n\nHESTER: Very much, indeed.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Don't find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?\n\nHESTER: I dislike London dinner-parties.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.\n\nHESTER: I think the stupid people talk a great deal.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, I never listen!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear boy, if I didn't like you I wouldn't have made you the offer. It is because I like you so much that I want to have you with me.\n\n_Exit_ HESTER _with_ GERALD.\n\nCharming fellow, Gerald Arbuthnot!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: He is very nice; very nice indeed. But I can't stand the American young lady.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Why?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It was most annoying.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: She is a Puritan besides \u2013\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Ah, that is inexcusable. I don't mind plain women being Puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain. But she is decidedly pretty. I admire her immensely. ( _Looks steadfastly at_ MRS. ALLONBY.)\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: What a thoroughly bad man you must be!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What do you call a bad man?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The sort of man who admires innocence.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: And a bad woman?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh! The sort of woman a man never gets tired of.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You are severe \u2013 on yourself.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Define us as a sex.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Sphinxes without secrets.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Does that include the Puritan women?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Do you know, I don't believe in the existence of Puritan women? I don't think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: You think there is no woman in the world who would object to being kissed?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Very few.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Miss Worsley would not let you kiss her.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Are you sure?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Quite.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What do you think she'd do if I kissed her?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Fall in love with her, probably.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Then it is lucky you are not going to kiss her!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Is that a challenge?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It is an arrow shot into the air.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Don't you know that I always succeed in whatever I try?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I am sorry to hear it. We women adore failures. They lean on us.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You worship successes. You cling to them.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: We are the laurels to hide their baldness.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: And they need you always, except at the moment of triumph.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: They are uninteresting then.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: How tantalising you are! ( _A pause._ )\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Lord Illingworth, there is one thing I shall always like you for.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Only one thing? And I have so many bad qualities.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, don't be too conceited about them. You may lose them as you grow old.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Its comedy also, sometimes. But what is the mysterious reason why you will always like me?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It is that you have never made love to me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I have never done anything else.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Really? I have not noticed it.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: How unfortunate! It might have been a tragedy for both of us.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: We should each have survived.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Have you tried a good reputation?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It may come.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Why do you threaten me?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I will tell you when you have kissed the Puritan.\n\n_Enter Footman._\n\nFRANCIS: Tea is served in the Yellow Drawing-room, my lord.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Tell her ladyship we are coming in.\n\nFRANCIS: Yes, my lord. ( _Exit._ )\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Shall we go in to tea?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Do you like such simple pleasures?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It ends with Revelations.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You fence divinely. But the button has come off your foil.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I have still the mask.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It makes your eyes lovelier.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Thank you. Come.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _sees_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT'S _letter on table, and takes it up and looks at envelope_ ): What a curious handwriting! It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years ago.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Who?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh! No one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance. ( _Throws letter down, and passes up the steps of the terrace with_ MRS. ALLONBY. _They smile at each other._ )\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _Drawing-room at Hunstanton Chase, after dinner, lamps lit. Door L. C. Door R. C. Ladies seated on sofa._\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: What a comfort it is to have got rid of the men for a little!\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes; men persecute us dreadfully, don't they?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Persecute us? I wish they did.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The annoying thing is that the wretches can be perfectly happy without us. That is why I think it is every woman's duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except during this short breathing space after dinner; without which, I believe, we poor women would be absolutely worn to shadows.\n\n_Enter Servants with coffee._\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Worn to shadows, dear?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Yes, Lady Hunstanton. It is such a strain keeping men up to the mark. They are always trying to escape from us.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: It seems to me that it is we who are always trying to escape from them. Men are so very, very heartless. They know their power and use it.\n\nLADY CAROLINE ( _takes coffee from Servant_ ): What stuff and nonsense all this about men is! The thing to do is to keep men in their proper place.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: But what is their proper place, Lady Caroline.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Looking after their wives, Mrs. Allonby.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _takes coffee from Servant_ ): Really? And if they're not married?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: If they are not married, they would be looking after a wife. It's perfectly scandalous the amount of bachelors who are going about society. There should be a law passed to compel them all to marry within twelve months.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD ( _refuses coffee_ ): But if they're in love with some one who, perhaps, is tied to another?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: In that case, Lady Stutfield, they would be married off in a week to some plain respectable girl, in order to teach them not to meddle with other people's property.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I don't think that we should ever be spoken of as other people's property. All men are married women's property. That is the only true definition of what married women's property really is. But we don't belong to any one.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Oh, I am so very, very glad to hear you say so.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: But do you really think, dear Caroline, that legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that, nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I certainly never know one from the other.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Oh, I think one can always know at once whether a man has home claims upon his life or not. I have noticed a very, very sad expression in the eyes of so many married men.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, all that I have noticed is that they are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, I suppose the type of husband has completely changed since my young days, but I'm bound to state that poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as good as gold.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I'm tired of meeting him.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: But you renew him from time to time, don't you?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh no, Lady Caroline. I have only had one husband as yet. I suppose you look upon me as quite an amateur.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: With your views on life I wonder you married at all.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: So do I.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear child, I believe you are really very happy in your married life, but that you like to hide your happiness from others.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I assure you I was horribly deceived in Ernest.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Oh, I hope not, dear. I knew his mother quite well. She was a Stratton, Caroline, one of Lord Crowland's daughters.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Victoria Stratton? I remember her perfectly. A silly, fair-haired woman with no chin.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, Ernest has a chin. He has a very strong chin, a square chin. Ernest's chin is far too square.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: But do you really think a man's chin can be too square? I think a man should look very, very strong, and that his chin should be quite, quite square.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Then you should certainly know Ernest, Lady Stutfield. It is only fair to tell you beforehand he has got no conversation at all.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: I adore silent men.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, Ernest isn't silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don't know. I haven't listened to him for years.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Have you never forgiven him then? How sad that seems! But all life is very, very sad, is it not?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a _mauvais quart d'heure_ made up of exquisite moments.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes, there are moments, certainly. But was it something very, very wrong that Mr. Allonby did? Did he become angry with you, and say anything that was unkind or true?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, dear, no. Ernest is invariably calm. That is one of the reasons he always gets on my nerves. Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men. I wonder we women stand it as well as we do.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes; men's good temper shows they are not so sensitive as we are, not so finely strung. It makes a great barrier often between husband and wife, does it not? But I would so much like to know what was the wrong thing Mr. Allonby did.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Well, I will tell you, if you solemnly promise to tell everybody else.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Thank you, thank you. I will make a point of repeating it.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I didn't believe him, I needn't tell you. Unfortunately, however, I made no inquires of any kind till after I had been actually married four or five months. I found out then that what he had told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so absolutely uninteresting.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: I see what you mean. It's very, very beautiful.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear child, you don't mean to tell me that you won't forgive your husband because he never loved any one else? Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages. They apparently are getting remarkably rare.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, they're quite out of date.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Except amongst the middle classes, I have been told.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: How like the middle classes!\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes \u2013 is it not? \u2013 very, very like them.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: If what you tell us about the middle classes is true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so persistently frivolous, under the impression apparently that it is the proper thing to be. It is to that I attribute the unhappiness of so many marriages we all know of in society.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don't think the frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she was a perfectly rational being?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years. He can't help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is very different. We have always been picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the first.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes, the common sense of husbands is certainly most, most trying. Do tell me your conception of the Ideal Husband. I think it would be so very, very helpful.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Husband? There couldn't be such a thing. The institution is wrong.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: The Ideal Man, then, in his relations to _us._\n\nLADY CAROLINE: He would probably be extremely realistic.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: But how could he do both, dear?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don't attract him.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear about other women.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: If we ask him a question about anything, he should give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise us for whatever qualities he knows we haven't got. But he should be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgivable. But he should shower on us everything we don't want.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills and compliments.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment's notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one's husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman's duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a number of details that are so very, very important.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: But you have not told us yet what the reward of the Ideal Man is to be.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is quite enough for him.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are they not?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: That makes no matter. One should never surrender.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Not even to the Ideal Man?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants to grow tired of him.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Oh!...Yes. I see that. It is very, very helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal Man? Or are there more than one?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Oh, my dear!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _going over to her_ ): What has happened? Do tell me.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _in a low voice_ ): I had completely forgotten that the American young lady has been in the room all the time. I am afraid some of this clever talk may have shocked her a little.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, that will do her so much good!\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Let us hope she didn't understand much. I think I had better go over and talk to her. ( _Rises and goes across to_ HESTER WORSLEY.) Well, dear Miss Worsley. ( _Sitting down beside her._ ) How quiet you have been in your nice little corner all this time! I suppose you have been reading a book? There are so many books here in the library.\n\nHESTER: No, I have been listening to the conversation.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You mustn't believe everything that was said, you know, dear.\n\nHESTER: I didn't believe any of it.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: That is quite right, dear.\n\nHESTER ( _continuing_ ): I couldn't believe that any women could really hold such views of life as I have heard to-night from some of your guests. ( _An awkward pause._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I hear you have such pleasant society in America. Quite like our own in places, my son wrote to me.\n\nHESTER: There are cliques in America as elsewhere, Lady Hunstanton. But true American society consists simply of all the good women and good men we have in our country.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What a sensible system, and I dare say quite pleasant, too. I am afraid in England we have too many artificial social barriers. We don't see as much as we should of the middle and lower classes.\n\nHESTER: In America we have no lower classes.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Really? What a very strange arrangement!\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: What is that dreadful girl talking about?\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: She is painfully natural, is she not?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: There are a great many things you haven't got in America, I am told, Miss Worsley. They say you have no ruins, and no curiosities.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _to_ LADY STUTFIELD): What nonsense! They have their mothers and their manners.\n\nHESTER: The English aristocracy supply us with our curiosities, Lady Caroline. They are sent over to us every summer, regularly, in the steamers, and propose to us the day after they land. As for ruins, we are trying to build up something that will last longer than brick or stone. ( _Gets up to take her fan from table._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What is that, dear? Ah, yes, an iron Exhibition, is it not, at that place that has the curious name?\n\nHESTER ( _standing by table_ ): We are trying to build up life, Lady Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rests on here. This sounds strange to you all, no doubt. How could it sound other than strange? You rich people in England, you don't know how you are living. How could you know? You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely to keep them quiet for a season. With all your pomp and wealth and art you don't know how to live \u2013 you don't even know that. You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life's secret. Oh, your English society seems to me shallow, selfish, foolish. It has blinded its eyes, and stopped its ears. It lies like a leper in purple. It sits like a dead thing smeared with gold. It is all wrong, all wrong.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: I don't think one should know of these things. It is not very, very nice, is it?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear Miss Worsley, I thought you liked English society so much. You were such a success in it. And you were so much admired by the best people. I quite forget what Lord Henry Weston said of you \u2013 but it was most complimentary, and you know what an authority he is on beauty.\n\nHESTER: Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lady Hunstanton. A man with a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere. No dinner-party is complete without him. What of those whose ruin is due to him? They are outcasts. They are nameless. If you met them in the street you would turn your head away. I don't complain of their punishment. Let all women who have sinned be punished.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _enters from terrace behind in a cloak with a lace veil over her head. She hears the last words and starts._\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear young lady!\n\nHESTER: It is right that they should be punished, but don't let them be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don't punish the one and let the other go free. Don't have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Might I, dear Miss Worsley, as you are standing up, ask you for my cotton that is just behind you? Thank you.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear Mrs. Arbuthnot! I am so pleased you have come up. But I didn't hear you announced.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Oh, I came straight in from the terrace, Lady Hunstanton, just as I was. You didn't tell me you had a party.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Not a party. Only a few guests who are staying in the house, and whom you must know. Allow me. ( _Tries to help her. Rings bell._ ) Caroline, this is Mrs. Arbuthnot, one of my sweetest friends. Lady Caroline Pontefract, Lady Stutfield, Mrs. Allonby, and my young American friend, Miss Worsley, who has just been telling us all how wicked we are.\n\nHESTER: I am afraid you think I spoke too strongly, Lady Hunstanton. But there are some things in England \u2013\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important, Lord Illingworth would tell us. The only point where I thought you were a little hard was about Lady Caroline's brother, about poor Lord Henry. He is really such good company.\n\n_Enter Footman._\n\nTake Mrs. Arbuthnot's things.\n\n_Exit Footman with wraps._\n\nHESTER: Lady Caroline, I had no idea it was your brother. I am sorry for the pain I must have caused you \u2013 I \u2013\n\nLADY CAROLINE: My dear Miss Worsley, the only part of your little speech, if I may so term it, with which I thoroughly agreed, was the part about my brother. Nothing that you could possibly say could be too bad for him. I regard Henry as infamous, absolutely infamous. But I am bound to state, as you were remarking, Jane, that he is excellent company, and he has one of the best cooks in London, and after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _to_ MISS WORSLEY): Now, do come, dear, and make friends with Mrs. Arbuthnot. She is one of the good, sweet, simple people you told us we never admitted into society. I am sorry to say Mrs. Arbuthnot comes very rarely to me. But that is not my fault.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: What a bore it is the men staying so long after dinner! I expect they are saying the most dreadful things about us.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: Do you really think so?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I am sure of it.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: How very, very horrid of them! Shall we go on to the terrace?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, anything to get away from the dowagers and the dowdies. ( _Rises and goes with_ LADY STUTFIELD _to door L. C._ ) We are only going to look at the stars, Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You will find a great many, dear, a great many. But don't catch cold. ( _To_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT): We shall all miss Gerald so much, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: But has Lord Illingworth really offered to make Gerald his secretary?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Oh, yes! He has been most charming about it. He has the highest possible opinion of your boy. You don't know Lord Illingworth, I believe, dear.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have never met him.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You know him by name, no doubt?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I am afraid I don't. I live so much out of the world, and see so few people. I remember hearing years ago of an old Lord Illingworth who lived in Yorkshire, I think.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, yes. That would be the last Earl but one. He was a very curious man. He wanted to marry beneath him. Or wouldn't, I believe. There was some scandal about it. The present Lord Illingworth is quite different. He is very distinguished. He does \u2013 well, he does nothing, which I am afraid our pretty American visitor here thinks very wrong of anybody, and I don't know that he cares much for the subjects in which you are so interested, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think, Caroline, that Lord Illingworth is interested in the Housing of the Poor?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I should fancy not at all, Jane.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: We all have our different tastes, have we not? But Lord Illingworth has a very high position, and there is nothing he couldn't get if he chose to ask for it. Of course, he is comparatively a young man still, and he has only come to his title within \u2013 how long exactly is it, Caroline, since Lord Illingworth succeeded?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: About four years, I think, Jane. I know it was the same year in which my brother had his last exposure in the evening newspapers.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, I remember. That would be about four years ago. Of course, there were a great many people between the present Lord Illingworth and the title, Mrs. Arbuthnot. There was \u2013 who was there, Caroline?\n\nLADY CAROLINE: There was poor Margaret's baby. You remember how anxious she was to have a boy, and it was a boy, but it died, and her husband died shortly afterwards, and she married almost immediately, one of Lord Ascot's sons, who, I am told, beats her.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, that is in the family, dear, that is in the family. And there was also, I remember, a clergyman who wanted to be a lunatic, or a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, I forget which, but I know the Court of Chancery investigated the matter, and decided that he was quite sane. And I saw him afterwards at poor Lord Plumstead's with straws in his hair, or something very odd about him. I can't recall what. I often regret, Lady Caroline, that dear Lady Cecilia never lived to see her son get the title.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Lady Cecilia?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Lord Illingworth's mother, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, was one of the Duchess of Jerningham's pretty daughters, and she married Sir Thomas Harford, who wasn't considered a very good match for her at the time, though he was said to be the handsomest man in London. I knew them all quite intimately, and both the sons, Arthur and George.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It was the eldest son who succeeded, of course, Lady Hunstanton?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: No, dear, he was killed in the hunting field. Or was it fishing, Caroline? I forget. But George came in for everything. I always tell him that no younger son has ever had such good luck as he has had.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Lady Hunstanton, I want to speak to Gerald at once. Might I see him? Can he be sent for?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Certainly, dear. I will send one of the servants into the dining-room to fetch him. I don't know what keeps the gentlemen so long. ( _Rings bell._ ) When I knew Lord Illingworth first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is the dear Archdeacon. ( _To Servant_ ): It doesn't matter.\n\n_Enter_ SIR JOHN _and_ DOCTOR DAUBENY. SIR JOHN _goes over to_ LADY STUTFIELD, DOCTOR DAUBENY _to_ LADY HUNSTANTON.\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I have never enjoyed myself more. ( _Sees_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT.) Ah, Mrs. Arbuthnot.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _to_ DOCTOR DAUBENY): You see I have got Mrs. Arbuthnot to come to me at last.\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: That is a great honour, Lady Hunstanton. Mrs. Daubeny will be quite jealous of you.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, I am so sorry Mrs. Daubeny could not come with you to-night. Headache as usual, I suppose.\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: Yes, Lady Hunstanton; a perfect martyr. But she is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.\n\nLADY CAROLINE ( _to her husband_ ): John!\n\nSIR JOHN _goes over to his wife._ DOCTOR DAUBENY _talks to_ LADY HUNSTANTON _and_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _watches_ LORD ILLINGWORTH _the whole time. He has passed across the room without noticing her, and approaches_ MRS. ALLONBY, _who with_ LADY STUTFIELD _is standing by the door looking on to the terrace._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: How is the most charming woman in the world?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _taking_ LADY STUTFIELD _by the hand_ ): We are both quite well, thank you, Lord Illingworth. But what a short time you have been in the dining-room! It seems as if we had only just left.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I was bored to death. Never opened my lips the whole time. Absolutely longing to come in to you.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: You should have. The American girl has been giving us a lecture.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Really? All Americans lecture, I believe. I suppose it is something in their climate. What did she lecture about?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Oh, Puritanism, of course.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I am going to convert her, am I not? How long do you give me?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: A week.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: A week is more than enough.\n\n_Enter_ GERALD _and_ LORD ALFRED.\n\nGERALD ( _going to_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT): Dear mother!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald, I don't feel at all well. See me home, Gerald. I shouldn't have come.\n\nGERALD: I am so sorry, mother. Certainly. But you must know Lord Illingworth first. ( _Goes across room._ )\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Not to-night, Gerald.\n\nGERALD: Lord Illingworth, I want you so much to know my mother.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: With the greatest pleasure. ( _To_ MRS. ALLONBY): I'll be back in a moment. People's mothers always bore me to death. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: No man does. That is his.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What a delightful mood you are in to-night! ( _Turns round and goes across with_ GERALD _to_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT. _When he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn towards_ GERALD.)\n\nGERALD: Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take me as his private secretary.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _bows coldly._\n\nIt is a wonderful opening for me, isn't it? I hope he won't be disappointed in me, that is all. You'll thank Lord Illingworth, mother, won't you?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Lord Illingworth is very good, I am sure, to interest himself in you for the moment.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _putting his hand on_ GERALD'S _shoulder_ ): Oh, Gerald and I are great friends already, Mrs...Arbuthnot.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: There can be nothing in common between you and my son, Lord Illingworth.\n\nGERALD: Dear mother, how can you say so? Of course, Lord Illingworth is awfully clever and that sort of thing. There is nothing Lord Illingworth doesn't know.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear boy!\n\nGERALD: He knows more about life than any one I have ever met. I feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind that. He has been awfully good to me, mother.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Lord Illingworth may change his mind. He may not really want you as his secretary.\n\nGERALD: Mother!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You must remember, as you said yourself, you have had so few advantages.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Lord Illingworth, I want to speak to you for a moment. Do come over.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Will you excuse me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Now, don't let your charming mother make any more difficulties, Gerald. The thing is quite settled, isn't it?\n\nGERALD: I hope so.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH _goes across to_ MRS. ALLONBY.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I thought you were never going to leave the lady in black velvet.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: She is excessively handsome. ( _Looks at_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT.)\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Caroline, shall we all make a move to the music-room? Miss Worsley is going to play. You'll come too, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, won't you? You don't know what a treat is in store for you. ( _To_ DOCTOR DAUBENY): I must really take Miss Worsley down some afternoon to the rectory. I should so much like dear Mrs. Daubeny to hear her on the violin. Ah, I forgot. Dear Mrs. Daubeny's hearing is a little defective, is it not?\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: Her deafness is a great privation to her. She can't even hear my sermons now. She reads them at home. But she has many resources in herself, many resources.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: She reads a good deal, I suppose?\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: Just the very largest print. The eyesight is rapidly going. But she's never morbid, never morbid.\n\nGERALD ( _to_ LORD ILLINGWORTH): Do speak to my mother, Lord Illingworth, before you go into the music-room. She seems to think, somehow, you don't mean what you said to me.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Aren't you coming?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: In a few moments. Lady Hunstanton, if Mrs. Arbuthnot would allow me, I would like to say a few words to her, and we will join you later on.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, of course. You will have a great deal to say to her, and she will have a great deal to thank you for. It is not every son who gets such an offer, Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I know you appreciate that, dear.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: John!\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Now, don't keep Mrs. Arbuthnot too long, Lord Illingworth. We can't spare her.\n\n_Exit following the other guests. Sound of violin heard from music-room._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very proud of him. He is a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why Arbuthnot, Rachel?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: One name is as good as another, when one has no right to any name.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I suppose so \u2013 but why Gerald?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: After a man whose heart I broke \u2013 after my father.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Well, Rachel, what is over is over. All I have got to say now is that I am very, very much pleased with our boy. The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so. It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now. I am glad I have found him.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You have no right to claim him, or the smallest part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He is quite as much mine as yours.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of the child who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of hunger and of want?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It was not I who left you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I left you because you refused to give the child a name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I had no expectations then. And besides, Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two. I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your father's garden.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year. But you wouldn't take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried the child away with you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I wouldn't have accepted a penny from her. Your father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my mother. Every man is when he is young.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall certainly not go away with you.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What nonsense, Rachel!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Do you think I would allow my son \u2013\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Our son.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: My son \u2013 (LORD ILLINGWORTH _shrugs his shoulders_ ) \u2013 to go away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who has tainted every moment of my days? You don't realise what my past has been in suffering and in shame.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald's future considerably more important than your past.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You talk sentimentally and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time. But don't let us have a scene. Rachel, I want you to look at this matter from the commonsense point of view, from the point of view of what is best for our son, leaving you and me out of the question. What is our son at present? An underpaid clerk in a small Provincial Bank in a third-rate English town. If you imagine he is quite happy in such a position, you are mistaken. He is thoroughly discontented.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He was not discontented till he met you. You have made him so.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Of course I made him so. Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. But I did not leave him with a mere longing for things he could not get. No, I made him a charming offer. He jumped at it, I need hardly say. Any young man would. And now, simply because it turns out that I am the boy's own father and he my own son, you propose practically to ruin his career. That is to say, if I were a perfect stranger, you would allow Gerald to go away with me, but as he is my own flesh and blood you won't. How utterly illogical you are!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will not allow him to go.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: How can you prevent it? What excuse can you give to him for making him decline such an offer as mine? I won't tell him in what relations I stand to him, I need hardly say. But you daren't tell him. You know that. Look how you have brought him up.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have brought him up to be a good man.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Quite so. And what is the result? You have educated him to be your judge if he ever finds you out. And a bitter, an unjust judge he will be to you. Don't be deceived, Rachel. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: George, don't take my son away from me. I have had twenty years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and success. You have been quite happy, you have never thought of us. There was no reason, according to your views of life, why you should have remembered us at all. Your meeting us was a mere accident, a horrible accident. Forget it. Don't come now, and rob me of \u2013 of all I have in the whole world. You are so rich in other things. Leave me the little vineyard of my life; leave me the walled-in garden and the well of water; the ewe-lamb God sent me, in pity or in wrath, oh, leave me that. George, don't take Gerald from me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Rachel, at the present moment you are not necessary to Gerald's career; I am. There is nothing more to be said on the subject.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will not let him go.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Here is Gerald. He has a right to decide for himself.\n\n_Enter_ GERALD.\n\nGERALD: Well, dear mother, I hope you have settled it all with Lord Illingworth?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have not, Gerald.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Your mother seems not to like your coming with me, for some reason.\n\nGERALD: Why, mother?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I thought you were quite happy here with me, Gerald. I didn't know you were so anxious to leave me.\n\nGERALD: Mother, how can you talk like that? Of course I have been quite happy with you. But a man can't stay always with his mother. No chap does. I want to make myself a position, to do something. I thought you would have been proud to see me Lord Illingworth's secretary.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I do not think you would be suitable as a private secretary to Lord Illingworth. You have no qualifications.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I don't wish to seem to interfere for a moment, Mrs. Arbuthnot, but as far as your last objection is concerned, I surely am the best judge. And I can only tell you that your son has all the qualifications I had hoped for. He has more, in fact, than I had even thought of. Far more. (MRS. ARBUTHNOT _remains silent._ ) Have you any other reason, Mrs. Arbuthnot, why you don't wish your son to accept this post?\n\nGERALD: Have you, mother? Do answer.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: If you have, Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray, pray say it. We are quite by ourselves here. Whatever it is, I need not say I will not repeat it.\n\nGERALD: Mother?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: If you would like to be alone with your son, I will leave you. You may have some other reason you don't wish me to hear.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have no other reason.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Then, my dear boy, we may look on the thing as settled. Come, you and I will smoke a cigarette on the terrace together. And Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray let me tell you, that I think you have acted very, very wisely.\n\n_Exit with_ GERALD. MRS. ARBUTHNOT _is left alone. She stands immobile with a look of unutterable sorrow on her face._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT THREE\n\nSCENE: _The Picture Gallery at Hunstanton Chase. Door at back leading on to terrace._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH _and_ GERALD, _R.C._ LORD ILLINGWORTH _lolling on a sofa._ GERALD _in a chair._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Thoroughly sensible woman, your mother, Gerald. I knew she would come round in the end.\n\nGERALD: My mother is awfully conscientious, Lord Illingworth, and I know she doesn't think I am educated enough to be your secretary. She is perfectly right, too. I was fearfully idle when I was at school, and I couldn't pass an examination now to save my life.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear Gerald, examinations are of no value whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\n\nGERALD: But I am so ignorant of the world, Lord Illingworth.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Don't be afraid, Gerald. Remember that you've got on your side the most wonderful thing in the world \u2013 youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in life's lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings. To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn't do \u2013 except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.\n\nGERALD: But you don't call yourself old, Lord Illingworth?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I am old enough to be your father, Gerald.\n\nGERALD: I don't remember my father; he died years ago.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: So Lady Hunstanton told me.\n\nGERALD: It is very curious, my mother never talks to me about my father. I sometimes think she must have married beneath her.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _winces slightly_ ): Really? ( _Goes over and puts his hand on_ GERALD'S _shoulder._ ) You have missed not having a father, I suppose, Gerald?\n\nGERALD: Oh, no; my mother has been so good to me. No one ever had such a mother as I have had.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I am quite sure of that. Still I should imagine that most mothers don't quite understand their sons. Don't realise, I mean, that a son has ambitions, a desire to see life, to make himself a name. After all, Gerald, you couldn't be expected to pass all your life in such a hole as Wrockley, could you?\n\nGERALD: Oh, no! It would be dreadful!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: A mother's love is very touching, of course, but it is often curiously selfish. I mean, there is a good deal of selfishness in it.\n\nGERALD ( _slowly_ ): I suppose there is.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Your mother is a thoroughly good woman. But good women have such limited views of life, their horizon is so small, their interests are so petty, aren't they?\n\nGERALD: They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don't care much about.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I suppose your mother is very religious, and that sort of thing.\n\nGERALD: Oh, yes, she's always going to church.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Ah! She is not modern, and to be modern is the only thing worth being nowadays. You want to be modern, don't you, Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. Not to be put off with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have to do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society. A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.\n\nGERALD: I should like to wear nice things awfully, but I have always been told that a man should not think so much about his clothes.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: People nowadays are so absolutely superficial that they don't understand the philosophy of the superficial. By the way, Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better. Sentiment is all very well for the buttonhole. But the essential thing for a necktie is style. A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.\n\nGERALD ( _laughing_ ): I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I don't know how to talk.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh! Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.\n\nGERALD: But it is very difficult to get into society, isn't it?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people \u2013 that is all!\n\nGERALD: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy. Society is a necessary thing. No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are quite over. You might just as well be a barrister or a stockbroker, or a journalist at once.\n\nGERALD: It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH. You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means \u2013 which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do \u2013 look at her, don't listen to her.\n\nGERALD: But women are awfully clever, aren't they?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One should always tell them so. But, to the philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter over mind \u2013 just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.\n\nGERALD: How then can women have so much power as you say they have?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.\n\nGERALD: But haven't women got a refining influence?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Nothing refines but the intellect.\n\nGERALD: Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren't there?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.\n\nGERALD: But there are good women in society, aren't there?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Far too many.\n\nGERALD: But do you think women shouldn't be good?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never tell them so, they'd all become good at once. Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.\n\nGERALD: You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.\n\nGERALD: But don't you think one can be happy when one is married?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.\n\nGERALD: But if one is in love?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.\n\nGERALD: Love is a very wonderful thing, isn't it?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. But a really _grande passion_ is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes in a country, and the only possible explanation of us Harfords.\n\nGERALD: Harfords, Lord Illingworth?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: That is my family name. You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. And now, Gerald, you are going into a perfectly new life with me, and I want you to know how to live.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _appears on terrace behind._\n\nFor the world has been made by fools that wise men should live in it!\n\n_Enter L. C._ LADY HUNSTANTON _and_ DOCTOR DAUBENY.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! Here you are, dear Lord Illingworth. Well, I suppose you have been telling our young friend, Gerald, what his new duties are to be, and giving him a great deal of good advice over a pleasant cigarette.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I have been giving him the best of advice, Lady Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I am so sorry I was not here to listen to you, but I suppose I am too old now to learn. Except from you, dear Archdeacon, when you are in your nice pulpit. But then I always know what you are going to say, so I don't feel alarmed. ( _Sees_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT.) Ah! Dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, do come and join us. Come, dear.\n\n_Enter_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT.\n\nGerald has been having such a long talk with Lord Illingworth; I am sure you must feel very much flattered at the pleasant way in which everything has turned out for him. Let us sit down. ( _They sit down._ ) And how is your beautiful embroidery going on?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn't she?\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: She was very deft with her needle once, quite a Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own health.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! That is always a nice distraction, is it not? Now, what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Now I am quite out of my depth. I usually am when Lord Illingworth says anything. And the Humane Society is most careless. They never rescue me. I am left to sink. I have a dim idea, dear Lord Illingworth, that you are always on the side of the sinners, and I know I always try to be on the side of the saints, but that is as far as I get. And after all, it may be merely the fancy of a drowning person.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! That quite does for me. I haven't a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can't follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in any of his opinions.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You are quite right, dear.\n\nGERALD _shrugs his shoulders and looks irritably over at his mother. Enter_ LADY CAROLINE.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Jane, have you seen John anywhere?\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: You needn't be anxious about him, dear. He is with Lady Stutfield; I saw them some time ago, in the Yellow Drawing-room. They seem quite happy together. You are not going, Caroline? Pray sit down.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: I think I had better look after John.\n\n_Exit_ LADY CAROLINE.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: It doesn't do to pay men so much attention. And Caroline has really nothing to be anxious about. Lady Stutfield is very sympathetic. She is just as sympathetic about one thing as she is about another. A beautiful nature.\n\n_Enter_ SIR JOHN _and_ MRS. ALLONBY.\n\nAh! Here is Sir John! And with Mrs. Allonby too! I suppose it was Mrs. Allonby I saw him with. Sir John, Caroline has been looking everywhere for you.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: We have been waiting for her in the Music-room, dear Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! The Music-room, of course. I thought it was the Yellow Drawing-room, my memory is getting so defective. ( _To the_ ARCHDEACON) Mrs. Daubeny has a wonderful memory, hasn't she?\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: She used to be quite remarkable for her memory, but since her last attack she recalls chiefly the events of her early childhood. But she finds great pleasure in such retrospections, great pleasure.\n\n_Enter_ LADY STUTFIELD _and_ MR. KELVIL.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! Dear Lady Stutfield! And what has Mr. Kelvil been talking to you about?\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: About Bimetallism, as well as I remember.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Bimetallism! Is that quite a nice subject? However, I know people discuss everything very freely nowadays. What did Sir John talk to you about, dear Mrs. Allonby?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: About Patagonia.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Really? What a remote topic! But very improving, I have no doubt.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: He has been most interesting on the subject of Patagonia. Savages seem to have quite the same views as cultured people on almost all subjects. They are excessively advanced.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What do they do?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Apparently everything.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, it is very gratifying, dear Archdeacon, is it not, to find that Human Nature is permanently one. On the whole, the world is the same world, is it not?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: The world is simply divided into two classes \u2013 those who believe the incredible, like the public \u2013 and those who do the improbable \u2013\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Like yourself?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Yes; I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: And what have you been doing lately that astonishes you?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I have been discovering all kinds of beautiful qualities in my own nature.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah! Don't become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I don't intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan't. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.\n\n_Enter_ LORD ALFRED. _He joins_ LADY STUTFIELD.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! We women should forgive everything, shouldn't we, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot? I am sure you agree with me in that.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: What sort of things?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: The ruin of another woman's life. ( _Moves slowly away to back of stage._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah! Those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.\n\nLADY STUTFIELD: The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.\n\nKELVIL: The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: There is no secret of life. Life's aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _shakes her fan at him_ ): I don't know how it is, Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said to-day seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I don't understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don't believe in women thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I'm beginning to forget everything. It's a great misfortune.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman's bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one's most glaring fault is one's important virtue. You have the most comforting view of life.\n\n_Enter_ FARQUHAR.\n\nFARQUHAR: Doctor Daubeny's carriage!\n\n_Exit_ FARQUHAR.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear Archdeacon! It is only half-past ten.\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON ( _rising_ ): I am afraid I must go, Lady Hunstanton. Tuesday is always one of Mrs. Daubeny's bad nights.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _rising_ ): Well, I won't keep you from her. ( _Goes with him towards door._ ) I have told Farquhar to put a brace of partridge into the carriage. Mrs. Daubeny may fancy them.\n\nTHE ARCHDEACON: It is very kind of you, but Mrs. Daubeny never touches solids now. Lives entirely on jellies. But she is wonderfully cheerful, wonderfully cheerful. She has nothing to complain of.\n\n_Exit with_ LADY HUNSTANTON.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _goes over to_ LORD ILLINGWORTH): There is a beautiful moon to-night.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Let us go and look at it. To look at anything that is inconstant is charming nowadays.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: You have your looking-glass.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Then it is in love with you.\n\n_Exeunt_ SIR JOHN, LADY STUTFIELD, MR. KELVIL, and LORD ALFRED.\n\nGERALD ( _to_ LORD ILLINGWORTH): May I come too?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Do, my dear boy. ( _Moves towards door with_ MRS. ALLONBY _and_ GERALD.)\n\nLADY CAROLINE _enters, looks rapidly round and goes out in opposite direction to that taken by_ SIR JOHN _and_ LADY STUTFIELD.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald!\n\nGERALD: What, mother!\n\n_Exit_ LORD ILLINGWORTH _with_ MRS. ALLONBY.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is getting late. Let us go home.\n\nGERALD: My dear mother. Do let us wait a little longer. Lord Illingworth is so delightful, and, by the way, mother, I have a great surprise for you. We are starting for India at the end of this month.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Let us go home.\n\nGERALD: If you really want to, of course, mother, but I must bid good-bye to Lord Illingworth first. I'll be back in five minutes. ( _Exit._ )\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Let him leave me if he chooses, but not with him \u2013 not with him! I couldn't bear it. ( _Walks up and down._ )\n\n_Enter_ HESTER.\n\nHESTER: What a lovely night it is, Mrs. Arbuthnot.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Is it?\n\nHESTER: Mrs. Arbuthnot, I wish you would let us be friends. You are so different from the other women here. When you came into the Drawing-room this evening, somehow you brought with you a sense of what is good and pure in life. I had been foolish. There are things that are right to say, but that may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I heard what you said. I agree with it, Miss Worsley.\n\nHESTER: I didn't know you had heard it. But I knew you would agree with me. A woman who has sinned should be punished, shouldn't she?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.\n\nHESTER: She shouldn't be allowed to come into the society of good men and women?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: She should not.\n\nHESTER: And the man should be punished in the same way?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: In the same way. And the children, if there are children, in the same way also?\n\nHESTER: Yes, it is right that the sins of the parents should be visited on the children. It is a just law. It is God's law.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is one of God's terrible laws. ( _Moves away to fireplace._ )\n\nHESTER: You are distressed about your son leaving you, Mrs. Arbuthnot?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.\n\nHESTER: Do you like him going away with Lord Illingworth? Of course there is position, no doubt, and money, but position and money are not everything, are they?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: They are nothing; they bring misery.\n\nHESTER: Then why do you let your son go with him?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He wishes it himself.\n\nHESTER: But if you asked him he would stay, would he not?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He has set his heart on going.\n\nHESTER: He couldn't refuse you anything. He loves you too much. Ask him to stay. Let me send him to you. He is on the terrace at this moment with Lord Illingworth. I heard them laughing together as I passed through the Music-room.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Don't trouble, Miss Worsley, I can wait. It is of no consequence.\n\nHESTER: No, I'll tell him you want him. Do \u2013 do ask him to stay.\n\n_Exit_ HESTER.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He won't come \u2013 I know he won't come.\n\n_Enter_ LADY CAROLINE. _She looks round anxiously. Enter_ GERALD.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: Mr. Arbuthnot, may I ask you is Sir John anywhere on the terrace?\n\nGERALD: No, Lady Caroline, he is not on the terrace.\n\nLADY CAROLINE: It is very curious. It is time for him to retire.\n\n_Exit_ LADY CAROLINE.\n\nGERALD: Dear mother, I am afraid I kept you waiting. I forgot all about it. I am so happy to-night, mother; I have never been so happy.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: At the prospect of going away?\n\nGERALD: Don't put it like that, mother. Of course I am sorry to leave you. Why, you are the best mother in the whole world. But after all, as Lord Illingworth says, it is impossible to live in such a place as Wrockley. You don't mind it. But I'm ambitious; I want something more than that. I want to have a career. I want to do something that will make you proud of me, and Lord Illingworth is going to help me. He is going to do everything for me.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald, don't go away with Lord Illingworth. I implore you not to. Gerald, I beg you!\n\nGERALD: Mother, how changeable you are! You don't seem to know your own mind for a single moment. An hour and a half ago in the Drawing-room you agreed to the whole thing; now you turn round and make objections, and try to force me to give up my one chance in life. Yes, my one chance. You don't suppose that men like Lord Illingworth are to be found every day, do you, mother? It is very strange that when I have had such a wonderful piece of good luck, the one person to put difficulties in my way should be my own mother. Besides, you know, mother, I love Hester Worsley. Who could help loving her? I love her more than I ever have told you, far more. And if I had a position, if I had prospects, I could \u2013 I could ask her to...Don't you understand now, mother, what it means to me to be Lord Illingworth's secretary? To start like that is to find a career ready for one \u2013 before one \u2013 waiting for one. If I were Lord Illingworth's secretary I could ask Hester to be my wife. As a wretched bank clerk with a hundred a year it would be an impertinence.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I fear you need have no hopes of Miss Worsely. I know her views on life. She has just told them to me. ( _A pause._ )\n\nGERALD: Then I have my ambition left, at any rate. That is something \u2013 I am glad I have that! You have always tried to crush my ambition, mother \u2013 haven't you? You have told me that the world is a wicked place, that success is not worth having, that society is shallow, and all that sort of thing \u2013 well, I don't believe it, mother. I think the world must be delightful. I think society must be exquisite. I think success is a thing worth having. You have been wrong in all that you taught me, mother, quite wrong. Lord Illingworth is a successful man. He is a fashionable man. He is a man who lives in the world and for it. Well, I would give anything to be just like Lord Illingworth.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I would sooner see you dead.\n\nGERALD: Mother, what is your objection to Lord Illingworth? Tell me \u2013 tell me right out. What is it?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He is a bad man.\n\nGERALD: In what way bad? I don't understand what you mean.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will tell you.\n\nGERALD: I suppose you think him bad, because he doesn't believe the same things as you do. Well, men are different from women, mother. It is natural that they should have different views.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is not what Lord Illingworth believes, or what he does not believe, that makes him bad. It is what he is.\n\nGERALD: Mother, is it something you know of him? Something you actually know?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is something I know.\n\nGERALD: Something you are quite sure of?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Quite sure of.\n\nGERALD: How long have you known it?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: For twenty years.\n\nGERALD: Is it fair to go back twenty years in any man's career? And what have you or I to do with Lord Illingworth's early life? What business is it of ours?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: What this man has been, he is now, and will be always.\n\nGERALD: Mother, tell me what Lord Illingworth did? If he did anything shameful, I will not go away with him. Surely you know me well enough for that?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald, come near to me. Quite close to me, as you used to do when you were a little boy, when you were mother's own boy.\n\nGERALD _sits down beside his mother. She runs her fingers through his hair, and strokes his hands._\n\nGerald, there was a girl once, she was very young, she was little over eighteen at the time. George Harford \u2013 that was Lord Illingworth's name then \u2013 George Harford met her. She knew nothing about life. He \u2013 knew everything. He made this girl love him. He made her love so much that she left her father's house with him one morning. She loved him so much, and he had promised to marry her! He had solemnly promised to marry her, and she had believed him. She was very young, and \u2013 and ignorant of what life really is. But he put the marriage off from week to week, and month to month. She trusted in him all the while. She loved him. Before her child was born \u2013 for she had a child \u2013 she implored him for the child's sake to marry her, that the child might have a name, that her sin might not be visited on the child, who was innocent. He refused. After the child was born she left him, taking the child away, and her life was ruined, and her soul ruined, and all that was sweet, and good, and pure in her ruined also. She suffered terribly \u2013 she suffers now. She will always suffer. For her there is no joy, no peace, no atonement. She is a woman who drags a chain like a guilty thing. She is a woman who wears a mask, like a thing that is a leper. The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish. Nothing can heal her! No anodyne can give her sleep! No poppies forgetfulness! She is lost! She is a lost soul! That is why I call Lord Illingworth a bad man. That is why I don't want my boy to be with him.\n\nGERALD: My dear mother, it all sounds very tragic, of course. But I dare say the girl was just as much to blame as Lord Illingworth was. After all, would a really nice girl, a girl with any nice feelings at all, go away from her home with a man to whom she was not married, and live with him as his wife? No nice girl would.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _after a pause_ ): Gerald, I withdraw all my objections. You are at liberty to go away with Lord Illingworth, when and where you choose.\n\nGERALD: Dear mother, I knew you wouldn't stand in my way. You are the best woman God ever made. And, as for Lord Illingworth, I don't believe he is capable of anything infamous or base. I can't believe it of him \u2013 I can't.\n\nHESTER ( _outside_ ): Let me go! Let me go!\n\n_Enter_ HESTER _in terror, and rushes over to_ GERALD _and flings herself in his arms._\n\nHESTER: Oh! Save me \u2013 save me from him!\n\nGERALD: From whom?\n\nHESTER: He has insulted me! Horribly insulted me! Save me!\n\nGERALD: Who? Who has dared \u2013 ?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH _enters at back of stage._ HESTER _breaks from_ GERALD'S _arms and points to him._\n\nGERALD ( _he is quite beside himself with rage and indignation_ ): Lord Illingworth, you have insulted the purest thing on God's earth, a thing as pure as my own mother. You have insulted the woman I love most in the world with my own mother. As there is a God in Heaven, I will kill you!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _rushing across and catching hold of him_ ): No! no!\n\nGERALD ( _thrusting her back_ ): Don't hold me, mother. Don't hold me \u2013 I'll kill him!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald!\n\nGERALD: Let me go, I say!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Stop, Gerald, stop! He is your own father!\n\nGERALD _clutches his mother's hands and looks into her face. She sinks slowly on the ground in shame._ HESTER _steals towards the door._ LORD ILLINGWORTH _frowns and bites his lip. After a time_ GERALD _raises his mother up, puts his arm round her, and leads her from the room._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _Sitting-room at Mrs. Arbuthnot's house at Wrockley. Large open French window at back, looking on to garden. Doors R.C. and L.C._\n\nGERALD ARBUTHNOT _writing at table._\n\n_Enter_ ALICE _R.C. followed by_ LADY HUNSTANTON _and_ MRS. ALLONBY.\n\nALICE: Lady Hunstanton and Mrs. Allonby. ( _Exit L.C._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Good-morning, Gerald.\n\nGERALD ( _rising_ ): Good-morning, Lady Hunstanton. Good-morning, Mrs. Allonby.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _sitting down_ ): We came to inquire for your dear mother, Gerald. I hope she is better?\n\nGERALD: My mother has not come down yet, Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, I am afraid the heat was too much for her last night. I think there must have been thunder in the air. Or perhaps it was the music. Music makes one feel so romantic \u2013 at least it always gets on one's nerves.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: It's the same thing, nowadays.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: I am so glad I don't know what you mean, dear. I am afraid you mean something wrong. Ah, I see you're examining Mrs. Arbuthnot's pretty room. Isn't it nice and old-fashioned?\n\nMRS. ALLONBY ( _surveying the room through her lorgnette_ ): It looks quite the happy English home.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: That's just the word, dear; that just describes it. One feels your mother's good influence in everything she has about her, Gerald.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Lord Illingworth says that all influence is bad, but that a good influence is the worst in the world.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: When Lord Illingworth knows Mrs. Arbuthnot better he will change his mind. I must certainly bring him here.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I should like to see Lord Illingworth in a happy English home.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: It would do him a great deal of good, dear. Most women in London, nowadays, seem to furnish their rooms with nothing but orchids, foreigners, and French novels. But here we have the room of a sweet saint. Fresh natural flowers, books that don't shock one, pictures that one can look at without blushing.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: But I like blushing.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, there _is_ a good deal to be said for blushing, if one can do it at the proper moment. Poor dear Hunstanton used to tell me I didn't blush nearly often enough. But then he was so very particular. He wouldn't let me know any of his men friends, except those who were over seventy, like poor Lord Ashton; who afterwards, by the way, was brought into the Divorce Court. A most unfortunate case.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. I think seventy an ideal age for a man.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: She is quite incorrigible, Gerald, isn't she? Bythe-by, Gerald, I hope your dear mother will come and see me more often now. You and Lord Illingworth start almost immediately, don't you?\n\nGERALD: I have given up my intention of being Lord Illingworth's secretary.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Surely not, Gerald! It would be most unwise of you. What reason can you have?\n\nGERALD: I don't think I should be suitable for the post.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I wish Lord Illingworth would ask me to be his secretary. But he says I am not serious enough.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: My dear, you really mustn't talk like that in this house. Mrs. Arbuthnot doesn't know anything about the wicked society in which we all live. She won't go into it. She is far too good. I consider it was a great honour her coming to me last night. It gave quite an atmosphere of respectability to the party.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Ah, that must have been what you thought was thunder in the air.\n\nLADY HUNTSTATON: My dear, how can you say that? There is no resemblance between the two things at all. But really, Gerald, what do you mean by not being suitable?\n\nGERALD: Lord Illingworth's views of life and mine are too different.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: But, my dear Gerald, at your age you shouldn't have any views of life. They are quite out of place. You must be guided by others in this matter. Lord Illingworth has made you the most flattering offer, and travelling with him you would see the world \u2013 as much of it, at least, as one should look at \u2013 under the best auspices possible, and stay with all the right people, which is so important at this solemn moment in your career.\n\nGERALD: I don't want to see the world; I've seen enough of it.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: I hope you don't think you have exhausted life, Mr. Arbuthnot. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.\n\nGERALD: I don't wish to leave my mother.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Now, Gerald, that is pure laziness on your part. Not leave your mother! If I were your mother I would insist on your going.\n\n_Enter_ ALICE _L.C._\n\nALICE: Mrs. Arbuthnot's compliments, my lady, but she has a bad headache, and cannot see any one this morning. ( _Exit R.C._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON ( _rising_ ): A bad headache! I am so sorry! Perhaps you'll bring her up to Hunstanton this afternoon, if she is better, Gerald.\n\nGERALD: I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: Well, to-morrow, then. Ah, if you had a father, Gerald, he wouldn't let you waste your life here. He would send you with Lord Illingworth at once. But mothers are so weak. They give up to their sons in everything. We are all heart, all heart. Come, dear, I must call at the rectory and inquire for Mrs. Daubeny, who, I am afraid, is far from well. It is wonderful how the Archdeacon bears up, quite wonderful. He is the most sympathetic of husbands. Quite a model. Good-bye, Gerald; give my fondest love to your mother.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: Good-bye, Mr. Arbuthnot.\n\nGERALD: Good-bye.\n\n_Exit_ LADY HUNSTANTON _and_ MRS. ALLONBY. GERALD _sits down and reads over his letter._\n\nGERALD: What name can I sign? I, who have no right to any name. ( _Signs name, puts letter into envelope, addresses it, and is about to seal it, when door L. C. opens and_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT _enters._ GERALD _lays down sealing-wax. Mother and son look at each other._ )\n\nLADY HUNSTANTON: ( _through French window at the back_ ): Good-bye again, Gerald. We are taking the short cut across your pretty garden. Now, remember my advice to you \u2013 start at once with Lord Illingworth.\n\nMRS. ALLONBY: _Au revoir_ , Mr. Arbuthnot. Mind you bring me back something nice from your travels \u2013 not an Indian shawl \u2013 on no account an Indian shawl. ( _Exeunt._ )\n\nGERALD: Mother, I have just written to him.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: To whom?\n\nGERALD: To my father. I have written to tell him to come here at four o'clock this afternoon.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He shall not come here. He shall not cross the threshold of my house.\n\nGERALD: He must come.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Gerald, if you are going away with Lord Illingworth, go at once. Go before it kills me; but don't ask me to meet him.\n\nGERALD: Mother, you don't understand. Nothing in the world would induce me to go away with Lord Illingworth, or to leave you. Surely you know me well enough for that. No; I have written to him to say \u2013\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: What can you have to say to him?\n\nGERALD: Can't you guess, mother, what I have written in this letter?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: No.\n\nGERALD: Mother, surely you can. Think, think what must be done, now, at once, within the next few days.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: There is nothing to be done.\n\nGERALD: I have written to Lord Illingworth to tell him that he must marry you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Marry me?\n\nGERALD: Mother, I will force him to do it. The wrong that has been done you must be repaired. Atonement must be made. Justice may be slow, mother, but it comes in the end. In a few days you shall be Lord Illingworth's lawful wife.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: But, Gerald \u2013\n\nGERALD: I will insist upon his doing it. I will make him do it; he will not dare to refuse.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: But, Gerald, it is I who refuse. I will not marry Lord Illingworth.\n\nGERALD: Not marry him? Mother!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will not marry him.\n\nGERALD: But you don't understand: it is for your sake I am talking, not for mine. This marriage, this necessary marriage, this marriage which for obvious reasons must inevitably take place, will not help me, will not give me a name that will be really, rightly mine to bear. But surely it will be something for you, that you, my mother, should, however late, become the wife of the man who is my father. Will not that be something?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will not marry him.\n\nGERALD: Mother, you must.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement possible. I am disgraced; he is not. That is all. It is the usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The man goes free.\n\nGERALD: I don't know if that is the ordinary ending, mother; I hope it is not. But your life, at any rate, shall not end like that. The man shall make whatever reparation is possible. It is not enough. It does not wipe out the past, I know that. But at least it makes the future better, better for you, mother.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I refuse to marry Lord Illingworth.\n\nGERALD: If he came to you himself and asked you to be his wife you would give him a different answer. Remember, he is my father.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: If he came himself, which he will not do, my answer would be the same. Remember, I am your mother.\n\nGERALD: Mother, you make it terribly difficult for me by talking like that; and I can't understand why you won't look at this matter from the right, from the only proper standpoint. It is to take away the bitterness out of your life, to take away the shadow that lies on your name, that this marriage must take place. There is no alternative; and after the marriage you and I can go away together. But the marriage must take place first. It is a duty that you owe, not merely to yourself, but to all other women \u2013 yes; to all the other women in the world, lest he betray more.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I owe nothing to other women. There is not one of them to help me. There is not one woman in the world to whom I could go for pity, if I would take it, or for sympathy, if I could win it. Women are hard on each other. That girl, last night, good though she is, fled from the room as though I were a tainted thing. She was right. I am a tainted thing. But my wrongs are my own, and I will bear them alone. I must bear them alone. What have women who have not sinned to do with me, or I with them? We do not understand each other.\n\n_Enter_ HESTER _behind._\n\nGERALD: I implore you to do what I ask you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: What son has ever asked of his mother to make so hideous a sacrifice? None.\n\nGERALD: What mother has ever refused to marry the father of her own child? None.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Let me be the first, then. I will not do it.\n\nGERALD: Mother, you believe in religion, and you brought me up to believe in it also. Well, surely your religion, the religion that you taught me when I was a boy, mother, must tell you that I am right. You know it, you feel it.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I ever stand before God's altar and ask God's blessing on so hideous a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery, made me to sin? No; marriage is a sacrament for those who love each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to save you from the world's sneers and taunts I have lied to the world. For twenty years I have lied to the world. I could not tell the world the truth. Who can ever? But not for my own sake will I lie to God, and in God's presence. No, Gerald, no ceremony, Church-hallowed or State-made, shall ever bind me to George Harford. It may be that I am too bound to him already, who, robbing me, yet left me richer, so that in the mire of my life I found the pearl of price, or what I thought would be so.\n\nGERALD: I don't understand you now.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Men don't understand what mothers are. I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly for the thing we women love \u2013 and oh! How _I_ loved _you._ Not Hannah, Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and only love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep any one alive. And boys are careless often, and without thinking give pain, and we always fancy that when they come to man's estate and know us better they will repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from our side, and they make friends with whom they are happier than they are with us, and have amusements from which we are barred, and interests that are not ours; and they are unjust to us often, for when they find life bitter they blame us for it, and when they find it sweet we do not taste its sweetness with them...You made many friends and went into their houses and were glad with them, and I, knowing my secret, did not dare to follow, but stayed at home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness. My past was ever with me...And you thought I didn't care for the pleasant things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It was not, but where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not need; lavished on them a love that was not theirs...And you thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in Church duties. But where else could I turn? God's house is the only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day, at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God's house, I have never repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my love, were its fruit. Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would rather be your mother \u2013 oh, much rather \u2013 than have been always pure...Oh, don't you see? Don't you understand! It is my dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you \u2013 the price of soul and body \u2013 that makes me love you as I do. Oh, don't ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be still the child of my shame!\n\nGERALD: Mother, I didn't know you loved me so much as that. And I will be a better son to you than I have been. And you and I must never leave each other...but, mother...I can't help it...you must become my father's wife. You must marry him. It is your duty.\n\nHESTER ( _running forward and embracing_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT): No, no; you shall not. That would be real dishonour, the first you have ever known. That would be real disgrace: the first to touch you. Leave him and come with me. There are other countries than England...Oh! Other countries over sea, better, wiser, and less unjust lands. The world is very wide and very big.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: No, not for me. For me the world is shrivelled to a palm's breadth, and where I walk there are thorns.\n\nHESTER: It shall not be so. We shall somewhere find green valleys and fresh waters, and if we weep, well, we shall weep together. Have we not both loved him?\n\nGERALD: Hester!\n\nHESTER ( _waving him back_ ): Don't, don't! You cannot love me at all unless you love her also. You cannot honour me, unless she's holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone, but all of us are stricken in her house.\n\nGERALD: Hester, Hester, what shall I do?\n\nHESTER: Do you respect the man who is your father?\n\nGERALD: Respect him? I despise him! He is infamous.\n\nHESTER: I thank you for saving me from him last night.\n\nGERALD: Ah, that is nothing. I would die to save you. But you don't tell me what to do now!\n\nHESTER: Have I not thanked you for saving _me_?\n\nGERALD: But what should I do?\n\nHESTER: Ask your own heart, not mine. I never had a mother to save, or shame.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He is hard \u2013 he is hard. Let me go away.\n\nGERALD ( _rushes over and kneels down beside his mother_ ): Mother, forgive me; I have been to blame.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Don't kiss my hands; they are cold. My heart is cold: something has broken it.\n\nHESTER: Ah, don't say that. Hearts live by being wounded. Pleasure may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but sorrow \u2013 oh, sorrow, cannot break it. Besides, what sorrows have you now? Why, at this moment you are more dear to him than ever, _dear_ though you have _been_ , and oh, how dear you _have_ been always. Ah! Be kind to him.\n\nGERALD: You are my mother and my father all in one. I need no second parent. It was for you I spoke, for you alone. Oh, say something, mother. Have I but found one love to lose another? Don't tell me that. Oh, mother, you are cruel. ( _Gets up and flings himself sobbing on a sofa._ )\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _to_ HESTER): But has he found indeed another love?\n\nHESTER: You know I have loved him always.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: But we are very poor.\n\nHESTER: Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden. Let him share it with me.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: But we are disgraced. We rank among the outcasts. Gerald is nameless. The sins of the parents should be visited on the children. It is God's law.\n\nHESTER: I was wrong. God's law is only Love.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _rises, and taking_ HESTER _by the hand, goes slowly over to where_ GERALD _is lying on the sofa with his head buried in his hands. She touches him and he looks up_ ): Gerald, I cannot give you a father, but I have brought you a wife.\n\nGERALD: Mother, I am not worthy either of her or you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: So she comes first, you are worthy. And when you are away, Gerald...with...her \u2013 oh, think of me sometimes. Don't forget me. And when you pray, pray for me. We should pray when we are happiest, and you will be happy, Gerald.\n\nHESTER: Oh, you don't think of leaving us?\n\nGERALD: Mother, you won't leave us?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I might bring shame upon you!\n\nGERALD: Mother!\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: For a little then; and if you let me, near you always.\n\nHESTER ( _to_ MRS. ARBUTHNOT): Come out with us to the garden.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Later on, later on.\n\n_Exeunt_ HESTER _and_ GERALD.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _goes towards door L.C. Stops at looking-glass over mantelpiece and looks into it._\n\n_Enter_ ALICE _R.C._\n\nALICE: A gentleman to see you, ma'am.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Say I am not at home. Show me the card. ( _Takes card from salver and looks at it._ ) Say I will not see him.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH _enters._ MRS. ARBUTHNOT _sees him in the glass and starts, but does not turn round. Exit_ ALICE.\n\nWhat can you have to say to me to-day, George Harford? You can have nothing to say to me. You must leave this house.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Rachel, Gerald knows everything about you and me now, so some arrangement must be come to that will suit us all three. I assure you, he will find in me the most charming and generous of fathers.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: My son may come in at any moment. I saved you last night. I may not be able to save you again. My son feels my dishonour strongly, terribly strongly. I beg you to go.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _sitting down_ ): Last night was excessively unfortunate. That silly Puritan girl making a scene merely because I wanted to kiss her. What harm is there in a kiss?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _turning round_ ): A kiss may ruin a human life, George Harford. _I_ know that. _I_ know that too well.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: We won't discuss that at present. What is of importance to-day, as yesterday, is still our son. I am extremely fond of him, as you know, and odd though it may seem to you, I admired his conduct last night immensely. He took up the cudgels for that pretty prude with wonderful promptitude. He is just what I should have liked a son of mine to be. Except that no son of mine should ever take the side of the Puritans; that is always an error. Now, what I propose is this.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Lord Illingworth, no proposition of yours interests me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: According to our ridiculous English laws, I can't legitimise Gerald. But I can leave him my property. Illingworth is entailed, of course, but it is a tedious barrack of a place. He can have Ashby, which is much prettier, Harborough, which has the best shooting in the north of England, and the house in St. James's Square. What more can a gentleman desire in this world?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Nothing more, I am quite sure.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: As for a title, a title is really rather a nuisance in these democratic days. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. Now I have merely everything that other people want, which isn't nearly so pleasant. Well, my proposal is this.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I told you I was not interested, and I beg you to go.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: The boy is to be with you for six months in the year, and with me for the other six. That is perfectly fair, is it not? You can have whatever allowance you like, and live where you choose. As for your past, no one knows anything about it except myself and Gerald. There is the Puritan, of course, the Puritan in white muslin, but she doesn't count. She couldn't tell the story without explaining that she objected to being kissed, could she? And all the women would think her a fool and the men think her a bore. And you need not be afraid that Gerald won't be my heir. I needn't tell you I have not the slightest intention of marrying.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You come too late. My son has no need of you. You are not necessary.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What do you mean, Rachel?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: That you are not necessary to Gerald's career. He does not require you.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I do not understand you.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Look into the garden. (LORD ILLINGWORTH _rises and goes towards window._ ) You had better not let them see you; you bring unpleasant memories. (LORD ILLINGWORTH _looks out and starts._ ) She loves him. They love each other. We are safe from you, and we are going away.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Where?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: We will not tell you, and if you find us we will not know you. You seem surprised. What welcome would you get from the girl whose lips you tried to soil, from the boy whose life you have shamed, from the mother whose dishonour comes from you?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You have grown hard, Rachel.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I was too weak once. It is well for me that I have changed.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I was very young at the time. We men know life too early.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: And we women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women. ( _A pause)._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Rachel, I want my son. My money may be of no use to him now. I may be of no use to him, but I want my son. Bring us together, Rachel. You can do it if you choose. ( _Sees letter on table)._\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: There is no room in my boy's life for _you._ He is not interested in _you._\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Then why does he write to me?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: What do you mean?\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What letter is this? ( _Takes up letter._ )\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: That \u2013 is nothing. Give it to me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is addressed to _me._\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You are not to open it. I forbid you to open it.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: And in Gerald's handwriting.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It was not to have been sent. It is a letter he wrote to you this morning, before he saw me. But he is sorry now he wrote it, very sorry. You are not to open it. Give it to me.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It belongs to me. ( _Opens it, sits down and reads it slowly._ MRS. ARBUTHNOT _watches him all the time._ ) You have read this letter, I suppose, Rachel?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: No.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: You know what is in it?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I don't admit for a moment that the boy is right in what he says. I don't admit that it is any duty of mine to marry you. I deny it entirely. But to get my son back I am ready \u2013 yes, I am ready to marry you, Rachel \u2013 and to treat you always with the deference and respect due to my wife. I will marry you as soon as you choose. I give you my word of honour.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You made that promise to me once before and broke it.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I will keep it now. And that will show you that I love my son, at least as much as you love him. For when I marry you, Rachel, there are some ambitions I shall have to surrender. High ambitions, too, if any ambition is high.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I decline to marry you, Lord Illingworth.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Are you serious?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Do tell me your reasons. They would interest me enormously.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have already explained them to my son.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I suppose they were intensely sentimental, weren't they? You women live by your emotions and for them. You have no philosophy of life.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will. I have two passions, Lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What sort of love is that which needs to have hate as its brother?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is the sort of love I have for Gerald. Do you think that terrible? Well, it is terrible. All love is terrible. All love is a tragedy. I loved you once, Lord Illingworth. Oh, what a tragedy for a woman to have loved you!\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: So you really refuse to marry me?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: Because you hate me?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: And does my son hate me as you do?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: No.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: I am glad of that, Rachel.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: He merely despises you.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: What a pity! What a pity for him, I mean.\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Don't be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _reads letter over again, very slowly_ ): May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: It was not I who made him see it. It was another.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: _What fin-de-si\u00e8cle_ person?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: The Puritan, Lord Illingworth. ( _A pause._ )\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH ( _winces, then rises slowly and goes over to table where his hat and gloves are._ MRS. ARBUTHNOT _is standing close to the table. He picks up one of the gloves, and begins putting it on_ ): There is not much then for me to do here, Rachel?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: Nothing.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: It is good-bye, is it?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: For ever, I hope, this time, Lord Illingworth.\n\nLORD ILLINGWORTH: How curious! At this moment you look exactly as you looked the night you left me twenty years ago. You have just the same expression in your mouth. Upon my word, Rachel, no woman ever loved me as you did. Why, you gave yourself to me like a flower, to do anything I liked with. You were the prettiest of playthings, the most fascinating of small romances...( _Pulls out watch._ ) Quarter to two! Must be strolling back to Hunstanton. Don't suppose I shall see you there again. I'm sorry, I am, really. It's been an amusing experience to have met amongst people of one's own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one's mistress and one's \u2013\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT _snatches up glove and strikes_ LORD ILLINGWORTH _across the face with it._ LORD ILLINGWORTH _starts. He is dazed by the insult of his punishment. Then he controls himself and goes to window and looks out at his son. Sighs and leaves the room._\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _falls sobbing on the sofa_ ): He would have said it. He would have said it.\n\n_Enter_ GERALD _and_ HESTER _from the garden._\n\nGERALD: Well, dear mother. You never came out after all. So we have come in to fetch you. Mother, you have not been crying? ( _Kneels down beside her._ )\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT: My boy! My boy! My boy! ( _Running her fingers through his hair._ )\n\nHESTER ( _coming over_ ): But you have two children now. You'll let me be your daughter?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _looking up_ ): Would you choose me for a mother?\n\nHESTER: You of all women I have ever known.\n\n_They move towards the door leading into garden with their arms round each other's waists._ GERALD _goes to table L.C. for his hat. On turning round he sees_ LORD ILLINGWORTH'S _glove lying on the floor, and picks it up._\n\nGERALD: Hallo, mother, whose glove is this? You have had a visitor. Who was it?\n\nMRS. ARBUTHNOT ( _turning round_ ): Oh, no one. No one in particular. A man of no importance.\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## An Ideal Husband\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nTHE EARL OF CAVERSHAM, K.G.\n\nVISCOUNT GORING, his son\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC, Attach\u00e9 at French Embassy in London\n\nMR. MONTFORD\n\nMASON, Butler to Sir Robert Chiltern\n\nPHIPPS, Lord Goring's servant\n\nJAMES and HAROLD, Footmen\n\nLADY CHILTERN\n\nLADY MARKBY\n\nAffairs\n\nTHE COUNTESS OF BASILDON\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT\n\nMISS MABEL CHILTERN, Sir Robert Chiltern's sister\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY\n\n### ACT ONE\n\nSCENE: _The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern's house in Grosvenor Square, London. The action of the play is completed within twenty-four hours._ TIME: _The present._\n\n_The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests._\n\n_At the top of the staircase stands_ LADY CHILTERN, _a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry \u2013 representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher \u2013 that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms._ MRS. MARCHMONT _and_ LADY BASILDON, _two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them._\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret?\n\nLADY BASILDON: I suppose so. Are you?\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they?\n\nLADY BASILDON: Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: I come here to be educated.\n\nLADY BASILDON: Ah! I hate being educated!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn't it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one.\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _looking round through her lorgnette_ ): I don't see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: How very trivial of him!\n\nLADY BASILDON: Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about?\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: About myself.\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _languidly_ ): And were you interested?\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _shaking her head_ ): Not in the smallest degree.\n\nLADY BASILDON: What martyrs we are, dear Margaret!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _rising_ ): And how well it becomes us, Olivia!\n\n_They rise and go towards the music-room. The_ VICOMTE DE NANJAC, _a young attache known for his neckties and his Anglomania, approaches with a low bow, and enters into conversation._\n\nMASON ( _announcing guests from the top of the staircase_ ): Mr. and Lady Jane Barford. Lord Caversham.\n\n_Enter_ LORD CAVERSHAM, _an old gentleman of seventy, wearing the riband and star of the Garter. A fine Whig type. Rather like a portrait by Lawrence._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Good-evening, Lady Chiltern! Has my good-for-nothing young son been here?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _smiling_ ): I don't think Lord Goring has arrived yet.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _coming up to_ LORD CAVERSHAM): Why do you call Lord Goring good-for-nothing?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN _is a perfect example of the English type of prettiness, the apple-blossom type. She has all the fragrance and freedom of a flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in her hair, and the little mouth, with its parted lips, is expectant, like the mouth of a child. She has the fascinating tyranny of youth, and the astonishing courage of innocence. To sane people she is not reminiscent of any work of art. But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Because he leads such an idle life.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: How can you say such a thing? Why, he rides in the Row at ten o'clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don't call that leading an idle life, do you?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _looking at her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes_ ): You are a very charming young lady!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: How sweet of you to say that, Lord Caversham! Do come to us more often. You know we are always at home on Wednesdays, and you look so well with your star!\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society. Shouldn't mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner with my wife's milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham's bonnets.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Hum! Which is Goring? Beautiful idiot, or the other thing?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _gravely_ ): I have been obliged for the present to put Lord Goring into a class quite by himself. But he is developing charmingly!\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Into what?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a little curtsey_ ): I hope to let you know very soon, Lord Caversham!\n\nMASON ( _announcing guests_ ): Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.\n\n_Enter_ LADY MARKBY _and_ MRS. CHEVELEY. LADY MARKBY _is a pleasant, kindly, popular woman, with grey hair a la marquise and good lace._ MRS. CHEVELEY, _who accompanies her, is tall and rather slight. Lips very thin and highly-coloured, a line of scarlet on a pallid face. Venetian red hair, aquiline nose, and long throat. Rouge accentuates the natural paleness of her complexion. Gray-green eyes that move restlessly. She is in heliotrope, with diamonds. She looks rather like an orchid, and makes great demands on one's curiosity. In all her movements she is extremely graceful. A work of art, on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools._\n\nLADY MARKBY: Good-evening, dear Gertrude! So kind of you to let me bring my friend, Mrs. Cheveley. Two such charming women should know each other!\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _advances towards_ MRS. CHEVELEY _with a sweet smile. Then suddenly stops, and bows rather distantly_ ): I think Mrs. Cheveley and I have met before. I did not know she had married a second time.\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _genially_ ): Ah, nowadays people marry as often as they can, don't they? It is most fashionable. ( _To_ DUCHESS OF MARYBOROUGH): Dear Duchess, and how is the Duke? Brain still weak, I suppose? Well, that is only to be expected, is it not? His good father was just the same. There is nothing like race, is there?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _playing with her fan_ ): But have we really met before, Lady Chiltern? I can't remember where. I have been out of England for so long.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: We were at school together, Mrs. Cheveley.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _superciliously_ ): Indeed? I have forgotten all about my schooldays. I have a vague impression that they were detestable.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _coldly_ ): I am not surprised!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _in her sweetest manner_ ): Do you know, I am quite looking forward to meeting your clever husband, Lady Chiltern. Since he has been at the Foreign Office, he has been so much talked of in Vienna. They actually succeed in spelling his name right in the newspapers. That in itself is fame, on the continent.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I hardly think there will be much in common between you and my husband, Mrs. Cheveley! ( _Moves away._ )\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: Ah, ch\u00e8re Madame, quelle surprise! I have not seen you since Berlin!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Not since Berlin, Vicomte. Five years ago!\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: And you are younger and more beautiful than ever. How do you manage it?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: By making it a rule only to talk to perfectly charming people like yourself.\n\nVICOMIE DE NANJAC: Ah! You flatter me. You butter me, as they say here.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Do they say that here? How dreadful of them!\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: Yes, they have a wonderful language. It should be more widely known.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _enters. A man of forty, but looking somewhat younger. Clean-shaven, with finely-cut features, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A personality of mark. Not popular \u2013 few personalities are. But intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected by the many. The note of his manner is that of perfect distinction, with a slight touch of pride. One feels that he is conscious of the success he has made in life. A nervous temperament, with a tired look. The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. The variance is suggestive of an almost complete separation of passion and intellect, as though thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some violence of will-power. There is nervousness in the nostrils, and in the pale, thin, pointed hands. It would be inaccurate to call him picturesque. Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons. But Vandyck would have liked to have painted his head._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Good-evening, Lady Markby. I hope you have brought Sir John with you?\n\nLADY MARKBY: Oh! I have brought a much more charming person than Sir John. Sir John's temper since he has taken seriously to politics has become quite unbearable. Really, now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I hope not, Lady Markby. At any rate we do our best to waste the public time, don't we? But who is this charming person you have been kind enough to bring to us?\n\nLADY MARKBY: Her name is Mrs. Cheveley! One of the Dorsetshire Cheveleys, I suppose. But I really don't know. Families are so mixed nowadays. Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Mrs. Cheveley? I seem to know the name.\n\nLADY MARKBY: She has just arrived from Vienna.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah! Yes. I think I know whom you mean.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Oh! She goes everywhere there, and has such pleasant scandals about all her friends. I really must go to Vienna next winter. I hope there is a good chef at the Embassy.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: If there is not, the Ambassador will certainly have to be recalled. Pray point out Mrs. Cheveley to me. I should like to see her.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Let me introduce you. ( _To_ MRS. CHEVELEY): My dear, Sir Robert Chiltern is dying to know you!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _bowing_ ): Every one is dying to know the brilliant Mrs. Cheveley. Our attaches at Vienna write to us about nothing else.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thank you, Sir Robert. An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner. And I find that I know Lady Chiltern already.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Really?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. She has just reminded me that we were at school together. I remember it perfectly now. She always got the good conduct prize. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _smiling_ ): And what prizes did you get, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: My prizes came a little later on in life. I don't think any of them were for good conduct. I forget!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am sure they were for something charming!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it! Certainly, more women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else! At least that is the only way I can account for the terribly haggard look of most of your pretty women in London!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence. But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You prefer to be natural?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What would those modern psychological novelists, of whom we hear so much, say to such a theory as that?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women...merely adored.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And women represent the irrational.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Well-dressed women do.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with a polite bow_ ): I fear I could hardly agree with you there. But do sit down. And now tell me, what makes you leave your brilliant Vienna for our gloomy London \u2013 or perhaps the question is indiscreet?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Well, at any rate, may I know if it is politics or pleasure?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Politics are my only pleasure. You see, nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more...becoming!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: A political life is a noble career!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Sometimes. And sometimes it is a clever game, Sir Robert. And sometimes it is a great nuisance.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Which do you find it?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: A combination of all three. ( _Drops her fan._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _picks up fan_ ): Allow me!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: But you have not told me yet what makes you honour London so suddenly. Our season is almost over.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh! I don't care about the London season! It is too matrimonial. People are either hunting for husbands, or hiding from them. I wanted to meet you. It is quite true. You know what a woman's curiosity is. Almost as great as a man's! I wanted immensely to meet you, and...to ask you to do something for me.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I hope it is not a little thing, Mrs. Cheveley. I find that little things are so very difficult to do.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _after a moment's reflection_ ): No, I don't think it is quite a little thing.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am so glad. Do tell me what it is.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Later on. ( _Rises._ ) And now may I walk through your beautiful house? I hear your pictures are charming. Poor Baron Arnheim \u2013 you remember the Baron? \u2013 used to tell me you had some wonderful Corots.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with an almost imperceptible start_ ): Did you know Baron Arnheim well?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _smiling_ ): Intimately. Did you?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: At one time.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Wonderful man, wasn't he?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _after a pause_ ): He was very remarkable, in many ways.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I often think it such a pity he never wrote his memoirs. They would have been most interesting.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes: he knew men and cities well, like the old Greek.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Without the dreadful disadvantage of having a Penelope waiting at home for him.\n\nMASON: Lord Goring.\n\n_Enter_ LORD GORING. _Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A well-bred, expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Good-evening, my dear Arthur! Mrs. Cheveley, allow me to introduce to you Lord Goring, the idlest man in London.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I have met Lord Goring before.\n\nLORD GORING ( _bowing_ ): I did not think you would remember me, Mrs. Cheveley.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: My memory is under admirable control. And are you still a bachelor?\n\nLORD GORING: I...believe so.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: How very romantic.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh! I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough. I leave romance to my seniors.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Lord Goring is the result of Boodle's Club, Mrs. Cheveley.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: He reflects every credit on the institution.\n\nLORD GORING: May I ask are you staying in London long?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: That depends partly on the weather, partly on the cooking, and partly on Sir Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You are not going to plunge us into a European war, I hope?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: There is no danger, at present!\n\n_She nods to_ LORD GORING, _with a look of amusement in her eyes, and goes out with_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. LORD GORING _saunters over to_ MABEL CHILTERN.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You are very late!\n\nLORD GORING: Have you missed me?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Awfully!\n\nLORD GORING: Then I am sorry I did not stay away longer. I like being missed.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: How very selfish of you!\n\nLORD GORING: I am very selfish.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You are always telling me of your bad qualities, Lord Goring.\n\nLORD GORING: I have only told you half of them as yet, Miss Mabel!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Are the others very bad?\n\nLORD GORING: Quite dreadful! When I think of them at night I go to sleep at once.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Well, I delight in your bad qualities. I wouldn't have you part with one of them.\n\nLORD GORING: How very nice of you! But then you are always nice. By the way, I want to ask you a question, Miss Mabel. Who brought Mrs. Cheveley here? That woman in heliotrope, who has just gone out of the room with your brother?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh, I think Lady Markby brought her. Why do you ask?\n\nLORD GORING: I haven't seen her for years, that is all.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: What an absurd reason!\n\nLORD GORING: All reasons are absurd.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: What sort of a woman is she?\n\nLORD GORING: Oh! A genius in the daytime and a beauty at night!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I dislike her already.\n\nLORD GORING: That shows your admirable good taste.\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC ( _approaching_ ): Ah, the English young lady is the dragon of good taste, is she not? Quite the dragon of good taste.\n\nLORD GORING: So the newspapers are always telling us.\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: I read all your English newspapers. I find them so amusing.\n\nLORD GORING: Then, my dear Nanjac, you must certainly read between the lines.\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: I should like to, but my professor objects. ( _To_ MABEL CHILTERN): May I have the pleasure of escorting you to the music-room, Mademoiselle?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _looking very disappointed_ ): Delighted, Vicomte, quite delighted! ( _Turning to_ LORD GORING): Aren't you coming to the music-room?\n\nLORD GORING: Not if there is any music going on, Miss Mabel.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _severely_ ): The music is in German. You would not understand it.\n\n_Goes out with the_ VICOMTE DE NANJAC. LORD CAVERSHAM _comes up to his son._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir! What are you doing here? Wasting your life as usual! You should be in bed, sir. You keep too late hours! I heard of you the other night at Lady Rufford's dancing till four o'clock in the morning!\n\nLORD GORING: Only a quarter to four, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Can't make out how you stand London Society. The thing has gone to the dogs, a lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing.\n\nLORD GORING: I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: You seem to me to be living entirely for pleasure.\n\nLORD GORING: What else is there to live for, father? Nothing ages like happiness.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: You are heartless, sir, very heartless.\n\nLORD GORING: I hope not, father. Good-evening, Lady Basildon!\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _arching two pretty eyebrows_ ): Are you here? I had no idea you ever came to political parties.\n\nLORD GORING: I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.\n\nLADY BASILDON: I delight in talking politics. I talk them all day long. But I can't bear listening to them. I don't know how the unfortunate men in the House stand these long debates.\n\nLORD GORING: By never listening.\n\nLADY BASILDON: Really?\n\nLORD GORING ( _in his most serious manner_ ): Of course. You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.\n\nLADY BASILDON: Ah! That accounts for so much in men that I have never understood, and so much in women that their husbands never appreciate in them!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _with a sigh_ ): Our husbands never appreciate anything in us. We have to go to others for that!\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _emphatically_ ): Yes, always to others, have we not?\n\nLORD GORING ( _smiling_ ): And those are the views of the two ladies who are known to have the most admirable husbands in London.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: That is exactly what we can't stand. My Reginald is quite hopelessly faultless. He is really unendurably so, at times! There is not the smallest element of excitement in knowing him.\n\nLORD GORING: How terrible! Really, the thing should be more widely known!\n\nLADY BASILDON: Basildon is quite as bad; he is as domestic as if he was a bachelor.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _pressing_ LADY BASILDON'S _hand_ ): My poor Olivia! We have married perfect husbands, and we are well punished for it.\n\nLORD GORING: I should have thought it was the husbands who were punished.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: ( _drawing herself up_ ): Oh, dear no! They are as happy as possible! And as for trusting us, it is tragic how much they trust us.\n\nLADY BASILDON: Perfectly tragic!\n\nLORD GORING: Or comic, Lady Basildon?\n\nLADY BASILDON: Certainly not comic, Lord Goring. How unkind of you to suggest such a thing!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: I am afraid Lord Goring is in the camp of the enemy, as usual, I saw him talking to that Mrs. Cheveley when he came in.\n\nLORD GORING: Handsome woman, Mrs. Cheveley!\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _stiffly_ ): Please don't praise other women in our presence. You might wait for us to do that!\n\nLORD GORING: I did wait.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Well, we are not going to praise her. I hear she went to the Opera on Monday night, and told Tommy Rufford at supper that, as far as she could see, London Society was entirely made up of dowdies and dandies.\n\nLORD GORING: She is quite right, too. The men are all dowdies and the women are all dandies, aren't they?\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _after a pause_ ): Oh! Do you really think that is what Mrs. Cheveley meant?\n\nLORD GORING: Of course. And a very sensible remark for Mrs. Cheveley to make, too.\n\n_Enter_ MABEL CHILTERN. _She joins the group._\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Why are you talking about Mrs. Cheveley? Everybody is talking about Mrs. Cheveley! Lord Goring says \u2013 what did you say, Lord Goring, about Mrs. Cheveley? Oh! I remember, that she was a genius in the daytime and a beauty at night.\n\nLADY BASILDON: What a horrid combination! So very unnatural!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _in her most dreamy manner_ ): I like looking at geniuses, and listening to beautiful people!\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! That is morbid of you, Mrs. Marchmont!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _brightening to a look of real pleasure_ ): I am so glad to hear you say that. Marchmont and I have been married for seven years, and he has never once told me that I was morbid. Men are so painfully unobservant.\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _turning to her_ ): I have always said, dear Margaret, that you were the most morbid person in London.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Ah! But you are always sympathetic, Olivia!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Is it morbid to have a desire for food? I have a great desire for food. Lord Goring, will you give me some supper?\n\nLORD GORING: With pleasure, Miss Mabel. ( _Moves away with her._ )\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: How horrid you have been! You have never talked to me the whole evening!\n\nLORD GORING: How could I? You went away with the child-diplomatist.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You might have followed us. Pursuit would have been only polite. I don't think I like you at all this evening!\n\nLORD GORING: I like you immensely.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Well, I wish you'd show it in a more marked way!\n\n_They go downstairs._\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Olivia, I have a curious feeling of absolute faintness. I think I should like some supper very much. I know I should like some supper.\n\nLADY BASILDON: I am positively dying for supper, Margaret!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Men are so horribly selfish, they never think of these things.\n\nLADY BASILDON: Men are grossly material, grossly material!\n\n_The_ VICOMTE DE NANJAC _enters from the music-room with some other guests. After having carefully examined all the people present, he approaches_ LADY BASILDON.\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: May I have the honour of taking you down to supper, Countess?\n\nLADY BASILDON ( _coldly_ ): I never take supper, thank you, Vicomte. ( _The_ VICOMTE _is about to retire._ LADY BASILDON, _seeing this, rises at once and takes his arm._ ) But I will come down with you with pleasure.\n\nVICOMTE DE NANJAC: I am so fond of eating! I am very English in all my tastes.\n\nLADY BASILDON: You look quite English, Vicomte, quite English.\n\n_They pass out._ MR. MONTFORD, _a perfectly groomed young dandy, approaches_ MRS. MARCHMONT.\n\nMR. MONTFORD: Like some supper, Mrs. Marchmont?\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _languidly_ ): Thank you, Mr. Montford, I never touch supper. ( _Rises hastily and takes his arm._ ) But I will sit beside you, and watch you.\n\nMR. MONTFORD: I don't know that I like being watched when I am eating!\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT: Then I will watch some one else.\n\nMR. MONTFORD: I don't know that I should like that either.\n\nMRS. MARCHMONT ( _severely_ ): Pray, Mr. Montford, do not make these painful scenes of jealousy in public!\n\n_They go downstairs with the other guests, passing_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _and_ MRS. CHEVELEY, _who now enter._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And are you going to any of our country houses before you leave England, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, no! I can't stand your English house-parties. In England people actually try to be brilliant at breakfast. That is dreadful of them! Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. And then the family skeleton is always reading family prayers. My stay in England really depends on you, Sir Robert. ( _Sits down on the sofa._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _taking a seat beside her_ ): Seriously?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Quite seriously. I want to talk to you about a great political and financial scheme, about this Argentine Canal Company, in fact.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What a tedious, practical subject for you to talk about, Mrs. Cheveley!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, I like tedious, practical subjects. What I don't like are tedious, practical people. There is a wide difference. Besides, you are interested, I know, in International Canal schemes. You were Lord Radley's secretary, weren't you, when the Government bought the Suez Canal shares?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes. But the Suez Canal was a very great and splendid undertaking. It gave us our direct route to India. It had imperial value. It was necessary that we should have control. This Argentine scheme is a commonplace Stock Exchange swindle.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: A speculation, Sir Robert! A brilliant, daring speculation.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Believe me, Mrs. Cheveley, it is a swindle. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes matters simpler. We have all the information about it at the Foreign Office. In fact, I sent out a special Commission to inquire into the matter privately, and they report that the works are hardly begun, and as for the money already subscribed, no one seems to know what has become of it. The whole thing is a second Panama, and with not a quarter of the chance of success that miserable affair ever had. I hope you have not invested in it. I am sure you are far too clever to have done that.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I have invested very largely in it.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Who could have advised you to do such a foolish thing?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Your old friend \u2013 and mine.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Who?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Baron Arnheim.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _frowning_ ): Ah! Yes. I remember hearing, at the time of his death, that he had been mixed up in the whole affair.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: It was his last romance. His last but one, to do him justice.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rising_ ): But you have not seen my Corots yet. They are in the music-room. Corots seem to go with music, don't they? May I show them to you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _shaking her head_ ): I am not in a mood to-night for silver twilights, or rose-pink dawns. I want to talk business. ( _Motions to him with her fan to sit down again beside her._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I fear I have no advice to give you, Mrs. Cheveley, except to interest yourself in something less dangerous. The success of the Canal depends, of course, on the attitude of England, and I am going to lay the report of the Commissioners before the House to-morrow night.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: That you must not do. In your own interests, Sir Robert, to say nothing of mine, you must not do that.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _looking at her in wonder_ ): In my own interests? My dear Mrs. Cheveley, what do you mean? ( _Sits down beside her._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Sir Robert, I will be quite frank with you. I want you to withdraw the report that you had intended to lay before the House, on the ground that you have reasons to believe that the Commissioners have been prejudiced or misinformed, or something. Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. Will you do that for me?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making me such a proposition!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I am quite serious.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _coldly_ ): Pray allow me to believe that you are not.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _speaking with great deliberation and emphasis_ ): Ah, but I am. And if you do what I ask you, I...will pay you very handsomely!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Pay me!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am afraid I don't quite understand what you mean.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _leaning back on the sofa and looking at him_ ): How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that you should thoroughly understand me.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I fear I don't.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _in her most nonchalant manner_ ): My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose. Everybody has nowadays. The drawback is that most people are so dreadfully expensive. I know I am. I hope you will be more reasonable in your terms.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rises indignantly_ ): If you will allow me, I will call your carriage for you. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise that you are talking to an English gentleman.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there while she is talking_ ): I realise that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _biting his lip_ ): What do you mean?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _rising and facing him_ ): I mean that I know the real origin of your wealth and your career, and I have got your letter, too.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What letter?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _contemptuously_ ): The letter you wrote to Baron Arnheim, when you were Lord Radley's secretary, telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares \u2013 a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _hoarsely_ ): It is not true.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You thought that letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you! It is in my possession.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: It was a swindle, Sir Robert. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of one canal. You must help me and my friends to make our fortunes out of another!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It is infamous, what you propose \u2013 infamous!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, no! This is the game of life as we all have to play it, Sir Robert, sooner or later!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I cannot do what you ask me.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You mean you cannot help doing it. You know you are standing on the edge of a precipice. And it is not for you to make terms. It is for you to accept them. Supposing you refuse \u2013\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What then?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that is all! Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has brought you. In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one's neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues \u2013 and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins \u2013 one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man \u2013 now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You couldn't survive it. If it were known that as a young man, secretary to a great and important minister, you sold a Cabinet secret for a large sum of money, and that was the origin of your wealth and career, you would be hounded out of public life, you would disappear completely. And after all, Sir Robert, why should you sacrifice your entire future rather than deal diplomatically with your enemy? For the moment I am your enemy. I admit it! And I am much stronger than you are. The big battalions are on my side. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable. You can't defend it! And I am in attack. Of course I have not talked morality to you. You must admit in fairness that I have spared you that. Years ago you did a clever, unscrupulous thing; it turned out a great success. You owe to it your fortune and position. And now you have got to pay for it. Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do. You have to pay now. Before I leave you to-night, you have got to promise me to suppress your report, and to speak in the House in favour of this scheme.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What you ask is impossible.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You must make it possible. You are going to make it possible. Sir Robert, you know what your English newspapers are like. Suppose that when I leave this house I drive down to some newspaper office, and give them this scandal and the proofs of it. Think of their loathsome joy, of the delight they would have in dragging you down, of the mud and mire they would plunge you in. Think of the hypocrite with his greasy smile penning his leading article, and arranging the foulness of the public placard.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Stop! You want me to withdraw the report and to make a short speech stating that I believe there are possibilities in the scheme?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _sitting down on the sofa_ ): Those are my terms.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _in a low voice_ ): I will give you any sum of money you want.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I will not do what you ask me. I will not.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You have to. If you don't...( _Rises from the sofa._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _bewildered and unnerved_ ): Wait a moment! What did you propose? You said that you would give me back my letter, didn't you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. That is agreed. I will be in the Ladies' Gallery to-morrow night at half-past eleven. If by that time \u2013 and you will have had heaps of opportunity \u2013 you have made an announcement to the House in the terms I wish, I shall hand you back your letter with the prettiest thanks, and the best, or at any rate the most suitable, compliment I can think of. I intend to play quite fairly with you. One should always play fairly...when one has the winning cards. The Baron taught me that...amongst other things.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You must let me have time to consider your proposal.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: No; you must settle now!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Give me a week \u2013 three days!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Impossible! I have got to telegraph to Vienna to-night.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My God! What brought you into my life?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Circumstances. ( _Moves towards the door._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Don't go. I consent. The report shall be withdrawn. I will arrange for a question to be put to me on the subject.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thank you. I knew we should come to an amicable agreement. I understood your nature from the first. I analysed you, though you did not adore me. And now you can get my carriage for me, Sir Robert. I see the people coming up from supper, and Englishmen always get romantic after a meal, and that bores me dreadfully. ( _Exit_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.)\n\n_Enter Guests_ , LADY CHILTERN, LADY MARKBY, LORD CAVERSHAM, LADY BASILDON, MRS. MARCHMONT, VICOMTE DE NANJAC, MR. MONTFORD.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Well, dear Mrs. Cheveley, I hope you have enjoyed yourself. Sir Robert is very entertaining, is he not?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Most entertaining! I have enjoyed my talk with him immensely.\n\nLADY MARKBY: He has had a very interesting and brilliant career. And he has married a most admirable wife. Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles, I am glad to say. I am a little too old now, myself, to trouble about setting a good example, but I always admire people who do. And Lady Chiltern has a very ennobling effect on life, though her dinner-parties are rather dull sometimes. But one can't have everything, can one? And now I must go, dear. Shall I call for you to-morrow?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks.\n\nLADY MARKBY: We might drive in the Park at five. Everything looks so fresh in the Park now!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Except the people!\n\nLADY MARKBY: Perhaps the people are a little jaded. I have often observed that the Season as it goes on produces a kind of softening of the brain. However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure. That is the most unbecoming thing there is. It makes the noses of the young girls so particularly large. And there is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose; men don't like them. Good-night, dear! ( _To_ LADY CHILTERN): Good-night, Gertrude! ( _Goes out on_ LORD CAVERSHAM'S _arm._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: What a charming house you have, Lady Chiltern! I have spent a delightful evening. It has been so interesting getting to know your husband.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Why did you wish to meet my husband, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, I will tell you. I wanted to interest him in this Argentine Canal scheme, of which I dare say you have heard. And I found him most susceptible \u2013 susceptible to reason, I mean. A rare thing in a man. I converted him in ten minutes. He is going to make a speech in the House to-morrow night in favour of the idea. We must go to the Ladies' Gallery and hear him! It will be a great occasion!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: There must be some mistake. That scheme could never have my husband's support.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, I assure you it's all settled. I don't regret my tedious journey from Vienna now. It has been a great success. But, of course, for the next twenty-four hours the whole thing is a dead secret.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _gently_ ): A secret? Between whom?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a flash of amusement in her eyes_ ): Between your husband and myself.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _entering_ ): Your carriage is here, Mrs. Cheveley!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks! Good-evening, Lady Chiltern! Good-night, Lord Goring! I am at Claridge's. Don't you think you might leave a card?\n\nLORD GORING: If you wish it, Mrs. Cheveley!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, don't be so solemn about it, or I shall be obliged to leave a card on you. In England I suppose that would hardly be considered _en r\u00e8gie._\n\nAbroad, we are more civilised. Will you see me down, Sir Robert? Now that we have both the same interests at heart we shall be great friends, I hope!\n\n_Sails out on_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN'S _arm._ LADY CHILTERN _goes to the top of the staircase and looks down at them as they descend. Her expression is troubled. After a little time she is joined by some of the guests, and passes with them into another reception-room._\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: What a horrid woman!\n\nLORD GORING: You should go to bed, Miss Mabel.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Lord Goring!\n\nLORD GORING: My father told me to go to bed an hour ago. I don't see why I shouldn't give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Lord Goring, you are always ordering me out of the room. I think it most courageous of you. Especially as I am not going to bed for hours. ( _Goes over to the sofa._ ) You can come and sit down if you like, and talk about anything in the world, except the Royal Academy, Mrs. Cheveley, or novels in Scotch dialect. They are not improving subjects. ( _Catches sight of something that is lying on the sofa half-hidden by the cushion._ ) What is this? Some one has dropped a diamond brooch! Quite beautiful, isn't it? ( _Shows it to him._ ) I wish it was mine, but Gertrude won't let me wear anything but pearls, and I am thoroughly sick of pearls. They make one look so plain, so good and so intellectual. I wonder whom the brooch belongs to.\n\nLORD GORING: I wonder who dropped it.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: It is a beautiful brooch.\n\nLORD GORING: It is a handsome bracelet.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: It isn't a bracelet. It's a brooch.\n\nLORD GORING: It can be used as a bracelet. ( _Takes it from her and, pulling out a green letter-case, puts the ornament carefully in it, and replaces the whole thing in his breast-pocket with the most perfect sang froid._ )\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: What are you doing?\n\nLORD GORING: Miss Mabel, I am going to make a rather strange request to you.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _eagerly_ ): Oh, pray do! I have been waiting for it all the evening.\n\nLORD GORING ( _is a little taken aback, but recovers himself_ ): Don't mention to anybody that I have taken charge of this brooch. Should any one write and claim it, let me know at once.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: That is a strange request.\n\nLORD GORING: Well, you see I gave this brooch to somebody once, years ago.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You did?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nLADY CHILTERN _enters alone. The other guests have gone._\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Then I shall certainly bid you good-night. Good-night, Gertrude! ( _Exit._ )\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Good-night, dear! ( _To_ LORD GORING): You saw whom Lady Markby brought here to-night?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes. It was an unpleasant surprise. What did she come here for?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Apparently to try and lure Robert to uphold some fraudulent scheme in which she is interested. The Argentine Canal, in fact.\n\nLORD GORING: She has mistaken her man, hasn't she?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: She is incapable of understanding an upright nature like my husband's!\n\nLORD GORING: Yes. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes clever women make.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I don't call women of that kind clever. I call them stupid!\n\nLORD GORING: Same thing often. Good-night, Lady Chiltern!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Good-night!\n\n_Enter_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My dear Arthur, you are not going? Do stop a little!\n\nLORD GORING: Afraid I can't, thanks. I have promised to look in at the Hartlocks'. I believe they have got a mauve Hungarian band that plays mauve Hungarian music. See you soon. Good-bye! ( _Exit._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: How beautiful you look to-night, Gertrude!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert, it is not true, is it? You are not going to lend your support to this Argentine speculation? You couldn't!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _starting_ ): Who told you I intended to do so?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: That woman who has just gone out, Mrs. Cheveley, as she calls herself now. She seemed to taunt me with it. Robert, I know this woman. You don't. We were at school together. She was untruthful, dishonest, an evil influence on every one whose trust or friendship she could win. I hated, I despised her. She stole things, she was a thief. She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude, what you tell me may be true, but it happened many years ago. It is best forgotten! Mrs. Cheveley may have changed since then. No one should be entirely judged by their past.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _sadly_ ): One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: That is hard saying, Gertrude!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: It is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name, to a thing I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme there has ever been in political life?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _biting his lip_ ): I was mistaken in the view I took. We all may make mistakes.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: But you told me yesterday that you had received the report from the Commission, and that it entirely condemned the whole thing.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _walking up and down_ ): I have reasons now to believe that the Commission was prejudiced, or, at any rate, misinformed. Besides, Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They have different laws, and move on different lines.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: They should both represent man at his highest. I see no difference between them.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _stopping_ ): In the present case, on a matter of practical politics, I have changed my mind. That is all.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: All!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _sternly_ ): Yes!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert! Oh! It is horrible that I should have to ask you such a question \u2013 Robert, are you telling me the whole truth?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Why do you ask me such a question?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _after a pause_ ): Why do you not answer it?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _sitting down_ ): Gertrude, truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. One may be under certain obligations to people that one must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Every one does.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you changed?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am not changed. But circumstances alter things.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Circumstances should never alter principles.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: But if I told you \u2013\n\nLADY CHILTERN: What?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: That it was necessary, vitally necessary?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get? Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine \u2013 that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than that.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! Be that ideal still. That great inheritance throw not away \u2013 that tower of ivory do not destroy. Robert, men can love what is beneath them \u2013 things unworthy, stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our worship, we lose everything. Oh! Don't kill my love for you, don't kill that!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their lives \u2013 men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame \u2013 oh! Don't tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at once, that \u2013\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: That what?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _speaking very slowly_ ): That our lives may drift apart.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Drift apart?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: That they may entirely separate. It would be better for us both.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you might not know.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don't let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won't you, to Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back, that is all!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Must I write and tell her that?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I might see her personally. It would be better.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you. No; you must write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Write this moment!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: But it is so late. It is close on twelve.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has been mistaken in you \u2013 and that you are not a man to do anything base or underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme. Yes \u2013 write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. (SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _sits down and writes a letter. His wife takes it up and reads it._ ) Yes; that will do. ( _Rings bell._ ) And now the envelope. ( _He writes the envelope slowly. Enter_ MASON.) Have this letter sent at once to Claridge's Hotel. There is no answer. ( _Exit_ MASON. LADY CHILTERN _kneels down beside her husband and puts her arms around him._ ) Robert, love gives one an instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from something that might have been a danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less than they do. I don't think you realise sufficiently, Robert, that you have brought into the political life of our time a nobler atmosphere, a finer attitude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher ideals \u2013 I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I will love you always, because you will always be worthy of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it! ( _Kisses him and rises and goes out._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _walks up and down for a moment; then sits down and buries his face in his hands. The Servant enters and begins putting out the lights._ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _looks up._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!\n\n_The Servant puts out the lights. The room becomes almost dark. The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern's house._\n\nLORD GORING, _dressed in the height of fashion, is lounging in an arm-chair._ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _is standing in front of the fireplace. He is evidently in a state of great mental excitement and distress. As the scene progresses he paces nervously up and down the room._\n\nLORD GORING: My dear Robert, it's a very awkward business, very awkward indeed. You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Arthur, I couldn't tell my wife. When could I have told her? Not last night. It would have made a life-long separation between us, and I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world I worship, of the only woman who had ever stirred love within me. Last night it would have been quite impossible. She would have turned from me in horror...in horror and in contempt.\n\nLORD GORING: Is Lady Chiltern as perfect as all that?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes; my wife is as perfect as all that.\n\nLORD GORING ( _taking off his left-hand glove_ ): What a pity! I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, I didn't quite mean that. But if what you tell me is true, I should like to have a serious talk about life with Lady Chiltern.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It would be quite useless.\n\nLORD GORING: May I try?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes; but nothing could make her alter her views.\n\nLORD GORING: Well, at the worst it would simply be a psychological experiment.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: All such experiments are terribly dangerous.\n\nLORD GORING: Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living...Well, I am bound to say that I think you should have told her years ago.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: When? When we were engaged? Do you think she would have married me if she had known that the origin of my fortune is such as it is, the basis of my career such as it is, and that I had done a thing that I suppose most men would call shameful and dishonourable?\n\nLORD GORING ( _slowly_ ): Yes; most men would call it ugly names. There is no doubt of that.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _bitterly_ ): Men who every day do something of the same kind themselves. Men who, each one of them, have worse secrets in their own lives.\n\nLORD GORING: That is the reason they are so pleased to find out other people's secrets. It distracts public attention from their own.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And, after all, whom did I wrong by what I did? No one.\n\nLORD GORING ( _looking at him steadily_ ): Except yourself, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _after a pause_ ): Of course I had private information about a certain transaction contemplated by the Government of the day, and I acted on it. Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.\n\nLORD GORING ( _tapping his boot with his cane_ ): And public scandal invariably the result.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _pacing up and down the room_ ): Arthur, do you think that what I did nearly eighteen years ago should be brought up against me now? Do you think it fair that a man's whole career should be ruined for a fault done in one's boyhood almost? I was twenty-two at the time, and I had the double misfortune of being well-born and poor, two unforgivable things nowadays. Is it fair that the folly, the sin of one's youth, if men choose to call it a sin, should wreck a life like mine, should place me in the pillory, should shatter all that I have worked for, all that I have built up? Is it fair, Arthur?\n\nLORD GORING: Life is never fair, Robert. And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.\n\nLORD GORING: You underrate yourself, Robert. Believe me, without your wealth you could have succeeded just as well.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: When I was old, perhaps. When I had lost my passion for power, or could not use it. When I was tired, worn out, disappointed. I wanted my success when I was young. Youth is the time for success. I couldn't wait.\n\nLORD GORING: Well, you certainly have had your success while you are still young. No one in our day has had such a brilliant success. Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the age of forty \u2013 that's good enough for any one, I should think.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And if it is all taken away from me now? If I lose everything over a horrible scandal? If I am hounded from public life?\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, how could you have sold yourself for money?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _excitedly_ ): I did not sell myself for money. I bought success at a great price. That is all.\n\nLORD GORING ( _gravely_ ): Yes; you certainly paid a great price for it. But what first made you think of doing such a thing?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Baron Arnheim.\n\nLORD GORING: Damned scoundrel!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No; he was a man of a most subtle and refined intellect. A man of culture, charm, and distinction. One of the most intellectual men I ever met.\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! I prefer a gentlemanly fool any day. There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally, I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I suppose. But how did he do it? Tell me the whole thing.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _throws himself into an arm-chair by the writing-table_ ): One night after dinner at Lord Radley's the Baron began talking about success in modern life as something that one could reduce to an absolutely definite science. With that wonderfully fascinating quiet voice of his he expounded to us the most terrible of all philosophies, the philosophy of power, preached to us the most marvellous of all gospels, the gospel of gold. I think he saw the effect he had produced on me, for some days afterwards he wrote and asked me to come and see him. He was living then in Park Lane, in the house Lord Woolcomb has now. I remember so well how, with a strange smile on his pale, curved lips, he led me through his wonderful picture gallery, showed me his tapestries, his enamels, his jewels, his carved ivories, made me wonder at the strange loveliness of the luxury in which he lived; and then told me that luxury was nothing but a background, a painted scene in a play, and that power, power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having, the one supreme pleasure worth knowing, the one joy one never tired of, and that in our century only the rich possessed it.\n\nLORD GORING ( _with great deliberation_ ): A thoroughly shallow creed.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rising_ ): I didn't think so then. I don't think so now. Wealth has given me enormous power. It gave me at the very outset of my life freedom, and freedom is everything. You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is. You cannot understand what a wonderful chance the Baron gave me. Such a chance as few men get.\n\nLORD GORING: Fortunately for them, if one is to judge by results. But tell me definitely, how did the Baron finally persuade you to \u2013 well, to do what you did?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: When I was going away he said to me that if I ever could give him any private information of real value he would make me a very rich man. I was dazed at the prospect he held out to me, and my ambition and my desire for power were at that time boundless. Six weeks later certain private documents passed through my hands.\n\nLORD GORING ( _keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the carpet_ ): State documents?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nLORD GORING _sighs, then passes his hand across his forehead and looks up._\n\nLORD GORING: I had no idea that you, of all men in the world, could have been so weak, Robert, as to yield to such a temptation as Baron Arhneim held out to you.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak! Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not \u2013 there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, a terrible courage. I had that courage. I sat down the same afternoon and wrote Baron Arnheim the letter this woman now holds. He made three-quarters of a million over the transaction.\n\nLORD GORING: And you?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I received from the Baron \u00a3110,000.\n\nLORD GORING: You were worth more, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No; that money gave me exactly what I wanted, power over others. I went into the House immediately. The Baron advised me in finance from time to time. Before five years I had almost trebled my fortune. Since then everything that I have touched has turned out a success. In all things connected with money I have had a luck so extraordinary that sometimes it has made me almost afraid. I remember having read somewhere, in some strange book, that when the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.\n\nLORD GORING: But tell me, Robert, did you never suffer any regret for what you had done?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No. I felt that I had fought the century with its own weapons, and won.\n\nLORD GORING ( _sadly_ ): You thought you had won.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I thought so. ( _After a long pause_ ): Arthur, do you despise me for what I have told you?\n\nLORD GORING ( _with deep feeling in his voice_ ): I am very sorry for you, Robert, very sorry indeed.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I don't say that I suffered any remorse. I didn't. Not remorse in the ordinary, rather silly sense of the word. But I have paid conscience money many times. I had a wild hope that I might disarm destiny. The sum Baron Arnheim gave me I have distributed twice over in public charities since then.\n\nLORD GORING ( _looking up_ ): In public charities? Dear me! What a lot of harm you must have done, Robert!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh, don't say that, Arthur; don't talk like that!\n\nLORD GORING: Never mind what I say, Robert! I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be understood. As regards this dreadful business, I will help you in whatever way I can. Of course you know that.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Thank you, Arthur, thank you. But what is to be done? What can be done?\n\nLORD GORING ( _leaning back with his hands in his pockets_ ): Well, the English can't stand a man who is always saying he is in the right, but they are very fond of a man who admits that he has been in the wrong. It is one of the best things in them. However, in your case, Robert, a confession would not do. The money, if you will allow me to say so, is...awkward. Besides, if you did make a clean breast of the whole affair, you would never be able to talk morality again. And in England a man who can't talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician. There would be nothing left for him as a profession except Botany or the Church. A confession would be of no use. It would ruin you.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It would ruin me. Arthur, the only thing for me to do now is to fight the thing out.\n\nLORD GORING ( _rising from his chair_ ): I was waiting for you to say that, Robert. It is the only thing to do now. And you must begin by telling your wife the whole story.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: That I will not do.\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, believe me, you are wrong.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I couldn't do it. It would kill her love for me. And now about this woman, this Mrs. Cheveley. How can I defend myself against her? You knew her before, Arthur, apparently.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Did you know her well?\n\nLORD GORING ( _arranging his necktie_ ): So little that I got engaged to be married to her once, when I was staying at the Tenbys'. The affair lasted for three days...nearly.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Why was it broken off?\n\nLORD GORING ( _airily_ ): Oh, I forget. At least, it makes no matter. By the way, have you tried her with money? She used to be confoundedly fond of money.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I offered her any sum she wanted. She refused.\n\nLORD GORING: Then the marvellous gospel of gold breaks down sometimes. The rich can't do everything, after all.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Not everything. I suppose you are right. Arthur, I feel that public disgrace is in store for me. I feel certain of it. I never knew what terror was before. I know it now. It is as if a hand of ice were laid upon one's heart. It is as if one's heart were beating itself to death in some empty hollow.\n\nLORD GORING ( _striking the table_ ): Robert, you must fight her. You must fight her.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: But how?\n\nLORD GORING: I can't tell you how at present. I have not the smallest idea. But every one has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us. ( _Strolls over to the fireplace and looks at himself in the glass._ ) My father tells me that even I have faults. Perhaps I have. I don't know.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: In defending myself against Mrs. Cheveley I have a right to use any weapon I can find, have I not?\n\nLORD GORING ( _still looking in the glass_ ): In your place I don't think I should have the smallest scruple in doing so. She is thoroughly well able to take care of herself.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _sits down at the table and takes a pen in his hand_ ): Well, I shall send a cipher telegram to the Embassy at Vienna, to inquire if there is anything known against her. There may be some secret scandal she might be afraid of.\n\nLORD GORING ( _settling his buttonhole_ ): Oh, I should fancy Mrs. Cheveley is one of those very modern women of our time who find a new scandal as becoming as a new bonnet, and air them both in the Park every afternoon at five-thirty. I am sure she adores scandals, and that the sorrow of her life at present is that she can't manage to have enough of them.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _writing_ ): Why do you say that?\n\nLORD GORING ( _turning round_ ): Well, she wore far too much rouge last night, and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _striking a bell_ ): But it is worth while my wiring to Vienna, is it not?\n\nLORD GORING: It is always worth while asking a question, though it is not always worth while answering one.\n\n_Enter_ MASON.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Is Mr. Trafford in his room?\n\nMASON: Yes, Sir Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _puts what he has written into an envelope, which he then carefully closes_ ): Tell him to have this sent off in cipher at once. There must not be a moment's delay.\n\nMASON: Yes, Sir Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh! Just give that back to me again.\n\n_Writes something on the envelope._ MASON _then goes out with the letter._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: She must have had some curious hold over Baron Arnheim. I wonder what it was.\n\nLORD GORING ( _smiling_ ): I wonder.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I will fight her to the death, as long as my wife knows nothing.\n\nLORD GORING ( _strongly_ ): Oh, fight in any case \u2013 in any case.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with a gesture of despair_ ): If my wife found out, there would be little left to fight for. Well, as soon as I hear from Vienna, I shall let you know the result. It is a chance, just a chance, but I believe in it. And as I fought the age with its own weapons, I will fight her with her weapons. It is only fair, and she looks like a woman with a past, doesn't she?\n\nLORD GORING: Most pretty women do. But there is a fashion in pasts just as there is a fashion in frocks. Perhaps Mrs. Cheveley's past is merely a slightly _d\u00e9collet\u00e9_ one, and they are excessively popular nowadays. Besides, my dear Robert, I should not build too high hopes on frightening Mrs. Cheveley. I should not fancy Mrs. Cheveley is a woman who would be easily frightened. She has survived all her creditors, and she shows wonderful presence of mind.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh! I live on hopes now. I clutch at every chance. I feel like a man on a ship that is sinking. The water is round my feet, and the very air is bitter with storm. Hush! I hear my wife's voice.\n\n_Enter_ LADY CHILTERN _in walking dress._\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Good-afternoon, Lord Goring.\n\nLORD GORING: Good-afternoon, Lady Chiltern! Have you been in the Park?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: No; I have just come from the Woman's Liberal Association, where, by the way, Robert, your name was received with loud applause, and now I have come in to have my tea. ( _To_ LORD GORING): You will wait and have some tea, won't you?\n\nLORD GORING: I'll wait for a short time, thanks.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I will be back in a moment. I am only going to take my hat off.\n\nLORD GORING ( _in his most earnest manner_ ): Oh! Please don't. It is so pretty. One of the prettiest hats I ever saw. I hope the Woman's Liberal Association received it with loud applause.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _with a smile_ ): We have much more important work to do than look at each other's bonnets, Lord Goring.\n\nLORD GORING: Really? What sort of work?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Oh! Dull, useful, delightful things, Factory Acts, Female Inspectors, the Eight Hours' Bill, the Parliamentary Franchise...Everything, in fact, that you would find thoroughly uninteresting.\n\nLORD GORING: And never bonnets?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _with mock indignation_ ): Never bonnets, never!\n\nLADY CHILTERN _goes out through the door leading to her boudoir._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _takes_ LORD GORING'S _hand_ ): You have been a good friend to me, Arthur, a thoroughly good friend.\n\nLORD GORING: I don't know that I have been able to do much for you, Robert, as yet. In fact, I have not been able to do anything for you, as far as I can see. I am thoroughly disappointed with myself.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You have enabled me to tell you the truth. That is something. The truth has always stifled me.\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! The truth is a thing I get rid of as soon as possible! Bad habit, by the way. Makes one very unpopular at the club...with the older members. They call it being conceited. Perhaps it is.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I would to God that I had been able to tell the truth...to live the truth. Ah! That is the great thing in life, to live the truth. ( _Sighs, and goes towards the door._ ) I'll see you soon again, Arthur, shan't I?\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly. Whenever you like. I'm going to look in at the Bachelors' Ball to-night, unless I find something better to do. But I'll come round to-morrow morning. If you should want me to-night by any chance, send round a note to Curzon Street.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Thank you.\n\n_As he reaches the door_ , LADY CHILTERN _enters from her boudoir._\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You are not going, Robert?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I have some letters to write, dear.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _going to him_ ): You work too hard, Robert. You seem never to think of yourself, and you are looking so tired.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It is nothing, dear, nothing. ( _He kisses her and goes out._ )\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _to_ LORD GORING): Do sit down. I am so glad you have called. I want to talk to you about...well, not about bonnets, or the Woman's Liberal Association. You take far too much interest in the first subject, and not nearly enough in the second.\n\nLORD GORING: You want to talk to me about Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes. You have guessed it. After you left last night I found out that what she had said was really true. Of course I made Robert write her a letter at once, withdrawing his promise.\n\nLORD GORING: So he gave me to understand.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: To have kept it would have been the first stain on a career that has been stainless always. Robert must be above reproach. He is not like other men. He cannot afford to do what other men do. ( _She looks at_ LORD GORING, _who remains silent._ ) Don't you agree with me? You are Robert's greatest friend. You are our greatest friend, Lord Goring. No one, except myself, knows Robert better than you do. He has no secrets from me, and I don't think he has any from you.\n\nLORD GORING: He certainly has no secrets from me. At least I don't think so.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Then am I not right in my estimate of him? I know I am right. But speak to me frankly.\n\nLORD GORING ( _looking straight at her_ ): Quite frankly?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Surely. You have nothing to conceal, have you?\n\nLORD GORING: Nothing. But, my dear Lady Chiltern, I think, if you will allow me to say so, that in practical life \u2013\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _smiling_ ): Of which you know so little, Lord Goring \u2013\n\nLORD GORING: Of which I know nothing by experience, though I know something by observation. I think that in practical life there is something about success, actual success, that is a little unscrupulous, something about ambition that is unscrupulous always. Once a man has set his heart and soul on getting to a certain point, if he has to climb the crag, he climbs the crag; if he has to walk in the mire \u2013\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Well?\n\nLORD GORING: He walks in the mire. Of course I am only talking generally about life.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _gravely_ ): I hope so. Why do you look at me so strangely, Lord Goring?\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern, I have sometimes thought that...perhaps you are a little hard in some of your views on life. I think that...often you don't make sufficient allowances. In every nature there are elements of weakness, or worse than weakness. Supposing, for instance, that \u2013 that any public man, my father, or Lord Merton, or Robert, say, had, years ago, written some foolish letter to some one...\n\nLADY CHILTERN: What do you mean by a foolish letter?\n\nLORD GORING: A letter gravely compromising one's position. I am only putting an imaginary case.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing as he is of doing a wrong thing.\n\nLORD GORING ( _after a long pause_ ): Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Are you a Pessimist? What will the other dandies say? They will all have to go into mourning.\n\nLORD GORING ( _rising_ ): No, Lady Chiltern, I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may be the explanation of the next. And if you are ever in trouble, Lady Chiltern, trust me absolutely, and I will help you in every way I can. If you ever want me, come to me for my assistance, and you shall have it. Come at once to me.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _looking at him in surprise_ ): Lord Goring, you are talking quite seriously. I don't think I ever heard you talk seriously before.\n\nLORD GORING ( _laughing_ ): You must excuse me, Lady Chiltern. It won't occur again, if I can help it.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: But I like you to be serious.\n\n_Enter_ MABEL CHILTERN, _in the most ravishing frock._\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Dear Gertrude, don't say such a dreadful thing to Lord Goring. Seriousness would be very unbecoming to him. Good-afternoon, Lord Goring! Pray be as trivial as you can.\n\nLORD GORING: I should like to, Miss Mabel, but I am afraid I am...a little out of practice this morning; and besides, I have to be going now.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Just when I have come in! What dreadful manners you have! I am sure you were very badly brought up.\n\nLORD GORING: I was.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I wish I had brought you up!\n\nLORD GORING: I am so sorry you didn't.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: It is too late now, I suppose?\n\nLORD GORING ( _smiling_ ): I am not so sure.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Will you ride to-morrow morning?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes, at ten.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Don't forget.\n\nLORD GORING: Of course I shan't. By the way, Lady Chiltern, there is no list of your guests in _The Morning Post_ of to-day. It has apparently been crowded out by the County Council, or the Lambeth Conference, or something equally boring. Could you let me have a list? I have a particular reason for asking you.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I am sure Mr. Trafford will be able to give you one.\n\nLORD GORING: Thanks, so much.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Tommy is the most useful person in London.\n\nLORD GORING ( _turning to her_ ): And who is the most ornamental?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _triumphantly_ ): I am.\n\nLORD GORING: How clever of you to guess it! ( _Takes up his hat and cane._ ) Good-bye, Lady Chiltern! You will remember what I said to you, won't you?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes; but I don't know why you said it to me.\n\nLORD GORING: I hardly know myself. Good-bye, Miss Mabel!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a little moue of disappointment_ ): I wish you were not going. I have had four wonderful adventures this morning; four and a half, in fact. You might stop and listen to some of them.\n\nLORD GORING: How very selfish of you to have four and a half! There won't be any left for me.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I don't want you to have any. They would not be good for you.\n\nLORD GORING: That is the first unkind thing you have ever said to me. How charmingly you said it! Ten to-morrow.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Sharp.\n\nLORD GORING: Quite sharp. But don't bring Mr. Trafford.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a little toss of her head_ ): Of course I shan't bring Tommy Trafford. Tommy Trafford is in great disgrace.\n\nLORD GORING: I am delighted to hear it. ( _Bows and goes out._ )\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Gertrude, I wish you would speak to Tommy Trafford.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: What has poor Mr. Trafford done this time? Robert says he is the best secretary he has ever had.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the music-room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate trio going on. I didn't dare to make the smallest repartee, I need hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once. Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling. The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don't know what bimetallism means. And I don't believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Dear Mabel, don't talk like that. Besides, Robert thinks very highly of Mr. Trafford. He believes he has a brilliant future before him.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh! I wouldn't marry a man with a future before him for anything under the sun.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Mabel!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I know, dear. You married a man with a future, didn't you! But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble, self-sacrificing character. You can stand geniuses. I have no character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear. As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much, don't they? Such a bad habit! And they are always thinking about themselves, when I want them to be thinking about me. I must go round now and rehearse at Lady Basildon's. You remember, we are having tableaux, don't you? The Triumph of something, I don't know what! I hope it will be triumph of me. Only triumph I am really interested in at present. ( _Kisses_ LADY CHILTERN _and goes out; then comes running back_ ). Oh, Gertrude, do you know who is coming to see you? That dreadful Mrs. Cheveley, in a most lovely gown. Did you ask her?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _rising_ ): Mrs. Cheveley! Coming to see me? Impossible!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I assure you she is coming upstairs, as large as life and not nearly so natural.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You need not wait, Mabel. Remember, Lady Basildon is expecting you.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh! I must shake hands with Lady Markby. She is delightful. I love being scolded by her.\n\n_Enter_ MASON.\n\nMASON: Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.\n\n_Enter_ LADY MARKBY _and_ MRS. CHEVELEY.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _advancing to meet them_ ): Dear Lady Markby, how nice of you to come and see me! ( _Shakes hands with her, and bows somewhat distantly to_ MRS. CHEVELEY.) Won't you sit down, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks. Isn't that Miss Chiltern? I should like so much to know her.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Mabel, Mrs. Cheveley wishes to know you. (MABEL CHILTERN _gives a little nod._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _sitting down_ ): I thought your frock so charming, last night, Miss Chiltern. So simple and...suitable.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Really? I must tell my dressmaker. It will be such a surprise to her. Good-bye, Lady Markby!\n\nLADY MARKBY: Going already?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I am so sorry but I am obliged to. I am just off to rehearsal. I have got to stand on my head in some tableaux.\n\nLADY MARKBY: On your head, child? Oh! I hope not. I believe it is most unhealthy. ( _Takes a seat on the sofa next_ LADY CHILTERN.)\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: But it is for an excellent charity; in aid of the Undeserving, the only people I am really interested in. I am the secretary, and Tommy Trafford is treasurer.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: And what is Lord Goring?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh! Lord Goring is president.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: The post should suit him admirably, unless he has deteriorated since I knew him first.\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _reflecting_ ): You are remarkably modern, Mabel. A little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly. I have known many instances of it.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: What a dreadful prospect!\n\nLADY MARKBY: Ah! My dear, you need not be nervous. You will always be as pretty as possible. That is the best fashion there is, and the only fashion that England succeeds in setting.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a curtsey_ ): Thank you so much, Lady Markby, for England...and myself. ( _Goes out._ )\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _turning to_ LADY CHILTERN): Dear Gertrude, we just called to know if Mrs. Cheveley's diamond brooch has been found.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Here?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. I missed it when I got back to Claridge's, and I thought I might possibly have dropped it here.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I have heard nothing about it. But I will send for the butler and ask. ( _Touches the bell._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, pray don't trouble, Lady Chiltern. I dare say I lost it at the Opera, before we came on here.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Ah yes, I suppose it must have been at the Opera. The fact is, we all scramble and jostle so much nowadays that I wonder we have anything at all left on us at the end of an evening. I know myself that, when I am coming back from the Drawing room, I always feel as if I hadn't a shred on me, except a small shred of decent reputation, just enough to prevent the lower classes making painful observations through the windows of the carriage. The fact is that our Society is terribly over-populated. Really, some one should arrange a proper scheme of assisted emigration. It would do a great deal of good.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I quite agree with you, Lady Markby. It is nearly six years since I have been in London for the Season, and I must say Society has become dreadfully mixed. One sees the oddest people everywhere.\n\nLADY MARKBY: That is quite true, dear. But one needn't know them. I'm sure I don't know half the people who come to my house. Indeed, from all I hear, I shouldn't like to.\n\n_Enter_ MASON.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: What sort of brooch was it that you lost, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby, a rather large ruby.\n\nLADY MARKBY: I thought you said there was a sapphire on the head, dear?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _smiling_ ): No. Lady Markby \u2013 a ruby.\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _nodding her head_ ): And very becoming, I am quite sure.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Has a ruby and diamond brooch been found in any of the rooms this morning, Mason?\n\nMASON: No, my lady.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: It really is of no consequence, Lady Chiltern. I am so sorry to have put you to any inconvenience.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _coldly_ ): Oh, it has been no inconvenience. That will do, Mason. You can bring tea. ( _Exit_ MASON.)\n\nLADY MARKBY: Well, I must say it is most annoying to lose anything. I remember once at Bath, years ago, losing in the Pump Room an exceedingly handsome cameo bracelet that Sir John had given me. I don't think he has ever given me anything since, I am sorry to say. He has sadly degenerated. Really, this horrid House of Commons quite ruins our husbands for us. I think the Lower House by far the greatest blow to a happy married life that there has been since that terrible thing called the Higher Education of Women was invented.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Ah! It is heresy to say that in this house, Lady Markby. Robert is a great champion of the Higher Education of Woman, and so, I am afraid, am I.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: The higher education of men is what I should like to see. Men need it so sadly.\n\nLADY MARKBY: They do, dear. But I am afraid such a scheme would be quite unpractical. I don't think man has much capacity for development. He has got as far as he can, and that is not far, is it? With regard to women, well, dear Gertrude, you belong to the younger generation, and I am sure it is all right if you approve of it. In my time, of course, we were taught not to understand anything. That was the old system, and wonderfully interesting it was. I assure you that the amount of things I and my poor dear sister were taught not to understand was quite extraordinary. But modern women understand everything, I am told.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Except their husbands. That is the one thing the modern woman never understands.\n\nLADY MARKBY: And a very good thing too, dear, I dare say. It might break up many a happy home if they did. Not yours, I need hardly say, Gertrude. You have married a pattern husband. I wish I could say as much for myself. But since Sir John has taken to attending the debates regularly, which he never used to do in the good old days, his language has become quite impossible. He always seems to think that he is addressing the House, and consequently whenever he discusses the state of the agricultural labourer, or the Welsh Church, or something quite improper of that kind, I am obliged to send all the servants out of the room. It is not pleasant to see one's own butler, who has been with one for twenty-three years, actually blushing at the sideboard, and the footmen making contortions in corners like persons in circuses. I assure you my life will be quite ruined unless they send John at once to the Upper House. He won't take any interest in politics then, will he? The House of Lords is so sensible. An assembly of gentlemen. But in his present state, Sir John is really a great trial. Why, this morning before breakfast was half over, he stood up on the hearth-rug, put his hands in his pockets, and appealed to the country at the top of his voice. I left the table as soon as I had my second cup of tea, I need hardly say. But his violent language could be heard all over the house! I trust, Gertrude, that Sir Robert is not like that?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: But I am very much interested in politics, Lady Markby. I love to hear Robert talk about them.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Well, I hope he is not as devoted to Blue Books as Sir John is. I don't think they can be quite improving reading for any one.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _languidly_ ): I have never read a Blue Book. I prefer books...in yellow covers.\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _genially unconscious_ ): Yellow is a gayer colour, is it not? I used to wear yellow a good deal in my early days, and would do so now if Sir John was not so painfully personal in his observations, and a man on the question of dress is always ridiculous, is he not?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, no! I think men are the only authorities on dress.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Really? One wouldn't say so from the sort of hats they wear? Would one?\n\n_The butler enters, followed by the footman. Tea is set on a small table close to_ LADY CHILTERN.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: May I give you some tea, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks. ( _The butler hands_ MRS. CHEVELEY _a cup of tea on a salver._ )\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Some tea, Lady Markby?\n\nLADY MARKBY: No thanks, dear. ( _The servants go out._ ) The fact is, I have promised to go round for ten minutes to see poor Lady Brancaster, who is in very great trouble. Her daughter, quite a well-brought-up girl, too, has actually become engaged to be married to a curate in Shropshire. It is very sad, very sad indeed. I can't understand this modern mania for curates. In my time we girls saw them, of course, running about the place like rabbits. But we never took any notice of them, I need hardly say. But I am told that nowadays country society is quite honeycombed with them. I think it most irreligious. And then the eldest son has quarrelled with his father, and it is said that when they meet at the club Lord Brancaster always hides himself behind the money article in _The Times._ However, I believe that is quite a common occurrence nowadays and that they have to take in extra copies of _The Times_ at all the clubs in St. James's Street; there are so many sons who won't have anything to do with their fathers, and so many fathers who won't speak to their sons. I think myself, it is very much to be regretted.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: So do I. Fathers have so much to learn from their sons nowadays.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Really, dear? What?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: The art of living. The only really Fine Art we have produced in modern times.\n\nLADY MARKBY ( _shaking her head_ ): Ah! I am afraid Lord Brancaster knew a good deal about that. More than his poor wife ever did. ( _Turning to_ LADY CHILTERN): You know Lady Brancaster, don't you, dear?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Just slightly. She was staying at Langton last autumn, when we were there.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Well, like all stout women, she looks the very picture of happiness, as no doubt you noticed. But there are many tragedies in her family, besides this affair of the curate. Her own sister, Mrs. Jekyll, had a most unhappy life; through no fault of her own, I am sorry to say. She ultimately was so broken-hearted that she went into a convent, or on to the operatic stage, I forget which. No; I think it was decorative art-needlework she took up. I know she had lost all sense of pleasure in life. ( _Rising_ ): And now, Gertrude, if you will allow me, I shall leave Mrs. Cheveley in your charge and call back for her in a quarter of an hour. Or perhaps, dear Mrs. Cheveley, you wouldn't mind waiting in the carriage while I am with Lady Brancaster. As I intend it to be a visit of condolence, I shan't stay long.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _rising_ ): I don't mind waiting in the carriage at all, provided there is somebody to look at one.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Well, I hear the curate is always prowling about the house.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I am afraid I am not fond of girl friends.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _rising_ ): Oh, I hope Mrs. Cheveley will stay here a little. I should like to have a few minutes' conversation with her.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: How very kind of you, Lady Chiltern! Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Ah! no doubt you both have many pleasant reminiscences of your schooldays to talk over together. Good-bye, dear Gertrude! Shall I see you at Lady Bonar's to-night? She has discovered a wonderful new genius. He does...nothing at all, I believe. That is a great comfort, is it not?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert and I are dining at home by ourselves to-night, and I don't think I shall go anywhere afterwards. Robert, of course, will have to be in the House. But there is nothing interesting on.\n\nLADY MARKBY: Dining at home by yourselves? Is that quite prudent? Ah, I forgot, your husband is an exception. Mine is the general rule, and nothing ages a woman so rapidly as having married the general rule.\n\n_Exit_ LADY MARKBY.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Wonderful woman, Lady Markby, isn't she? Talks more and says less than anybody I ever met. She is made to be a public speaker. Much more so than her husband, though he is a typical Englishman, always dull and usually violent.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _makes no answer, but remains standing. There is a pause. Then the eyes of the two women meet._ LADY CHILTERN _looks stern and pale._ MRS. CHEVELEY _seems rather amused_ ): Mrs. Cheveley, I think it is right to tell you quite frankly that, had I known who you really were, I should not have invited you to my house last night.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with an impertinent smile_ ): Really?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I could not have done so.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: 1 see that after all these years you have not changed a bit, Gertrude.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I never change.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _elevating her eyebrows_ ): Then life has taught you nothing?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: It has taught me that a person who has once been guilty of a dishonest and dishonourable action may be guilty of it a second time, and should be shunned.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Would you apply that rule to every one?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes, to every one, without exception.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Then I am sorry for you, Gertrude, very sorry for you.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You see now, I am sure, that for many reasons any further acquaintance between us during your stay in London is quite impossible?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _leaning back in her chair_ ): Do you know, Gertrude, I don't mind your talking morality a bit. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. You dislike me. I am quite aware of that. And I have always detested you. And yet I have come here to do you a service.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _contemptuously_ ): Like the service you wished to render my husband last night, I suppose. Thank heaven, I saved him from that.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _starting to her feet_ ): It was you who made him write that insolent letter to me? It was you who made him break his promise?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Then you must make him keep it. I give you till to-morrow morning \u2013 no more. If by that time your husband does not solemnly bind himself to help me in this great scheme in which I am interested \u2013\n\nLADY CHILTERN: This fraudulent speculation \u2013\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Call it what you choose. I hold your husband in the hollow of my hand, and if you are wise you will make him do what I tell him.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _rising and going towards her_ ): You are impertinent. What has my husband to do with you? With a woman like you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a bitter laugh_ ): In this world like meets with like. It is because your husband is himself fraudulent and dishonest that we pair so well together. Between you and him there are chasms. He and I are closer than friends. We are enemies linked together. The same sin binds us.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: How dare you class my husband with yourself? How dare you threaten him or me? Leave my house. You are unfit to enter it.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _enters from behind. He hears his wife's last words, and sees to whom they are addressed. He grows deadly pale._\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Your house! A house bought with the price of dishonour. A house, everything in which has been paid for by fraud. ( _Turns round and sees_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.) Ask him what the origin of his fortune is! Get him to tell you how he sold to a stockbroker a Cabinet secret. Learn from him to what you owe your position.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: It is not true! Robert! It is not true!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _pointing at him with outstretched finger_ ): Look at him! Can he deny it! Does he dare to?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Go! Go at once. You have done your worst now.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: My worst? I have not yet finished with you, with either of you. I give you both till to-morrow at noon. If by then you don't do what I bid you to do, the whole world shall know the origin of Robert Chiltern.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _strikes the bell. Enter_ MASON.\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Show Mrs. Cheveley out.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY _starts; then bows with somewhat exaggerated politeness to_ LADY CHILTERN, _who makes no sign of response. As she passes by_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, _who is standing close to the door, she pauses for a moment and looks him straight in the face. She then goes out, followed by the servant, who closes the door after him. The husband and wife are left alone._ LADY CHILTERN _stands like some one in a dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She looks at him with strange eyes, as though she was seeing him for the first time._\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What this woman said is quite true. But, Gertrude, listen to me. You don't realise how I was tempted. Let me tell you the whole thing. ( _Goes towards her._ )\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Don't come near me. Don't touch me. I feel as if you had soiled me for ever. Oh! What a mask you have been wearing all these years! A horrible painted mask! You sold yourself for money. Oh! A common thief were better. You put yourself up to sale to the highest bidder! You were bought in the market. You lied to the whole world. And yet you will not lie to me.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rushing towards her_ ): Gertrude! Gertrude!\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _thrusting him back with outstretched hands_ ): No, don't speak! Say nothing! Your voice wakes terrible memories \u2013 memories of things that made me love you \u2013 memories of words that made me love you \u2013 memories that now are horrible to me. And how I worshipped youl You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. And now \u2013 oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! The ideal of my life!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can't you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us \u2013 else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man's love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman's. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are. false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last night you ruined my life for me \u2013 yes, ruined it! What this woman asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me. She offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more ideals of men! Let them not put them on altars and bow before them or they may ruin other lives as completely as you \u2013 you whom I have so wildly loved \u2013 have ruined mine!\n\n_He passes from the room._ LADY CHILTERN _rushes towards him, but the door is closed when she reaches it. Pale with anguish, bewildered, helpless, she sways like a plant in the water. Her hands, outstretched, seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the wind. Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face. Her sobs are like the sobs of a child._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT THREE\n\nSCENE: _The Library in Lord Goring's house in Curzon Street, London. An Adam room. On the right is the door leading into the hall. On the left, the door of the smoking-room. A pair of folding doors at the back open into the drawing-room. The fire is lit. Phipps, the butler, is arranging some newspapers on the writing-table. The distinction of Phipps is his impassivity. He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler. The Sphinx is not so incommunicable. He is a mask with a manner. Of his intellectual or emotional life, history knows nothing. He represents the dominance of form._\n\n_Enter_ LORD GORING _in evening dress with a buttonhole. He is wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape. White-gloved, he carries a Louis Seize cane. His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion. One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life, makes it indeed, and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought._\n\nLORD GORING: Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps?\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord. ( _Takes his hat, cane, and cape, and presents new buttonhole on salver._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord. I have observed that.\n\nLORD GORING ( _taking out old buttonhole_ ): You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING ( _putting in new buttonhole_ ): And falsehoods the truths of other people.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, Phipps.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING ( _looking at himself in the glass_ ): Don't think I quite like this buttonhole, Phipps. Makes me look a little too old. Makes me almost in the prime of life, eh, Phipps?\n\nPHIPPS: I don't observe any alteration in your lordship's appearance.\n\nLORD GORING: You don't, Phipps?\n\nPHIPPS: No, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: I am not quite sure. For the future a more trivial buttonhole, Phipps, on Thursday evenings.\n\nPHIPPS: I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.\n\nLORD GORING: Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England \u2013 they are always losing their relations.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.\n\nLORD GORING ( _turns round and looks at him._ PHIPPS _remains impassive_ ): Hum! Any letters, Phipps?\n\nPHIPPS: Three, my lord. ( _Hands letters on a salver._ )\n\nLORD GORING ( _takes letters_ ): Want my cab round in twenty minutes.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord. ( _Goes towards door._ )\n\nLORD GORING ( _holds up letter in pink envelope_ ): Ahem, Phipps, when did this letter arrive?\n\nPHIPPS: It was brought by hand just after your lordship went to the club.\n\nLORD GORING: That will do. ( _Exit_ PHIPPS.) Lady Chiltern's handwriting on Lady Chiltern's pink notepaper. That is rather curious. I thought Robert was to write. Wonder what Lady Chiltern has got to say to me? ( _Sits at bureau and opens letter, and reads it._ ) 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.' ( _Puts down the letter with a puzzled look. Then takes it up, and reads it again slowly._ ) 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you.' She has found out everything! Poor woman! Poor woman! ( _Pulls out watch and looks at it._ ) But what an hour to call! Ten o'clock! I shall have to give up going to the Berkshires. However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive. I am not expected at the Bachelors', so I shall certainly go there. Well, I will make her stand by her husband. That is the only thing for any woman to do. It is the growth of the moral sense of women that makes marriage such a hopeless, one-sided institution. Ten o'clock. She should be here soon. I must tell Phipps I am not in to any one else. ( _Goes towards bell._ )\n\n_Enter_ PHIPPS.\n\nPHIPPS: Lord Caversham.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose. ( _Enter_ LORD CAVERSHAM.) Delighted to see you, my dear father. ( _Goes to meet him._ )\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Take my cloak off.\n\nLORD GORING: Is it worth while, father?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Of course it is worth while, sir. Which is the most comfortable chair?\n\nLORD GORING: This one, father. It is the chair I use myself, when I have visitors.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Thank ye. No draught, I hope, in this room?\n\nLORD GORING: No, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _sitting down_ ): Glad to hear it. Can't stand draughts. No draughts at home.\n\nLORD GORING: Good many breezes, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Eh? Eh? Don't understand what you mean. Want to have a serious conversation with you, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: My dear father! At this hour?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir, it is only ten o'clock. What is your objection to the hour? I think the hour is an admirable hour!\n\nLORD GORING: Well, the fact is, father, this is not my day for talking seriously. I am very sorry, but it is not my day.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What do you mean, sir?\n\nLORD GORING: During the Season, father, I only talk seriously on the first Tuesday in every month, from four to seven.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, make it Tuesday, sir, make it Tuesday.\n\nLORD GORING: But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven. It makes me talk in my sleep.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Talk in your sleep, sir? What does that matter? You are not married.\n\nLORD GORING: No, father, I am not married.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Hum! That is what I have come to talk to you about, sir. You have got to get married, and at once. Why, when I was your age, sir, I had been an inconsolable widower for three months, and was already paying my addresses to your admirable mother. Damme, sir, it is your duty to get married. You can't be always living for pleasure. Every man of position is married nowadays. Bachelors are not fashionable any more. They are a damaged lot. Too much is known about them. You must get a wife, sir. Look where your friend Robert Chiltern has got to by probity, hard work, and a sensible marriage with a good woman. Why don't you imitate him, sir? Why don't you take him for your model?\n\nLORD GORING: I think I shall, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I wish you would, sir. Then I should be happy. At present I make your mother's life miserable on your account. You are heartless, sir, quite heartless.\n\nLORD GORING: I hope not, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: And it is high time for you to get married. You are thirty-four years of age, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes, father, but I only admit to thirty-two \u2013 thirty-one and a half when I have a really good buttonhole. This buttonhole is not...trivial enough.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I tell you you are thirty-four, sir. And there is a draught in your room, besides, which makes your conduct worse. Why did you tell me there was no draught, sir? I feel a draught, sir, I feel it distinctly.\n\nLORD GORING: So do I, father. It is a dreadful draught. I will come and see you to-morrow, father. We can talk over anything you like. Let me help you on with your cloak, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: No, sir; I have called this evening for a definite purpose, and I am going to see it through at all costs to my health or yours. Put down my cloak, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly, father. But let us go into another room. ( _Rings bell._ ) There is a dreadful draught here. ( _Enter_ PHIPPS.) Phipps, is there a good fire in the smoking-room?\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: Come in there, father. Your sneezes are quite heartrending.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir, I suppose I have a right to sneeze when I choose?\n\nLORD GORING ( _apologetically_ ): Quite so, father. I was merely expressing sympathy.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Oh, damn sympathy. There is a great deal too much of that sort of thing going on nowadays.\n\nLORD GORING: I quite agree with you, father. If there was less sympathy in the world there would be less trouble in the world.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _going towards the smoking-room_ ): That is a paradox, sir. I hate paradoxes.\n\nLORD GORING: So do I, father. Everybody one meets is a paradox nowadays. It is a great bore. It makes society so obvious.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _turning round, and looking at his son beneath his bushy eyebrows_ ): Do you always really understand what you say, sir?\n\nLORD GORING ( _after some hesitation_ ): Yes, father, if I listen attentively.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _indignantly_ ): If you listen attentively!...Conceited young puppy!\n\n_Goes off grumbling into the smoking-room._ PHIPPS _enters._\n\nLORD GORING: Phipps, there is a lady coming to see me this evening on particular business. Show her into the drawing-room when she arrives. You understand?\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: It is a matter of the gravest importance, Phipps.\n\nPHIPPS: I understand, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: No one else is to be admitted, under any circumstances.\n\nPHIPPS: I understand, my lord. ( _Bell rings._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! That is probably the lady. I shall see her myself.\n\n_Just as he is going towards the door_ LORD CAVERSHAM _enters from the smoking-room._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir? Am I to wait attendance on you?\n\nLORD GORING ( _considerably perplexed_ ): In a moment, father. Do excuse me. (LORD CAVERSHAM _goes back._ ) Well, remember my instructions, Phipps \u2013 into that room.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING _goes into the smoking-room._ HAROLD, _the footman, shows_ MRS. CHEVELEY _in. Lamia-like, she is in green and silver. She has a cloak of black satin, lined with dead rose-leaf silk._\n\nHAROLD: What name, madam?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _to_ PHIPPS, _who advances towards her_ ): Is Lord Goring not here? I was told he was at home?\n\nPHIPPS: His lordship is engaged at present with Lord Caversham, madam.\n\n_Turns a cold, glassy eye on_ HAROLD, _who at once retires._\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _to herself_ ): How very filial!\n\nPHIPPS: His lordship told me to ask you, madam, to be kind enough to wait in the drawing-room for him. His lordship will come to you there.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a look of surprise_ ): Lord Goring expects me?\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, madam.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Are you quite sure?\n\nPHIPPS: His lordship told me that if a lady called I was to ask her to wait in the drawing-room. ( _Goes to the door of the drawing-room and opens it._ ) His lordship's directions on the subject were very precise.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _to herself_ ): How thoughtful of him! To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect. ( _Goes towards the drawing-room and looks in._ ) Ugh! How dreary a bachelor's drawing-room always looks. I shall have to alter this. (PHIPPS _brings the lamp from the writing-table._ ) No, I don't care for that lamp. It is far too glaring. Light some candles.\n\nPHIPPS ( _replaces lamp_ ): Certainly, madam.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I hope the candles have very becoming shades.\n\nPHIPPS: We have had no complaints about them, madam, as yet.\n\n_Passes into the drawing-room and begins to light the candles._\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _to herself_ ): I wonder what woman he is waiting for tonight. It will be delightful to catch him. Men always look so silly when they are caught. And they are always being caught. ( _Looks about room and approaches the writing-table._ ) What a very interesting room! What a very interesting picture! Wonder what his correspondence is like. ( _Takes up letters._ ) Oh, what a very uninteresting correspondence! Bills and cards, debts and dowagers! Who on earth writes to him on pink paper? How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance. Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. ( _Puts letter down, then takes it up again._ ) I know that handwriting. That is Gertrude Chiltern's. I remember it perfectly. The ten commandments in every stroke of the pen, and the moral law all over the page. Wonder what Gertrude is writing to him about? Something horrid about me, I suppose. How I detest that woman! ( _Reads it._ ) 'I trust you. I want you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.' 'I trust you. I want you. I am coming to you.'\n\n_A look of triumph comes over her face. She is just about to steal the letter, when_ PHIPPS _comes in._\n\nPHIPPS: The candles in the drawing-room are lit, madam, as you directed.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thank you. ( _Rises hastily and slips the letter under a large silver-cased blotting-book that is lying on the table._ )\n\nPHIPPS: I trust the shades will be to your liking, madam. They are the most becoming we have. They are the same as his lordship uses himself when he is dressing for dinner.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a smile_ ): Then I am sure they will be perfectly right.\n\nPHIPPS ( _gravely_ ): Thank you, madam.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY _goes into the drawing-room._ PHIPPS _closes the door and retires. The door is then slowly opened, and_ MRS. CHEVELEY _comes out and creeps stealthily towards the writing-table. Suddenly voices are heard from the smoking-room._ MRS. CHEVELEY _grows pale, and stops. The voices grow louder, and she goes back into the drawing-room biting her lip._\n\n_Enter_ LORD GORING _and_ LORD CAVERSHAM.\n\nLORD GORING ( _expostulating_ ): My dear father, if I am to get married, surely you will allow me to choose the time, place, and person? Particularly the person.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _testily_ ): That is a matter for me, sir. You would probably make a very poor choice. It is I who should be consulted, not you. There is property at stake. It is not a matter for affection. Affection comes later on in married life.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes. In married life affection comes when people thoroughly dislike each other, father, doesn't it? ( _Puts on_ LORD CAVERSHAM'S _cloak for him._ )\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Certainly, sir. I mean certainly not, sir. You are talking very foolishly to-night. What I say is that marriage is a matter for common sense.\n\nLORD GORING: But women who have common sense are so curiously plain, father, aren't they? Of course I only speak from hearsay.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.\n\nLORD GORING: Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I use it, sir. I use nothing else.\n\nLORD GORING: So my mother tells me.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: It is the secret of your mother's happiness. You are very heartless, sir, very heartless.\n\nLORD GORING: I hope not, father.\n\n_Goes out for a moment. Then returns, looking rather put out, with_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My dear Arthur, what a piece of good luck meeting you on the doorstep! Your servant had just told me you were not at home. How extraordinary!\n\nLORD GORING: The fact is, I am horribly busy to-night, Robert, and I gave orders I was not at home to any one. Even my father had a comparatively cold reception. He complained of a draught the whole time.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah! You must be at home to me, Arthur. You are my best friend. Perhaps by to-morrow you will be my only friend. My wife has discovered everything.\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! I guessed as much!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _looking at him_ ): Really! How!\n\nLORD GORING ( _after some hesitation_ ): Oh, merely by something in the expression of your face as you came in. Who told her?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Mrs. Cheveley herself. And the woman I love knows that I began my career with an act of low dishonesty, that I built up my life upon sands of shame \u2013 that I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been intrusted to me as a man of honour. I thank heaven poor Lord Radley died without knowing that I betrayed him. I would to God I had died before I had been so horribly tempted, or had fallen so low. ( _Burying his face in his hands._ )\n\nLORD GORING ( _after a pause_ ): You have heard nothing from Vienna yet, in answer to your wire?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _looking up_ ): Yes; I got a telegram from the first secretary at eight o'clock to-night.\n\nLORD GORING: Well?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Nothing is absolutely known against her. On the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion of his immense fortune. Beyond that I can learn nothing.\n\nLORD GORING: She doesn't turn out to be a spy, then?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh! Spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead.\n\nLORD GORING: And thunderingly well they do it.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Arthur, I am parched with thirst. May I ring for something? Some hock and seltzer?\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly. Let me. ( _Rings the bell._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Thanks! I don't know what to do, Arthur, I don't know what to do, and you are my only friend. But what a friend you are \u2013 the one friend I can trust. I can trust you absolutely, can't I?\n\n_Enter_ PHIPPS.\n\nLORD GORING: My dear Robert, of course. ( _To_ PHIPPS): Bring some hock and seltzer.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: And Phipps!\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: Will you excuse me for a moment, Robert? I want to give some directions to my servant.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Certainly.\n\nLORD GORING: When that lady calls, tell her that I am not expected home this evening. Tell her that I have been suddenly called out of town. You understand?\n\nPHIPPS: The lady is in that room, my lord. You told me to show her into that room, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: You did perfectly right. ( _Exit_ PHIPPS.) What a mess I am in. No; I think I shall get through it. I'll give her a lecture through the door. Awkward thing to manage, though.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Arthur, tell me what I should do. My life seems to have crumbled about me. I am a ship without a rudder in a night without a star.\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, you love your wife, don't you?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I love her more than anything in the world. I used to think ambition the great thing. It is not. Love is the great thing in the world. There is nothing but love, and I love her. But I am defamed in her eyes. I am ignoble in her eyes. There is a wide gulf between us now. She had found me out, Arthur, she has found me out.\n\nLORD GORING: Has she never in her life done some folly \u2013 some indiscretion \u2013 that she should not forgive your sin?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My wife! Never! She does not know what weakness or temptation is. I am of clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do \u2013 pitiless in her perfection \u2013 cold and stern and without mercy. But I love her, Arthur. We are childless, and I have no one else to love, no one else to love me. Perhaps if God had sent us children she might have been kinder to me. But God has given us a lonely house. And she has cut my heart in two. Don't let us talk of it. I was brutal to her this evening. But I suppose when sinners talk to saints they are brutal always. I said to her things that were hideously true, on my side, from my standpoint, from the standpoint of men. But don't let us talk of that.\n\nLORD GORING: Your wife will forgive you. Perhaps at this moment she is forgiving you. She loves you, Robert. Why should she not forgive?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: God grant it! God grant it! ( _Buries his face in his hands._ ) But there is something more I have to tell you, Arthur.\n\n_Enter_ PHIPPS _with drinks._\n\nPHIPPS ( _hands hock and seltzer to_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN): Hock and seltzer, sir.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Thank you.\n\nLORD GORING: Is your carriage here, Robert?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No; I walked from the club.\n\nLORD GORING: Sir Robert will take my cab, Phipps.\n\nPHIPPS: Yes, my lord.\n\n_Exit._\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, you don't mind my sending you away?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Arthur, you must let me stay for five minutes. I have made up my mind what I am going to do to-night in the House. The debate on the Argentine Canal is to begin at eleven. ( _A chair falls in the drawing-room._ ) What is that!\n\nLORD GORING: Nothing.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I heard a chair fall in the next room. Some one has been listening.\n\nLORD GORING: No, no; there is no one there.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: There is some one. There are lights in the room, and the door is ajar. Some one has been listening to every secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean?\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, you are excited, unnerved. I tell you there is no one in that room. Sit down, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Do you give me your word that there is no one there?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Your word of honour? ( _Sits down._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rises_ ): Arthur, let me see for myself.\n\nLORD GORING: No, no.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: If there is no one there why should I not look in that room? Arthur, you must let me go into that room and satisfy myself. Let me know that no eavesdropper has heard my life's secret. Arthur, you don't realise what I am going through.\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, this must stop. I have told you that there is no one in that room \u2013 that is enough.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _rushes to the door of the room_ ): It is not enough. I insist on going into this room. You have told me there is no one there, so what reason can you have for refusing me?\n\nLORD GORING: For God's sake, don't! There is some one there. Some one whom you must not see.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah, I thought so!\n\nLORD GORING: I forbid you to enter that room.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Stand back. My life is at stake. And I don't care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my secret and my shame. ( _Enters room._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Great heavens! His own wife!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _comes back, with a look of scorn and anger on his face._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What explanation have you to give for the presence of that woman here?\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is stainless and guiltless of all offence towards you.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: She is vile, an infamous thing!\n\nLORD GORING: Don't say that, Robert! It was for your sake she came here. It was to try and save you she came here. She loves you and no one else.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You are mad. What have I to do with her intrigues with you? Let her remain your mistress! You are well suited to each other. She, corrupt and shameful \u2013 you, false as a friend, treacherous as an enemy even \u2013\n\nLORD GORING: It is not true, Robert. Before heaven, it is not true. In her presence and in yours I will explain all.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Let me pass, sir. You have lied enough upon your word of honour.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _goes out._ LORD GORING _rushes to the door of the drawing-room, when_ MRS. CHEVELEY _comes out, looking radiant and much amused._\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a mock curtsey_ ): Good-evening, Lord Goring!\n\nLORD GORING: Mrs. Cheveley! Great heavens...May I ask what were you doing in my drawing-room?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them.\n\nLORD GORING: Doesn't that sound rather like tempting Providence?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh! Surely Providence can resist temptation by this time. ( _Makes a sign to him to take her cloak off, which he does._ )\n\nLORD GORING: I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some good advice.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Oh! Pray don't. One should never give a woman anything that she can't wear in the evening.\n\nLORD GORING: I see you are quite as wilful as you used to be.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Far more! I have greatly improved. I have had more experience.\n\nLORD GORING: Too much experience is a dangerous thing. Pray have a cigarette. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks. I never smoke. My dressmaker wouldn't like it, and a woman's first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isn't it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered.\n\nLORD GORING: You have come here to sell me Robert Chiltern's letter, haven't you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: To offer it to you on conditions! How did you guess that?\n\nLORD GORING: Because you haven't mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: ( _sitting down_ ): Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.\n\nLORD GORING: What is your price for it?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: How absurdly English you are! The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want.\n\nLORD GORING: What do you want then, Mrs. Cheveley?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Why don't you call me Laura?\n\nLORD GORING: I don't like the name.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You used to adore it.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes; that's why. (MRS. CHEVELEY _motions to him to sit down beside her. He smiles, and does so._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Arthur, you loved me once.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: And you asked me to be your wife.\n\nLORD GORING: That was the natural result of my loving you.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: And you threw me over because you saw, or said you saw, poor old Lord Mortlake trying to have a violent flirtation with me in the conservatory at Tenby.\n\nLORD GORING: I am under the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you on certain terms...dictated by yourself.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: At that time I was poor; you were rich.\n\nLORD GORING: Quite so. That is why you pretended to love me.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _shrugging her shoulders_ ): Poor old Lord Mortlake, who had only two topics of conversation, his gout and his wife! I never could quite make out which of the two he was talking about. He used the most horrible language about them both. Well, you were silly, Arthur. Why, Lord Mortlake was never anything more to me than an amusement. One of those utterly tedious amusements one only finds at an English country house on an English country Sunday. I don't think any one at all morally responsible for what he or she does at an English country house.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes. I know lots of people think that.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I loved you, Arthur.\n\nLORD GORING: My dear Mrs. Cheveley, you have always been far too clever to know anything about love.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I did love you. And you loved me. You know you loved me; and love is a very wonderful thing. I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her? ( _Puts her hand on his._ )\n\nLORD GORING ( _taking his hand away quietly_ ): Yes; except that.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _after a pause_ ): I am tired of living abroad. I want to come back to London. I want to have a charming house here. I want to have a salon. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilised. Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns', I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern's letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me.\n\nLORD GORING: Now?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _smiling_ ): To-morrow.\n\nLORD GORING: Are you really serious?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes, quite serious.\n\nLORD GORING: I should make you a very bad husband.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I don't mind bad husbands. I have had two. They amused me immensely.\n\nLORD GORING: You mean that you amused yourself immensely, don't you?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: What do you know about my married life?\n\nLORD GORING: Nothing; but I can read it like a book.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: What book?\n\nLORD GORING ( _rising_ ): The Book of Numbers.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Do you think it is quite charming of you to be so rude to a woman in your own house?\n\nLORD GORING: In the case of very fascinating women, sex is a challenge, not a defence.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I suppose that is meant for a compliment. My dear Arthur, women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes.\n\nLORD GORING: Women are never disarmed by anything, as far as I know them.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _after a pause_ ): Then you are going to allow your greatest friend, Robert Chiltern, to be ruined, rather than marry some one who really has considerable attractions left. I thought you would have risen to some great height of self-sacrifice, Arthur. I think you should. And the rest of your life you could spend in contemplating your own perfections.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh! I do that as it is. And self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law. It is so demoralising to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: As if anything could demoralise Robert Chiltern! You seem to forget that I know his real character.\n\nLORD GORING: What you know about him is not his real character. It was an act of folly done in his youth, dishonourable, I admit, shameful, I admit, unworthy of him, I admit, and therefore...not his true character.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: How you men stand up for each other!\n\nLORD GORING: How you women war against each other!\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _bitterly_ ): I only war against one woman, against Gertrude Chiltern. I hate her. I hate her now more than ever.\n\nLORD GORING: Because you have brought a real tragedy into her life, I suppose.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a sneer_ ): Oh, there is only one real tragedy in a woman's life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern knows nothing of the kind of life to which you are alluding.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three-quarters never knows much about anything. You know Gertrude has always worn seven and three-quarters? That is one of the reasons why there was never any moral sympathy between us...Well, Arthur, I suppose this romantic interview may be regarded as at an end. You admit it was romantic, don't you? For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very well. If Sir Robert doesn't uphold my Argentine scheme, I expose him. _Voil\u00e0 tout._\n\nLORD GORING: You mustn't do that. It would be vile, horrible, imfamous.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _shrugging her shoulders_ ): Oh, don't use big words. They mean so little. It is a commercial transaction. That is all. There is no good mixing up sentimentality in it. I offered to sell Robert Chiltern a certain thing. If he won't pay me my price, he will have to pay the world a greater price. There is no more to be said. I must go. Good-bye. Won't you shake hands?\n\nLORD GORING: With you? No. Your transaction with Robert Chiltern may pass as a loathsome commercial transaction of a loathsome commercial age; but you seem to have forgotten that you came here to-night to talk of love, you whose lips desecrated the word love, you to whom the thing is a book closely sealed, went this afternoon to the house of one of the most noble and gentle women in the world to degrade her husband in her eyes, to try and kill her love for him, to put poison in her heart, and bitterness in her life, to break her idol, and, it may be, spoil her soul. That I cannot forgive you. That was horrible. For that there can be no forgiveness.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Arthur, you are unjust to me. Believe me, you are quite unjust to me. I didn't go to taunt Gertrude at all. I had no idea of doing anything of the kind when I entered. I called with Lady Markby simply to ask whether an ornament, a jewel, that I lost somewhere last night, had been found at the Chilterns'. If you don't believe me, you can ask Lady Markby. She will tell you it is true. The scene that occurred happened after Lady Markby had left, and was really forced on me by Gertrude's rudeness and sneers. I called, oh! \u2013 a little out of malice if you like \u2013 but really to ask if a diamond brooch of mine had been found. That was the origin of the whole thing.\n\nLORD GORING: A diamond snake-brooch with a ruby?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. How do you know?\n\nLORD GORING: Because it is found. In point of fact, I found it myself, and stupidly forgot to tell the butler anything about it as I was leaving. ( _Goes over to the writing-table and pulls out the drawers._ ) It is in this drawer. No, that one. This is the brooch, isn't it? ( _Holds up the brooch._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. I am so glad to get it back. It was...a present.\n\nLORD GORING: Won't you wear it?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Certainly, if you pin it in. (LORD GORING _suddenly clasps it on her arm._ ) Why do you put it on as a bracelet? I never knew it could be worn as a bracelet.\n\nLORD GORING: Really?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _holding out her handsome arm_ ): No; but it looks very well on me as a bracelet, doesn't it?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes; much better than when I saw it last.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: When did you see it last?\n\nLORD GORING ( _calmly_ ): Oh, ten years ago, on Lady Berkshire, from whom you stole it.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _starting_ ): What do you mean?\n\nLORD GORING: I mean that you stole that ornament from my cousin, Mary Berkshire, to whom I gave it when she was married. Suspicion fell on a wretched servant, who was sent away in disgrace. I recognised it last night. I determined to say nothing about it till I had found the thief. I have found the thief now, and I have heard her own confession.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _tossing her head_ ): It is not true.\n\nLORD GORING: You know it is true. Why, thief is written across your face at this moment.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I will deny the whole affair from beginning to end. I will say that I have never seen this wretched thing, that it was never in my possession.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY _tries to get the bracelet off her arm, but fails._ LORD GORING _looks on amused. Her thin fingers tear at the jewel to no purpose. A curse breaks from her._\n\nLORD GORING: The drawback of stealing a thing, Mrs. Cheveley, is that one never knows how wonderful the thing that one steals is. You can't get that bracelet off, unless you know where the spring is. And I see you don't know where the spring is. It is rather difficult to find.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: You brute! You coward! ( _She tries again to unclasp the bracelet, but fails._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Oh! Don't use big words. They mean so little.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _again tears at the bracelet in a paroxysm of rage, with inarticulate sounds. Then stops, and looks at_ LORD GORING): What are you going to do?\n\nLORD GORING: I am going to ring for my servant. He is an admirable servant. Always comes in the moment one rings for him. When he comes I will tell him to fetch the police.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _trembling_ ): The police? What for?\n\nLORD GORING: To-morrow the Berkshires will prosecute you. That is what the police are for.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _is now in an agony of physical terror. Her face is distorted. Her mouth awry. A mask has fallen from her. She is, for the moment, dreadful to look at_ ): Don't do that. I will do anything you want. Anything in the world you want.\n\nLORD GORING: Give me Robert Chiltern's letter.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Stop! Stop! Let me have time to think.\n\nLORD GORING: Give me Robert Chiltern's letter.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I have not got it with me. I will give it to you to-morrow.\n\nLORD GORING: You know you are lying. Give it to me at once. (MRS. CHEVELEY _pulls the letter out, and hands it to him. She is horribly pale._ ) This is it?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _in a hoarse voice_ ): Yes.\n\nLORD GORING ( _takes the letter, examines it, sighs, and burns it over the lamp_ ): For so-well dressed a woman, Mrs. Cheveley, you have moments of admirable common sense. I congratulate you.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _catches sight of_ LADY CHILTERN'S _letter, the cover of which is just showing from under the blotting-book_ ): Please get me a glass of water.\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly. ( _Goes to the corner of the room and pours out a glass of water. While his back is turned_ MRS. CHEVELEY _steals_ LADY CHILTERN'S _letter. When_ LORD GORING _returns with the glass she refuses it with a gesture._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thank you. Will you help me on with my cloak?\n\nLORD GORING: With pleasure. ( _Puts her cloak on._ )\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks. I am never going to try to harm Robert Chiltern again.\n\nLORD GORING: Fortunately you have not the chance, Mrs. Cheveley.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Well, if even I had the chance, I wouldn't. On the contrary, I am going to render him a great service.\n\nLORD GORING: I am charmed to hear it. It is a reformation.\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. I can't bear so upright a gentleman, so honourable an English gentleman, being so shamefully deceived and so \u2013\n\nLORD GORING: Well?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY: I find that somehow Gertrude Chiltern's dying speech and confession has strayed into my pocket.\n\nLORD GORING: What do you mean?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _with a bitter note of triumph in her voice_ ): I mean that I am going to send Robert Chiltern the love-letter his wife wrote to you to-night.\n\nLORD GORING: Love-letter?\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _laughing_ ): 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.'\n\nLORD GORING _rushes to the bureau and takes up the envelope, finds it empty, and turns round._\n\nLORD GORING: You wretched woman, must you always be thieving? Give me back that letter. I'll take it from you by force. You shall not leave my room till I have got it.\n\n_He rushes towards her, but_ MRS. CHEVELEY _at once puts her hand on the electric bell that is on the table. The bell sounds with shrill reverberations, and_ PHIPPS _enters._\n\nMRS. CHEVELEY ( _after a pause_ ): Lord Goring merely rang that you should show me out. Good-night, Lord Goring!\n\n_Goes out followed by_ PHIPPS. _Her face is illuminated with evil triumph. There is joy in her eyes. Youth seems to have come back to her. Her last glance is like a swift arrow._ LORD GORING _bites his lip, and lights a cigarette._\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _Same as Act Two._\n\nLORD GORING _is standing by the fireplace with his hands in his pockets. He is looking rather bored._\n\nLORD GORING ( _pulls out his watch, inspects it, and rings the bell_ ): It is a great nuisance. I can't find any one in this house to talk to. And I am full of interesting information. I feel like the latest edition of something or other.\n\n_Enter servant._\n\nJAMES: Sir Robert is still at the Foreign Office, my lord.\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern not down yet?\n\nJAMES: Her ladyship has not yet left her room. Miss Chiltern has just come in from riding.\n\nLORD GORING ( _to himself_ ): Ah! That is something.\n\nJAMES: Lord Caversham has been waiting some time in the library for Sir Robert. I told him your lordship was here.\n\nLORD GORING: Thank you. Would you kindly tell him I've gone?\n\nJAMES ( _bowing_ ): I shall do so, my lord.\n\n_Exit servant._\n\nLORD GORING: Really, I don't want to meet my father three days running. It is a great deal too much excitement for any son. I hope to goodness he won't come up. Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life. Mothers are different. Mothers are darlings. ( _Throws himself down into a chair, picks up a paper and begins to read it._ )\n\n_Enter_ LORD CAVERSHAM.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Well, sir, what are you doing here? Wasting your time as usual, I suppose?\n\nLORD GORING ( _throws down paper and rises_ ): My dear father, when one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's time, not one's own.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Have you been thinking over what I spoke to you about last night?\n\nLORD GORING: I have been thinking about nothing else.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Engaged to be married yet?\n\nLORD GORING ( _genially_ ): Not yet; but I hope to be before lunch-time.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _caustically_ ): You can have till dinner-time if it would be of any convenience to you.\n\nLORD GORING: Thanks awfully, but I think I'd sooner be engaged before lunch.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Humph! Never know when you are serious or not.\n\nLORD GORING: Neither do I, father.\n\n_A pause._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I suppose you have read _The Times_ this morning?\n\nLORD GORING ( _airily): The Times}_ Certainly not. I only read _The Morning Post._ All that one should know about modern life is where the Duchesses are; anything else is quite demoralising.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Do you mean to say you have not read _The Times_ leading article on Robert Chiltern's career?\n\nLORD GORING: Good heavens! No. What does it say?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What should it say, sir? Everything complimentary, of course. Chiltern's speech last night on this Argentine Canal scheme was one of the finest pieces of oratory ever delivered in the House since Canning.\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! Never heard of Canning. Never wanted to. And did...did Chiltern uphold the scheme?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Uphold it, sir? How little you know him! Why, he denounced it roundly, and the whole system of modern political finance. This speech is the turning-point in his career, as _The Times_ points out. You should read this article, sir. ( _Opens_ The Times.) 'Sir Robert Chiltern...most rising of our young statesmen...Brilliant orator...Unblemished career...Well-known integrity of character...Represents what is best in English public life...Noble contrast to the lax morality so common among foreign politicians.' They will never say that of you, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: I sincerely hope not, father. However, I am delighted at what you tell me about Robert, thoroughly delighted. It shows he has got pluck.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: He has got more than pluck, sir, he has got genius.\n\nLORD GORING: Ah! I prefer pluck. It is not so common, nowadays, as genius is.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I wish you would go into Parliament.\n\nLORD GORING: My dear father, only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Why don't you try to do something useful in life?\n\nLORD GORING: I am far too young.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _testily_ ): I hate this affectation of youth, sir. It is a great deal too prevalent nowadays.\n\nLORD GORING: Youth isn't an affectation. Youth is an art.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Why don't you propose to that pretty Miss Chiltern?\n\nLORD GORING: I am of a very nervous disposition, especially in the morning.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I don't suppose there is the smallest chance of her accepting you.\n\nLORD GORING: I don't know how the betting stands to-day.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: If she did accept you she would be the prettiest fool in England.\n\nLORD GORING: That is just what I should like to marry. A thoroughly sensible wife would reduce me to a condition of absolute idiocy in less than six months.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: You don't deserve her, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.\n\n_Enter_ MABEL CHILTERN.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh!...How do you do, Lord Caversham? I hope Lady Caversham is quite well?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Lady Caversham is as usual, as usual.\n\nLORD GORING: Good-morning, Miss Mabel!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _taking no notice at all of_ LORD GORING, _and addressing herself exclusively to_ LORD CAVERSHAM): And Lady Caversham's bonnets...are they at all better?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: They have had a serious relapse, I am sorry to say.\n\nLORD GORING: Good-morning, Miss Mabel.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _to_ LORD CAVERSHAM): I hope an operation will not be necessary.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _smiling at her pertness_ ): If it is, we shall have to give Lady Caversham a narcotic. Otherwise she would never consent to have a feather touched.\n\nLORD GORING ( _with increased emphasis_ ): Good-morning, Miss Mabel!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _turning round with feigned surprise_ ): Oh, are you here? Of course you understand that after your breaking your appointment I am never going to speak to you again.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh, please don't say such a thing. You are the one person in London I really like to have to listen to me.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Lord Goring, I never believe a single word that either you or I say to each other.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: You are quite right, my dear, quite right as far as he is concerned, I mean.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Do you think you could possibly make your son behave a little better occasionally? Just as a change.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I regret to say, Miss Chiltern, that I have no influence at all over my son. I wish I had. If I had, I know what I would make him do.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I am afraid that he has one of those terribly weak natures that are not susceptible to influence.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: He is very heartless, very heartless.\n\nLORD GORING: It seems to me that I am a little in the way here.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: It is very good for you to be in the way, and to know what people say of you behind your back.\n\nLORD GORING: I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: After that, my dear, I really must bid you good-morning.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Oh! I hope you are not going to leave me all alone with Lord Goring? Especially at such an early hour in the day.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I am afraid I can't take him with me to Downing Street. It is not the Prime Minister's day for seeing the unemployed.\n\n_Shakes hands with_ MABEL CHILTERN, _takes up his hat and stick, and goes out, with a parting glare of indignation at_ LORD GORING.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _takes up roses and begins to arrange them in a bowl on the_ _table_ ): People who don't keep their appointments in the Park are horrid.\n\nLORD GORING: Detestable.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I am glad you admit it. But I wish you wouldn't look so pleased about it.\n\nLORD GORING: I can't help it. I always look pleased when I am with you.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _sadly_ ): Then I suppose it is my duty to remain with you?\n\nLORD GORING: Of course it is.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Well, my duty is a thing I never do, on principle. It always depresses me. So I am afraid I must leave you.\n\nLORD GORING: Please don't, Miss Mabel. I have something very particular to say to you.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _rapturously_ ): Oh! Is it a proposal?\n\nLORD GORING ( _somewhat taken aback_ ): Well, yes it is \u2013 I am bound to say it is.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a sigh of pleasure_ ): I am so glad. That makes the second to-day.\n\nLORD GORING ( _indignantly_ ): The second to-day? What conceited ass has been impertinent enough to dare to propose to you before I had proposed to you?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Tommy Trafford, of course. It is one of Tommy's days for proposing. He always proposes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during the Season.\n\nLORD GORING: You didn't accept him, I hope?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I make it a rule never to accept Tommy. That is why he goes on proposing. Of course, as you didn't turn up this morning, I very nearly said yes. It would have been an excellent lesson both for him and for you if I had. It would have taught you both better manners.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh! Bother Tommy Trafford. Tommy is a silly little ass. I love you.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I know. And I think you might have mentioned it before. I am sure I have given you heaps of opportunities.\n\nLORD GORING: Mabel, do be serious. Please be serious.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Ah! That is the sort of thing a man always says to a girl before he has been married to her. He never says it afterwards.\n\nLORD GORING ( _taking hold of her hand_ ): Mabel, I have told you that I love you. Can't you love me a little in return?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Every one in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.\n\nLORD GORING ( _catches her in his arms and kisses her. Then there is a pause of bliss_ ): Dear! Do you know I was awfully afraid of being refused!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _looking up at him_ ): But you never have been refused yet by anybody, have you, Arthur? I can't imagine any one refusing you.\n\nLORD GORING ( _after kissing her again_ ): Of course I'm not nearly good enough for you, Mabel.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _nestling close to him_ ): I am so glad, darling. I was afraid you were.\n\nLORD GORING ( _after some hesitation_ ): And I'm...I'm a little over thirty.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Dear, you look weeks younger than that.\n\nLORD GORING ( _enthusiastically_ ): How sweet of you to say so!...And it is only to fair to tell you frankly that I am fearfully extravagant.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: But so am I, Arthur. So we're sure to agree. And now I must go and see Gertrude.\n\nLORD GORING: Must you really? ( _Kisses her._ )\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nLORD GORING: Then do tell her I want to talk to her particularly. I have been waiting here all the morning to see either her or Robert.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Do you mean to say you didn't come here expressly to propose to me?\n\nLORD GORING ( _triumphantly_ ): No; that was a flash of genius.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Your first.\n\nLORD GORING ( _with determination_ ): My last.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: I am delighted to hear it. Now don't stir. I'll be back in five minutes. And don't fall into any temptations while I am away.\n\nLORD GORING: Dear Mabel, while you are away, there are none. It makes me horribly dependent on you.\n\n_Enter_ LADY CHILTERN.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Good-morning, dear! How pretty you are looking!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: How pale you are looking, Gertrude! It is most becoming!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Good-morning, Lord Goring!\n\nLORD GORING ( _bowing_ ): Good-morning, Lady Chiltern!\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _aside to_ LORD GORING): I shall be in the conservatory, under the second palm tree on the left.\n\nLORD GORING: Second on the left?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN ( _with a look of mock surprise_ ): Yes; the usual palm tree.\n\n_Blows a kiss to him, unobserved by_ LADY CHILTERN, _and goes out._\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern, I have a certain amount of very good news to tell you. Mrs. Cheveley gave me up Robert's letter last night, and I burned it. Robert is safe.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _sinking on the sofa_ ): Safe! Oh! I am so glad of that. What a good friend you are to him \u2013 to us!\n\nLORD GORING: There is only one person now that could be said to be in any danger.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Who is that?\n\nLORD GORING ( _sitting down beside her_ ): Yourself.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I! In danger? What do you mean?\n\nLORD GORING: Danger is too great a word. It is a word I should not have used. But I admit I have something to tell you that may distress you, that terribly distresses me. Yesterday evening you wrote me a very beautiful, womanly letter, asking me for my help. You wrote to me as one of your oldest friends, one of your husband's oldest friends. Mrs. Cheveley stole that letter from my rooms.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Well, what use is it to her? Why should she not have it?\n\nLORD GORING ( _rising_ ): Lady Chiltern, I will be quite frank with you. Mrs. Cheveley puts a certain construction on that letter and proposes to send it to your husband.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: But what construction could she put on it?...Oh! Not that! Not that! If I in \u2013 in trouble, and wanting your help, trusting you, propose to come to you...that you may advise me...assist me...Oh! Are there women so horrible as that...? And she proposes to send it to my husband? Tell me what happened. Tell me all that happened.\n\nLORD GORING: Mrs. Cheveley was concealed in a room adjoining my library, without my knowledge. I thought that the person who was waiting in that room to see me was yourself. Robert came in unexpectedly. A chair or something fell in the room. He forced his way in, and he discovered her. We had a terrible scene. I still thought it was you. He left me in anger. At the end of everything Mrs. Cheveley got possession of your letter \u2013 she stole it, when or how, I don't know.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: At what hour did this happen?\n\nLORD GORING: At half-past ten. And now I propose that we tell Robert the whole thing at once.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _looking at him with amazement that is almost terror_ ): You want me to tell Robert that the woman you expected was not Mrs. Cheveley, but myself? That it was I whom you thought was concealed in a room in your house, at half-past ten o'clock at night? You want me to tell him that?\n\nLORD GORING: I think it is better that he should know the exact truth.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _rising_ ): Oh, I couldn't, I couldn't!\n\nLORD GORING: May I do it?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: No.\n\nLORD GORING ( _gravely_ ): You are wrong, Lady Chiltern.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: No. The letter must be intercepted. That is all. But how can I do it? Letters arrive for him every moment of the day. His secretaries open them and hand them to him. I dare not ask the servants to bring me his letters. It would be impossible. Oh! Why don't you tell me what to do?\n\nLORD GORING: Pray be calm, Lady Chiltern, and answer the questions I am going to put to you. You said his secretaries open his letters.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nLORD GORING: Who is with him to-day? Mr. Trafford, isn't it?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: No, Mr. Montford, I think.\n\nLORD GORING: You can trust him?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _with a gesture of despair_ ): Oh! How do I know?\n\nLORD GORING: He would do what you asked him, wouldn't he?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I think so.\n\nLORD GORING: Your letter was on pink paper. He could recognise it without reading it, couldn't he? By the colour?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I suppose so.\n\nLORD GORING: Is he in the house now?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nLORD GORING: Then I will go and see him myself, and tell him that a certain letter, written on pink paper, is to be forwarded to Robert to-day, and that at all costs it must not reach him. ( _Goes to the door, and opens it._ ) Oh! Robert is coming upstairs with the letter in his hand. It has reached him already.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _with a cry of pain_ ): Oh! You have saved his life; what have you done with mine?\n\n_Enter_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. _He has the letter in his hand, and is reading it. He comes towards his wife, not noticing_ LORD GORING'S _presence._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude. ' Oh, my love! Is this true? Do you indeed trust me, and want me? If so, it was for me to come to you, not for you to write of coming to me. This letter of yours, Gertrude, makes me feel that nothing that the world may do can hurt me now. You want me, Gertrude.\n\nLORD GORING, _unseen by_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, _makes an imploring sign to_ LADY CHILTERN _to accept the situation and_ SIR ROBERT'S _error._\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You trust me, Gertrude?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah! Why did you not add you loved me?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _taking his hand_ ): Because I loved you.\n\nLORD GORING _passes into the conservatory._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _kisses her_ ): Gertrude, you don't know what I feel. When Montford passed me your letter across the table \u2013 he had opened it by mistake, I suppose, without looking at the handwriting on the envelope \u2013 and I read it \u2013 oh! I did not care what disgrace or punishment was in store for me, I only thought you loved me still.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: There is no disgrace in store for you, nor any public shame. Mrs. Cheveley has handed over to Lord Goring the document that was in her possession, and he has destroyed it.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Are you sure of this, Gertrude?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes; Lord Goring has just told me.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Then I am safe! Oh! What a wonderful thing to be safe! For two days I have been in terror. I am safe now. How did Arthur destroy my letter? Tell me.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: He burned it.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I wish I had seen that one sin of my youth burning to ashes. How many men there are in modern life who would like to see their past burning to white ashes before them! Is Arthur still here?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Yes; he is in the conservatory.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am so glad now I made that speech last night in the House, so glad. I made it thinking that public disgrace might be the result. But it has not been so.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Public honour has been the result.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I think so. I fear so, almost. For although I am safe from detection, although every proof against me is destroyed, I suppose, Gertrude...I suppose I should retire from public life? ( _He looks anxiously at his wife._ )\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _eagerly_ ): Oh yes, Robert, you should do that. It is your duty to do that.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It is much to surrender.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: No; it will be much to gain.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _walks up and down the room with a troubled expression. Then comes over to his wife, and puts his hand on her shoulder._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And you would be happy living somewhere alone with me, abroad perhaps, or in the country away from London, away from public life? You would have no regrets?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Oh! None, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _sadly_ ): And your ambition for me? You used to be ambitious for me.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Oh, my ambition! I have none now, but that we two may love each other. It was your ambition that led you astray. Let us not talk about ambition.\n\nLORD GORING _returns from the conservatory, looking very pleased with himself, and with an entirely new buttonhole that some one has made for him._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _going towards him_ ): Arthur, I have to thank you for what you have done for me. I don't know how I can repay you. ( _Shakes hands with him._ )\n\nLORD GORING: My dear fellow, I'll tell you at once. At the present moment, under the usual palm tree...I mean in the conservatory...\n\n_Enter_ MASON.\n\nMASON: Lord Caversham.\n\nLORD GORING: That admirable father of mine really makes a habit of turning up at the wrong moment. It is very heartless of him, very heartless indeed.\n\n_Enter_ LORD CAVERSHAM. MASON _goes out._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Good-morning, Lady Chiltern! Warmest congratulations to you, Chiltern, on your brilliant speech last night. I have just left the Prime Minister, and you are to have the vacant seat in the Cabinet.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with a look of joy and triumph_ ): A seat in the Cabinet?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Yes; here is the Prime Minister's letter. ( _Hands letter._ )\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _takes letter and reads it_ ): A seat in the Cabinet!\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Certainly, and you well deserve it too. You have got what we want so much in political life nowadays \u2013 high character, high moral tone, high principles. ( _To_ LORD GORING): Everything that you have not got, sir, and never will have.\n\nLORD GORING: I don't like principles, father. I prefer prejudices.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN _is on the brink of accepting the Prime Minister's offer, when he sees his wife looking at him with her clear candid eyes. He then realises that it is impossible._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I cannot accept this offer, Lord Caversham. I have made up my mind to decline it.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Decline it, sir?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: My intention is to retire at once from public life.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _angrily_ ): Decline a seat in the Cabinet, and retire from public life? Never heard such damned nonsense in the whole course of my existence. I beg your pardon, Lady Chiltern. Chiltern, I beg your pardon. ( _To_ LORD GORING.): Don't grin like that, sir.\n\nLORD GORING: No, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Lady Chiltern, you are a sensible woman, the most sensible woman in London, the most sensible woman I know. Will you kindly prevent your husband from making such a...from talking such...Will you kindly do that, Lady Chiltern?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I think my husband is right in his determination, Lord Caversham. I approve of it.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: You approve of it? Good heavens!\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _taking her husband's hand_ ): I admire him for it. I admire him immensely for it. I have never admired him so much before. He is finer than even I thought him. ( _To_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN): You will go and write your letter to the Prime Minister now, won't you? Don't hesitate about it, Robert.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with a touch of bitterness_ ): I suppose I had better write it at once. Such offers are not repeated. I will ask you to excuse me for a moment, Lord Caversham.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: I may come with you, Robert, may I not?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes, Gertrude.\n\nLADY CHILTERN _goes with him._\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What is the matter with this family? Something wrong here, eh? ( _Tapping his forehead._ ) Idiocy? Hereditary, I suppose. Both of them, too. Wife as well as husband. Very sad. Very sad indeed! And they are not an old family. Can't understand it.\n\nLORD GORING: It is not idiocy, father, I assure you.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What is it then, sir?\n\nLORD GORING ( _after some hesitation_ ): Well, it is what is called nowadays a high moral tone, father. That is all.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Hate these new-fangled names. Same thing as we used to call idiocy fifty years ago. Shan't stay in this house any longer.\n\nLORD GORING ( _taking his arm_ ): Oh! Just go in there for a moment, father. Third palm tree to the left, the usual palm tree.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What, sir?\n\nLORD GORING: I beg your pardon, father, I forgot. The conservatory, father, the conservatory \u2013 there is some one there I want you to talk to.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What about, sir?\n\nLORD GORING: About me, father.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _grimly_ ): Not a subject on which much eloquence is possible.\n\nLORD GORING: No, father; but the lady is like me. She doesn't care much for eloquence in others. She thinks it a little loud.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM _goes into the conservatory._ LADY CHILTERN _enters._\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern, why are you playing Mrs. Cheveley's cards?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _startled_ ): I don't understand you.\n\nLORD GORING: Mrs. Cheveley made an attempt to ruin your husband. Either to drive him from public life, or to make him adopt a dishonourable position. From the latter tragedy you saved him. The former you are now thrusting on him. Why should you do him the wrong Mrs. Cheveley tried to do and failed?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Lord Goring?\n\nLORD GORING ( _pulling himself together for a great effort, and showing the philosopher that underlies the dandy_ ): Lady Chiltern, allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _troubled and hesitating_ ): But it is my husband himself who wishes to retire from public life. He feels it is his duty. It was he who first said so.\n\nLORD GORING: Rather than lose your love, Robert would do anything, wreck his whole career, as he is on the brink of doing now. He is making for you a terrible sacrifice. Take my advice, Lady Chiltern, and do not accept a sacrifice so great. If you do, you will live to repent it bitterly. We men and women are not made to accept such sacrifices from each other. We are not worthy of them. Besides, Robert has been punished enough.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: We have both been punished. I set him up too high.\n\nLORD GORING ( _with deep feeling in his voice_ ): Do not for that reason set him down now too low. If he has fallen from his altar, do not thrust him into the mire. Failure to Robert would be the very mire of shame. Power is his passion. He would lose everything, even his power to feel love. Your husband's life is at this moment in your hands, your husband's love is in your hands. Don't mar both for him.\n\n_Enter_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude, here is the draft of my letter. Shall I read it to you?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Let me see it.\n\nSIR ROBERT _hands her the letter. She reads it, and then, with a gesture of passion, tears it up._\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What are you doing?\n\nLADY CHILTERN: A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Gertrude! Gertrude!\n\nLADY CHILTERN: You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _deeply overcome by emotion, embraces her_ ): My wife! My wife! ( _To_ LORD GORING): Arthur, it seems that I am always to be in your debt.\n\nLORD GORING: Oh dear no, Robert. Your debt is to Lady Chiltern, not to me!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I owe you much. And now tell me what you were going to ask me just now as Lord Caversham came in.\n\nLORD GORING: Robert, you are your sister's guardian, and I want your consent to my marriage with her. That is all.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad! ( _Shakes hands with_ LORD GORING.)\n\nLORD GORING: Thank you, Lady Chiltern.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _with a troubled look_ ): My sister to be your wife?\n\nLORD GORING: Yes.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _speaking with great firmness_ ): Arthur, I am very sorry, but the thing is quite out of the question. I have to think of Mabel's future happiness. And I don't think her happiness would be safe in your hands. And I cannot have her sacrificed!\n\nLORD GORING: Sacrificed!\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes, utterly sacrificed. Loveless marriages are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side only and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken.\n\nLORD GORING: But 1 love Mabel. No other woman has any place in my life.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert, if they love each other, why should they not be married?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Arthur cannot bring Mabel the love that she deserves.\n\nLORD GORING: What reason have you for saying that?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _after a pause_ ): Do you really require me to tell you?\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly I do.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: As you choose. When I called on you yesterday evening I found Mrs. Cheveley concealed in your rooms. It was between ten and eleven o'clock at night. I do not wish to say anything more. Your relations with Mrs. Cheveley have, as I said to you last night, nothing whatsoever to do with me. I know you were engaged to be married to her once. The fascination she exercised over you then seems to have returned. You spoke to me last night of her as a woman pure and stainless, a woman who you respected and honoured. That may be so. But I cannot give my sister's life into your hands. It would be wrong of me. It would be unjust, infamously unjust to her.\n\nLORD GORING: I have nothing more to say.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Robert, it was not Mrs. Cheveley whom Lord Goring expected last night.\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Not Mrs. Cheveley! Who was it then?\n\nLORD GORING: Lady Chiltern.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: It was your own wife. Robert, yesterday afternoon Lord Goring told me that if ever I was in trouble I could come to him for help, as he was our oldest and best friend. Later on, after that terrible scene in this room, I wrote to him telling him that I trusted him, that I had need of him, that I was coming to him for help and advice. (SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _takes the letter out of his pocket._ ) Yes, that letter. I didn't go to Lord Goring's, after all. I felt that it is from ourselves alone that help can come. Pride made me think that. Mrs. Cheveley went. She stole my letter and sent it anonymously to you this morning, that you should think...Oh! Robert, I cannot tell you what she wished you to think...\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What! Had I fallen so low in your eyes that you thought that even for a moment I could have doubted your goodness? Gertrude, Gertrude, you are to me the white image of all good things, and sin can never touch you. Arthur, you can go to Mabel, and you have my best wishes! Oh! Stop a moment. There is no name at the beginning of this letter. The brilliant Mrs. Cheveley does not seem to have noticed that. There should be a name.\n\nLADY CHILTERN: Let me write yours. It is you I trust and need. You and none else.\n\nLORD GORING: Well, really, Lady Chiltern, I think I should have back my own letter.\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _smiling_ ): No; you shall have Mabel. ( _Takes the letter and writes her husband's name on it._ )\n\nLORD GORING: Well, I hope she hasn't changed her mind. It's nearly twenty minutes since I saw her last.\n\n_Enter_ MABEL CHILTERN _and_ LORD CAVERSHAM.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: Lord Goring, I think your father's conversation much more improving than yours. I am only going to talk to Lord Caversham in the future, and always under the usual palm tree.\n\nLORD GORING: Darling! ( _Kisses her._ )\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM ( _considerably taken aback_ ): What does this mean, sir? You don't mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has been so foolish as to accept you?\n\nLORD GORING: Certainly, father! And Chiltern's been wise enough to accept the seat in the Cabinet.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: I am very glad to hear that, Chiltern...I congratulate you, sir. If the country doesn't go to the dogs or the Radicals, we shall have you Prime Minister, some day.\n\n_Enter_ MASON.\n\nMASON: Luncheon is on the table, my Lady! (MASON _goes out._ )\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: You'll stop to luncheon, Lord Caversham, won't you?\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: With pleasure, and I'll drive you down to Downing Street afterwards, Chiltern. You have a great future before you, a great future. ( _To_ LORD GORING): Wish I could say the same for you, sir. But your career will have to be entirely domestic.\n\nLORD GORING: Yes, father, I prefer it domestic.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: And if you don't make this young lady an ideal husband, I'll cut you off with a shilling.\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: An ideal husband! Oh, I don't think I should like that. It sounds like something in the next world.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: What do you want him to be then, dear?\n\nMABEL CHILTERN: He can be what he chooses. All I want is to be...to be...oh! A real wife to him.\n\nLORD CAVERSHAM: Upon my word, there is a good deal of common sense in that, Lady Chiltern.\n\n_They all go out except_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. _He sinks into a chair, wrapt in thought. After a little time_ LADY CHILTERN _returns to look for him._\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _leaning over the back of the chair_ ): Aren't you coming in, Robert?\n\nSIR ROBERT CHILTERN ( _taking her hand_ ): Gertrude, is it love you feel for me, or is it pity merely?\n\nLADY CHILTERN ( _kisses him_ ): It is love, Robert. Love, and only love. For both of us a new life is beginning.\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## Salom\u00e9\n\n### A Tragedy in One Act.  \nTranslated by Lord Alfred Douglas\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nHEROD ANTIPAS, Tetrarch of Judaea\n\nJOKANAAN, The Prophet\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN, Captain of the Guard\n\nNAAMAN, The Executioner\n\nTIGELLINUS, A Young Roman\n\nA CAPPADOCIAN\n\nA NUBIAN\n\nFIRST SOLDIER\n\nSECOND SOLDIER\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS\n\nJEWS, NAZARENES, ETC.\n\nA SLAVE\n\nHERODIAS, Wife of the Tetrarch\n\nSALOM\u00c9, Daughter of Herodias\n\nTHE SLAVES OF SALOM\u00c9\n\nSCENE: _A great terrace in the Palace of_ HEROD, _set above the banqueting-hall. Some soldiers are leaning over the balcony. To the right there is a gigantic staircase, to the left, at the back, an old cistern surrounded by a wall of green bronze. Moonlight._\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: How beautiful is the Princess Salome to-night!\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Look at the moon! How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. You would fancy she was looking for dead things.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. You would fancy she was dancing.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: She is like a woman who is dead. She moves very slowly.\n\n_Noise in the banqueting-hall._\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: What an uproar! Who are those wild beasts howling!\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: The Jews. They are always like that. They are disputing about their religion.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why do they dispute about their religion?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: I cannot tell. They are always doing it. The Pharisees, for instance, say that there are angels, and the Sadduccees declare that angels do not exist.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I think it is ridiculous to dispute about such things.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: How beautiful is the Princess Salome tonight!\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: She is very beautiful to-night.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: The Tetrarch has a sombre look.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Yes, he has a sombre look.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: He is looking at something.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: He is looking at some one.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: At whom is he looking?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: I cannot tell.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: You must not look at her. You look too much at her.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Herodias has filled the cup of the Tetrarch.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: Is that the Queen Herodias, she who wears a black mitre sewn with pearls, and whose hair is powdered with blue dust?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Yes, that is Herodias, the Tetrarch's wife.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: The Tetrarch is very fond of wine. He has wine of three sorts. One which is brought from the Island of Samothrace, and is purple like the cloak of Caesar.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: I have never seen Caesar.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Another that comes from a town called Cyprus, and is yellow like gold.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: I love gold.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: And the third is a wine of Sicily. That wine is red like blood.\n\nTHE NUBIAN: The gods of my country are very fond of blood. Twice in the year we sacrifice to them young men and maidens; fifty young men and a hundred maidens. But it seems we never give them quite enough, for they are very harsh to us.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: In my country there are no gods left. The Romans have driven them out. There are some who say that they have hidden themselves in the mountains, but I do not believe it. Three nights I have been on the mountains seeking them everywhere. I did not find them. And at last I called them by their names, and they did not come. I think they are dead.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: The Jews worship a God that you cannot see.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: I cannot understand that.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: In fact, they only believe in things that you cannot see.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: That seems to me altogether ridiculous.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: After me shall come another mightier than I. I am not worthy so much as to unloose the latchet of his shoes. When he cometh, the solitary places shall be glad. They shall blossom like the lily. The eyes of the blind shall see the day, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. The new-born child shall put his hand upon the dragon's lair, he shall lead the lions by their manes.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Make him be silent. He is always saying ridiculous things.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: No, no. He is a holy man. He is very gentle, too. Every day, when I give him to eat he thanks me.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: Who is he?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: A prophet.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: What is his name?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Jokanaan.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: Whence comes he?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: From the desert, where he fed on locusts and wild honey. He was clothed in camel's hair, and round his loins he had a leathern belt. He was very terrible to look upon. A great multitude used to follow him. He even had disciples.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: What is he talking of?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: We can never tell. Sometimes he says terrible things; but it is impossible to understand what he says.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: May one see him?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: No. The Tetrarch has forbidden it.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: The Princess has hidden her face behind her fan! Her little white hands are fluttering like doves that fly to their dove-cots. They are like white butterflies. They are just like white butterflies.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: What is that to you? Why do you look at her? You must not look at her...Something terrible may happen.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN ( _pointing to the cistern_ ): What a strange prison!\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: It is an old cistern.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: An old cistern! It must be very unhealthy.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Oh, no! For instance, the Tetrarch's brother, his elder brother, the first husband of Herodias the Queen, was imprisoned there for twelve years. It did not kill him. At the end of the twelve years he had to be strangled.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: Strangled? Who dared to do that?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER ( _pointing to the Executioner, a huge Negro_ ): That man yonder, Naaman.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: He was not afraid?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Oh, no! The Tetrarch sent him the ring.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: What ring?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: The death-ring. So he was not afraid.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: Yet it is a terrible thing to strangle a king.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why? Kings have but one neck, like other folk.\n\nTHE CAPPADOCIAN: I think it terrible.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: The Princess rises! She is leaving the table! She looks very troubled. Ah, she is coming this way. Yes, she is coming towards us. How pale she is! Never have I seen her so pale.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Do not look at her. I pray you not to look at her.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: She is like a dove that has strayed...She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind...She is like a silver flower.\n\n_Enter_ SALOM\u00c9.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will not stay. I cannot stay. Why does the Tetrarch look at me all the while with his mole's eyes under his shaking eyelids? It is strange that the husband of my mother looks at me like that. I know not what it means. In truth, yes I know it.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: You have just left the feast, Princess?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: How sweet the air is here! I can breathe here! Within there are Jews from Jerusalem who are tearing each other in pieces over their foolish ceremonies, and barbarians who drink and drink, and spill their wine on the pavement, and Greeks from Smyrna with painted eyes and painted cheeks, and frizzed hair curled in twisted coils, and silent, subtle Egyptians, with long nails of jade and russett cloaks, and Romans brutal and coarse, with their uncouth jargon. Ah! How I loathe the Romans! They are rough and common, and they give themselves the airs of noble lords.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Will you be seated, Princess?\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Why do you speak to her? Why do you look at her? Oh! Something terrible will happen.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: How good to see the moon. She is like a little piece of money, you would think she was a little silver flower. The moon is cold and chaste. I am sure she is a virgin, she has a virgin's beauty. Yes, she is a virgin. She has never defiled herself. She has never abandoned herself to men, like the other goddesses.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: The Lord hath come. The son of man hath come. The centaurs have hidden themselves in the rivers, and the sirens have left the rivers, and are lying beneath the leaves of the forest.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Who was that who cried out?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: The prophet, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Ah, the prophet! He of whom the Tetrarch is afraid?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: We know nothing of that, Princess. It was the prophet Jokanaan who cried out.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Is it your pleasure that I bid them bring your litter, Princess? The night is fair in the garden.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: He says terrible things about my mother, does he not!\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: We never understand what he says, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Yes; he says terrible things about her.\n\n_Enter_ a SLAVE.\n\nTHE SLAVE: Princess, the Tetrarch prays you to return to the feast.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will not go back.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Pardon me, Princess, but if you do not return some misfortune may happen.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Is he an old man, this prophet?\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess, it were better to return. Suffer me to lead you in.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: This prophet...is he an old man?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: No, Princess, he is quite a young man.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: You cannot be sure. There are those who say he is Elias.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Who is Elias?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: A very ancient prophet of this country, Princess.\n\nTHE SLAVE: What answer may I give the Tetrarch from the Princess?\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: Rejoice not thou, land of Palestine, because the rod of him who smote thee is broken. For from the seed of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and that which is born of it shall devour the birds.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: What a strange voice! I would speak with him.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I fear it is impossible, Princess. The Tetrarch does not wish any one to speak with him. He has even forbidden the high priest to speak with him.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I desire to speak with him.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: It is impossible, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will speak with him.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Would it not be better to return to the banquet?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Bring forth this prophet.\n\n_Exit the_ SLAVE.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: We dare not, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _approaching the cistern and looking down into it_ ): How black it is down there! It must be terrible to be in so black a pit! It is like a tomb...( _To the_ SOLDIERS): Did you not hear me? Bring out the prophet. I wish to see him.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Princess, I beg you do not require this of us.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You keep me waiting!\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Princess, our lives belong to you, but we cannot do what you have asked of us. And indeed, it is not of us that you should ask this thing.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: ( _looking at the_ YOUNG SYRIAN): Ah!\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Oh! What is going to happen? I am sure that some misfortune will happen.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _going up to the_ YOUNG SYRIAN): You will do this thing for me, will you not, Narraboth? You will do this thing for me. I have always been kind to you. You will do it for me. I would but look at this strange prophet. Men have talked so much of him. Often have I heard the Tetrarch talk of him. I think the Tetrarch is afraid of him. Are you, even you, also afraid of him, Narraboth?\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: I fear him not, Princess; there is no man I fear. But the Tetrarch has formally forbidden that any man should raise the cover of this well.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You will do this thing for me, Narraboth, and to-morrow when I pass in my litter beneath the gateway of the idol-sellers I will let fall for you a little flower, a little green flower.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess, I cannot, I cannot.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _smiling_ ): You will do this thing for me, Narraboth. You know that you will do this thing for me. And to-morrow when I pass in my litter by the bridge of the idol-buyers. I will look at you through the muslin veils, I will look at you, Narraboth, it may be I will smile at you. Look at me, Narraboth, look at me. Ah! You know that you will do what I ask of you. You know it well...I know that you will do this thing.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN ( _signing to the third soldier_ ): Let the prophet come forth...The Princess Salome desires to see him.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Ah!\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Oh! How strange the moon looks. You would think it was the hand of a dead woman who is seeking to cover herself with a shroud.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: She has a strange look! She is like a little princess, whose eyes are eyes of amber. Through the clouds of muslin she is smiling like a little princess.\n\n_The prophet comes out of the cistern._ SALOM\u00c9 _looks at him and steps slowly back._\n\nJOKANAAN: Where is he whose cup of abominations is now full? Where is he, who in a robe of silver shall one day die in the face of all the people? Bid him come forth, that he may hear the voice of him who had cried in the waste places and in the houses of kings.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Of whom is he speaking?\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: You never can tell, Princess.\n\nJOKANAAN: Where is she who, having seen the images of men painted on the walls, the images of the Chaldeans limned in colours, gave herself up unto the lust of her eyes, and sent ambassadors into Chaldea?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: It is of my mother that he speaks.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Oh, no, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Yes, it is of my mother that he speaks.\n\nJOKANAAN: Where is she who gave herself unto the Captains of Assyria, who have baldricks on their loins, and tiaras of divers colours on their heads? Where is she who hath given herself to the young men of Egypt, who are clothed in fine linen and purple, whose shields are of gold, whose helmets are of silver, whose bodies are mighty? Bid her rise up from the bed of her abominations, from the bed of her incestuousness, that she may hear the words of him who prepareth the way of the Lord, that she may repent her of her iniquities. Though she will never repent, but will stick fast in her abominations; bid her come, for the fan of the Lord is in His hand.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: But he is terrible, he is terrible!\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Do not stay here, Princess, I beseech you.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: It is his eyes above all that are terrible. They are like black holes burned by torches in a Tyrian tapestry. They are like black caverns where dragons dwell. They are like the black caverns of Egypt in which the dragons make their lairs. They are like black lakes troubled by fantastic moons...Do you think he will speak again?\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Do not stay here, Princess. I pray you do not stay here.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: How wasted he is! He is like a thin ivory statue. He is like an image of silver. I am sure he is chaste as the moon is. He is like a moonbeam, like a shaft of silver. His flesh must be cool like ivory. I would look closer at him.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: No, no, Princess.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I must look at him closer.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess! Princess!\n\nJOKANAAN: Who is this woman who is looking at me? I will not have her look at me. Wherefore doth she look at me with her golden eyes, under her gilded eyelids? I know not who she is. I do not wish to know who she is. Bid her begone. It is not to her that I would speak.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judaea.\n\nJOKANAAN: Back! Daughter of Babylon! Come not near the chosen of the Lord. Thy mother hath filled the earth with the wine of her iniquities, and the cry of her sins hath come up to the ears of God.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Speak again, Jokanaan. Thy voice is wine to me.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess! Princess! Princess!\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Speak again! Speak again, Jokanaan, and tell me what I must do.\n\nJOKANAAN: Daughter of Sodom, come not near me! But cover thy face with a veil, and scatter ashes upon thine head, and get thee to the desert and seek out the Son of Man.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Who is he, the Son of Man? Is he as beautiful as thou art, Jokanaan?\n\nJOKANAAN: Get thee behind me! I hear in the palace the beating of the wings of the angel of death.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess, I beseech thee to go within.\n\nJOKANAAN: Angel of the Lord God, what dost thou here with thy sword? Whom seekest thou in this foul palace? The day of him who shall die in a robe of silver has not yet come.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Jokanaan!\n\nJOKANAAN: Who speaketh?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Jokanaan, I am amorous of thy body! Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains, like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea...There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Let me touch thy body.\n\nJOKANAAN: Back! Daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen but to the voice of the Lord God.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things. It is horrible, thy body is horrible. It is of thy hair that I am enamoured, Jokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide themselves by day. The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world so black as thy hair...Let me touch thy hair.\n\nJOKANAAN: Back, daughter of Sodom! Touch me not. Profane not the temple of the Lord God.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Thy hair is horrible. It is covered with mire and dust. It is like a crown of thorns which they have placed on thy forehead. It is like a knot of black serpents writhing round thy neck. I love not thy hair...It is thy mouth that I desire, Jokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate-flowers that blossom in the garden of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts of trumpets, that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of those who tread the wine in the wine-press. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of the doves who haunt the temples and are fed by the priests. It is redder than the feet of him who cometh from a forest where he hath slain a lion, and seen gilded tigers. Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings...! It is like the vermilion that the Moabites find in the mines of Moab, the vermilion that the kings take from them. It is like the bow of the King of the Persians, that is painted with vermilion, and is tipped with coral. There is nothing in the world so red as thy mouth...Let me kiss thy mouth.\n\nJOKANAAN: Never, daughter of Babylon! Daughter of Sodom! Never.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess, Princess, thou who art like a garden of myrrh, thou who art the dove of all doves, look not at this man, look not at him! Do not speak such words to him. I cannot suffer them...Princess,\n\nPrincess, do not speak these things.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan.\n\nTHE YOUNG SYRIAN: Ah!\n\n_He kills himself and falls between_ SALOM\u00c9 _and_ JOKANAAN.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: The young Syrian has slain himself! The young captain has slain himself! He has slain himself who was my friend! I gave him a little box of perfumes and ear-rings wrought in silver, and now he has killed himself! Ah, did he not foretell that some misfortune would happen? I, too, foretold it, and it has happened. Well, I knew that the moon was seeking a dead thing, but I knew not that it was he whom she sought. Ah! Why did I not hide him from the moon? If I had hidden him in a cavern she would not have seen him.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Princess, the young captain has just killed himself.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Let me kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan.\n\nJOKANAAN: Art thou not afraid, daughter of Herodias? Did I not tell thee that I had heard in the palace the beatings of the wings of the angel of death, and hath he not come, the angel of death?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Let me kiss thy mouth.\n\nJOKANAAN: Daughter of adultery, there is but one who can save thee, it is He of whom I spake. Go seek Him. He is in a boat on the sea of Galilee, and He talketh with His disciples. Kneel down on the shore of the sea, and call unto Him by His name. When He cometh to thee (and to all who call on Him He cometh) bow thyself at His feet and ask of Him the remission of thy sins.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Let me kiss thy mouth.\n\nJOKANAAN: Cursed be thou! Daughter of an incestuous mother, be thou accursed!\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan.\n\nJOKANAAN: I do not wish to look at thee. I will not look at thee, thou art accursed, Salom\u00e9, thou art accursed.\n\n_He goes down into the cistern._\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: We must bear away the body to another place. The Tetrarch does not care to see dead bodies, save the bodies of those whom he himself has slain.\n\nTHE PAGE OF HERODIAS: He was my brother, and nearer to me than a brother. I gave him a little box of perfumes, and a ring of agate that he wore always on his hand. In the evening we used to walk by the river, among the almond trees, and he would tell me of the things of his country. He spake ever very low. The sound of his voice was like the sound of the flute, of a flute player. Also he much loved to gaze at himself in the river. I used to reproach him for that.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: You are right; we must hide the body. The Tetrarch must not see it.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: The Tetrarch will not come to this place. He never comes on the terrace. He is too much afraid of the prophet.\n\n_Enter_ HEROD, HERODIAS, _and all the_ COURT.\n\nHEROD: Where is Salom\u00e9? Where is the Princess? Why did she not return to the banquet as I commanded her? Ah! There she is!\n\nHERODIAS: You must not look at her! You are always looking at her!\n\nHEROD: The moon has a strange look to-night. Has she not a strange look? She is like a mad woman, a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers. She is naked, too. She is quite naked. The clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them. She shows herself naked in the sky. She reels through the clouds like a drunken woman...I am sure she is looking for lovers. Does she not reel like a drunken woman? She is like a mad woman, is she not?\n\nHERODIAS: No; the moon is like the moon, that is all. Let us go within...\n\nYou have nothing to do here.\n\nHEROD: I will stay here! Manesseh, lay carpets there. Light torches, bring forth the ivory tables, and the tables of jasper. The air here is delicious. I will drink more wine with my guests. We must show all honours to the ambassadors of Caesar.\n\nHERODIAS: It is not because of them that you remain.\n\nHEROD: Yes; the air is delicious. Come, Herodias, our guests await us. Ah! I have slipped! I have slipped in blood! It is an ill omen. It is a very evil omen. Wherefore is there blood here...? And this body, what does this body here? Think you that I am like the King of Egypt, who gives no feast to his guests but that he shows them a corpse? Whose is it? I will not look on it.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: It is our captain, sire. He is the young Syrian whom you made captain only three days ago.\n\nHEROD: I gave no order that he should be slain.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: He killed himself, sire.\n\nHEROD: For what reason? I had made him captain.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: We do not know, sire. But he killed himself.\n\nHEROD: That seems strange to me. I thought it was only the Roman philosophers who killed themselves. Is it not true, Tigellinus, that the philosophers at Rome kill themselves?\n\nTIGELLINUS: There are some who kill themselves, sire. They are the Stoics. The Stoics are coarse people. They are ridiculous people. I myself regard them as being perfectly ridiculous.\n\nHEROD: I also. It is ridiculous to kill oneself.\n\nTIGELLINUS: Everybody at Rome laughs at them. The Emperor has written a satire against them. It is recited everywhere.\n\nHEROD: Ah! He has written a satire against them? Caesar is wonderful. He can do everything...It is strange that the young Syrian has killed himself. I am sorry he has killed himself. I am very sorry, for he was fair to look upon. He was even very fair. He had very languorous eyes. I remember that I saw that he looked languorously at Salom\u00e9. Truly, I thought he looked too much at her.\n\nHERODIAS: There are others who look at her too much.\n\nHEROD: His father was a king. I drove him from his kingdom. And you made a slave of his mother, who was a queen, Herodias. So he was here as my guest, as it were, and for that reason I made him my captain. I am sorry he is dead. Ho! Why have you left the body here? I will not look at it \u2013 away with it. ( _They take away the body._ ) It is cold here. There is a wind blowing. Is there not a wind blowing?\n\nHERODIAS: No, there is no wind.\n\nHEROD: I tell you there is a wind that blows...And I hear in the air something that is like the beating of wings, like the beating of vast wings. Do you not hear it?\n\nHERODIAS: I hear nothing.\n\nHEROD: I hear it no longer. But I heard it. It was the blowing of the wind, no doubt. It has passed away. But no, I hear it again. Do you not hear it? It is just like the beating of wings.\n\nHERODIAS: I tell you there is nothing. You are ill. Let us go within.\n\nHEROD: I am not ill. It is your daughter who is sick. She has the mien of a sick person. Never have I seen her so pale.\n\nHERODIAS: I have told you not to look at her.\n\nHEROD: Pour me forth wine. ( _Wine is brought._ ) Salom\u00e9, come drink a little wine with me. I have here a wine that is exquisite. Caesar himself sent it me. Dip into it thy little red lips, that I may drain the cup.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am not thirsty, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD: You hear how she answers me, this daughter of yours?\n\nHERODIAS: She does right. Why are you always gazing at her?\n\nHEROD: Bring me ripe fruits. ( _Fruits are brought._ ) Salom\u00e9, come and eat fruit with me. I love to see in a fruit the mark of thy little teeth. Bite but a little of this fruit and then I will eat what is left.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am not hungry, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD ( _to_ HERODIAS): You see how you have brought up this daughter of yours.\n\nHERODIAS: My daughter and I come of a royal race. As for thee, thy father was a camel driver! He was also a robber!\n\nHEROD: Thou liest!\n\nHERODIAS: Thou knowest well that it is true.\n\nHEROD: Salom\u00e9, come and sit next to me. I will give thee the throne of thy mother.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am not tired, Tetrarch.\n\nHERODIAS: You see what she thinks of you.\n\nHEROD: Bring me \u2013 what is it that I desire? I forget. Ah! Ah! I remember.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: Lo! The time is come! That which I foretold has come to pass, saith the Lord God. Lo! The day of which I spoke.\n\nHERODIAS: Bid him be silent. I will not listen to his voice. This man is for ever vomiting insults against me.\n\nHEROD: He has said nothing against you. Besides, he is a very great prophet.\n\nHERODIAS: I do not believe in prophets. Can a man tell what will come to pass? No man knows it. Moreover, he is for ever insulting me. But I think you are afraid of him...I know well that you are afraid of him.\n\nHEROD: I am not afraid of him. I am afraid of no man.\n\nHERODIAS: I tell you, you are afraid of him. If you are not afraid of him why do you not deliver him to the Jews, who for these six months past have been clamouring for him?\n\nA JEW: Truly, my lord, it were better to deliver him into our hands.\n\nHEROD: Enough on this subject. I have already given you my answer. I will not deliver him into your hands. He is a holy man. He is a man who has seen God.\n\nA JEW: That cannot be. There is no man who hath seen God since the prophet Elias. He is the last man who saw God. In these days God doth not show Himself. He hideth Himself. Therefore great evils have come upon the land.\n\nANOTHER JEW: Verily, no man knoweth if Elias the prophet did indeed see God. Peradventure it was but the shadow of God that he saw.\n\nA THIRD JEW: God is at no time hidden. He showeth Himself at all times and in everything. God is in what is evil, even as He is in what is good.\n\nA FOURTH JEW: That must not be said. It is a very dangerous doctrine. It is a doctrine that cometh from the schools at Alexandria, where men teach the philosophy of the Greeks. And the Greeks are Gentiles. They are not even circumcised.\n\nA FIFTH JEW: No one can tell how God worketh. His ways are very mysterious. It may be that the things which we call evil are good, and that the things which we call good are evil. There is no knowledge of anything. We must needs submit to everything, for God is very strong. He breaketh in pieces the strong together with the weak, for He regardeth not any man.\n\nFIRST JEW: Thou speaketh truly. God is terrible. He breaketh the strong and the weak as a man brays corn in a mortar. But this man hath never seen God. No man hath seen God since the prophet Elias.\n\nHERODIAS: Make them be silent. They weary me.\n\nHEROD: But I have heard it said that Jokanaan himself is your prophet Elias.\n\nTHE JEW: That cannot be. It is more than three hundred years since the days of the prophet Elias.\n\nHEROD: There be some who say that this man is the prophet Elias.\n\nA NAZARENE: I am sure that he is the prophet Elias.\n\nTHE JEW: Nay, but he is not the prophet Elias.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: So the day is come, the day of the Lord, and I hear upon the mountains the feet of Him who shall be the Saviour of the world.\n\nHEROD: What does that mean? The Saviour of the world.\n\nTIGELLINUS: It is a title that Caesar takes.\n\nHEROD: But Caesar is not coming into Judaea. Only yesterday I received letters from Rome. They contained nothing concerning this matter. And you, Tigellinus, who were at Rome during the winter, you heard nothing concerning this matter, did you?\n\nTIGELLINUS: Sire, I heard nothing concerning the matter. I was explaining the title. It is one of Caesar's titles.\n\nHEROD: But Caesar cannot come. He is too gouty. They say that his feet are like the feet of an elephant. Also there are reasons of State. He who leaves Rome loses Rome. He will not come. Howbeit Caesar is lord, he will come if he wishes. Nevertheless, I do not think he will come.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: It was not concerning Caesar that the prophet spake these words, sire.\n\nHEROD: Not of Caesar?\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: No, sire.\n\nHEROD: Concerning whom, then, did he speak?\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: Concerning Messias who has come.\n\nA JEW: Messias hath not come.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: He hath come, and everywhere He worketh miracles.\n\nHERODIAS: Ho! Ho! Miracles! I do not believe in miracles. I have seen too many. ( _To the Page_ ): My fan!\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: This man worketh true miracles. Thus, at a marriage which took place in a little town of Galilee, a town of some importance, He changed water into wine. Certain persons who were present related it to me. Also, He healed two lepers that were seated before the Gate of Capernaum simply by touching them.\n\nSECOND NAZARENE: Nay, it was blind men that He healed at Capernaum.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: Nay, they were lepers. But He hath healed blind people also, and He was seen on a mountain talking with angels.\n\nA SADDUCEE: Angels do not exist.\n\nA PHARISEE: Angels exist, but I do not believe that this Man has talked with them.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: He was seen by a great multitude of people talking with angels.\n\nA SADDUCEE: Not with angels.\n\nHERODIAS: How these men weary me! They are ridiculous! ( _To the Page_ ): Well, my fan! ( _The Page gives her the fan._ ) You have a dreamer's look; you must not dream. It is only sick people who dream. ( _She strikes the Page with her fan._ )\n\nSECOND NAZARENE: There is also the miracle of the daughter of Jairus.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: Yes, that is sure. No man can gainsay it.\n\nHERODIAS: These men are mad. They have looked too long on the moon. Command them to be silent.\n\nHEROD: What is this miracle of the daughter of Jairus?\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: The daughter of Jairus was dead. He raised her from the dead.\n\nHEROD: He raises the dead?\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: Yea, sire, He raiseth the dead.\n\nHEROD: I do not wish Him to do that. I forbid Him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This Man must be found and told that I forbid Him to raise the dead. Where is this Man at present?\n\nSECOND NAZARENE: He is in every place, my lord, but it is hard to find Him.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: It is said that He is now in Samaria.\n\nA JEW: It is easy to see that this is not Messias, if He is in Samaria. It is not to the Samaritans that Messias shall come. The Samaritans are accursed. They bring no offerings to the Temple.\n\nSECOND NAZARENE: He left Samaria a few days since. I think that at the present moment He is in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.\n\nFIRST NAZARENE: No, He is not there. I have just come from Jerusalem. For two months they have had no tidings of Him.\n\nHEROD: No matter! But let them find Him, and tell Him from me, I will not allow Him to raise the dead! To change water into wine, to heal the lepers and the blind...He may do these things if He will. I say nothing against these things. In truth I hold it a good deed to heal a leper. But I allow no man to raise the dead. It would be terrible if the dead came back.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: Ah, the wanton! The harlot! Ah! The daughter of Babylon with her golden eyes and her gilded eyelids! Thus saith the Lord God, Let there come against her a multitude of men. Let the people take stones and stone her...\n\nHERODIAS: Command him to be silent.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: Let the war captains pierce her with their swords, let them crush her beneath their shields.\n\nHERODIAS: Nay, but it is infamous.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JAKANAAN: It is thus that I will wipe out all wickedness from the earth, and that all women shall learn not to imitate her abominations.\n\nHERODIAS: You hear what he says against me? You allow him to revile your wife?\n\nHEROD: He did not speak your name.\n\nHERODIAS: What does that matter? You know well that it is I whom he seeks to revile. And I am your wife, am I not?\n\nHEROD: Of a truth, dear and noble Herodias, you are my wife, and before that you were the wife of my brother.\n\nHERODIAS: It was you who tore me from his arms.\n\nHEROD: Of a truth I was stronger...But let us not talk of that matter. I do not desire to talk of it. It is the cause of the terrible words that the prophet has spoken. Peradventure on account of it a misfortune will come. Let us not speak of this matter. Noble Herodias, we are not mindful of our guests. Fill thou my cup, my well-beloved. Fill with wine the great goblets of silver, and the great goblets of glass. I will drink to Caesar. There are Romans here; we must drink to Caesar.\n\nALL: Caesar! Caesar!\n\nHEROD: Do you not see your daughter, how pale she is?\n\nHERODIAS: What is it to you if she be pale or not?\n\nHEROD: Never have I seen her so pale.\n\nHERODIAS: You must not look at her.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: In that day the sun shall become black like the sackcloth of hair, and the moon shall become like blood, and the stars of the heavens shall fall upon the earth like ripe figs that fall from the fig-tree, and the kings of the earth shall be afraid.\n\nHERODIAS: Ah! Ah! I should like to see that day of which he speaks, when the moon shall become like blood, and when the stars shall fall upon the earth like ripe figs. This prophet talks like a drunken man...but I cannot suffer the sound of his voice. I hate his voice. Command him to be silent.\n\nHEROD: I will not. I cannot understand what it is that he saith, but it may be an omen.\n\nHERODIAS: I do not believe in omens. He speaks like a drunken man.\n\nHEROD: It may be he is drunk with the wine of God.\n\nHERODIAS: What wine is that, the wine of God? From what vineyards is it gathered? In what winepress may one find it?\n\nHEROD ( _from this point he looks all the while at Salom\u00e9_ ): Tigellinus, when you were at Rome of late, did the Emperor speak with you on the subject of...?\n\nTIGELLINUS: On what subject, sire?\n\nHEROD: On what subject? Ah! I asked you a question, did I not? I have forgotten what I would have asked you.\n\nHERODIAS: You are looking again at my daughter. You must not look at her. I have already said so.\n\nHEROD: You say nothing else.\n\nHERODIAS: I say it again.\n\nHEROD: And that restoration of the Temple about which they have talked so much, will anything be done? They say the veil of the Sanctuary has disappeared, do they not?\n\nHERODIAS: It was thyself didst steal it. Thou speakest at random. I will not stay here. Let us go within.\n\nHEROD: Dance for me, Salom\u00e9.\n\nHERODIAS: I will not have her dance.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I have no desire to dance, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD: Salom\u00e9, daughter of Herodias, dance for me.\n\nHERODIAS: Let her alone.\n\nHEROD: I command thee to dance, Salom\u00e9.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will not dance, Tetrarch.\n\nHERODIAS ( _laughing_ ): You see how she obeys you.\n\nHEROD: What is to me whether she dance or not? It is naught to me. Tonight I am happy, I am exceeding happy. Never have I been so happy.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: The Tetrarch has a sombre look. Has he not a sombre look?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Yes, he has a sombre look.\n\nHEROD: Wherefore should I not be happy? Caesar, who is lord of the world, who is lord of all things, loves me well. He has just sent me most precious gifts. Also he has promised me to summon to Rome the King of Cappadocia, who is my enemy. It may be that at Rome he will crucify him, for he is able to do all things that he wishes. Verily, Caesar is lord. Thus you see I have a right to be happy. Indeed, I am happy. I have never been so happy. There is nothing in the world that can mar my happiness.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: He shall be seated on this throne. He shall be clothed in scarlet and purple. In his hand he shall bear a golden cup full of his blasphemies. And the angel of the Lord shall smite him. He shall be eaten of worms.\n\nHERODIAS: You hear what he says about you. He says that you will be eaten of worms.\n\nHEROD: It is not of me that he speaks. He speaks never against me. It is of the King of Cappadocia that he speaks; the King of Cappadocia, who is mine enemy. It is he who shall be eaten of worms. It is not I. Never has he spoken word against me, this prophet, save that I sinned in taking to wife the wife of my brother. It may be he is right. For, of a truth, you are sterile.\n\nHERODIAS: I am sterile, I? You say that, you that are ever looking at my daughter, you that would have her dance for your pleasure? It is absurd to say that. I have borne a child. You have gotten no child, no, not even from one of your slaves. It is you who are sterile, not I.\n\nHEROD: Peace, woman! I say that you are sterile. You have borne me no child, and the prophet says that our marriage is not a true marriage. He says that it is an incestuous marriage, a marriage that will bring evils...I fear he is right; I am sure that he is right. But it is not the moment to speak of such things. I would be happy at this moment. Of a truth, I am happy. There is nothing I lack.\n\nHERODIAS: I am glad you are of so fair a humour to-night. It is not your custom. But it is late. Let us go within. Do not forget that we hunt at sunrise. All honours must be shown to Caesar's ambassadors, must they not?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: What a sombre look the Tetrarch wears.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Yes, he wears a sombre look.\n\nHEROD: Salom\u00e9, Salom\u00e9, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes, I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; and I heard, I am sure I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean...I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. Dance for me, Salom\u00e9, I beseech you. If you dance for me you may ask of me what you will, and I will give it you, even unto the half of my kingdom.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _rising_ ): Will you indeed give me whatsoever I shall ask, Tetrarch?\n\nHERODIAS: Do not dance, my daughter.\n\nHEROD: Everything, even the half of my kingdom.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You swear it, Tetrarch?\n\nHEROD: I swear it, Salom\u00e9.\n\nHERODIAS: Do not dance, my daughter.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: By what will you swear, Tetrarch?\n\nHEROD: By my life, by my crown, by my gods. Whatsoever you desire I will give it you, even to the half of my kingdom, if you will but dance for me. O, Salom\u00e9, Salom\u00e9, dance for me!\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You have sworn, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD: I have sworn, Salom\u00e9.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: All this I ask, even the half of your kingdom.\n\nHERODIAS: My daughter, do not dance.\n\nHEROD: Even to the half of my kingdom. Thou wilt be passing fair as a queen, Salome, if it please thee to ask for the half of my kingdom. Will she not be fair as a queen? Ah! It is cold here! There is an icy wind, and I hear...wherefore do I hear in the air this beating of wings? Ah! One might fancy a bird, a huge black bird that hovers over the terrace. Why can I not see it, this bird? The beat of its wings is terrible. The breath of the wind of its wings is terrible. It is a chill wind. Nay, but it is not cold, it is hot. I am choking. Pour water on my hands. Give me snow to eat. Loosen my mantle. Quick, quick! Loosen my mantle. Nay, but leave it. It is my garland that hurts me, my garland of roses. The flowers are like fire. They have burned my forehead. ( _He tears the wreath from his head and throws it on the table._ ) Ah! I can breathe now. How red those petals are! They are like stains of blood on the cloth. That does not matter. You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossible. It were better to say that stains of blood are as lovely as rose petals. It were better far to say that...But we will not speak of this. Now I am happy, I am passing happy. Have I not the right to be happy? Your daughter is going to dance for me. Will you not dance for me, Salom\u00e9? You have promised to dance for me.\n\nHERODIAS: I will not have her dance.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I will dance for you, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD: You hear what your daughter says. She is going to dance for me. You do well to dance for me, Salom\u00e9. And when you have danced for me, forget not to ask of me whatsoever you wish. Whatsoever you wish I will give it you, even to the half of my kingdom. I have sworn it, have I not?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You have sworn it, Tetrarch.\n\nHEROD: And I have never broken my word. I am not of those who break their oaths. I know not how to lie. I am the slave of my word, and my word is the word of a king. The King of Cappadocia always lies, but he is no true king. He is a coward. Also he owes me money that he will not repay. He has even insulted my ambassadors. He has spoken words that were wounding. But Caesar will crucify him when he comes to Rome. I am sure that Caesar will crucify him. And if not, yet will he die, being eaten of worms. The prophet has prophesied it. Well! Wherefore dost thou tarry, Salom\u00e9?\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am waiting until my slaves bring perfumes to me and the seven veils, and take off my sandals. ( _Slaves bring perfumes and the seven veils, and take off the sandals of_ SALOM\u00c9.)\n\nHEROD: Ah, you are going to dance with naked feet. 'Tis well! 'Tis well. Your little feet will be like white doves. They will be like little white flowers that dance upon the trees...No, no, she is going to dance on blood. There is blood spilt on the ground. She must not dance on blood. It were an evil omen.\n\nHERODIAS: What is it to you if she dance on blood? Thou hast waded deep enough therein...\n\nHEROD: What is it to me? Ah! Look at the moon! She has become red. She has become red as blood. Ah! The prophet prophesied truly. He prophesied that the moon would become red as blood. Did he not prophesy it? All of you heard him. And now the moon has become red as blood. Do ye not see it?\n\nHERODIAS: Oh, yes, I see it well, and the stars are falling like ripe figs, are they not? And the sun is becoming black like sackcloth of hair, and the kings of the earth are afraid. That at least one can see. The prophet, for once in his life, was right; the kings of the earth are afraid...Let us go within. You are sick. They will say at Rome that you are mad. Let us go within, I tell you.\n\nTHE VOICE OF JOKANAAN: Who is this who cometh from Edom, who is this who cometh from Bozra, whose raiment is dyed with purple, who shineth in the beauty of his garments, who walketh mighty in his greatness? Wherefore is thy raiment stained with scarlet?\n\nHERODIAS: Let us go within. The voice of that man maddens me. I will not have my daughter dance while he is continually crying out. I will not have her dance while you look at her in this fashion. In a word I will not have her dance.\n\nHEROD: Do not rise, my wife, my queen, it will avail thee nothing. I will not go within till she hath danced. Dance, Salom\u00e9, dance for me.\n\nHERODIAS: Do not dance, my daughter.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I am ready, Tetrarch. (SALOM\u00c9 _dances the dance of the seven veils._ )\n\nHEROD: Ah! Wonderful! Wonderful! You see that she has danced for me, your daughter. Come near, Salom\u00e9, come near, that I may give you your reward. Ah! I pay the dancers well. I will pay thee royally. I will give thee whatsoever thy soul desireth. What wouldst thou have? Speak.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _kneeling_ ): I would that they presently bring me in a silver charger...\n\nHEROD ( _laughing_ ): In a silver charger? Surely yes, in a silver charger. She is charming, is she not? What is it you would have in a silver charger, O sweet and fair Salom\u00e9, you who are fairer than all the daughters of Judaea? What would you have them bring thee in a silver charger? Tell me. Whatsoever it may be, they shall give it to you. My treasures belong to thee. What is it, Salom\u00e9?\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _rising_ ): The head of Jokanaan.\n\nHERODIAS: Ah! That is well said, my daughter.\n\nHEROD: No, no!\n\nHERODIAS: That is well said, my daughter.\n\nHEROD: No, no, Salom\u00e9. You do not ask me that. Do not listen to your mother's voice. She is ever giving you evil counsel. Do not heed her.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I do not heed my mother. It is for mine own pleasure that I ask the head of Jokanaan in a silver charger. You have sworn, Herod. Forget not that you have sworn an oath.\n\nHEROD: I know it. I have sworn by my gods. I know it well. But I pray you, Salom\u00e9, ask of me something else. Ask of me the half of my kingdom, and I will give it you. But ask not of me what you have asked.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I ask of you the head of Jokanaan.\n\nHEROD: No, no, I do not wish it.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: You have sworn, Herod.\n\nHERODIAS: Yes, you have sworn. Everybody heard you. You swore it before everybody.\n\nHEROD: Be silent! It is not to you I speak.\n\nHERODIAS: My daughter has done well to ask the head of Jokanaan. He has covered me with insults. He has said monstrous things against me. One can see that she loves her mother well. Do not yield, my daughter. He has sworn, he has sworn.\n\nHEROD: Be silent, speak not to me...! Come, Salom\u00e9, be reasonable. I have never been hard to you. I have ever loved you...It may be that I have loved you too much. Therefore ask not this thing of me. This is a terrible thing, an awful thing to ask of me. Surely, I think you are jesting. The head of a man that is cut from his body is ill to look upon, is it not? It is not meet that the eyes of a virgin should look upon such a thing. What pleasure could you have in it? None. No, no, it is not what you desire. Hearken to me. I have an emerald, a great round emerald, which Caesar's minion sent me. If you look through this emerald you can see things which happen at a great distance. Caesar himself carries such an emerald when he goes to the circus. But my emerald is larger. I know well that it is larger. It is the largest emerald in the whole world. You would like that, would you not? Ask it of me and I will give it you.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: I demand the head of Jokanaan.\n\nHEROD: You are not listening. You are not listening. Suffer me to speak, Salom\u00e9.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: The head of Jokanaan.\n\nHEROD: No, no, you would not have that. You say that to trouble me, because I have looked at you all evening. It is true, I have looked at you all evening. Your beauty troubled me. Your beauty has grievously troubled me, and I have looked at you too much. But I will look at you no more. Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks. Oh! Oh! bring wine! I thirst...Salom\u00e9, Salom\u00e9, let us be friends. Come now...! Ah! What would I say? What was't? Ah! I remember...! Salom\u00e9 \u2013 nay, but come nearer to me; I fear you will not hear me \u2013 Salom\u00e9, you know my white peacocks, my beautiful white peacocks, that walk in the garden between the myrtles and the tall cypress trees. Their beaks are gilded with gold, and the grains that they eat are gilded with gold also, and their feet are stained with purple. When they cry out the rain comes, and the moon shows herself in the heavens when they spread their tails. Two by two they walk between the cypress trees and the black myrtles, and each has a slave to tend it. Sometimes they fly across the trees and anon they crouch in the grass, and round the lake. There are not in all the world birds so wonderful. There is no king in all the world who possesses such wonderful birds. I am sure that Caesar himself has no birds so fine as my birds. I will give you fifty of my peacocks. They will follow you whither-soever you go, and in the midst of them you will be like the moon in the midst of a great white cloud...I will give them all to you. I have but a hundred, and in the whole world there is no king who has peacocks like unto my peacocks. But I will give them all to you. Only you must loose me from my oath, and must not ask of me that which you have asked of me.\n\n_He empties the cup of wine._\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Give me the head of Jokanaan.\n\nHERODIAS: Well said, my daughter! As for you, you are ridiculous with your peacocks.\n\nHEROD: Be silent! You cry out always; you cry out like a beast of prey. You must not. Your voice wearies me. Be silent, I say...Salom\u00e9, think of what you are doing. This man comes perchance from God. He is a holy man. The finger of God has touched him. God has put into his mouth terrible words. In the palace as in the desert God is always with him...At least it is possible. One does not know. It is possible that God is for him and with him. Furthermore, if he died some misfortune might happen to me. In any case, he said that the day he dies a misfortune will happen to some one. That could only be to me. Remember, I slipped in blood when I entered. Also, I heard a beating of wings in the air, a beating of mighty wings. These are very evil omens, and there were others. I am sure there were others, though I did not see them. Well, Salom\u00e9, you do not wish a misfortune to happen to me? You do not wish that. Listen to me, then.\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Give me the head of Jokanaan.\n\nHEROD: Ah! You are not listening to me. Be calm. I \u2013 I am calm. I am quite calm. Listen. I have jewels hidden in this place \u2013 jewels that your mother even has never seen; jewels that are marvellous. I have a collar of pearls, set in four rows. They are like unto moons chained with rays of silver. They are like fifty moons caught in a golden net. On the ivory of her breast a queen has worn it. Thou shalt be as fair as a queen when thou wearest it. I have amethysts of two kinds, one that is black like wine, and one that is red like wine which has been coloured with water. I have topazes, yellow as are the eyes of tigers, and topazes that are pink as the eyes of a wood-pigeon, and green topazes that are as the eyes of cats. I have opals that burn always with an icelike flame, opals that make sad men's minds, and are fearful of the shadows. I have onyxes like the eyeballs of a dead woman. I have moonstones that change when the moon changes, and are wan when they see the sun. I have sapphires big like eggs, and as blue as blue flowers. The sea wanders within them and the moon comes never to trouble the blue of their waves. I have chrysolites and beryls and chrysoprases and rubies. I have sardonyx and hyacinth stones, and stones of chalcedony, and I will give them all to you, all, and other things will I add to them. The King of the Indies has but even now sent me four fans fashioned from the feathers of parrots, and the King of Numidia a garment of ostrich feathers. I have a crystal, into which it is not lawful for a woman to look, nor may young men behold it until they have been beaten with rods. In a coffer of nacre I have three wondrous turquoises. He who wears them on his forehead can imagine things which are not, and he who carries them in his hand can make women sterile. These are great treasures above all price. They are treasures without price. But this is not all. In an ebony coffer I have two cups of amber, that are like apples of gold. If an enemy pour poison into these cups, they become like an apple of silver. In a coffer incrusted with amber I have sandals incrusted with glass. I have mantles that have been brought from the land of the Seres, and bracelets decked about with carbuncles and with jade that come from the city of Euphrates...What desirest thou more than this, Salom\u00e9? Tell me the thing that thou desirest, and I will give it thee. All that thou askest I will give thee save one thing. I will give thee all that is mine, save one life. I will give thee the mantle of the high priest. I will give thee the veil of the sanctuary.\n\nTHE JEWS: Oh! Oh!\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Give me the head of Jokanaan.\n\nHEROD ( _sinking back in his seat_ ): Let her be given what she asks! Of a truth she is her mother's child! ( _The_ FIRST SOLDIER _approaches._ HERODIAS _draws from the hand of the_ TETRARCH _the ring of death and gives it to the_ SOLDIER, _who straightway bears it to the_ EXECUTIONER. _The_ EXECUTIONER _looks scared._ ) Who has taken my ring? There was a ring on my right hand. Who has drunk my wine? There was wine in my cup. It was full of wine. Some one has drunk it? Oh! Surely some evil will befall some one. ( _The_ EXECUTIONER _goes down into the cistern._ ) Ah! Wherefore did I give my oath? Kings ought never to pledge their word. If they keep it not, it is terrible, and if they keep it, it is terrible also.\n\nHERODIAS: My daughter has done well.\n\nHEROD: I am sure that some misfortune will happen.\n\nSALOM\u00c9 ( _she leans over the cistern and listens_ ): There is no sound. I hear nothing. Why does he not cry out, this man? Ah! If any man sought to kill me, I would cry out, I would struggle, I would not suffer...Strike, strike, Naaman, strike, I tell you...No, I hear nothing. There is a silence, a terrible silence. Ah! Something has fallen upon the ground. I heard something fall. It is the sword of the headsman. He is afraid, this slave. He has let his sword fall. He dare not kill him. He is a coward, this slave! Let soldiers be sent. ( _She sees the_ PAGE OF HERODIAS _and addresses him._ ) Come hither, thou wert the friend of him who is dead, is it not so? Well, I tell thee, there are not dead men enough. Go to the soldiers and bid them go down and bring me the thing I ask, the thing the Tetrarch has promised me, the thing that is mine. ( _The_ PAGE _recoils. She turns to the_ SOLDIERS.) Hither, ye soldiers. Get ye down into this cistern and bring me the head of this man. ( _The_ SOLDIERS _recoil._ ) Tetrarch, Tetrarch, command your soldiers that they bring me the head of Jokanaan.\n\n_A huge black arm, the arm of the_ EXECUTIONER, _comes forth from the cistern, bearing on a silver shield the head of_ JOKANAAN. SALOM\u00c9 _seizes it._ HEROD _hides his face with his cloak._ HERODIAS _smiles and fans herself. The_ NAZARENES _fall on their knees and begin to pray._\n\nSALOM\u00c9: Ah! Thou wouldst not suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. Well! I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit. Yes, I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. I said it. Did I not say it? I said it. Ah! I will kiss it now...But wherefore dost thou not look at me, Jokanaan? Thine eyes that were so terrible, so full of rage and scorn, are shut now. Wherefore are they shut? Open thine eyes! Lift up thine eyelids, Jokanaan! Wherefore dost thou not look at me? Art thou afraid of me, Jokanaan, that thou wilt not look at me...? And thy tongue, that was like a red snake darting poison, it moves no more, it says nothing now, Jokanaan, that scarlet viper that spat its venom upon me. It is strange, is it not? How is it that the red viper stirs no longer...? Thou wouldst have none of me, Jokanaan. Thou didst reject me. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thou didst treat me as a harlot, as a wanton, me, Salom\u00e9, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judaea! Well, Jokanaan, I still live, but thou, thou art dead, and thy head belongs to me. I can do with it what I will. I can throw it to the dogs and to the birds of the air. That which the dogs leave, the birds of the air shall devour...Ah, Jokanaan, Jokanaan, thou wert the only man that I have loved. All other men are hateful to me. But thou, thou wert beautiful! Thy body was a column of ivory set on a silver socket. It was a garden full of doves and of silver lilies. It was a tower of silver decked with shields of ivory. There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world there was nothing so red as thy mouth. Thy voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on thee I heard a strange music. Ah! Wherefore didst thou not look at me, Jokanaan? Behind thine hands and thy curses thou didst hide thy face. Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him who would see his God. Well, thou hast seen thy God, Jokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou wouldst have loved me. I, I saw thee, Jokanaan, and I loved thee. Oh, how I loved thee! I loved thee yet, Jokanaan, I love thee only...I am athirst for thy beauty; I am hungry for thy body; and neither wine nor fruits can appease my desire. What shall I do now, Jokanaan? Neither the floods nor the great waters can quench my passion. I was a princess, and thou didst scorn me. I was a virgin, and thou didst take my virginity from me. I was chaste, and thou didst fill my veins with fire...Ah! ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me, Jokanaan? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death. Love only should one consider.\n\nHEROD: She is monstrous, thy daughter, she is altogether monstrous. In truth, what she has done is a great crime. I am sure that it was a crime against an unknown God.\n\nHERODIAS: I approve of what my daughter has done. And I will stay here now.\n\nHEROD ( _rising_ ): Ah! There speaks the incestuous wife! Come! I will not stay here. Come, I tell thee. Surely some terrible thing will befall. Manasseth, Issachar, Ozias, put out the torches. I will not look at things, I will not suffer things to look at me. Put out the torches! Hide the moon! Hide the stars! Let us hide ourselves in our palace, Herodias. I begin to be afraid.\n\n_The slaves put out the torches. The stars disappear. The great black cloud crosses the moon and conceals it completely. The stage becomes very dark. The_ TETRARCH _begins to climb the staircase._\n\nTHE VOICE OF SALOM\u00c9: Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan. I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood...? But perchance it is the taste of love...They say that love hath a bitter taste...But what of that? What of that? I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan.\n\n_A moonbeam falls on_ SALOM\u00c9, _covering her with light._\n\nHEROD ( _turning round and seeing_ SALOM\u00c9): Kill that woman!\n\n_The soldiers rush forward and crush beneath their shields_ SALOM\u00c9, _daughter of_ HERODIAS, _Princess of Judaea._\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## The Duchess of Padua\n\n### The Persons of the Play\n\nSIMONE GESSO, Duke of Padua\n\nBEATRICE, his Wife\n\nANDREAS POLLAJUOLO, Cardinal of Padua\n\nMAFFIO PETRUCCI,\n\nJEPPO VITELLOZZO, } Gentlemen of the Duke's Household\n\nTADDEO BARDI,\n\nGUIDO FERRANTI, a Young Man\n\nASCANIO CRISTOFANO, his Friend\n\nCOUNT MORANZONE, an Old Man\n\nBERNARDO CALVALCANTI, Lord Justice of Padua\n\nHUGO, the Headsman\n\nLUCY, a Tire Woman\n\nSERVANTS, CITIZENS, SOLDIERS, MONKS, FALCONERS with their hawks and dogs, etc.\n\n### ACT ONE\n\nSCENE: _The Market Place of Padua at noon._ TIME: _The latter half of sixteenth century. In the background is the great Cathedral of Padua; the architecture is Romanesque, and wrought in black and white marbles; a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door; at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each side of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch; around the fountain is a stone seat; the bell of the Cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children, are passing into the Cathedral._\n\n_Enter_ GUIDO FERRANTI _and_ ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.\n\nASCANIO: Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther; for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; this wild-goose errand of yours! ( _Sits down on the steps of the fountain._ )\n\nGUIDO: I think it must be here. ( _Goes up to passer-by and doffs his cap._ ) Pray, sir, is this the market place, and that the church of Santa Croce? ( _Citizen bows._ ) I thank you, sir.\n\nASCANIO: Well?\n\nGUIDO: Ay! It is here.\n\nASCANIO: I would it were somewhere else, for I see no wine-shop.\n\nGUIDO ( _taking a letter from his pocket and reading it_ ): 'The hour noon; the city, Padua; the place, the market; and the day, Saint Philip's Day.'\n\nASCANIO: And what of the man, how shall we know him?\n\nGUIDO ( _reading still_ ): 'I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder.' A brave attire, Ascanio.\n\nASCANIO: I'd sooner have my leathern jerkin. And you think he will tell you of your father?\n\nGUIDO: Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed 'Your Father's Friend,' bidding me be here to-day if I would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a child in his charge by some one he had never since seen.\n\nASCANIO: And you don't know who your father is?\n\nGUIDO: No.\n\nASCANIO: No recollection of him even?\n\nGUIDO: None, Ascanio, none.\n\nASCANIO ( _laughing_ ): Then he could never have boxed your ears so often as my father did mine.\n\nGUIDO ( _smiling_ ): I am sure you never deserved it.\n\nASCANIO: Never; and that made it worse. I hadn't the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say he fixed?\n\nGUIDO: Noon. ( _Clock in the Cathedral strikes._ )\n\nASCANIO: It is that now, and your man has not come. I don't believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. ( _Rises._ ) By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk's sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come.\n\nGUIDO: Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! ( _Just as he is leaving the stage with_ ASCANIO, _enter_ LORD MORANZONE _in a violet cloak, with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder; he passes across to the Cathedral, and just as he is going in_ GUIDO _runs up and touches him._ )\n\nMORANZONE: Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time.\n\nGUIDO: What! Does my father live?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! Lives in. you.  \nThou art the same in mould and lineament,  \nCarriage and form, and outward semblances;  \nI trust thou art in noble mind the same.\n\nGUIDO: Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived But for this moment.\n\nMORANZONE: We must be alone.\n\nGUIDO: This is my dearest friend, who out of love  \nHas followed me to Padua; as two brothers,  \nThere is no secret which we do not share.\n\nMORANZONE: There is one secret which ye shall not share;  \nBid him go hence.\n\nGUIDO ( _To_ ASCANIO): Come back within the hour.  \nHe does not know that nothing in this world  \nCan dim the perfect mirror of our love.  \nWithin the hour come.\n\nASCANIO: Speak not to him,  \nThere is a dreadful terror in his look.\n\nGUIDO ( _laughing_ ): Nay, nay, I doubt not that he has come to tell,  \nThat I am some great Lord of Italy,  \nAnd we will have long days of joy together.  \nWithin the hour, dear Ascanio.\n\n_Exit_ ASCANIO.\n\nNow tell me of my father? ( _Sits down on a stone seat._ ) Stood he tall?  \nI warrant he looked tall upon his horse.  \nHis hair was black? Or perhaps a reddish gold,  \nLike a red fire of gold? Was his voice low?  \nThe very bravest men have voices sometimes  \nFull of low music; or a clarion was it  \nThat brake with terror all his enemies?  \nDid he ride singly? Or with many squires  \nAnd valiant gentlemen to serve his taste?  \nFor oftentimes methinks I feel my veins  \nBeat with the blood of kings. Was he a king?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay, of all men he was the kingliest.\n\nGUIDO ( _proudly_ ): Then when you saw my noble father last  \nHe was set high above the heads of men?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay, he was high above the heads of men,\n\n_Walks over to_ GUIDO _and puts his hand upon his shoulder._\n\nOn a red scaffold, with a butcher's block  \nSet for his neck.\n\nGUIDO ( _leaping up_ ): What dreadful man art thou,  \nThat like a raven, or the midnight owl,  \nCom'st with this awful message from the grave?\n\nMORANZONE: I am known here as the Count Moranzone,  \nLord of a barren castle on a rock,  \nWith a few acres of unkindly land  \nAnd six not thrifty servants. But I was one  \nOf Parma's noblest princes; more than that,  \nI was your father's friend.\n\nGUIDO ( _clasping his hand_ ): Tell me of him.\n\nMORANZONE: You are the son of that great Duke Lorenzo,  \nWhose banner waved on many a well-fought field  \nAgainst the Saracen, and heretic Turk,  \nHe was the Prince of Parma, and the Duke  \nOf all the fair domains of Lombardy  \nDown to the gates of Florence; nay, Florence even  \nWas wont to pay him tribute \u2013\n\nGUIDO: Come to his death.\n\nMORANZONE: You will hear that soon enough. Being at war \u2013  \nO noble lion of war, that would not suffer  \nInjustice done in Italy \u2013 he led  \nThe very flower of chivalry against  \nThat foul adulterous Lord of Rimini,  \nGiovanni Malatesta \u2013 whom God curse!  \nAnd was by him in treacherous ambush taken,  \nAnd was by him in common fetters bound,  \nAnd like a villain, or a low-born knave,  \nWas by him on the public scaffold murdered.\n\nGUIDO ( _clutching his dagger_ ): Doth Malatesta live?\n\nMORANZONE: No, he is dead.\n\nGUIDO: Did you say dead? O too swift runner, Death,  \nCouldst thou not wait for me a little space,  \nAnd I had done thy bidding!\n\nMORANZONE ( _clutching his wrist_ ): Thou canst do it!  \nThe man who sold thy father is alive.\n\nGUIDO: Sold! Was my father sold?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! Trafficked for,  \nLike a vile chattel, for a price betrayed,  \nBartered and bargained for in privy market  \nBy one whom he had held his perfect friend,  \nOne he had trusted, one he had well loved,  \nOne whom by ties of kindness he had bound \u2013  \nOh! To sow seeds of kindness in this world  \nIs but to reap ingratitude!\n\nGUIDO: And he lives  \nWho sold my father.\n\nMORANZONE: I will bring you to him.\n\nGUIDO: So, Judas, thou art living! Well, I will make  \nThis world thy field of blood, so buy it straightway,  \nFor thou must hang there.\n\nMORANZONE: Judas said you, boy?  \nYes, Judas in his treachery, but still  \nHe was more wise than Judas was, and held  \nThose thirty silver pieces not enough.\n\nGUIDO: What got he for my father's blood?\n\nMORANZONE: What got he?  \nWhy cities, fiefs, and principalities,  \nVineyards, and lands.\n\nGUIDO: Of which he shall but keep  \nSix feet of ground to rot in. Where is he,  \nThis damned villain, this foul devil? Where?  \nShow me the man, and come he cased in steel,  \nIn complete panoply and pride of war,  \nAy, guarded by a thousand men-at-arms,  \nYet I shall reach him through their spears, and feel  \nThe last black drop of blood from his black heart  \nCrawl down my blade. Show me the man, I say,  \nAnd I will kill him.\n\nMORANZONE ( _coldly_ ): Fool, what revenge is there?  \nDeath is the common heritage of all,  \nAnd death comes best when it comes suddenly.\n\n_Goes up close to_ GUIDO.\n\nThy father was betrayed, there is your cue;  \nFor you shall sell the seller in his turn.  \nI will make you of his household, you will sit  \nAt the same board with him, eat of his bread \u2013\n\nGUIDO: O bitter bread!\n\nMORANZONE: Your palate is too nice,  \nRevenge will make it sweet. Thou shalt o' nights  \nPledge him in wine, drink from his cup, and be  \nHis intimate, so he will fawn on thee,  \nLove thee, and trust thee in all secret things.  \nIf he bids thee be merry thou must laugh,  \nAnd if it be his humour to be sad  \nThou shalt don sables. Then when the time is ripe \u2013\n\nGUIDO _clutches his sword._\n\nNay, nay, I trust thee not: your hot young blood,  \nUndisciplined nature, and too violent rage  \nWill never tarry for this great revenge,  \nBut wreck itself on passion.\n\nGUIDO: Thou knowest me not.  \nTell me the man, and I in everything  \nWill do thy bidding.\n\nMORANZONE: Well, when the time is ripe,  \nThe victim trusting and the occasion sure,  \nI will by sudden secret messenger  \nSend thee a sign.\n\nGUIDO: How shall I kill him, tell me?\n\nMORANZONE: That night thou shalt creep into his private chamber; That night remember.\n\nGUIDO: I shall not forget.\n\nMORANZONE: I do not know if guilty people sleep,  \nBut if he sleeps see that you wake him first,  \nAnd hold your hand upon his throat, ay! That way,  \nThen having told him of what blood you are,  \nSprung from what father, and for what revenge,  \nBid him to pray for mercy; when he prays,  \nBid him to set a price upon his life,  \nAnd when he strips himself of all his gold  \nTell him thou needest not gold, and hast not mercy,  \nAnd do thy business straight away. Swear to me  \nYou will not kill him till I bid you do it,  \nOr else I go to mine own house, and leave  \nYou ignorant, and your father unavenged.\n\nGUIDO: Now by my father's sword \u2013\n\nMORANZONE: The common hangman  \nBrake that in sunder in the public square.\n\nGUIDO: Then by my father's grave \u2013\n\nMORANZONE: What grave! What grave?  \nYour noble father lieth in no grave,  \nI saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes  \nWhirled through the windy streets like common straws  \nTo plague a beggar's eyesight, and his head,  \nThat gentle head, set on the prison spike,  \nGirt with the mockery of a paper crown  \nFor the vile rabble in their insolence  \nTo shoot their tongues at.\n\nGUIDO: Was it so indeed?  \nThen by my father's spotless memory,  \nAnd by the shameful manner of his death,  \nAnd by the base betrayal by his friend,  \nFor these at least remain, by these I swear  \nI will not lay my hand upon his life  \nUntil you bid me, then \u2013 God help his soul,  \nFor he shall die as never dog died yet,  \nAnd now, the sign, what is it?\n\nMORANZONE: This dagger, boy;  \nIt was your father's.\n\nGUIDO: O, let me look at it!  \nI do remember now my reputed uncle,  \nThat good old husbandman I left at home,  \nTold me a cloak wrapped round me when a babe  \nBare too much yellow leopards wrought in gold;  \nI like them best in steel, as they are here,  \nThey suit my purpose better. Tell me, sir,  \nHave you no message from my father to me?\n\nMORANZONE: Poor boy, you never saw that noble father,  \nFor when by his false friend he had been sold,  \nAlone of all his gentlemen I escaped  \nTo bear the news to Parma to the Duchess.\n\nGUIDO: Speak to me of my mother.\n\nMORANZONE: When your mother,  \nThan whom no saint in heaven was more pure,  \nHeard my black news, she fell into a swoon,  \nAnd, being with untimely travail seized \u2013  \nIndeed, she was but seven months a bride \u2013  \nBare thee into the world before thy time,  \nAnd then her soul went heavenward, to wait  \nThy father, at the gates of Paradise.\n\nGUIDO: A mother dead, a father sold and bartered!  \nI seem to stand on some beleaguered wall,  \nAnd messenger comes after messenger  \nWith a new tale of terror; give me breath,  \nMine ears are tired.\n\nMORANZONE: When thy mother died,  \nFearing our enemies, I gave it out  \nThou wert dead also, and then privily  \nConveyed thee to an ancient servitor,  \nWho by Perugia lived; the rest thou knowest.\n\nGUIDO: Saw you my father afterwards?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! Once;  \nIn mean attire, like a vineyard dresser,  \nI stole to Rimini.\n\nGUIDO: ( _taking his hand_ ): O generous heart!\n\nMORANZONE: One can buy everything in Rimini,  \nAnd so I bought the gaolers! When your father  \nHeard that a man child had been born to him,  \nHis noble face lit up beneath his helm  \nLike a great fire seen far out at sea,  \nAnd taking my two hands, he bade me, Guido,  \nTo rear you worthy of him, so I have reared you  \nTo revenge his death upon the friend who sold him.\n\nGUIDO: Thou hast done well; I for my father thank you.  \nAnd now his name?\n\nMORANZONE: How you remind me of him,  \nYou have each gesture that your father had.\n\nGUIDO: The traitor's name?\n\nMORANZONE: Thou wilt hear that anon;  \nThe Duke and other nobles at the Court  \nAre coming hither.\n\nGUIDO: What of that? his name?\n\nMORANZONE: Do they not seem a valiant company  \nOf honourable, honest gentlemen?\n\nGUIDO: His name, milord?\n\n_Enter the_ DUKE OF PADUA _with_ COUNT BARDI, MAFFIO, PETRUCCI, _and other gentlemen of his Court._\n\nMORANZONE ( _quickly_ ): The man to whom I kneel  \nIs he who sold your father! Mark me well.\n\nGUIDO ( _clutches his dagger_ ): The Duke!\n\nMORANZONE: Leave off that fingering of thy knife.  \nHast thou so soon forgotten?\n\n_Kneels to the_ DUKE.\n\nMy noble Lord.\n\nDUKE: Welcome, Count Moranzone; 'tis some time  \nSince we have seen you here in Padua.  \nWe hunted near your castle yesterday \u2013  \nCall you it castle? That bleak house of yours  \nWherein you sit a-mumbling o'er your beads,  \nTelling your vices like a good old man.  \nI trust I'll never be a good old man.  \nGod would grow weary if I told my sins.\n\n_Catches sight of_ GUIDO _and starts back._\n\nWho is that?\n\nMORANZONE: My sister's son, your Grace,  \nWho being now of age to carry arms,  \nWould for a season tarry at your Court.\n\nDUKE ( _still looking at_ GUIDO): What is his name?\n\nMORANZONE: Guido Ferranti, sir.\n\nDUKE: His city?\n\nMORANZONE: He is Mantuan by birth.\n\nDUKE ( _advancing towards_ GUIDO): You have the eyes of one I used to know,  \nBut he died childless. So, sir, you would serve me;  \nWell, we lack soldiers; are you honest, boy?  \nThen be not spendthrift of your honesty,  \nBut keep it to yourself; in Padua  \nMen think that honesty is ostentatious, so  \nIt is not of the fashion. Look at these lords  \nSmelling of civet and the pomander box...\n\nCOUNT BARDI ( _aside_ ): Here is some bitter arrow for us, sure.\n\nDUKE: Why, every man among them has his price,  \nAlthough, to do them justice, some of them  \nAre quite expensive.\n\nCOUNT BARDI ( _aside_ ): There it comes indeed.\n\nDUKE: So be not honest: eccentricity  \nIs not a thing should ever be encouraged,  \nAlthough, in this dull stupid age of ours,  \nThe most eccentric thing a man can do  \nIs to have brains, then the mob mocks at him;  \nAnd for the mob, despise it as I do,  \nI hold its bubble praise and windy favours  \nIn such account, that popularity  \nIs the one insult I have never suffered.\n\nMAFFIO ( _aside_ ): He has enough of hate, if he needs that.\n\nDUKE: Have prudence; in your dealings with the world  \nBe not too hasty; act on the second thought,  \nFirst impulses are generally good.\n\nGUIDO ( _aside_ ): Surely a toad sits on his lips, and spills its venom there.\n\nDUKE: See thou hast enemies,  \nElse will the world think very little of thee,  \nIt is its test of power; yet see you show  \nA smiling mask of friendship to all men,  \nUntil you have them safely in your grip,  \nThen you can crush them.\n\nGUIDO ( _aside_ ): O wise philosopher!  \nThat for thyself dost dig so deep a grave.\n\nMORANZONE ( _to him_ ): Dost thou mark his words?\n\nGUIDO: O, be thou sure I do.\n\nDUKE: And be not over-scrupulous; clean hands  \nWith nothing in them make a sorry show.  \nIf you would have the lion's share of life  \nYou must wear the fox's skin; Oh, it will fit you;  \nIt is a coat which fitteth every man,  \nThe fat, the lean, the tall man, and the short,  \nWhoever makes that coat, boy, is a tailor  \nThat never lacks a customer.\n\nGUIDO: Your Grace,  \nI shall remember.\n\nDUKE: That is well, boy, well.  \nI would not have about me shallow fools,  \nWho with mean scruples weigh the gold of life,  \nAnd faltering, paltering, end by failure; failure,  \nThe only crime which I have not committed:  \nI would have _men_ about me. As for conscience,  \nConscience is but the name which cowardice  \nFleeing from battle scrawls upon its shield.  \nYou understand me, boy?\n\nGUIDO: I do, your Grace,  \nAnd will in all things carry out the creed  \nWhich you have taught me.\n\nMAFFIO: I never heard your Grace  \nSo much in the vein for preaching; let the Cardinal  \nLook to his laurels, sir.\n\nDUKE: The Cardinal!  \nMen follow my creed, and they gabble his.  \nI do not think much of the Cardinal;  \nAlthough he is a holy churchman, and  \nI quite admit his dulness. Well, sir, from now  \nWe count you of our household.\n\n_He holds out his hand for_ GUIDO _to kiss._ GUIDO _starts back in horror, but at a gesture from_ COUNT MORANZONE, _kneels and kisses it._\n\nWe will see  \nThat you are furnished with such equipage  \nAs doth befit your honour and our state.\n\nGUIDO: I thank your Grace most heartily.\n\nDUKE: Tell me again  \nWhat is your name?\n\nGUIDO: Guido Ferranti, sir.\n\nDUKE: And you are Mantuan? Look to your wives, my lords,  \nWhen such a gallant comes to Padua.  \nThou dost well to laugh, Count Bardi; I have noted  \nHow merry is that husband by whose hearth  \nSits an uncomely wife.\n\nMAFFIO: May it please your Grace,  \nThe wives of Padua are above suspicion.\n\nDUKE: What, are they so ill-favoured! Let us go,  \nThis Cardinal detains our pious Duchess;  \nHis sermon and his beard want cutting both:  \nWill you come with us, sir, and hear a text  \nFrom holy Jerome?\n\nMORANZONE ( _bowing_ ): My liege, there are some matters \u2013\n\nDUKE ( _interrupting_ ): Thou need'st make no excuse for missing mass. Come, gentlemen.\n\n_Exit with his suite into Cathedral._\n\nGUIDO ( _after a pause_ ): So the Duke sold my father;  \nI kissed his hand.\n\nMORANZONE: Thou shalt do that many times.\n\nGUIDO: Must it be so?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! Thou hast sworn an oath.\n\nGUIDO: That oath shall make me marble.\n\nMORANZONE: Farewell, boy,  \nThou wilt not see me till the time is ripe.\n\nGUIDO: I pray thou comest quickly.\n\nMORANZONE: I will come  \nWhen it is time; be ready.\n\nGUIDO: Fear me not.\n\nMORANZONE: Here is your friend; see that you banish him  \nBoth from your heart and Padua.\n\nGUIDO: From Padua,  \nNot from my heart.\n\nMORANZONE: Nay, from thy heart as well,  \nI will not leave thee till I see thee do it.\n\nGUIDO: Can I have no friend?\n\nMORANZONE: Revenge shall be thy friend,  \nThou need'st no other.\n\nGUIDO: Well, then be it so.\n\n_Enter_ ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.\n\nASCANIO: Come, Guido, I have been beforehand with you in everything, for I have drunk a flagon of wine, eaten a pasty, and kissed the maid who served it. Why, you look as melancholy as a schoolboy who cannot buy apples, or a politician who cannot sell his vote. What news, Guido, what news?\n\nGUIDO: Why, that we two must part, ASCANIO.\n\nASCANIO: That would be news indeed, but it is not true.\n\nGUIDO: Too true it is, you must get hence, Ascanio, And never look upon my face again.\n\nASCANIO: No, no; indeed you do not know me, Guido;  \n'Tis true I am a common yeoman's son,  \nNor versed in fashions of much courtesy;  \nBut, if you are nobly born, cannot I be  \nYour serving man? I will tend you with more love  \nThan any hired servant.\n\nGUIDO ( _clasping his hand_ ): Ascanio!\n\n_Sees_ MORANZONE _looking at him and drops_ ASCANIO'S _hand._\n\nIt cannot be.\n\nASCANIO: What, is it so with you?  \nI thought the friendship of the antique world  \nWas not yet dead, but that the Roman type  \nMight even in this poor and common age  \nFind counterparts of love; then by this love  \nWhich beats between us like a summer sea,  \nWhatever lot has fallen to your hand  \nMay I not share it?\n\nGUIDO: Share it?\n\nASCANIO: Ay!\n\nGUIDO: No, no.\n\nASCANIO: Have you then come to some inheritance  \nOf lordly castle, or of stored-up gold?\n\nGUIDO ( _bitterly_ ): Ay! I have come to my inheritance.  \nO bloody legacy! And O murderous dole!  \nWhich, like the thrifty miser, must I hoard,  \nAnd to my own self keep; and so, I pray you,  \nLet us part here.\n\nASCANIO: What, shall we never more  \nSit hand in hand, as we were wont to sit,  \nOver some book of ancient chivalry  \nStealing a truant holiday from school,  \nFollow the huntsmen through the autumn woods,  \nAnd watch the falcons burst their tasselled jesses,  \nWhen the hare breaks from covert.\n\nGUIDO: Never more.\n\nASCANIO: Must I go hence without a word of love?\n\nGUIDO: You must go hence, and may love go with you.\n\nASCANIO: You are unknightly, and ungenerous.\n\nGUIDO: Unknightly and ungenerous if you will.  \nWhy should we waste more words about the matter!  \nLet us part now.\n\nASCANIO: Have you no message, Guido?\n\nGUIDO: None; my whole past was but a schoolboy's dream, To-day my life begins. Farewell.\n\nASCANIO: Farewell ( _exit slowly_ ).\n\nGUIDO: Now are you satisfied? Have you not seen  \nMy dearest friend, and my most loved companion,  \nThrust from me like a common kitchen knave!  \nOh, that I did it! Are you not satisfied?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! I am satisfied. Now I go hence,  \nBack to my lonely castle on the hill.  \nDo not forget the sign, your father's dagger,  \nAnd do the business when I send it to you.\n\nGUIDO: Be sure I shall.\n\n_Exit_ LORD MORANZONE.\n\nGUIDO: O thou eternal heaven!  \nIf there is aught of nature in my soul,  \nOf gentle pity, or fond kindliness,  \nWither it up, blast it, bring it to nothing,  \nOr if thou wilt not, then will I myself  \nCut pity with a sharp knife from my heart  \nAnd strangle mercy in her sleep at night  \nLest she speak to me. Vengeance there I have it.  \nBe thou my comrade and my bedfellow,  \nSit by my side, ride to the chase with me,  \nWhen I am weary sing me pretty songs,  \nWhen I am light o' heart, make jest with me,  \nAnd when I dream, whisper into my ear  \nThe dreadful secret of a father's murder \u2013  \nDid I say murder?\n\n_Draws his dagger._\n\nListen, thou terrible God!  \nThou God that punishest all broken oaths,  \nAnd bid some angel write this oath in fire,  \nThat from this hour, till my dear father's murder  \nIn blood I have revenged, I do forswear  \nThe noble ties of honourable friendship,  \nThe noble joys of dear companionship,  \nAffection's bonds, and loyal gratitude,  \nAy, more, from this same hour I do forswear  \nAll love of women, and the barren thing  \nWhich men call beauty \u2013\n\n_The organ peals in the Cathedral, and under a canopy of cloth of silver tissue_ , _borne by four pages in scarlet, the_ DUCHESS OF PADUA _comes down the steps; as she passes across their eyes meet for a moment, and as she leaves the stage she looks back at_ GUIDO, _and the dagger falls from his hand._\n\nOh! Who is that?\n\nA CITIZEN: The Duchess of Padua!\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _A state room in the Ducal Palace, hung with tapestries representing the Masque of Venus; a large door in the centre opens into a corridor of red marble, through which one can see a view of Padua; a large canopy is set (R.C.) with three thrones, one a little lower than the others; the ceiling is made of long gilded beams; furniture of the period, chairs covered with gilt leather, and buffets set with gold and silver plate, and chests painted with mythological scenes. A number of the courtiers are out on the corridor looking from it down into the street below; from the street comes the roar of a mob and cries of 'Death to the Duke': after a little interval enter the_ DUKE _very calmly, he is leaning on the arm of_ GUIDO FERRANTI; _with him enters also the_ LORD CARDINAL; _the mob still shouting._\n\nDUKE: No, my Lord Cardinal, I weary of her!  \nWhy, she is worse than ugly, she is good.\n\nMAFFIO ( _excitedly_ ): Your Grace, there are two thousand people there Who every moment grow more clamorous.\n\nDUKE: Tut, man, they waste their strength upon their lungs!  \nPeople who shout so loud, my lords, do nothing,  \nThe only men I fear are silent men. ( _A yell from the people._ )  \nYou see, Lord Cardinal, how my people love me,  \nThis is their serenade, I like it better  \nThan the soft murmurs of the amorous lute;  \nIs it not sweet to listen to? ( _Another yell._ )\n\nI fear\n\nThey have become a little out of tune,  \nSo I must tell my men to fire on them.  \nI cannot bear bad music! Go, Petrucci,  \nAnd tell the captain of the guard below  \nTo clear the square. Do you not hear me, sir?  \nDo what I bid you.\n\n_Exit_ PETRUCCI.\n\nCARDINAL : I beseech your Grace  \nTo listen to their grievances.\n\nDUKE ( _sitting on his throne_ ): Ay! The peaches  \nAre not so big this year as they were last.  \nI crave your pardon, my Lord Cardinal,  \nI thought you spake of peaches.\n\n_A cheer from the people._\n\nWhat is that?\n\nGUIDO ( _rushes to the window_ ): The Duchess has gone forth into the square,  \nAnd stands between the people and the guard,  \nAnd will not let them shoot.\n\nDUKE: The devil take her!\n\nGUIDO ( _still at the window_ ): And followed by a dozen of the citizens Has come into the Palace.\n\nDUKE ( _starting up_ ): By Saint James,  \nOur Duchess waxes bold!\n\nBARDI: Here comes the Duchess.\n\nDUKE: Shut that door there; this morning air is cold.\n\n_They close the door on the corridor._  \n_Enter the_ DUCHESS _followed by a crowd of meanly dressed Citizens._\n\nDUCHESS ( _flinging herself upon her knees_ ): I do beseech your Grace to give us audience.\n\nDUKE: Am I a tailor, Madame, that you come With such a ragged retinue before us?\n\nDUCHESS: I think that their rags speak their grievances With better eloquence than I can speak.\n\nDUKE: What are these grievances?\n\nDUCHESS: Alas, my Lord,  \nSuch common things as neither you nor I,  \nNor any of these noble gentlemen,  \nHave ever need at all to think about;  \nThey say the bread, the very bread they eat,  \nIs made of sorry chaff.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Ay! So it is,  \nNothing but chaff.\n\nDUKE: And very good food too,  \nI give it to my horses.\n\nDUCHESS ( _restraining herself_ ): They say the water,  \nSet in the public cisterns for their use,  \nHas, through the breaking of the aqueduct,  \nTo stagnant pools and muddy puddles turned.\n\nDUKE: They should drink wine; water is quite unwholesome.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Alack, your Grace, the taxes which the customs  \nTake at the city gate are grown so high  \nWe cannot buy wine.\n\nDUKE: Then you should bless the taxes  \nWhich make you temperate.\n\nDUCHESS: Think, while we sit  \nIn gorgeous pomp and state and nothing lack  \nOf all that wealth and luxury can give  \nAnd many servants have to wait upon us  \nAnd tend our meanest need, gaunt poverty  \nCreeps through their sunless lanes, and with sharp knives  \nCuts the warm throats of children stealthily  \nAnd no word said.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Ay! Marry, that is true,  \nMy little son died yesternight from hunger,  \nHe was but six years old; I am so poor,  \nI cannot bury him.\n\nDUKE: If you are poor,  \nAre you not blessed in that? Why, poverty  \nIs one of the Christian virtues,\n\n_Turns to the_ CARDINAL.\n\nIs it not?  \nI know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,  \nRich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates  \nFor preaching voluntary poverty.\n\nDUCHESS: Nay but, my lord the Duke, be generous;  \nWhile we sit here within a noble house  \nWith shaded porticoes against the sun,  \nAnd walls and roofs to keep the winter out,  \nThere are many citizens of Padua  \nWho in vile tenements live so full of holes,  \nThat the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,  \nAre tenant also with them; others sleep  \nUnder the arches of the public bridges  \nAll through the autumn nights, till the wet mist  \nStiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so \u2013\n\nDUKE: And so they go to Abraham's bosom, Madam.  \nThey should thank me for sending them to Heaven,  \nIf they are wretched here.\n\n_To the_ Cardinal.\n\nIs it not said  \nSomewhere in Holy Writ, that every man  \nShould be contented with that state of life  \nGod calls him to? Why should I change their state,  \nOr meddle with an all-wise providence,  \nWhich has apportioned that some men should starve  \nAnd others surfeit? I did not make the world.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: He hath a hard heart.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Nay, be silent, neighbour;  \nI think the Cardinal will speak for us.\n\nCARDINAL: True, it is Christian to bear misery,  \nFor out of misery God bringeth good,  \nYet it is Christian also to be kind,  \nTo feed the hungry, and to heal the sick,  \nAnd there seem many evils in this town,  \nWhich in your wisdom might your Grace reform.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: What is that word reform? What does it mean?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Marry, it means leaving things as they are; I like it not.\n\nDUKE: Reform, Lord Cardinal, did _you_ say reform?  \nThere is a man in Germany called Luther,  \nWho would reform the Holy Catholic Church.  \nHave you not made him heretic, and uttered  \nAnathema, maranatha, against him?\n\nCARDINAL ( _rising from his seat_ ): He would have led the sheep out of the fold,  \nWe do but ask of you to feed the sheep.\n\nDUKE: When I have shorn their fleeces I may feed them.  \nAs for these rebels \u2013\n\nDUCHESS _entreats him._\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: That is a kind word,  \nHe means to give us something.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Is that so?\n\nDUKE: These ragged knaves who come before us here,  \nWith mouths chock-full of treason.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Good my Lord,  \nFill up our mouths with bread; we'll hold our tongues.\n\nDUKE: Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve or not.  \nMy lords, this age is so familiar grown,  \nThat the low peasant hardly doffs his hat,  \nUnless you beat him; and the raw mechanic  \nElbows the noble in the public streets,  \nAs for this rabble here, I am their scourge,  \nAnd sent by God to lash them for their sins.\n\nDUCHESS: Hast thou the right? Art thou so free from sin?\n\nDUKE: When sin is lashed by virtue it is nothing,  \nBut when sin lashes sin then is God glad.\n\nDUCHESS: Oh, are you not afraid?\n\nDUKE: What have I to fear?  \nBeing man's enemy am I not God's friend?\n\n_To the_ CITIZENS.\n\nWell, my good loyal citizens of Padua,  \nStill as our gentle Duchess has so prayed us,  \nAnd to refuse so beautiful a beggar  \nWere to lack both courtesy and love,  \nTouching your grievances, I promise this \u2013\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Marry, he will lighten the taxes!\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Or a dole of bread, think you, for each man?\n\nDUKE: That, on next Sunday, the Lord Cardinal  \nShall, after Holy Mass, preach you a sermon  \nUpon the Beauty of Obedience.\n\nCITIZENS _murmur._\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: I' faith, that will not fill our stomachs!\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: A sermon is but a sorry sauce, when You have nothing to eat with it.\n\nDUCHESS: Poor people,  \nYou see I have no power with the Duke,  \nBut if you go into the court without,  \nMy almoner shall from my private purse,  \nWhich is not ever too well stuffed with gold,  \nDivide a hundred ducats 'mongst you all.\n\nALMONER: Your grace has but a hundred ducats left.\n\nDUCHESS: Give what I have.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: God save the Duchess, say I.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: God save her.\n\nDUCHESS: And every Monday morn shall bread be set For those who lack it.\n\nCITIZENS _applaud and go out._\n\nFIRST CITIZEN ( _going out_ ): Why, God save the Duchess again!\n\nDUKE ( _calling him back_ ): Come hither, fellow! What is your name?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Dominick, sir.\n\nDUKE: A good name! Why were you called Dominick?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN ( _scratching his head_ ): Marry, because I was born on Saint George's day.\n\nDUKE: A good reason! Here is a ducat for you!  \nWill you not cry for me God save the Duke?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN ( _feebly_ ): God save the Duke.\n\nDUKE: Nay! Louder, fellow, louder.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN ( _a little louder_ ): God save the Duke!\n\nDUKE: More lustily, fellow, put more heart in it!  \nHere is another ducat for you.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN ( _enthusiastically_ ): God save the Duke!\n\nDUKE ( _mockingly_ ): Why, gentlemen, this simple fellow's love  \nTouches me much. _To the_ CITIZEN, _harshly._ Go!\n\n_Exit_ CITIZEN, _bowing._\n\nThis is the way, my lords,  \nYou can buy popularity nowadays.  \nOh, we are nothing if not democratic!\n\n_To the_ DUCHESS.\n\nSo. Well, Madam,  \nYou spread rebellion 'midst our citizens  \nAnd by your doles and daily charities,  \nHave made the common people love you. Well,  \nI will not have you loved.\n\nDUCHESS ( _looking at_ GUIDO): Indeed, my lord,  \nI am not.\n\nDUKE: And I will not have you give Bread to the poor merely because they are hungry.\n\nDUCHESS: My Lord, the poor have rights you cannot touch, The right to pity, and the right to mercy.\n\nDUKE: So, so, you argue with me? This is she,  \nThe gentle Duchess for whose hand I yielded  \nThree of the fairest towns in Italy,  \nPisa, and Genoa, and Orvieto.\n\nDUCHESS: Promised, my Lord, not yielded: in that matter Brake you your word as ever.\n\nDUKE: You wrong us, Madam, There were state reasons.\n\nDUCHESS: What state reasons are there For breaking holy promises to a state?\n\nDUKE: There are wild boars at Pisa in a forest  \nClose to the city: when I promised Pisa  \nUnto your noble and most trusting father,  \nI had forgotten there was hunting there.\n\nDUCHESS: Those who forget what honour is, forget All things, my Lord.\n\nDUKE: At Genoa they say,  \nIndeed I doubt them not, that the red mullet  \nRuns larger in the harbour of that town  \nThan anywhere in Italy.\n\n_Turning to one of the Court._\n\nYou, my lord,  \nWhose gluttonous appetite is your only god,  \nCould satisfy our Duchess on that point.\n\nDUCHESS: And Orvieto?\n\nDUKE ( _yawning_ ): I cannot now recall  \nWhy I did not surrender Orvieto  \nAccording to the word of my contract.  \nMaybe it was because I did not choose.\n\n_Goes over to the_ DUCHESS.\n\nWhy look you, Madam, you are here alone;  \n'Tis many a dusty league to your grey France,  \nAnd even there your father barely keeps  \nA hundred ragged squires for his Court.  \nWhat hope have you, I say? Which of these lords  \nAnd noble gentlemen of Padua  \nStands by thy side.\n\nDUCHESS: There is not one.\n\nGUIDO _starts, but restrains himself._\n\nDUKE: Nor shall be.  \nWhile I am Duke in Padua: listen, Madam,  \nI am grown weary of your airs and graces,  \nBeing mine own, you shall do as I will,  \nAnd if it be my will you keep the house,  \nWhy then, this palace shall your prison be;  \nAnd if it be my will you walk abroad,  \nWhy, you shall take the air from morn to night.\n\nDUCHESS: Sir, by what right \u2013 ?\n\nDUKE: Madam, my second Duchess  \nAsked the same question once: her monument  \nLies in the chapel of Bartholomew.  \nWrought in red marble; very beautiful.  \nGuido, your arm. Come, gentlemen, let us go  \nAnd spur our falcons for the mid-day chase.  \nBethink you, Madam, you are here alone.\n\n_Exit the_ DUKE _leaning on_ GUIDO, _with his Court._\n\nDUCHESS ( _looking after them_ ): Is it not strange that one who seems so fair  \nShould thus affect the Duke, hang on each word  \nWhich falls like poison from those cruel lips,  \nAnd never leave his side, as though he loved him?  \nWell, well, it makes no matter unto me,  \nI am alone, and out of reach of love.  \nThe Duke said rightly that I was alone;  \nDeserted, and dishonoured, and defamed,  \nStood ever woman so alone indeed?  \nMen when they woo us call us pretty children,  \nTell us we have not wit to make our lives,  \nAnd so they mar them for us. Did I say woo?  \nWe are their chattels, and their common slaves,  \nLess dear than the poor hound that licks their hand,  \nLess fondled than the hawk upon their wrist.  \nWoo, did I say? Bought rather, sold and bartered,  \nOur very bodies being merchandise.  \nI know it is the general lot of women,  \nEach miserably mated to some man  \nWrecks her own life upon his selfishness:  \nThat it is general makes it not less bitter.  \nI think I never heard a woman laugh,  \nLaugh for pure merriment, except one woman,  \nThat was at night time, in the public streets.  \nPoor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore  \nThe mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her;  \nNo, death were better.\n\n_Enter_ GUIDO _behind unobserved; the_ DUCHESS _flings herself down before a picture of the Madonna._\n\nO, Mary mother, with your sweet pale face  \nBending between the little angel heads  \nThat hover round you, have you no help for me?  \nMother of God, have you no help for me?\n\nGUIDO: I can endure no longer.  \nThis is my love, and I will speak to her.  \nLady, am I a stranger to your prayers?\n\nDUCHESS ( _rising_ ): None but the wretched need my prayers, my lord.\n\nGUIDO: Then must I need them, lady.\n\nDUCHESS: How is that?  \nDoes not the Duke show thee sufficient honour,  \nOr dost thou lack advancement at the Court?  \nAh, sir, that lies not in my power to give you,  \nBeing my own self held of no account.\n\nGUIDO: Your Grace, I lack no favours from the Duke,  \nWhom my soul loathes as I loathe wickedness,  \nBut come to proffer on my bended knees,  \nMy loyal service to thee unto death.\n\nDUCHESS: Alas! I am so fallen in estate  \nI can but give thee a poor meed of thanks.\n\nGUIDO ( _seizing her hand_ ): Hast thou no love to give me?\n\n_The_ DUCHESS _starts, and_ GUIDO _falls at her feet._\n\nO dear saint,  \nIf I have been too daring, pardon me!  \nThy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame,  \nAnd, when my reverent lips touch thy white hand,  \nEach little nerve with such wild passion thrills  \nThat there is nothing which I would not do  \nTo gain thy love.\n\n_Leaps up._\n\nBid me reach forth and pluck  \nPerilous honour from the lion's jaws,  \nAnd I will wrestle with the Nemean beast  \nOn the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War  \nA gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something  \nThat once has touched thee, and I'll bring it back  \nThough all the hosts of Christendom were there,  \nInviolate again! Ay, more than this,  \nSet me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs  \nOf mighty England, and from that arrogant shield  \nWill I raze out the lilies of your France  \nWhich England, that sea-lion of the sea,  \nHath taken from her!\n\nO dear Beatrice,  \nDrive me not from thy presence! Without thee  \nThe heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead,  \nBut, while I look upon thy loveliness,  \nThe hours fly like winged Mercuries  \nAnd leave existence golden.\n\nDUCHESS: I did not think  \nI would be ever loved; do you indeed  \nLove me so much as now you say you do?\n\nGUIDO: Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea,  \nAsk of the roses if they love the rain,  \nAsk of the little lark, that will not sing  \nTill day break, if it loves to see the day: \u2013  \nAnd yet, these are but empty images,  \nMere shadows of my love, which is a fire  \nSo great that all the waters of the main  \nCan not avail to quench it. Will you not speak?\n\nDUCHESS: I hardly know what I should say to you.\n\nGUIDO: Will you not say you love me?\n\nDUCHESS: Is that my lesson?  \nMust I say all at once? 'Twere a good lesson  \nIf I did love you, sir; but, if I do not,  \nWhat shall I say then?\n\nGUIDO: If you do not love me,  \nSay, none the less, you do, for on your tongue  \nFalsehood for very shame would turn to truth.\n\nDUCHESS: What if I do not speak at all? They say  \nLovers are happiest when they are in doubt.\n\nGUIDO: Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die,  \nWhy, let me die for joy and not for doubt.  \nO tell me may I stay, or must I go?\n\nDUCHESS: I would not have you either stay or go;  \nFor if you stay you steal my love from me,  \nAnd if you go you take my love away.  \nGuido, though all the morning stars could sing  \nThey could not tell the measures of my love.  \nI love you, Guido.\n\nGUIDO ( _stretching out his hands_ ): Oh, do not cease at all;  \nI thought the nightingale sang but at night;  \nOr if thou needst must cease, then let my lips  \nTouch the sweet lips that can such music make.\n\nDUCHESS: To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.\n\nGUIDO: Do you close that against me?\n\nDUCHESS: Alas! My lord,  \nI have it not: the first day that I saw you  \nI let you take my heart away from me;  \nUnwilling thief, that without meaning it  \nDidst break into my fenced treasury  \nAnd filch my jewel from it! O strange theft,  \nWhich made you richer though you knew it not,  \nAnd left me poorer, and yet glad of it!\n\nGUIDO ( _clasping her in his arms_ ): O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up your head.  \nLet me unlock those little scarlet doors  \nThat shut in music, let me dive for coral  \nIn your red lips, and I'll bear back a prize  \nRicher than all the gold the Griffin guards  \nIn rude Armenia.\n\nDUCHESS: You are my lord,  \nAnd what I have is yours, and what I have not  \nYour fancy lends me, like a prodigal  \nSpending its wealth on what is nothing worth. ( _Kisses him._ )\n\nGUIDO: Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:  \nThe gentle violet hides beneath its leaf  \nAnd is afraid to look at the great sun  \nFor fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,  \nO daring eyes! Are grown so venturous  \nThat like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,  \nAnd surfeit sense with beauty.\n\nDUCHESS: Dear love, I would  \nYou could look upon me for ever, for your eyes  \nAre polished mirrors, and when I peer  \nInto those mirrors I can see myself,  \nAnd so I know my image lives in you.\n\nGUIDO ( _taking her in his arms_ ): Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens,  \nAnd make this hour immortal! ( _A pause_ ).\n\nDUCHESS: Sit down here,  \nA little lower than me; yes, just so, sweet,  \nThat I may run my fingers through your hair,  \nAnd see your face turn upwards like a flower  \nTo meet my kiss.\n\nHave you not sometimes noted,  \nWhen we unlock some long disused room  \nWith heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,  \nWhere never foot of man has come for years,  \nAnd from the windows take the rusty bar,  \nAnd fling the broken shutters to the air,  \nAnd let the bright sun in, how the good sun  \nTurns every grimy particle of dust  \nInto a little thing of dancing gold?  \nGuido, my heart is that long-empty room,  \nBut you have let love in, and with its gold  \nGilded all life. Do you not think that love  \nFills up the sum of life?\n\nGUIDO: Ay! Without love  \nLife is no better than the unhewn stone  \nWhich in the quarry lies, before the sculptor  \nHas set the God within it. Without love  \nLife is as silent as the common reeds  \nThat through the marshes or by rivers grow,  \nAnd have no music in them.\n\nDUCHESS: Yet out of these  \nThe singer, who is Love, will make a pipe  \nAnd from them he draws music; so I think  \nLove will bring music out of any life.  \nIs that not true?\n\nGUIDO: Sweet, women make it true.  \nThere are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,  \nPaul of Verona and the dyer's son,  \nOr their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,  \nHas set God's little maid upon the stair,  \nWhite as her own white lily, and as tall,  \nOr Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine  \nBecause they are mothers merely; yet I think  \nWomen are the best artists of the world,  \nFor they can take the common lives of men  \nSoiled with the money-getting of our age,  \nAnd with love make them beautiful.\n\nDUCHESS: Ah, dear,  \nI wish that you and I were very poor;  \nThe poor, who love each other, are so rich.\n\nGUIDO: Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.\n\nDUCHESS ( _fingering his collar_ ): How well this collar lies about your throat.\n\nLORD MORANZONE _looks through the door from the corridor outside._\n\nGUIDO: Nay, tell me that you love me.\n\nDUCHESS: I remember,  \nThat when I was a child in my dear France,  \nBeing at Court at Fontainebleau, the King  \nWore such a collar.\n\nGUIDO: Will you not say you love me?\n\nDUCHESS ( _smiling_ ): He was a very royal man, King Francis,  \nYet he was not royal as you are.  \nWhy need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?\n\n_Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her._\n\nDo you not know that I am yours for ever,  \nBody and soul.\n\n_Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of_ MORANZONE _and leaps up._\n\nOh, what is that?\n\nMORANZONE _disappears._\n\nGUIDO: What, love?\n\nDUCHESS: Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame Look at us through the doorway.\n\nGUIDO: Nay, 'twas nothing: The passing shadow of the man on guard.\n\n_The_ DUCHESS _still stands looking at the window._\n\n'Twas nothing, sweet.\n\nDUCHESS: Ay! What can harm us now,  \nWho are in Love's land? I do not think I'd care  \nThough the vile world should with its lackey Slander  \nTrample and tread upon my life; why should I?  \nThey say the common field-flowers of the field  \nHave sweeter scent when they are trodden on  \nThan when they bloom alone, and that some herbs  \nWhich have no perfume, on being bruised die  \nWith all Arabia round them; so it is  \nWith the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,  \nIt does but bring the sweetness out of them,  \nAnd makes them lovelier often. And besides,  \nWhile we have love we have the best of life:  \nIs it not so?\n\nGUIDO: Dear, shall we play or sing?  \nI think that I could sing now.\n\nDUCHESS: Do not speak,  \nFor there are times when all existences  \nSeem narrowed to one single ecstasy,  \nAnd Passion sets a seal upon the lips.\n\nGUIDO: Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!  \nYou love me, Beatrice?\n\nDUCHESS: Ay! Is it not strange  \nI should so love mine enemy?\n\nGUIDO: Who is he?\n\nDUCHESS: Why, you: that with your shaft didst pierce my heart!  \nPoor heart, that lived its little lonely life  \nUntil it met your arrow.\n\nGUIDO: Ah, dear love,  \nI am so wounded by that bolt myself  \nThat with untended wounds I lie a-dying,  \nUnless you cure me, dear Physician.\n\nDUCHESS: I would not have you cured; for I am sick  \nWith the same malady.\n\nGUIDO: Oh how I love you!  \nSee, I must steal the cuckoo's voice, and tell  \nThe one tale over.\n\nDUCHESS: Tell no other tale!  \nFor, if that is the little cuckoo's song,  \nThe nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark  \nHas lost its music.\n\nGUIDO: Kiss me, Beatrice!\n\n_She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and_ GUIDO _leaps up; enter a_ SERVANT.\n\nSERVANT: A package for you, sir.\n\nGUIDO ( _carelessly_ ): Ah! Give it to me.\n\nSERVANT _hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as_ GUIDO _is about to open it the_ DUCHESS _comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him._\n\nDUCHESS ( _laughing_ ): Now I will wager it is from some girl  \nWho would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous  \nI will not give up the least part in you,  \nBut like a miser keep you to myself,  \nAnd spoil you perhaps in keeping.\n\nGUIDO: It is nothing\n\nDUCHESS: Nay, it is from some girl.\n\nGUIDO: You know 'tis not.\n\nDUCHESS ( _turns her back and opens it_ ): Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,  \nA dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?\n\nGUIDO ( _taking it from her_ ): O God!\n\nDUCHESS: I'll from the window look, and try  \nIf I can'st see the porter's livery  \nWho left it at the gate? I will not rest  \nTill I have learned your secret.\n\n_Runs laughing into the corridor._\n\nGUIDO: Oh, horrible!  \nHad I so soon forgot my father's death,  \nDid I so soon let love into my heart,  \nAnd must I banish love, and let in murder  \nThat beats and clamours at the outer gate?  \nAy, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?  \nYet not to-night; nay, it must be to-night.  \nFarewell then all the joy and light of life,  \nAll dear recorded memories, farewell,  \nFarewell all love! Could I with bloody hands  \nFondle and paddle with her innocent hands?  \nCould I with lips fresh from this butchery  \nPlay with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes  \nLook in those violet eyes, whose purity  \nWould strike mine blind, and make each eyeball reel  \nIn night perpetual? No, murder has set  \nA barrier between us far too high  \nFor us to kiss across it.\n\nDUCHESS: Guido!\n\nGUIDO: Beatrice,  \nYou must forget that name, and banish me  \nOut of your life for ever.\n\nDUCHESS ( _going towards him_ ): O dear love!\n\nGUIDO ( _stepping back_ ): There lies a barrier between us two We dare not pass.\n\nDUCHESS: I dare do anything  \nSo that you are beside me.\n\nGUIDO: Ah! There it is,  \nI cannot be beside you, cannot breathe  \nThe air you breathe; I cannot any more  \nStand face to face with beauty, which unnerves  \nMy shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand  \nFail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;  \nForget you ever looked upon me.\n\nDUCHESS: What!  \nWith your hot kisses fresh upon my lips  \nForget the vows of love you made to me?\n\nGUIDO: I take them back!\n\nDUCHESS: Alas, you cannot, Guido,  \nFor they are part of nature now; the air  \nIs tremulous with their music, and outside  \nThe little birds sing sweeter for those vows.\n\nGUIDO: There lies a barrier between us now,  \nWhich then I knew not, or I had forgot.\n\nDUCHESS: There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go  \nIn poor attire, and will follow you  \nOver the world.\n\nGUIDO ( _wildly_ ): The world's not wide enough  \nTo hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.\n\nDUCHESS ( _calm, and controlling her passion_ ): Why did you come into my life at all, then,  \nOr in the desolate garden of my heart  \nSow that white flower of love \u2013 ?\n\nGUIDO: O Beatrice!\n\nDUCHESS: Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,  \nThough each small fibre doth so hold my heart  \nThat if you break one, my heart breaks with it?  \nWhy did you come into my life? Why open  \nThe secret wells of love I had sealed up?  \nWhy did you open them \u2013?\n\nGUIDO: O God!\n\nDUCHESS ( _clenching her hand_ ): And let  \nThe floodgates of my passion swell and burst  \nTill, like the wave when rivers overflow  \nThat sweeps the forest and the farm away,  \nLove in the splendid avalanche of its might  \nSwept my life with it? Must I drop by drop  \nGather these waters back and seal them up?  \nAlas! Each drop will be a tear, and so  \nWill with its saltness make life very bitter.\n\nGUIDO: I pray you speak no more, for I must go  \nForth from your life and love, and make a way  \nOn which you cannot follow.\n\nDUCHESS: I have heard  \nThat sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,  \nPoor castaways upon a lonely sea,  \nDream of green fields and pleasant water-courses,  \nAnd then wake up with red thirst in their throats,  \nAnd die more miserably because sleep  \nHas cheated them: so they die cursing sleep  \nFor having sent them dreams; I will not curse you  \nThough I am cast away upon the sea  \nWhich men call Desolation.\n\nGUIDO: O God, God!\n\nDUCHESS: But you will stay: listen, I love you, Guido.\n\n_She waits a little._\n\nIs echo dead, that when I say I love you  \nThere is no answer?\n\nGUIDO: Everything is dead,  \nSave one thing only, which shall die to-night!\n\nDUCHESS: Then I must train my lips to say farewell,  \nAnd yet I think they will not learn that lesson,  \nFor when I shape them for such utterance  \nThey do but say I love you: must I chide them?  \nAnd if so, can my lips chide one another?  \nAlas, they both are guilty, and refuse  \nTo say the word.\n\nGUIDO: Then I must say it for them,  \nFarewell, we two can never meet again.\n\n_Rushes towards her._\n\nDUCHESS: If you are going, touch me not, but go.\n\n_Exit_ GUIDO.\n\nNever again, did he say never again?  \nWell, well, I know my business! I will change  \nThe torch of love into a funeral torch,  \nAnd with the flowers of love will strew my bier,  \nAnd from love's songs will make a dirge, and so  \nDie, as the swan dies, singing.\n\nO misery,  \nIf thou wert so enamoured of my life,  \nWhy couldst thou not some other form have borne?  \nThe mask of pain, and not the mask of love,  \nThe raven's voice, and not the nightingale's,  \nThe blind mole's eyes, and not those agate eyes  \nWhich, like the summer heavens, were so blue  \nThat one could fancy one saw God in them,  \nSo, misery, I had known thee.\n\nBarrier! Barrier!  \nWhy did he say there was a barrier?  \nThere is no barrier between us two.  \nHe lied to me, and shall I for that reason  \nLoathe what I love, and what I worshipped, hate?  \nI think we women do not love like that.  \nFor if I cut his image from my heart,  \nMy heart would, like a bleeding pilgrim, follow  \nThat image through the world, and call it back  \nWith little cries of love.\n\n_Enter_ DUKE _equipped for the chase, with falconers and hounds._\n\nDUKE: Madam, you keep us waiting;  \nYou keep my dogs waiting.\n\nDUCHESS: I will not ride to-day.\n\nDUKE: How now, what's this?\n\nDUCHESS: My Lord, I cannot go.\n\nDUKE: What, pale face, do you dare to stand against me?  \nWhy, I could set you on a sorry jade  \nAnd lead you through the town, till the low rabble  \nYou feed toss up their hats and mock at you.\n\nDUCHESS: Have you no word of kindness ever for me?\n\nDUKE: Kind words are lime to snare our enemies!  \nI hold you in the hollow of my hand  \nAnd have no need on you to waste kind words.\n\nDUCHESS: Well, I will go.\n\nDUKE ( _slapping his boot with his whip_ ): No, I have changed my mind,  \nYou will stay here, and like a faithful wife  \nWatch from the window for our coming back.  \nWere it not dreadful if some accident  \nBy chance should happen to your loving Lord?  \nCome, gentlemen, my hounds begin to chafe,  \nAnd I chafe too, having a patient wife.  \nWhere is young Guido?\n\nMAFFIO: My liege, I have not seen him  \nFor a full hour past.\n\nDUKE: It matters not,  \nI dare say I shall see him soon enough.  \nWell, Madam, you will sit at home and spin.  \nI do protest, sirs, the domestic virtues  \nAre often very beautiful in others.\n\n_Exit_ DUKE _with his Court._\n\nDUCHESS: The stars have fought against me, that is all,  \nAnd thus to-night when my Lord lieth asleep,  \nWill I fall upon my dagger, and so cease.  \nMy heart is such a stone nothing can reach it  \nExcept the dagger's edge: let it go there,  \nTo find what name it carries: ay! To-night  \nDeath will divorce the Duke; and yet to-night  \nHe may die also, he is very old.  \nWhy should he not die? Yesterday his hand  \nShook with a palsy: men have died from palsy,  \nAnd why not he? Are there not fevers also,  \nAgues and chills, and other maladies  \nMost incident to old age?  \nNo, no, he will not die, he is too sinful;  \nHonest men die before their proper time.  \nGood men will die: men by whose side the Duke  \nIn all the sick pollution of his life  \nSeems like a leper: women and children die,  \nBut the Duke will not die, he is too sinful.  \nOh, can it be  \nThere is some immortality in sin,  \nWhich virtue has not? And does the wicked man  \nDraw life from what to other men were death,  \nLike poisonous plants that on corruption live?  \nNo, no, I think God would not suffer that:  \nYet the Duke will not die; he is too sinful.  \nBut I will die alone, and on this night  \nGrim Death shall be my bridegroom, and the tomb  \nMy secret house of pleasure: well, what of that?  \nThe world's a graveyard, and we each, like coffins,  \nWithin us bear a skeleton.\n\n_Enter_ LORD MORANZONE _all in black; he passes across the back of the stage looking anxiously about._\n\nMORANZONE: Where is Guido?  \nI cannot find him anywhere.\n\nDUCHESS ( _catches sight of him_ ): O God!  \n'Twas thou who took my love away from me.\n\nMORANZONE ( _with a look of joy_ ): What, has he left you?\n\nDUCHESS: Nay, you know he has.  \nOh, give him back to me, give him back, I say,  \nOr I will tear your body limb from limb,  \nAnd to the common gibbet nail your head  \nUntil the carrion crows have stripped it bare.  \nBetter you had crossed a hungry lioness  \nBefore you came between me and my love.\n\n_With more pathos._\n\nNay, give him back, you know not how I love him,  \nHere by this chair he knelt a half hour since,  \n'Twas there he stood, and there he looked at me,  \nThis is the hand he kissed, these are the lips  \nHis lips made havoc of, and these the ears  \nInto whose open portals he did pour  \nA tale of love so musical that all  \nThe birds stopped singing! Oh give him back to me.\n\nMORANZONE: He does not love you, Madam.\n\nDUCHESS: May the plague  \nWither the tongue that says so! Give him back.\n\nMORANZONE: Madam, I tell you you will never see him.  \nNeither to-night, nor any other night.\n\nDUCHESS: What is your name?\n\nMORANZONE: My name? Revenge!\n\n_Exit_\n\nDUCHESS: Revenge!  \nI think I never harmed a little child.  \nWhat should Revenge do coming to my door?  \nIt matters not, for Death is there already,  \nWaiting with his dim torch to light my way.  \n'Tis true men hate thee, Death, and yet I think  \nThou wilt be kinder to me than my lover,  \nAnd so dispatch the messengers at once,  \nHurry the lazy steeds of lingering day,  \nAnd let the night, thy sister, come instead,  \nAnd drape the world in mourning; let the owl,  \nWho is thy minister, scream from his tower  \nAnd wake the toad with hooting, and the bat,  \nThat is the slave of dim Persephone,  \nWheel through the sombre air on wandering wing!  \nTear up the shrieking mandrakes from the earth  \nAnd bid them make us music, and tell the mole  \nTo dig deep down thy cold and narrow bed,  \nFor I shall lie within thine arms to-night.\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT THREE\n\nSCENE: _A large corridor in the Ducal Palace: a window (L. C.) looks out on a view of Padua by moonlight: a staircase (R. C.) leads up to a door with a portiere of crimson velvet, with the Duke's arms embroidered in gold on it: on the lowest step of the staircase a figure draped in black is sitting: the hall is lit by an iron cresset filled with burning tow: thunder and lightning outside: the time is night._\n\n_Enter_ GUIDO _through the window._\n\nGUIDO: The wind is rising: how my ladder shook!  \nI thought that every gust would break the cords!\n\n_Looks out at the city._\n\nChrist! What a night:  \nGreat thunder in the heavens, and wild lightnings  \nStriking from pinnacle to pinnacle  \nAcross the city, till the dim houses seem  \nTo shudder and to shake as each new glare  \nDashes adown the street.\n\n_Passes across the stage to foot of staircase._\n\nAh! Who art thou  \nThat sittest on the stair, like unto Death  \nWaiting a guilty soul?\n\n_A pause._\n\nCanst thou not speak?  \nOr has this storm laid palsy on your tongue,  \nAnd chilled your utterance? Get from my path,  \nFor I have certain business in yon chamber,  \nWhich I must do alone.\n\n_The figure rises and takes off his mask._\n\nMORANZONE: Guido Ferranti,  \nThy murdered father laughs for joy to-night.\n\nGUIDO ( _confusedly_ ): What, art thou here?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay, waiting for your coming.\n\nGUIDO ( _looking away from him_ ): I did not think to see you, but am glad, That thou mayest know the very thing I mean to do.\n\nMORANZONE: First, I would have you know my well-laid plans;  \nListen: I have set horses at the gate  \nWhich leads to Parma: when thou hast done thy business  \nWe will ride hence, and by to-morrow night  \nIf our good horses fail not by the way?  \nParma will see us coming; I have advised  \nMany old friends of your great father there,  \nWho have prepared the citizens for revolt.  \nWith money, and with golden promises,  \nThe which we need not keep, I have bought over  \nMany that stand by this usurping Duke.  \nAs for the soldiers, they, the Duke being dead,  \nWill fling allegiance to the winds, so thou  \nShalt sit again within thy father's palace,  \nAs Parma's rightful lord.\n\nGUIDO: It cannot be.\n\nMORANZONE: Nay, but it shall.\n\nGUIDO: Listen, Lord Moranzone,  \nI am resolved not to kill this man.\n\nMORANZONE: Surely my ears are traitors, speak again:  \nIt cannot be but age has dulled my powers,  \nI am an old man now: what did you say?  \nYou said that with that dagger in your belt  \nYou would avenge your father's bloody murder;  \nDid you not say that?\n\nGUIDO: No, my lord, I said  \nI was resolved not to kill the Duke.\n\nMORANZONE: You said not that; it is my senses mock me;  \nOr else this midnight air o'ercharged with storm  \nAlters your message in the giving it.\n\nGUIDO: Nay, you heard rightly; I'll not kill this man.\n\nMORANZONE: What of thine oath, thou traitor, what of thine oath?\n\nGUIDO: I am resolved not to keep that oath.\n\nMORANZONE: What of thy murdered father?\n\nGUIDO: Dost thou think  \nMy father would be glad to see me coming,  \nThis old man's blood still hot upon mine hands?\n\nMORANZONE: Ay! He would laugh for joy.\n\nGUIDO: I do not think so,  \nThere is better knowledge in the other world;  \nVengeance is God's, let God himself revenge.\n\nMORANZONE: Thou art God's minister of vengeance.\n\nGUIDO: No!  \nGod hath no minister but his own hand.  \nI will not kill this man.\n\nMORANZONE: Why are you here,  \nIf not to kill him, then?\n\nGUIDO: Lord Moranzone,  \nI purpose to ascend to the Duke's chamber,  \nAnd as he lies asleep lay on his breast  \nThe dagger and this writing; when he awakes  \nThen he will know who held him in his power  \nAnd slew him not: this is the noblest vengeance  \nWhich I can take.\n\nMORANZONE: You will not slay him?\n\nGUIDO: No.\n\nMORANZONE: Ignoble son of a noble father,  \nWho sufferest this man who sold that father  \nTo live an hour.\n\nGUIDO: 'Twas thou that hindered me;  \nI would have killed him in the open square,  \nThe day I saw him first.\n\nMORANZONE: It was not yet time;  \nNow it is time, and, like some green-faced girl,  \nThou pratest of forgiveness.\n\nGUIDO: No! revenge:  \nThe right revenge my father's son should take.\n\nMORANZONE: O wretched father, thus again betrayed,  \nAnd by thine own son too! You are a coward,  \nTake out the knife, get to the Duke's chamber,  \nAnd bring me back his heart upon the blade.  \nWhen he is dead, then you can talk to me  \nOf noble vengeances.\n\nGUIDO: Upon thine honour,  \nAnd by the love thou bearest my father's name,  \nDost thou think my father, that great gentleman,  \nThat generous soldier, that most chivalrous lord,  \nWould have crept at night-time, like a common thief,  \nAnd stabbed an old man sleeping in his bed,  \nHowever he had wronged him: tell me that.\n\nMORANZONE ( _after some hesitation_ ): You have sworn an oath, see that you keep that oath.  \nBoy, do you think I do not know your secret,  \nYour traffic with the Duchess?\n\nGUIDO: Silence, liar!  \nThe very moon in heaven is not more chaste,  \nNor the white stars so pure.\n\nMORANZONE: And yet, you love her;  \nWeak fool, to let love in upon your life,  \nSave as a plaything.\n\nGUIDO: You do well to talk:  \nWithin your veins, old man, the pulse of youth  \nThrobs with no ardour. Your eyes full of rheum  \nHave against Beauty closed their filmy doors,  \nAnd your clogged ears, losing their natural sense,  \nHave shut you from the music of the world.  \nYou talk of love! You know not what it is.\n\nMORANZONE: Oh, in my time, boy, I have walked i' the moon.  \nSwore I would live on kisses and on blisses,  \nSwore I would die for love, and did not die,  \nWrote love bad verses; ay, and sung them badly,  \nLike all true lovers: Oh, I have done the tricks!  \nI know the partings and the chamberjngs;  \nWe are all animals at best, and love  \nIs merely passion with a holy name.\n\nGUIDO: Now then I know you have not loved at all.  \nLove is the sacrament of life; it sets  \nVirtue where virtue was not; cleanses men  \nOf all the vile pollutions of this world;  \nIt is the fire which purges gold from dross,  \nIt is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff,  \nIt is the spring which in some wintry soil  \nMakes innocence to blossom like a rose.  \nThe days are over when God walked with men,  \nBut Love, which is His image, holds His place.  \nWhen a man loves a woman, then he knows  \nGod's secret, and the secret of the world.  \nThere is no house so lowly or so mean,  \nWhich, if their hearts be pure who live in it,  \nLove will not enter; but if bloody murder  \nKnock at the Palace gate and is let in,  \nLove like a wounded thing creeps out and dies.  \nThis is the punishment God sets on sin.  \nThe wicked cannot love.\n\n_A groan comes from the_ DUKE'S _chamber._\n\nAh! What is that?  \nDo you not hear? 'Twas nothing.\n\nSo I think  \nThat it is woman's mission by their love  \nTo save the souls of men: and loving her,  \nMy Lady, my white Beatrice, I begin  \nTo see a nobler and a holier vengeance  \nIn letting this man live, than doth reside  \nIn bloody deeds o' night, stabs in the dark,  \nAnd young hands clutching at a palsied throat.  \nIt was, I think, for love's sake that Lord Christ,  \nWho was indeed himself incarnate Love,  \nBade every man forgive his enemy.\n\nMORANZONE ( _sneeringly_ ): That was in Palestine, not Padua;  \nAnd said for saints: I have to do with men.\n\nGUIDO: It was for all time said.\n\nMORANZONE: And your white Duchess,  \nWhat will she do to thank you? Will she not come,  \nAnd put her cheek to yours, and fondle you,  \nFor having left her lord to plague her life?\n\nGUIDO: Alas, I will not see her face again.  \n'Tis but twelve hours since I parted from her,  \nSo suddenly, and with such violent passion,  \nThat she has shut her heart against me now;  \nNo, I will never see her.\n\nMORANZONE: What will you do?\n\nGUIDO: After that I have laid the dagger there,  \nGet hence to-night from Padua.\n\nMORANZONE: And then?\n\nGUIDO: I will take service with the Doge at Venice,  \nAnd bid him pack me straightway to the wars,  \nIn Holy Land against the Infidel;  \nAnd there I will, being now sick of life,  \nThrow that poor life against some desperate spear.\n\n_A groan from the_ DUKE'S _chamber again._\n\nDid you not hear a voice?\n\nMORANZONE: I always hear,  \nFrom the dim confines of some sepulchre,  \nA voice that cries for vengeance: We waste time,  \nIt will be morning soon; are you resolved  \nYou will not kill the Duke?\n\nGUIDO: I am resolved.\n\nMORANZONE: Guido Ferranti, in that chamber yonder  \nThere lies the man who sold your father's life,  \nAnd gave him to the hangman's murderous hands.  \nThere does he sleep: you have your father's dagger;  \nWill you not kill him?\n\nGUIDO: No, I will not kill him.\n\nMORANZONE: O wretched father, lying unavenged.\n\nGUIDO: More wretched were thy son a murderer.\n\nMORANZONE: Why, what is life?\n\nGUIDO: I do not know, my lord,  \nI did not give it, and I dare not take it.\n\nMORANZONE: I do not thank God often; but I think  \nI thank him now that I have got no son!  \nAnd you, what bastard blood flows in your veins  \nThat when you have your enemy in your grasp  \nYou let him go! I would that I had left you  \nWith the dull hinds that reared you.\n\nGUIDO: Better perhaps  \nThat you had done so! May be better still  \nI'd not been born to this distressful world.\n\nMORANZONE: Farewell!\n\nGUIDO: Farewell! Some day, Lord Moranzone,  \nYou will understand my vengeance.\n\nMORANZONE: Never, boy.\n\n_Gets out of window and exit by rope ladder._\n\nGUIDO: Father, I think thou knowest my resolve,  \nAnd with this nobler vengeance are content.  \nFather, I think in letting this man live  \nThat I am doing what you would have done.  \nFather, I know not if a human voice  \nCan pierce the iron gateway of the dead,  \nOr if the dead are set in ignorance  \nOf what we do, or do not, for their sakes.  \nAnd yet I feel a presence in the air,  \nThere is a shadow standing at my side,  \nAnd ghostly kisses seem to touch my lips,  \nAnd leave them holier.\n\n_Kneels down._\n\nO father, if 'tis thou,  \nCanst thou not burst through the decrees of death,  \nAnd if corporeal semblance show thyself,  \nThat I may touch thy hand!\n\nNo, there is nothing.\n\n_Rises._\n\n'Tis the night that cheats us with its phantoms,  \nAnd, like a puppet-master, makes us think  \nThat things are real which are not. It grows late.  \nNow must I do my business.\n\n_Pulls out a letter from his doublet and reads it._\n\nWhen he wakes,  \nAnd sees this letter, and the dagger with it,  \nWill he not have some loathing for his life,  \nRepent, perchance, and lead a better life,  \nOr will he mock because a young man spared  \nHis natural enemy? I do not care,  \nFather, it is your bidding that I do,  \nYour bidding, and the bidding of my love  \nWhich teaches me to know you as you are.\n\n_Ascends staircase stealthily, and just as he reaches out his hand to draw back the curtain the_ DUCHESS _appears all in white._ GUIDO _starts back._\n\nDUCHESS: Guido! What do you here so late?\n\nGUIDO: O white and spotless angel of my life,  \nSure thou hast come from Heaven with a message  \nThat mercy is more noble than revenge?\n\nDUCHESS: Ay! I do pray for mercy earnestly.\n\nGUIDO: O father, now I know I do your bidding,  \nFor hand in hand with Mercy, like a God,  \nHas Love come forth to meet me on the way.\n\nDUCHESS: I felt you would come back to me again,  \nAlthough you left me very cruelly:  \nWhy did you leave me? Nay, that matters not,  \nFor I can hold you now, and feel your heart  \nBeat against mine with little throbs of love:  \nOur hearts are two caged birds, trying to kiss  \nAcross their cages' bars: but the time goes,  \nIt will be morning in an hour or so;  \nLet us get horses: I must post to Venice,  \nThey will not think of looking for me there.\n\nGUIDO: Love, I will follow you across the world.\n\nDUCHESS: But are you sure you love me?\n\nGUIDO: Is the lark  \nSure that it loves the dawn that bids it sing?\n\nDUCHESS: Could nothing ever change you?\n\nGUIDO: Nothing ever:  \nThe shipman's needle is not set more sure  \nThan I am to the lodestone of your love.\n\nDUCHESS: There is no barrier between us now.\n\nGUIDO: None, love, nor shall be.\n\nDUCHESS: I have seen to that.\n\nGUIDO: Tarry here for me.\n\nDUCHESS: No, you are not going?  \nYou will not leave me as you did before?\n\nGUIDO: I will return within a moment's space,  \nBut first I must repair to the Duke's chamber,  \nAnd leave this letter and this dagger there,  \nThat when he wakes \u2013\n\nDUCHESS: When who wakes?\n\nGUIDO: Why, the Duke.\n\nDUCHESS: He will not wake again.\n\nGUIDO: What, is he dead?\n\nDUCHESS: Ay! He is dead.\n\nGUIDO: O God! How wonderful  \nAre all thy secret ways! Who would have said  \nThat on this very night, when I had yielded  \nInto thy hands the vengeance that is Thine,  \nThou with thy finger should have touched the man,  \nAnd bade him come before thy judgment seat.\n\nDUCHESS: I have just killed him.\n\nGUIDO ( _in horror_ ): Oh!\n\nDUCHESS: He was asleep;  \nCome closer, love, and I will tell you all.  \nKiss me upon the mouth, and I will tell you.  \nYou will not kiss me now? \u2013 well, you will kiss me  \nWhen I have told you how I killed the Duke.  \nAfter you left me with such bitter words,  \nFeeling my life went lame without your love,  \nI had resolved to kill myself to-night.  \nAbout an hour ago I waked from sleep,  \nAnd took my dagger from beneath my pillow,  \nWhere I had hidden it to serve my need,  \nAnd drew it from the sheath, and felt the edge,  \nAnd thought of you, and how I loved you, Guido,  \nAnd turned to fall upon it, when I marked  \nThe old man sleeping, full of years and sin;  \nThere lay he muttering curses in his sleep.  \nAnd as I looked upon his evil face  \nSuddenly like a flame there flashed across me,  \nThere is the barrier which Guido spoke of:  \nYou said there lay a barrier between us,  \nWhat barrier but he? \u2013\n\nI hardly know  \nWhat happened, but a steaming mist of blood  \nRose up between us two.\n\nGUIDO: O horrible!\n\nDUCHESS: You would have said so had you seen that mist:  \nAnd then the air rained blood and then he groaned,  \nAnd then he groaned no more! I only heard  \nThe dripping of the blood upon the floor.\n\nGUIDO: Enough, enough.\n\nDUCHESS: Will you not kiss me now?  \nDo you remember saying that women's love  \nTurns men to angels? Well, the love of man  \nTurns women into martyrs; for its sake  \nWe do or suffer anything.\n\nGUIDO: O God!\n\nDUCHESS: Will you not speak?\n\nGUIDO: I cannot speak at all.\n\nDUCHESS: This is the knife with which I killed the Duke.  \nI did not think he would have bled so much,  \nBut I can wash my hands in water after;  \nCan I not wash my hands? Ay, but my soul?  \nLet us not talk of this! Let us go hence:  \nIs not the barrier broken down between us?  \nWhat would you more? Come, it is almost morning.\n\n_Puts her hand on_ GUIDO'S\n\nGUIDO ( _breaking from her_ ): O damned saint! O angel fresh from Hell!  \nWhat bloody devil tempted thee to this!  \nThat thou hast killed thy husband, that is nothing \u2013  \nHell was already gaping for his soul \u2013  \nBut thou hast murdered Love, and in its place  \nHas set a horrible and bloodstained thing,  \nWhose very breath breeds pestilence and plague,  \nAnd strangles Love.\n\nDUCHESS ( _in amazed wonder_ ): I did it all for you  \nI would not have you do it, had you willed it,  \nFor I would keep you without blot or stain,  \nA thing unblemished, unassailed, untarnished.  \nMen do not know what women do for love.  \nHave I not wrecked my soul for your dear sake,  \nHere and hereafter?\n\nOh be kind to me,  \nI did it all for you.\n\nGUIDO: No, do not touch me,  \nBetween us lies a thin red stream of blood,  \nI dare not look across it: when you stabbed him  \nYou stabbed Love with a sharp knife to the heart.  \nWe cannot meet again.\n\nDUCHESS: ( _wringing her hands_ ): For you! For you!  \nI did it all for you: have you forgotten?  \nYou said there was a barrier between us;  \nThat barrier lies now i' the upper chamber  \nUpset, overthrown, beaten, and battered down,  \nAnd will not part us ever.\n\nGUIDO: No, you mistook:  \nSin was the barrier, you have raised it up;  \nCrime was the barrier, you have set it there.  \nThe barrier was murder, and your hand  \nHas builded it so high it shuts out heaven,  \nIt shuts out God.\n\nDUCHESS: I did it all for you;  \nYou dare not leave me now: nay, Guido, listen.  \nGet horses ready, we will fly to-night.  \nThe past is a bad dream, we will forget it:  \nBefore us lies the future: will we not have  \nSweet days of love beneath our vines and laugh? \u2013  \nNo, no, we will not laugh, but, when we weep,  \nWell, we will weep together; I will serve you  \nLike a poor housewife, like a common slave;  \nI will be very meek and very gentle:  \nYou do not know me.\n\nGUIDO: Nay, I know you now;  \nGet hence, I say, out of my sight.\n\nDUCHESS ( _pacing up and down_ ): O God,  \nHow I have loved this man!\n\nGUIDO: You never loved me.  \nHad it been so, Love would have stopped your hand,  \nNor suffered you to stain his holy shrine,  \nWhere none can enter but the innocent.\n\nDUCHESS: These are but words, words, words.\n\nGUIDO: Get hence, I pray:  \nHow could we sit together at Love's table?  \nYou have poured poison in the sacred wine,  \nAnd Murder dips his fingers in the sop.  \nRather than this I had died a thousand deaths.\n\nDUCHESS: I having done it, die a thousand deaths.\n\nGUIDO: It is not death but life that you should fear.\n\nDUCHESS ( _throws herself on her knees_ ): Then slay me now! I have spilt blood to-night,  \nYou shall spill more, so we go hand in hand  \nTo heaven or to hell. Draw your sword, Guido,  \nAnd traffic quickly for my life with Death,  \nWho is grown greedy of such merchandize.  \nQuick, let your soul go chambering in my heart,  \nIt will but find its master's image there.  \nNay, if you will not slay me with your sword,  \nBid me to fall upon this reeking knife,  \nAnd I will do it.\n\nGUIDO ( _wresting knife from her_ ): Give it to me, I say.  \nO God, your very hands are wet with blood!  \nThis place is Hell, I cannot tarry here.\n\nDUCHESS: Will you not raise me up before you go,  \nOr must I like a beggar keep my knees.\n\nGUIDO: I pray you let me see your face no more.  \nDUCHESS: Better for me I had not seen your face.  \nO think it was for you I killed this man.\n\nGUIDO _recoils: she seizes his hands as she kneels._\n\nNay, Guido, listen for a while:  \nUntil you came to Padua I lived  \nWretched indeed, but with no murderous thought,  \nVery submissive to a cruel Lord,  \nVery obedient to unjust commands,  \nAs pure I think as any gentle girl  \nWho now would turn in horror from my hands \u2013  \nYou came: ah! Guido, the first kindly words  \nI ever heard since I had come from France  \nWere from your lips: well, well, that is no matter.  \nYou came, and in the passion of your eyes  \nI read love's meaning, everything you said  \nTouched my dumb soul to music, and you seemed  \nFair as that young Saint Michael on the wall  \nIn Santa Croce, where we go and pray.  \nI wonder will I ever pray again?  \nWell, you were fair, and in your boyish face  \nThe morning seemed to lighten, so I loved you.  \nAnd yet I did not tell you of my love.  \n'Twas you who sought me out, knelt at my feet  \nAs I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows,\n\n_Kneels._\n\nWhose music seems to linger in my ears,  \nSwore that you loved me, and I trusted you.  \nI think there are many women in the world  \nWho had they been unto this vile Duke mated,  \nChained to his side, as the poor galley slave  \nIs to a leper chained, \u2013 ay! Many women  \nWho would have tempted you to kill the man.  \nI did not.\n\nYet I know that had I done so,  \nI had not been thus humbled in the dust.\n\n_Stands up._\n\nBut you have loved me very faithfully.\n\n_After a pause approaches him timidly._\n\nI do not think you understand me, Guido:  \nIt was for your sake that I wrought this deed  \nWhose horror now chills my young blood to ice,  \nFor your sake only.\n\n_Stretching out her arm._\n\nWill you not speak to me?  \nLove me a little: in my girlish life  \nI have been starved for love, and kindliness  \nHas passed me by.\n\nGUIDO: I dare not look at you:  \nYou come to me with too pronounced a favour,  \nGet to your tirewomen.\n\nDUCHESS: Ay, there it is!  \nThere speaks the man! Yet had you come to me  \nWith any heavy sin upon your soul,  \nSome murder done for hire, not for love,  \nWhy, I had sat and watched at your bedside  \nAll through the night-time, lest Remorse might come  \nAnd pour his poisons in your ear, and so  \nKeep you from sleeping! Sure it is the guilty,  \nWho, being very wretched, need love most.\n\nGUIDO: There is no love where there is any guilt,\n\nDUCHESS: No love where there is any guilt! O God,  \nHow differently do we love from men!  \nThere is many a woman here in Padua,  \nSome workman's wife, or ruder artisan's,  \nWhose husband spends the wages of the week  \nIn a coarse revel, or a tavern brawl,  \nAnd reeling home late on the Saturday night,  \nFinds his wife sitting by a fireless hearth,  \nTrying to hush the child who cries for hunger,  \nAnd then sets to and beats his wife because  \nThe child is hungry, and the fire black.  \nYet the wife loves him! And will rise next day  \nWith some red bruise across a careworn face,  \nAnd sweep the house, and do the common service,  \nAnd try and smile, and only be too glad  \nIf he does not beat her a second time  \nBefore her child! \u2013 that is how women love.\n\n_A pause:_ GUIDO _says nothing._\n\nDo you say nothing? Oh be kind to me  \nWhile yet I know the summer of my days.  \nI think you will not drive me from your side.  \nWhere have I got to go if you reject me? \u2013  \nYou for whose sake this hand has murdered life,  \nYou for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself  \nBeyond all hope of pardon.\n\nGUIDO: Get thee gone:  \nThe dead man is a ghost, and our love too,  \nFlits like a ghost about its desolate tomb,  \nAnd wanders through this charnel house, and weeps  \nThat when you slew your lord you slew it also.  \nDo you not see?\n\nDUCHESS: I see when men love women  \nThey give them but a little of their lives,  \nBut women when they love give everything;  \nI see that, Guido, now.\n\nGUIDO: Away, away,  \nAnd come not back till you have waked your dead.\n\nDUCHESS: I would to God that I could wake the dead,  \nPut vision in the glazed eyes, and give  \nThe tongue its natural utterance, and bid  \nThe heart to beat again; that cannot be:  \nFor what is done, is done: and what is dead  \nIs dead for ever: the fire cannot warm him:  \nThe winter cannot hurt him with its snows;  \nSomething has gone from him; if you call him now,  \nHe will not answer; if you mock him now,  \nHe will not laugh; and if you stab him now  \nHe will not bleed.\n\nI would that I could wake him!  \nO God, put back the sun a little space,  \nAnd from the roll of time blot out to-night,  \nAnd bid it not have been! Put back the sun,  \nAnd make me what I was an hour ago!  \nNo, no, time will not stop for anything,  \nNor the sun stay its courses, though Repentance  \nCalling it back grow hoarse; but you, my love,  \nHave you no word of pity even for me?  \nO Guido, Guido, will you not kiss me once?  \nDrive me not to some desperate resolve:  \nWomen grow mad when they are treated thus:  \nWill you not kiss me once?\n\nGUIDO ( _holding up knife_ ): I will not kiss you  \nUntil the blood grows dry upon this knife,  \nAnd not even then.\n\nDUCHESS: Dear Christ! How little pity  \nWe women get in this untimely world;  \nMen lure us to some dreadful precipice,  \nAnd, when we fall, they leave us.\n\nGUIDO ( _wildly_ ): Back to your dead!\n\nDUCHESS ( _going up the stairs_ ): Why, then I will be gone! And may you find  \nMore mercy than you showed to me to-night!\n\nGUIDO: Let me find mercy when I go at night  \nAnd do foul murder.\n\nDUCHESS ( _coming down a few steps_ ): Murder did you say?  \nMurder is hungry, and still cries for more,  \nAnd Death, his brother, is not satisfied,  \nBut walks the house, and will not go away,  \nUnless he has a comrade! Tarry, Death,  \nFor I will give thee a most faithful lackey  \nTo travel with thee! Murder, call no more,  \nFor thou shalt eat thy fill.\n\nThere is a storm  \nWill break upon this house before the morning,  \nSo horrible, that the white moon already  \nTurns grey and sick with terror, the low wind  \nGoes moaning round the house, and the high stars  \nRun madly through the vaulted firmament,  \nAs through the night wept tears of liquid fire  \nFor what the day shall look upon. O weep,  \nThou lamentable heaven! Weep thy fill!  \nThough sorrow like a cataract drench the fields,  \nAnd make the earth one bitter lake of tears,  \nIt would not be enough.\n\n_A peal of thunder._\n\nDo you not hear,  \nThere is artillery in the Heaven to-night.  \nVengeance is wakened up, and has unloosed  \nHis dogs upon the world, and in this matter  \nWhich lies between us two, let him who draws  \nThe thunder on his head beware the ruin  \nWhich the forked flame brings after.\n\n_A flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder._\n\nGUIDO: Away! Away!\n\n_Exit the_ DUCHESS, _who as she lifts the crimson curtain looks back for a moment at_ GUIDO, _but he makes no sign. More thunder._\n\nNow is life fallen in ashes at my feet.  \nAnd noble self-slain; and in its place  \nCrept murder with its silent bloody feet.  \nAnd she who wrought it \u2013 Oh! And yet she loved me,  \nAnd for my sake did do this dreadful thing.  \nI have been cruel to her: Beatrice!  \nBeatrice, I say, come back.\n\n_Begins to ascend staircase, when the noise of Soldiers is heard._\n\nAh! What is that?  \nTorches ablaze, and noise of hurrying feet.  \nPray God they have not seized her.\n\n_Noise grows louder._\n\nBeatrice!  \nThere is yet time to escape. Come down, come out!\n\n_The voice of the_ DUCHESS _outside._\n\nThis way went he, the man who slew my lord.\n\n_Down the staircase come hurrying a confused body of Soldiers;_ GUIDO _is no seen at first, till the_ DUCHESS _surrounded by Servants carrying torches ap pears at the top of the staircase, and points to_ GUIDO, _who is seized at once one of the Soldiers dragging the knife from his hand and showing it to the Cap tain of the Guard in sight of the audience._\n\nTABLEAU.\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _The Court of Justice: the walls are hung with stamped grey velvet: above the hangings the wall is red, and gilt symbolical figures bear up the roof, which is made of red beams with soffits and grey moulding: a canopy of white satin flowered with gold is set for the Duchess: below it a long bench with red cloth for the Judges: below that a table for the clerks of the Court. Two soldiers stand on each side of the canopy, and two soldiers guard the door; the citizens have some of them collected in the Court, others are coming in greeting one another; two tipstaffs in violet keep order with long white wands._\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Good morrow, neighbour Anthony.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Good morrow, neighbour Dominick.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: This is a strange day for Padua, is it not? \u2013 the Duke being dead.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: I tell you, neighbour Dominick, I have not known such a day since the last Duke died: and if you believe me not, I am no true man.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: They will try him first, and sentence him afterwards, will they not, neighbour Anthony?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Nay, for he might 'scape his punishment then; but they will condemn him first so that he gets his deserts, and give him trial afterwards so that no injustice is done.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Well, well, it will go hard with him I doubt not.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Surely it is a grievous thing to shed a Duke's blood.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: They say a Duke has blue blood.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: I think our Duke's blood was black like his soul.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Have a watch, neighbour Anthony, the officer is looking at thee.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: I care not if he does but look at me; he cannot whip me with the lashes of his eye.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: What think you of this young man who stuck the knife into the Duke?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Why, that he is a well-behaved, and a well-meaning, and a well-favoured lad, and yet wicked in that he killed the Duke.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: 'Twas the first time he did it: may be the law will not be hard on him, as he did not do it before.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: True.\n\nTIPSTAFF: Silence, knave.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Am I thy looking-glass, Master Tipstaff, that thou callest me knave?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Here be one of the household coming. Well, Dame Lucy, thou art of the Court, how does thy poor mistress the Duchess, with her sweet face?\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: O well-a-day! O miserable day! O day! O misery! Why it is just nineteen years last June, at Michaelmas, since I was married to my husband, and it is August now, and here is the Duke murdered; there is a coincidence for you!\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Why, if it is coincidence, they may not kill the young man: there is no law against coincidences.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: But how does the Duchess?\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: Well, well, I knew some harm would happen to the house: six weeks ago the cakes were all burned on one side, and last Saint Martin even as ever was, there flew into the candle a big moth that had wings, and almost scared me.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: But come to the Duchess, good gossip: what of her?\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: Marry, it is time you should ask after her, poor lady; she is distraught almost. Why, she has not slept, but paced the chamber all night long. I prayed her to have a posset, or some _aquavit\u00e6_ , and to get to bed and sleep a little for her health's sake, but she answered me she was afraid she might dream. That was a strange answer, was it not?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: These great folk have not much sense, so Providence makes it up to them in fine clothes.\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: Well, well, God keep murder from us, I say, as long as we are alive.\n\n_Enter_ LORD MORANZONE _hurriedly._\n\nMORANZONE: Is the Duke dead?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: He has a knife in his heart, which they say is not healthy for any man.\n\nMORANZONE: Who is accused of having killed him?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Why, the prisoner, sir.\n\nMORANZONE: But who is the prisoner?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Why, he that is accused of the Duke's murder.\n\nMORANZONE: I mean, what is his name?\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Faith, the same which his godfathers gave him: what else should it be?\n\nTIPSTAFF: Guido Ferranti is his name, my lord.\n\nMORANZONE: I almost knew thine answer ere you gave it.\n\n_Aside._\n\nYet it is strange he should have killed the Duke,  \nSeeing he left me in such different mood.  \nIt is most likely when he saw the man,  \nThis devil who had sold his father's life,  \nThat passion from their seat within his heart  \nThrust all his boyish theories of love,  \nAnd in their place set vengeance; yet I marvel  \nThat he escaped not.\n\n_Turning again to the crowd._\n\nHow was he taken, tell me.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Marry, sir, he was taken by the heels.\n\nMORANZONE: But who seized him?\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Why, those that did lay hold of him.\n\nMORANZONE: How was the alarm given?\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: That I cannot tell you, sir.\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: It was the Duchess herself who pointed him out.\n\nMORANZONE ( _aside_ ): The Duchess! There is something strange in this.\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: Ay! And the dagger was in his hand \u2013 the Duchess's own dagger.\n\nMORANZONE: What did you say?\n\nMISTRESS LUCY: Why, marry, that it was with the Duchess's dagger that the Duke was killed.\n\nMORANZONE ( _aside_ ): There is some mystery about this: I cannot understand it.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: They be very long a-coming.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: I warrant they will come soon enough for the prisoner.\n\nTIPSTAFF: Silence in the Court!\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Thou dost break silence in bidding us keep it, Master Tipstaff.\n\n_Enter the_ LORD JUSTICE _and the other Judges._\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Who is he in scarlet? Is he the headsman?\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Nay, he is the Lord Justice.\n\n_Enter_ GUIDO _guarded._\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: There be the prisoner surely.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: He looks honest.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: That be his villainy: knaves nowadays do look so honest that honest folk are forced to look like knaves so as to be different.\n\n_Enter the Headsman, who takes his stand behind_ GUIDO.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Yon be the headsman then! O Lord! Is the axe sharp, think you?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Ay! Sharper than thy wits are; but the edge is not towards him, mark you.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN ( _scratching his neck_ ): I' faith, I like it not so near.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Tut, thou need'st not be afraid; they never cut the heads of common folk: they do but hang us.\n\n_Trumpets outside._\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: What are the trumpets for? Is the trial over?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Nay, 'tis for the Duchess.\n\n_Enter the_ DUCHESS _in black velvet; her train of flowered black velvet is carried by two pages in violet; with her is the_ CARDINAL _in scarlet, and the gentlemen of the Court in black; she takes her seat on the throne above the Judges, who rise and take their caps off as she enters; the_ CARDINAL _sits next to her a little lower; the Courtiers group themselves about the throne._\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: O poor lady, how pale she is! Will she sit there?\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Ay! She is in the Duke's place now.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: That is a good thing for Padua; the Duchess is a very kind and merciful Duchess; why, she cured my child of the ague once.\n\nTHIRD CITIZEN: Ay, and has given us bread: do not forget the bread.\n\nA SOLDIER: Stand back, good people.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: If we be good, why should we stand back?\n\nTIPSTAFF: Silence in the Court!\n\nLORD JUSTICE: May it please your Grace, Is it your pleasure we proceed to trial of the Duke's murder?\n\nDUCHESS _bows._\n\nSet the prisoner forth.  \nWhat is thy name?\n\nGUIDO: It matters not, my lord.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Guido Ferranti is thy name in Padua.\n\nGUIDO: A man may die as well under that name as any other.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thou art not ignorant  \nWhat dreadful charge men lay against thee here,  \nNamely, the treacherous murder of thy Lord,  \nSimone Gesso, Duke of Padua;  \nWhat dost thou say in answer?\n\nGUIDO: I say nothing.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Dost thou admit this accusation, then?\n\nGUIDO: I admit naught, and yet I naught deny.  \nI pray thee, my Lord Justice, be as brief  \nAs the Court's custom and the laws allow.  \nI will not speak.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Why, then, it cannot be  \nThat of this murder thou art innocent,  \nBut rather that thy stony obstinate heart  \nHath shut its doors against the voice of justice.  \nThink not thy silence will avail thee aught,  \n'Twill rather aggravate thy desperate guilt,  \nOf which indeed we are most well assured;  \nAgain I bid thee speak.\n\nGUIDO: I will say nothing.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Then naught remains for me but to pronounce Upon thy head the sentence of swift Death.\n\nGUIDO: I pray thee give thy message speedily.  \nThou couldst not bring me anything more dear.\n\nLORD JUSTICE ( _rising_ ): Guido Ferranti \u2013\n\nMORANZONE ( _stepping from the crowd_ ): Tarry, my Lord Justice.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Who art thou that bid'st justice tarry, sir?\n\nMORANZONE: So be it justice it can go its way;  \nBut if it be not justice \u2013\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Who is this?\n\nCOUNT BARDI: A very noble gentleman, and well known To the late Duke.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Sir, thou art come in time  \nTo see the murder of the Duke avenged.  \nThere stands the man who did this heinous thing.\n\nMORANZONE: Has merely blind suspicion fixed on him,  \nOr have ye any proof he did the deed?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thrice has the Court entreated him to speak,  \nBut surely guilt weighs heavy on the tongue,  \nFor he says nothing in defence, nor tries  \nTo purge himself of this most dread account,  \nWhich innocence would surely do.\n\nMORANZONE: My lord,  \nI ask again what proof have ye?\n\nLORD JUSTICE ( _holding up the dagger_ ): This dagger,  \nWhich from his blood-stained hands, itself all blood,  \nLast night the soldiers seized: what further proof  \nNeed we indeed?\n\nMORANZONE ( _takes the dagger and approaches the_ DUCHESS): Saw I not such a dagger  \nHang from your Grace's girdle yesterday?\n\n_The_ DUCHESS _shudders and makes no answer._\n\nAh! my Lord Justice, may I speak a moment  \nWith this young man, who in such peril stands?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Ay, willingly, my lord, and may you turn him  \nTo make a full avowal of his guilt.\n\nLORD MORANZONE _goes over to_ GUIDO, _who stands R. and clutches him by the hand._\n\nMORANZONE ( _in a low voice_ ): She did it! Nay, I saw it in her eyes.  \nBoy, dost thou think I'll let thy father's son  \nBe by this woman butchered to his death?  \nHer husband sold your father, and the wife  \nWould sell the son in turn.\n\nGUIDO: Lord Moranzone,  \nI alone did this thing: be satisfied,  \nMy father is avenged.\n\nMORANZONE: Enough, enough,  \nI know you did not kill him; had it been you,  \nYour father's dagger, not this woman's toy,  \nHad done the business: see how she glares at us!  \nBy heaven, I will tear off that marble mask,  \nAnd tax her with this murder before all.\n\nGUIDO: You shall not do it.\n\nMORANZONE: Nay, be sure I shall.\n\nGUIDO: My lord, you must not dare to speak.\n\nMORANZONE: Why not?  \nIf she is innocent she can prove it so;  \nIf guilty, let her die.\n\nGUIDO: What shall I do?\n\nMORANZONE: Or thou or I shall tell the truth in Court.\n\nGUIDO: The truth is that I did it.\n\nMORANZONE: Sayest thou so?\n\nWell, I will see what the good Duchess says.\n\nGUIDO: No, no, I'll tell the tale.\n\nMORANZONE: That is well, Guido.  \nHer sins be on her head and not on thine.  \nDid she not give you to the guard?\n\nGUIDO: She did.\n\nMORANZONE: Then upon her revenge thy father's death: She was the wife of Judas.\n\nGUIDO: Ay, she was.\n\nMORANZONE: I think you need no prompting now to do it,  \nThough you were weak and like a boy last night.\n\nGUIDO: Weak like a boy, was I indeed last night?  \nBe sure I will not be like that to-day.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Doth he confess?\n\nGUIDO: My lord, I do confess.  \nThat foul unnatural murder has been done.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: Why, look at that: he has a pitiful heart, and does not like murder; they will let him go for that.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Say you no more?\n\nGUIDO: My lord, I say this also, That to spill human blood is deadly sin.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: Marry, he should tell that to the headsman: 'tis a good sentiment.\n\nGUIDO: Lastly, my lord, I do entreat the Court  \nTo give me leave to utter openly  \nThe dreadful secret of this mystery,  \nAnd to point out the very guilty one  \nWho with this dagger last night slew the Duke.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thou hast leave to speak.\n\nDUCHESS ( _rising_ ): I say he shall not speak:  \nWhat need have we of further evidence?  \nWas he not taken in the house at night  \nIn Guilt's own bloody livery.\n\nLORD JUSTICE ( _showing her the statute_ ): Your Grace Can read the law.\n\nDUCHESS ( _waiving book aside_ ): Bethink you, my Lord Justice,  \nIs it not very like that such a one  \nMay, in the presence of the people here,  \nUtter some slanderous word against my Lord,  \nAgainst the city, or the city's honour,  \nPerchance against myself.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: My liege, the law.\n\nDUCHESS: He shall not speak, but, with gags in his mouth,  \nShall climb the ladder to the bloody block.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: The law, my liege.\n\nDUCHESS: We are not bound by law,  \nBut with it we bind others.\n\nMORANZONE: My Lord Justice,  \nThou wilt not suffer this injustice here.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: The Court needs not thy voice, Lord Moranzone.  \nMadam, it were a precedent most evil  \nTo wrest the law from its appointed course,  \nFor, though the cause be just, yet anarchy  \nMight on this licence touch these golden scales  \nAnd unjust causes unjust victories gain.\n\nCOUNT BARDI: I do not think your Grace can stay the law.\n\nDUCHESS: Ay, it is well to preach and prate of law:  \nMethinks, my haughty lords of Padua,  \nIf ye are hurt in pocket or estate,  \nSo much as makes your monstrous revenues  \nLess by the value of one ferry toll,  \nYe do not wait the tedious law's delay  \nWith such sweet patience as ye counsel me.\n\nCOUNT BARDI: Madam, I think you wrong our nobles here.\n\nDUCHESS: I think I wrong them not. Which of ye all  \nFinding a thief within his house at night,  \nWith some poor chattel thrust into his rags,  \nWill stop and parley with him? Do ye not  \nGive him unto the officer and his hook  \nTo be dragged gaolwards straightway? And so now,  \nHad ye been men, finding this fellow here,  \nWith my Lord's life still hot upon his hands,  \nYe would have haled him out into the court,  \nAnd struck his head off with an axe.\n\nGUIDO: O God!\n\nDUCHESS: Speak, my Lord Justice.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Your Grace, it cannot be:  \nThe laws of Padua are most certain here:  \nAnd by those laws the common murderer even  \nMay with his own lips plead, and make defence.\n\nDUCHESS: Tarry a little with thy righteousness.  \nThis is no common murderer, Lord Justice,  \nBut a great outlaw, and a most vile traitor,  \nTaken in open arms against the state.  \nFor he who slays the man who rules a state  \nSlays the state also, widows every wife,  \nAnd makes each child an orphan, and no less  \nIs to be held a public enemy,  \nThan if he came with mighty ordonnance,  \nAnd all the spears of Venice at his back,  \nTo beat and batter at our city gates \u2013  \nNay, is more dangerous to our commonwealth  \nThan gleaming spears and thundering ordonnance,  \nFor walls and gates, bastions and forts, and things  \nWhose common elements are wood and stone  \nMay be raised up, but who can raise again  \nThe ruined body of my murdered lord,  \nAnd bid it live and laugh?\n\nMAFFIO: Now by Saint Paul  \nI do not think that they will let him speak.\n\nJEPPO VITELLOZZO: There is much in this, listen.\n\nDUCHESS: Wherefore now,  \nThrow ashes on the head of Padua,  \nWith sable banners hang each silent street,  \nLet every man be clad in solemn black,  \nBut ere we turn to these sad rites of mourning  \nLet us bethink us of the desperate hand  \nWhich wrought and brought this ruin on our state,  \nAnd straightway pack him to that narrow house,  \nWhere no voice is, but with a little dust  \nDeath fills up the lying mouths of men.\n\nGUIDO: Unhand me, knaves! I tell thee, my Lord Justice,  \nThou mightest as well bid the untrammeled ocean,  \nThe winter whirlwind, or the Alpine storm,  \nNor roar their will, as bid me hold my peace!  \nAy! Though ye put your knives into my throat,  \nEach grim and gaping wound shall find a tongue,  \nAnd cry against you.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Sir, this violence  \nAvails you nothing; for save the tribunal  \nGive thee a lawful right to open speech,  \nNaught that thou sayest can be credited.\n\n_The_ DUCHESS _smiles and_ GUIDO _falls back with a gesture of despair._\n\nMadam, myself, and these wise Justices,  \nWill with your Grace's sanction now retire  \nInto another chamber, to decide  \nAnd search the statutes and the precedents.\n\nDUCHESS: Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes well,  \nNor let this brawling traitor have his way.\n\nMORANZONE: Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience well,  \nNor let a man be sent to death unheard.\n\n_Exit the_ LORD JUSTICE _and the Judges._\n\nDUCHESS: Silence, thou evil genius of my life!  \nThou com'st between us two a second time;  \nThis time, my lord, I think the turn is mine.\n\nGUIDO: I shall not die till I have uttered voice.\n\nDUCHESS: Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with thee.\n\nGUIDO: Art thou that Beatrice, Duchess of Padua?\n\nDUCHESS: I am what thou hast made me; look at me well,  \nI am thy handiwork.\n\nMAFFIO: See, is she not  \nLike that white tigress which we saw at Venice,  \nSent by some Indian soldan to the Doge.\n\nJEPPO: Hush! She may hear thy chatter.\n\nHEADSMAN: My young fellow,  \nI do not know why thou shouldst care to speak,  \nSeeing my axe is close upon thy neck,  \nAnd words of thine will never blunt its edge.  \nBut if thou art so bent upon it, why  \nThou mightest plead unto the Churchman yonder:  \nThe common people call him kindly here,  \nIndeed I know he has a kindly soul.\n\nGUIDO: This man, whose trade is death, hath courtesies  \nMore than the others.\n\nHEADSMAN: Why, God love you, sir,  \nI'll do you your last service on this earth.\n\nGUIDO: My good Lord Cardinal, in a Christian land,  \nWith Lord Christ's face of mercy looking down  \nFrom the high seat of Judgment, shall a man  \nDie unabsolved, unshrived? And if not so  \nMay I not tell this dreadful tale of sin,  \nIf any sin there be upon my soul.\n\nDUCHESS: Thou dost but waste thy time.\n\nCARDINAL: Alack, my son,  \nI have no power with the secular arm.  \nMy task begins when justice has been done,  \nTo urge the wavering sinner to repent  \nAnd to confess to Holy Church's ear  \nThe dreadful secrets of a sinful mind.\n\nDUCHESS: Thou mayest speak to the confessional  \nUntil thy lips grow weary of their tale,  \nBut here thou shalt not speak.\n\nGUIDO: My reverend father,  \nYou bring me but cold comfort.\n\nCARDINAL: Nay, my son,  \nFor the great power of our mother Church,  \nEnds not with this poor bubble of a world,  \nOf which we are but dust, as Jerome saith,  \nFor if the sinner doth repentant die,  \nOur prayers and holy masses much avail  \nTo bring the guilty soul from purgatory.\n\nDUCHESS: And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord  \nWith that red star of blood upon his heart,  \nTell him I sent thee hither.\n\nGUIDO: O dear God!\n\nMORANZONE: This is the woman, is it, whom you loved?\n\nCARDINAL: Your Grace is very cruel to this man.\n\nDUCHESS: No more than he was cruel to her Grace.\n\nCARDINAL: Ay! He did slay your husband.\n\nDUCHESS: Ay! He did.\n\nCARDINAL: Yet mercy is the sovereign right of princes.\n\nDUCHESS: I got no mercy, and I give it not.  \nHe hath changed my heart into a heart of stone,  \nHe hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field,  \nHe hath poisoned the wells of pity in my breast,  \nHe hath withered up all kindness at the root;  \nMy life is as some famine-murdered land,  \nWhence all good things have perished utterly:  \nI am what he hath made me.\n\n_The_ DUCHESS _weeps._\n\nJEPPO: Is it not strange  \nThat she should so have loved the wicked Duke?\n\nMAFFIO: It is most strange when women love their lords,  \nAnd when they love them not it is most strange.\n\nJEPPO: What a philosopher thou art, Petrucci!\n\nMAFFIO: Ay! I can bear the ills of other men,  \nWhich is philosophy.\n\nDUCHESS: They tarry long,  \nThese-greybeards and their council; bid them come;  \nBid them come quickly, else I think my heart  \nWill beat itself to bursting: not indeed, that I here care to live:  \nGod knows my life  \nIs not so full of joy, yet, for all that,  \nI would not die companionless, or go  \nLonely to Hell.\n\nLook, my Lord Cardinal,  \nCanst thou not see across my forehead here,  \nIn scarlet letters writ, the word Revenge?  \nFetch me some water, I will wash it off:  \n'Twas branded there last night, but in the daytime  \nI need not wear it, need I, my Lord Cardinal?  \nOh how it sears and burns into my brain:  \nGive me a knife; not that one, but another,  \nAnd I will cut it out.\n\nCARDINAL: It is most natural  \nTo be incensed against the murderous hand  \nThat treacherously stabbed your sleeping lord.\n\nDUCHESS: I would, old Cardinal, I could burn that hand;  \nBut it will burn hereafter.\n\nCARDINAL: Nay, the Church  \nOrdains us to forgive our enemies.\n\nDUCHESS: Forgiveness? What is that? I never got it.  \nThey come at last: well, my Lord Justice, well.\n\n_Enter the_ LORD JUSTICE.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Most gracious Lady, and our sovereign Liege,  \nWe have long pondered on the point at issue,  \nAnd much considered of your Grace's wisdom,  \nAnd never wisdom spake from fairer lips \u2013\n\nDUCHESS: Proceed, sir, without compliment.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: We find,  \nAs your own Grace did rightly signify,  \nThat any citizen, who by force or craft  \nConspires against the person of the Liege,  \nIs _ipso facto_ outlaw, void of rights  \nSuch as pertain to other citizens,  \nIs traitor, and a public enemy,  \nWho may by any casual sword be slain  \nWithout the slayer's danger, nay if brought  \nInto the presence of the tribunal,  \nMust with dumb lips and silence reverent  \nListen unto his well-deserved doom,  \nNor has the privilege of open speech.\n\nDUCHESS: I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;  \nI like your law: and now I pray dispatch  \nThis public outlaw to his righteous doom;  \nFor I am weary, and the headsman weary,  \nWhat is there more?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Ay, there is more, your Grace.  \nThis man being alien born, not Paduan,  \nNor by allegiance bound unto the Duke,  \nSave such as common nature doth lay down,  \nHath, though accused of treasons manifold,  \nWhose slightest penalty is certain death,  \nYet still the right of public utterance  \nBefore the people and the open Court,  \nNay, shall be much entreated by the Court,  \nTo make some formal pleading for his life,  \nLest his own city, righteously incensed,  \nShould with an unjust trial tax our state,  \nAnd wars spring up against the commonwealth:  \nSo merciful are the laws of Padua  \nUnto the stranger living in her gates.\n\nDUCHESS: Being of my Lord's household, is he stranger here?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Ay, until seven years of service spent  \nHe cannot be a Paduan citizen.\n\nGUIDO: I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;  \nI like your law.\n\nSECOND CITIZEN: I like no law at all:  \nWere there no law there'd be no law-breakers,  \nSo all men would be virtuous.\n\nFIRST CITIZEN: So they would;  \n'Tis a wise saying that, and brings you far.\n\nTIPSTAFF: Ay! To the gallows, knave.\n\nDUCHESS: Is this the law?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: It is the law most certainly, my liege.\n\nDUCHESS: Show me the book: 'tis written in blood-red.\n\nJEPPO: Look at the Duchess.\n\nDUCHESS: Thou accursed law,  \nI would that I could tear thee from the state  \nAs easy as I tear thee from this book.\n\n_Tears out the page._\n\nCome here, Count Bardi: are you honourable?  \nGet a horse ready for me at my house,  \nFor I must ride to Venice instantly.\n\nBARDI: To Venice, Madam?\n\nDUCHESS: Not a word of this.  \nGo, go at once.\n\n_Exit_ COUNT BARDI.\n\nA moment, my Lord Justice.  \nIf, as thou sayest it, this is the law \u2013  \nNay, nay, I doubt not that thou sayest right,  \nThough right be wrong in such a case as this \u2013  \nMay I not by virtue of mine office  \nAdjourn this Court until another day?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Madam, you cannot stay a trial for blood.\n\nDUCHESS: I will not tarry then to hear this man  \nRail with rude tongue against our sacred person.  \nI have some business also in my house  \nWhich I must do: Come, gentlemen.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: My liege,  \nYou cannot leave this court until the prisoner  \nBe purged or guilty of this dread offence.\n\nDUCHESS: Cannot, Lord Justice? By what right do you  \nSet barriers in my path where I should go?  \nAm I not Duchess here in Padua,  \nAnd the state's regent?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: For that reason, Madam,  \nBeing the fountain-head of life and death  \nWhence, like a mighty river, justice flows,  \nWithout thy presence justice is dried up  \nAnd fails of purpose: thou must tarry here.\n\nDUCHESS: What, wilt thou keep me here against my will?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: We pray thy will be not against the law.\n\nDUCHESS: What if I force my way out of the Court?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thou canst not force the Court to give thee way.\n\nDUCHESS: I will not tarry. ( _Rises from her seat._ )\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Is the usher here?  \nLet him stand forth. ( _Usher comes forward._ )\n\nThou knowest thy business, sir.\n\n_The Usher closes the doors of the Court, which are L., and when the_ DUCHESS _and her retinue approach, kneels down._\n\nUSHER: In all humility I beseech your Grace  \nTurn not my duty to discourtesy,  \nNor make my unwelcome office an offence.  \nThe self-same laws which make your Grace the Regent  \nBid me watch here: my Liege, to break those laws  \nIs but to break thine office and not mine.\n\nDUCHESS: Is there no gentleman amongst you all  \nTo prick this prating fellow from our way?\n\nMAFFIO ( _drawing his sword_ ): Ay ! That will I.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Count Maffio, have a care,  \nAnd you, sir. ( _To_ JEPPO.)\n\nThe first man who draws his sword  \nUpon the meanest officer of this Court,  \nDies before nightfall.\n\nDUCHESS: Sirs, put up your swords:  \nIt is most meet that I should hear this man. ( _Goes back to throne._ )\n\nMORANZONE: Now has thou got thy enemy in thy hand.\n\nLORD JUSTICE ( _taking the time-glass up_ ): Guido Ferranti, while the crumbling sand  \nFalls through this time-glass, thou hast leave to speak.  \nThis and no more.\n\nGUIDO: It is enough, my lord.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thou standest on the extreme verge of death;  \nSee that thou speakest nothing but the truth,  \nNaught else will serve thee.\n\nGUIDO: If I speak it not,  \nThen give my body to the headsman there.\n\nLORD JUSTICE ( _turns the time-glass_ ): Let there be silence while the prisoner speaks.\n\nTIPSTAFF: Silence in the Court there.\n\nGUIDO: My Lords Justices.  \nAnd reverent judges of this worthy court.  \nI hardly know where to begin my tale,  \nSo strangely dreadful is this history  \nFirst, let me tell you of what birth I am.  \nI am the son of that good Duke Lorenzo  \nWho was with damned treachery done to death  \nBy a most wicked villain, lately Duke  \nOf this good town of Padua.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Have a care,  \nIt will avail thee nought to mock this prince  \nWho now lies in his coffin.\n\nMAFFIO: By Saint James,  \nThis is the Duke of Parma's rightful heir.\n\nJEPPO: I always thought him noble.\n\nGUIDO: I confess  \nThat with the purport of a just revenge,  \nA most just vengeance on a man of blood,  \nI entered the Duke's household, served his will,  \nSat at his board, drank of his wine, and was  \nHis intimate: so much I will confess,  \nAnd this too, that I waited till he grew  \nTo give the fondest secrets of his life  \nInto my keeping, till he fawned on me,  \nAnd trusted me in every private matter  \nEven as my noble father trusted him;  \nThat for this thing I waited. ( _To the Headsman._ )\n\nThou man of blood!  \nTurn not thine axe on me before the time:  \nWho knows if it be time for me to die?  \nIs there no other neck in court but mine?\n\nLORD JUSTICE: The sand within the time-glass flows apace.  \nCome quickly to the murder of the Duke.\n\nGUIDO: I will be brief: Last night at twelve o' the clock,  \nBy a strong rope I scaled the palace wall,  \nWith purport to revenge my father's murder \u2013  \nAy! With that purport I confess, my lord.  \nThis much I will acknowledge, and this also,  \nThat as with stealthy feet I climbed the stair  \nWhich led unto the chamber of the Duke,  \nAnd reached my hand out for the scarlet cloth  \nWhich shook and shivered in the gusty door,  \nLo! The white moon that sailed in the great heaven  \nFlooded with silver light the darkened room,  \nNight lit her candles for me, and I saw  \nThe man I hated, cursing in his sleep,  \nAnd thinking of a most dear father murdered,  \nSold to the scaffold, bartered to the block,  \nI smote the treacherous villain to the heart  \nWith this same dagger, which by chance I found  \nWithin the chamber.\n\nDUCHESS ( _rising from her seat_ ): Oh!\n\nGUIDO ( _hurriedly_ ): I killed the Duke.  \nNow, my Lord Justice, if I may crave a boon,  \nSuffer me not to see another sun  \nLight up the misery of this loathsome world.\n\nLORD JUSTICE: Thy boon is granted, thou shalt die to-night.  \nLead him away: Come, Madam.\n\nGUIDO _is led off; as he goes the_ DUCHESS _stretches out her arms and rushes down the stage._\n\nDUCHESS: Guido! Guido! ( _Faints._ )\n\nTABLEAU\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT FIVE\n\nSCENE: _A dungeon in the public prison of Padua; Guido lies asleep on a pallet (L.C.); a table with a goblet on it is set (L.C.); five soldiers are drinking and playing dice in the corner on a stone table; one of them has a lantern hung to his halbert; a torch is set in the wall over Guido's head. Two grated windows behind, one on each side of the door which is (C.), look out into a passage; the stage is rather dark._\n\nFIRST SOLDIER ( _throws dice_ ): Sixes again! Good Pietro.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: I' faith, lieutenant, I will play with thee no more. I will lose everything.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: Except thy wits; thou art safe there!\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Ay, ay, he cannot take them from me.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: No; for thou hast no wits to give him.\n\nTHE SOLDIERS ( _loudly_ ): Ha! Ha! Ha!\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Silence! You will wake the prisoner; he is asleep.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: What matter? He will get sleep enough when he is buried. I warrant he'd be glad if we could wake him when he's in the grave.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: Nay! For when he wakes there it will be judgment day.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Ay, and he has done a grievous thing; for, look you, to murder one of us who are but flesh and blood is a sin and to kill a Duke goes being near against the law.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Well, well, he was a wicked Duke.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: And so he should not have touched him; if one meddles with wicked people, one is like to be tainted with their wickedness.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: Ay, that is true. How old is the prisoner?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Old enough to do wrong, and not old enough to be wise.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why, then, he might be any age.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: They say the Duchess wanted to pardon him.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Is that so?\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Ay, and did much entreat the Lord Justice, but he would not.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I had thought, Pietro, that the Duchess was omnipotent.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: True, she is well-favoured; I know none so comely.\n\nTHE SOLDIERS: Ha! Ha! Ha!\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I meant I had thought our Duchess could do anything.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: Nay, for he is now given over to the Justices, and they will see that justice be done; they and stout Hugh the headsman; but when his head is off, why then the Duchess can pardon him if she like; there is no law against that.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I do not think that stout Hugh, as you call him, will do the business for him after all. This Guido is of gentle birth, and so by the law can drink poison first, if it so be his pleasure.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: Faith, to drink poison is a poor pleasure.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: What kind of poison is it?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why, of the kind that kills.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: What sort of a thing is poison?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: It is a drink, like water, only not so healthy: if you would taste it there is some in the cup there.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: By Saint James, if it be not healthy, I will have none of it!\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: And if he does not drink it?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why, then, they will kill him.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: And if he does drink it?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Why, then, he will die.\n\nSECOND SOLDIER: He has a grave choice to make. I trust he will choose wisely.\n\n_Knocking comes at the door._\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: See who that is.\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER _goes over and looks through the wicket._\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: It is a woman, sir.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Is she pretty?\n\nTHIRD SOLDIER: I can't tell. She is masked, lieutenant.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: It is only very ugly or very beautiful women who ever hide their faces. Let her in.\n\n_Soldier opens the door, and the_ DUCHESS _masked and cloaked enters._\n\nDUCHESS ( _to_ THIRD SOLDIER): Are you the officer on guard?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER ( _coming forward_ ): I am, madam.\n\nDUCHESS: I must see the prisoner alone.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: I am afraid that is impossible. ( _The_ DUCHESS _hands him a ring, he looks at it and returns it to her with a bow and makes a sign to the_ SOLDIERS.) Stand without there.\n\n_Exeunt the_ SOLDIERS.\n\nDUCHESS: Officer, your men are somewhat rough.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: They mean no harm.\n\nDUCHESS: I will be going back in a few minutes. As I pass through the corridor do not let them try and lift my mask.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: You need not be afraid, madam.\n\nDUCHESS: I have a particular reason for wishing my face not to be seen.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Madam, with this ring you can go in and out as you please; it is the Duchess's own ring.\n\nDUCHESS: Leave us. ( _The_ SOLDIER _turns to go out._ ) A moment sir. For what hour is...\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: At twelve o'clock, madam, we have orders to lead him out; but I dare say he won't wait for us; he's more like to take a drink out of that poison yonder. Men are afraid of the headsman.\n\nDUCHESS: Is that poison?\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: Ay, madam, and very sure poison too.\n\nDUCHESS: You may go, sir.\n\nFIRST SOLDIER: By Saint James, a pretty hand! I wonder who she is. Some woman who loved him, perhaps.\n\n_Exit._\n\nDUCHESS ( _taking her mask off_ ): At last!  \nHe can escape now in this cloak and vizard,  \nWe are of a height almost: they will not know him;  \nAs for myself what matter?  \nSo that he does not curse me as he goes,  \nI care but little; I wonder will he curse me,  \nHe has the right. It is eleven now.  \nThey will not come till twelve. What will they say  \nWhen they find the bird has flown?\n\n_Goes over to the table._\n\nSo this is poison.  \nIs it not strange that in this liquor here  \nThere lies the key to all philosophies?\n\n_Takes the cup up._\n\nIt smells of poppies. I remember well  \nThat, when I was a child in Sicily,  \nI took the scarlet poppies from the corn,  \nAnd made a little wreath, and my grave uncle,  \nDon John of Naples, laughed: I did not know  \nThat they had power to stay the springs of life,  \nTo make the pulse cease beating, and to chill  \nThe blood in its own vessels, till men come  \nAnd with a hook hale the poor body out,  \nAnd throw it in a ditch: the body, ay, \u2013  \nWhat of the soul? That goes to heaven or hell.  \nWhere will mine go?\n\n_Takes the torch from the wall, and goes over to the bed._\n\nHow peacefully here he sleeps,  \nLike a young schoolboy tired out with play:  \nI would that I could sleep so peacefully,  \nBut I have dreams.\n\n_Bending over him._\n\nPoor boy: what if I kissed him?  \nNo, no, my lips would burn him like a fire.  \nHe has had enough of Love. Still that white neck  \nWill 'scape the headsman: I have seen to that:  \nHe will get hence from Padua to-night,  \nAnd that is well. You are very wise. Lord Justices,  \nAnd yet you are not half so wise as I am,  \nAnd that is well.\n\nO God! how I have loved you,  \nAnd what a bloody flower did Love bear!\n\n_Comes back to the table._\n\nWhat if I drank these juices, and so ceased?  \nWere it not better than to wait till Death  \nCome to my bed with all his serving men,  \nRemorse, disease, old age, and misery?  \nI wonder does one suffer much: I think  \nThat I am very young to die like this,  \nBut so it must be. Why, why should I die?  \nHe will escape to-night, and so his blood  \nWill not be on my head. No, I must die:  \nI have been guilty, therefore I must die:  \nHe loves me not, and therefore I must die:  \nI would die happier if he would kiss me,  \nBut he will not do that. I did not know him,  \nI thought he meant to sell me to the judge;  \nThat is not strange; we women never know  \nOur lovers till they leave us.\n\n_Bell begins to toll._\n\nThou vile bell,  \nThat like a bloodhound from thy brazen throat  \nCall'st for this man's life, cease! Thou shalt not get it.  \nHe stirs \u2013 I must be quick:\n\n_Takes up cup._\n\nO Love, Love, Love,  \nI did not think that I would pledge thee thus!\n\n_Drinks poison, and sets the cup down on the table behind her: the noise wakens_ GUIDO, _who starts up, and does not see what she has done. There is silence for a minute, each looking at the other._\n\nI do not come to ask your pardon now,  \nSeeing I know I stand beyond all pardon,  \nA very guilty, very wicked woman;  \nEnough of that: I have already, sir,  \nConfessed my sin to the Lords Justices;  \nThey would not listen to me: and some said  \nI did invent a tale to save your life,  \nYou having trafficked with me; others said  \nThat women played with pity as with men;  \nOthers that grief for my slain Lord and husband  \nHad robbed me of my wits: they would not hear me,  \nAnd, when I sware it on the holy book,  \nThey bade the doctor cure me. They are ten,  \nTen against one, and they possess your life.  \nThey call me Duchess here in Padua.  \nI do not know, sir; if I be the Duchess,  \nI wrote your pardon, and they would not take it;  \nThey call it treason, say I taught them that;  \nMaybe I did. Within an hour, Guido,  \nThey will be here, and drag you from the cell,  \nAnd bind your hands behind your back, and bid you  \nKneel at the block: I am before them there;  \nHere is the signet ring of Padua,  \n'Twill bring you safely through the men on guard,  \nThere is my cloak and vizard; they have orders  \nNot to be curious; when you pass the gate  \nTurn to the left, and at the second bridge  \nYou will find horses waiting: by to-morrow  \nYou will be at Venice, safe.\n\n_A pause._\n\nDo you not speak?  \nWill you not even curse me ere you go? \u2013  \nYou have the right.\n\n_A pause._\n\nYou do not understand  \nThere lies between you and the headsman's axe  \nHardly so much sand in the hour-glass  \nAs a child's palm could carry: here is the ring:  \nI have washed my hand: there is no blood upon it:  \nYou need not fear. Will you not take the ring?\n\nGUIDO ( _takes ring and kisses it_ ): Ay! gladly, Madam.\n\nDUCHESS: And leave Padua.\n\nGUIDO: Leave Padua.\n\nDUCHESS: But it must be to-night.\n\nGUIDO: To-night it shall be.\n\nDUCHESS: Oh, thank God for that!\n\nGUIDO: So I can live; life never seemed so sweet As at this moment.\n\nDUCHESS: Do not tarry, Guido,  \nThere is my cloak: the horse is at the bridge,  \nThe second bridge below the ferry house:  \nWhy do you tarry? Can your ears not hear  \nThis dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke  \nRobs one brief minute from your boyish life.  \nGo quickly.\n\nGUIDO: Ay! He will come soon enough.\n\nDUCHESS: Who?\n\nGUIDO ( _calmly_ ): Why, the headsman.\n\nDUCHESS: No, no.\n\nGUIDO: Only he  \nCan bring me out of Padua.\n\nDUCHESS: You dare not!  \nYou dare not burden my o'erburdened soul  \nWith two dead men! I think one is enough.  \nFor when I stand before God, face to face,  \nI would not have you, with a scarlet thread  \nAround your white throat, coming up behind  \nTo say I did it: Why, the very devils  \nWho howl away in hell would pity me:  \nYou will not be more cruel than the devils  \nWho are shut out from God.\n\nGUIDO: Madam, I wait.\n\nDUCHESS: No, no, you cannot: you do not understand,  \nI have less power in Padua to-night  \nThan any common woman; they will kill you.  \nI saw the scaffold as I crossed the square,  \nAlready the low rabble throng about it,  \nWith fearful jests, and horrid merriment,  \nAs though it were a morris-dancer's platform,  \nAnd not Death's sable throne. O Guido, Guido,  \nYou must escape!\n\nGUIDO: Ay, by the hand of death,  \nNot by your hand.\n\nDUCHESS. Oh, you are merciless,  \nMerciless now as ever: No, no, Guido,  \nYou must go hence.\n\nGUIDO: Madam, I tarry here.\n\nDUCHESS: Guido, you shall not: it would be a thing  \nSo terrible that the amazed stars  \nWould fall from heaven, and the palsied moon  \nBe in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun  \nRefuse to shine upon the unjust earth  \nWhich saw thee die.\n\nGUIDO: Be sure I shall not stir.\n\nDUCHESS ( _wringing her hands_ ): You do not know: once that the judges come  \nI have no power to keep you from the axe;  \nYou cannot wait: have I not sinned enough?  \nIs one sin not enough, but must it breed  \nA second sin more horrible again  \nThan was the one that bare it? O God, God,  \nSeal up sin's teeming womb, and make it barren,  \nI will not have more blood upon my hand  \nThan I have now.\n\nGUIDO ( _seizing her hand_ ): What! Am I fallen so low  \nThat I may not have leave to die for you?\n\nDUCHESS ( _tearing her hand away_ ): Die for me? \u2013 no, my life is a vile thing,  \nThrown to the miry highways of this world;  \nYou shall not die for me, you shall not, Guido,  \nI am a guilty woman.\n\nGUIDO: Guilty? \u2013 let those\n\nWho know what a thing temptation is,  \nIn the red fire of passion, those whose lives  \nAre dull and colourless, in a word let those,  \nIf any such there be, who have not loved,  \nCast stones against you. As for me\u2014\n\nDUCHESS: Alas!\n\nGUIDO ( _falling at her feet_ ): You are my lady, and you are my love!  \nO hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face  \nMade for the luring and the love of man!  \nIncarnate image of pure loveliness!  \nWorshipping thee I do forget the past,  \nWorshipping thee my soul comes close to thine,  \nWorshipping thee I seem to be a god,  \nAnd though they give my body to the block,  \nYet is my love eternal!\n\nDUCHESS _puts her hands over her face_ : GUIDO _draws them down._\n\nSweet, lift up  \nThe trailing curtains that overhang thine eyes  \nThat I may look into those eyes, and tell you  \nI love you, never more than now when Death  \nThrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice,  \nI love you: have you no word left to say?  \nOh, I can bear the executioner,  \nBut not this silence: will you not say you love me?  \nSpeak but that word and Death shall lose his sting,  \nBut speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths  \nAre, in comparison, mercy. Oh you are cruel,  \nAnd do not love me.\n\nDUCHESS: Alas! I have no right.  \nFor I have stained the innocent hands of love  \nWith spilt-out blood: there is blood on the ground,  \nI set it there.\n\nGUIDO: Sweet, it was not yourself,  \nIt was some devil tempted you. No, no,\n\nDUCHESS ( _rising suddenly_ ):  \nWe are each our own devil, and we make  \nThis world our hell.\n\nGUIDO: Then let high Paradise  \nFall into Tartarus! For I shall make  \nThis world my heaven for a little space.  \nI love you, Beatrice.\n\nDUCHESS: I am not worthy,  \nBeing a thing of sin.\n\nGUIDO: No, my Lord Christ,  \nThe sin was mine, if any sin there was.  \n'Twas I who nurtured murder in my heart,  \nSweetened my meats, seasoned my wine with it,  \nAnd in my fancy slew the accursed Duke  \nA hundred times a day. Why, had this man  \nDied half so often as I wished him to,  \nDeath had been stalking ever through the house,  \nAnd murder had not slept.\n\nBut you, fond heart,  \nWhose little eyes grew tender over a whipt hound,  \nYou whom the little children laughed to see  \nBecause you brought the sunlight where you passed,  \nYou the white angel of God's purity,  \nThis which men call your sin, what was it?\n\nDUCHESS: Ay!  \nWhat was it? There are times it seems a dream,  \nAn evil dream sent by an evil god,  \nAnd then I see the dead face in the coffin  \nAnd know it is no dream, but that my hand  \nIs red with blood, and that my desperate soul  \nStriving to find some haven for its love  \nFrom the wild tempest of this raging world,  \nHas wrecked its bark upon the rocks of sin.  \nWhat was it, said you? \u2013 murder merely? Nothing  \nBut murder, horrible murder.\n\nGUIDO: Nay, nay, nay,  \n'Twas but the passion-flower of your love  \nThat in one moment leapt to terrible life,  \nAnd in one moment bare this gory fruit,  \nWhich I had plucked in thought a thousand times.  \nMy soul was murderous, but my hand refused;  \nYour hand wrought murder, but your soul was pure.  \nAnd so I love you, Beatrice, and let him  \nWho has no mercy for your stricken head,  \nLack mercy up in heaven! Kiss me, sweet.\n\n_Tries to kiss her._\n\nDUCHESS: No, no, your lips are pure, and mine are soiled,  \nFor Guilt has been my paramour, and Sin  \nLain in my bed: O Guido, if you love me  \nGet hence, for every moment is a worm  \nWhich gnaws your life away: nay, sweet, get hence,  \nAnd if in after time you think of me,  \nThink of me as of one who loved you more  \nThan anything on earth; think of me, Guido,  \nAs of a woman merely, one who tried  \nTo make her life a sacrifice to love,  \nAnd slew love in the trial: Oh, what is that?  \nThe bell has stopped from ringing, and I hear  \nThe feet of armed men upon the stair.\n\nGUIDO ( _aside_ ): That is the signal for the guard to come.\n\nDUCHESS: Why has the bell stopped ringing?\n\nGUIDO: If you must know,  \nThat stops my life on this side of the grave,  \nBut on the other we shall meet again.\n\nDUCHESS: No, no, 'tis not too late: you must get hence;  \nThe horse is by the bridge, there is still time.  \nAway, away, you must not tarry here!\n\n_Noise of_ SOLDIERS _in the passage._\n\nA VOICE OUTSIDE: Room for the Lord Justice of Padua!\n\n_The_ LORD JUSTICE _is seen through the grated window passing down the corridor preceded by men bearing torches._\n\nDUCHESS: It is too late.\n\nA VOICE OUTSIDE: Room for the headsman.\n\nDUCHESS ( _sinks down_ ): Oh!\n\n_The_ HEADSMAN _with his axe on his shoulder is seen passing the corridor, followed by Monks bearing candles._\n\nGUIDO: Farewell, dear love, for I must drink this poison.  \nI do not fear the headsman, but I would die  \nNot on the lonely scaffold.\n\nDUCHESS: Oh!\n\nGUIDO: But here,  \nHere in thine arms, kissing thy mouth: farewell!\n\n_Goes to the table and takes the goblet up._\n\nWhat, art thou empty?\n\n_Throws it to the ground._\n\nO thou churlish gaoler,  \nEven of poisons niggard!\n\nDUCHESS ( _faintly_ ): Blame him not.\n\nGUIDO: O God! You have not drunk it, Beatrice?  \nTell me you have not?\n\nDUCHESS: Were I to deny it,  \nThere is a fire eating at my heart  \nWhich would find utterance.\n\nGUIDO: O treacherous love,  \nWhy have you not left a drop for me?\n\nDUCHESS: No, no, it held but death enough for one.\n\nGUIDO: Is there no poison still upon your lips,  \nThat I may draw it from them?\n\nDUCHESS: Why should you die?  \nYou have not spilt blood, and so need not die:  \nI have spilt blood, and therefore I must die.  \nWas it not said blood should be spilt for blood?  \nWho said that? I forget.\n\nGUIDO: Tarry for me,  \nOur souls will go together.\n\nDUCHESS: Nay, you must live.  \nThere are many other women in the world  \nWho will love you, and not murder for your sake.\n\nGUIDO: I love you only.\n\nDUCHESS: You need not die for that.\n\nGUIDO: Ah, if we die together, love, why then  \nCan we not lie together in one grave.\n\nDUCHESS: A grave is but a narrow wedding-bed.\n\nGUIDO: It is enough for us.\n\nDUCHESS: And they will strew it\n\nWith a stark winding-sheet, and bitter herbs;  \nI think there are no roses in the grave,  \nOr if there are, they all are withered now  \nSince my Lord went there.\n\nGUIDO: Ah! Dear Beatrice,  \nYour lips are roses that death cannot wither.\n\nDUCHESS: Nay, if we lie together, will not my lips  \nFall into dust, and your enamoured eyes  \nShrivel to sightless sockets, and the worms,  \nWhich are our groomsmen, eat away your heart?\n\nGUIDO: I do not care: Death has no power on love,  \nAnd so by Love's immortal sovereignty  \nI will die with you.\n\nDUCHESS: But the grave is black,  \nAnd the pit black, so I must go before  \nTo light the candles for your coming hither.  \nNo, no, I will not die, I will not die.  \nLove, you are strong, and young, and very brave,  \nStand between me and the angel of death,  \nAnd wrestle with him for me.\n\n_Thrusts_ GUIDO _in front of her with his back to the audience._\n\nI will kiss you,  \nWhen you have thrown him. Oh, have you no cordial,  \nTo stay the workings of this poison in me?  \nAre there no rivers left in Italy  \nThat you will not fetch me one cup of water  \nTo quench this fire?\n\nGUIDO: O God!\n\nDUCHESS: You did not tell me  \nThere was a drought in Italy, and no water,  \nNothing but fire.\n\nGUIDO: O Love!\n\nDUCHESS: Send for a leech,  \nNot him who stanched my husband, but another,  \nWe have no time: send for a leech, I say:  \nThere is an antidote against each poison,  \nAnd he will sell it if we give him money.  \nTell him that I will give him Padua,  \nFor one short hour of life: I will not die.  \nOh, I am sick to death; no, do not touch me,  \nThis poison gnaws my heart: I did not know  \nIt was such pain to die: I thought that life  \nHad taken all the agonies to itself;  \nIt seems it is not so.\n\nGUIDO: O damned stars,  \nQuench your vile cresset-lights in tears, and bid  \nThe moon, your mistress, shine no more to-night.\n\nDUCHESS: Guido, why are we here? I think this room  \nIs poorly furnished for a marriage chamber.  \nLet us go hence at once. Where are the horses?  \nWe should be on our way to Venice now.  \nHow cold the night is! We must ride faster.  \nThat is our wedding-bell, is it not, Guido?\n\n_The Monks begin to chant outside._\n\nMusic! It should be merrier; but grief  \nIs of the fashion now \u2013 I know not why.  \nYou must not weep: do we not love each other? \u2013  \nThat is enough. Death, what do you here?  \nYou were not bidden to this table, sir;  \nAway, we have no need of you: I tell you  \nIt was in wine I pledged you, not in poison.  \nThey lied who told you that I drank your poison.  \nIt was spilt upon the ground, like my Lord's blood;  \nYou came too late.\n\nGUIDO: Sweet, there is nothing there:  \nThese things are only unreal shadows.\n\nDUCHESS: Death,  \nWhy do you tarry, get to the upper chamber;  \nThe cold meats of my husband's funeral feast  \nAre set for you; this is a wedding feast.  \nYou are out of place, sir; and, besides, 'tis summer.  \nWe do not need these heavy fires now,  \nYou scorch us. Guido, bid that grave-digger  \nStop digging in the earth that empty grave.  \nI will not lie there. Oh, I am burned up,  \nBurned up and blasted by these fires within me.  \nCan you do nothing? Water, give me water,  \nOr else more poison. No: I feel no pain \u2013  \nIs it not curious I should feel no pain? \u2013  \nAnd Death has gone away, I am glad of that.  \nI thought he meant to part us. Tell me, Guido,  \nAre you not sorry that you ever saw me?\n\nGUIDO: I swear I would not have lived otherwise.  \nWhy, in this dull and common world of ours  \nMen have died looking for such moments as this  \nAnd have not found them.\n\nDUCHESS: Then you are not sorry?  \nHow strange that seems.\n\nGUIDO: What, Beatrice, have I not  \nStood face to face with beauty; that is enough  \nFor one man's life. Why, love, I could be merry;  \nI have been often sadder at a feast,  \nBut who were sad at such a feast as this  \nWhen Love and Death are both our cup-bearers;  \nWe love and die together.\n\nDUCHESS: Oh, I have been  \nGuilty beyond all women, and indeed  \nBeyond all women punished. Do you think \u2013  \nNo, that could not be \u2013 oh, do you think that love  \nCan wipe the bloody stain from off my hands,  \nPour balm into my wounds, heal up my hurts,  \nAnd wash my scarlet sins as white as snow? \u2013  \nFor I have sinned.\n\nGUIDO: They do not sin at all  \nWho sin for love.\n\nDUCHESS: No, I have sinned, and yet  \nPercnance my sin will be forgiven me.  \nI have loved much.\n\n_They kiss each other now for the first time in this Act, when suddenly the_ DUCHESS _leaps up in the dreadful spasm of death, tears in agony at her dress, and finally, with face twisted and distorted with pain, falls back dead in a chair._ GUIDO _seizing her dagger from her belt, kills himself; and, as he falls across her knees, clutches at the cloak which is on the back of the chair. There is a little pause. Then down the passage comes the tramp of Soldiers; the door is opened, and the_ LORD JUSTICE, _the Headsman, and the Guard enter and see this figure shrouded in black, and_ GUIDO _lying dead across her. The_ LORD JUSTICE _rushes forward and drags the cloak off the_ DUCHESS, _whose face is now the marble image of peace, the sign of God's forgiveness._\n\nTABLEAU\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## Vera, or The Nihilists\n\n### A Drama in a Prologue, and Four Acts\n\n### Persons in the Prologue\n\nPETER SABOUROFF (an Innkeeper)\n\nNICOLAS\n\nCOLONEL KOTEMKIN\n\nDMITRI SABOUROFF\n\nVERA SABOUROFF (his Daughter)\n\nMICHAEL (a Peasant)\n\n### Persons in the Play\n\nIVAN THE CZAR\n\nPRINCE PAUL MARALOFFSKI (Prime Minister of Russia)\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD\n\nBARON RAFF\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN\n\nA PAGE\n\nCOLONEL OF THE GUARD\n\n### Nihilists\n\nPETER TCHERNAVITCH, President of the Nihilists\n\nMICHAEL\n\nALEXIS IVANACIEVITCH, known as a Student of Medicine\n\nPROFESSOR MARFA\n\nVERA SABOUROFF\n\nSOLDIERS, CONSPIRATORS Etc.\n\n### PROLOGUE\n\nSCENE: _A Russian inn. Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage._ PETER SABOUROFF _and_ MICHAEL.\n\nPETER ( _warming his hands at a stove_ ): Has Vera not come back yet, Michael?\n\nMICHAEL: No, Father Peter, not yet; 'tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle.\n\nPETER: Why didn't you go with her, you young fool? She'll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered.\n\nMICHAEL: She says I bother her too much already, Father Peter, and I fear she'll never love me after all.\n\nPETER: Tut, tut, boy, why shouldn't she? You're young, and wouldn't be ill-favoured either, had God or thy mother given thee another face. Aren't you one of Prince Maraloffski's gamekeepers; and haven't you got a good grass farm, and the best cow in the village? What more does a girl want?\n\nMICHAEL: But Vera, Father Peter \u2013\n\nPETER: Vera, my lad, has got too many ideas; I don't think much of ideas myself; I've got on well enough in life without 'em; why shouldn't my children? There's Dmitri! Could have stayed here and kept the inn; many a young lad would have jumped at the offer in these hard times; but he, scatter-brained featherhead of a boy, must needs go off to Moscow to study the law! What does he want knowing about the law? Let a man do his duty, say I, and no one will trouble him.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay! But, Father Peter, they say a good lawyer can break the law as often as he likes, and no one can say him nay. If a man knows the law he knows his duty.\n\nPETER: True, Michael, if a man knows the law there is nothing illegal he cannot do when he likes: that is why folk become lawyers. That is about all they are good for; and there he stays, and has not written a line to us for four months now \u2013 a good son that, eh?\n\nMICHAEL: Come, come, Father Peter, Dmitri's letters must have gone astray \u2013 perhaps the new postman can't read; he looks stupid enough, and Dmitri, why, he was the best fellow in the village. Do you remember how he shot the bear at the barn in the great winter?\n\nPETER: Ay, it was a good shot; I never did a better myself.\n\nMICHAEL: And as for dancing, he tired out three fiddlers Christmas come two years.\n\nPETER: Ay, ay, he was a merry lad. It is the girl that has the seriousness \u2013 she goes about as solemn as a priest for days at a time.\n\nMICHAEL: Vera is always thinking of others.\n\nPETER: There is her mistake, boy. Let God and our little Father the Czar look to the world. It is none of my work to mend my neighbour's thatch. Why, last winter old Michael was frozen to death in his sleigh in the snowstorm, and his wife and children starved afterwards when the hard times came; but what business was it of mine? I didn't make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. And then the blight came, and the black plague with it, and the priests couldn't bury the people fast enough, and they lay dead on the roads \u2013 men and women both. But what business was it of mine? I didn't make the world. Let God and the Czar look to it. Or two autumns ago, when the river overflowed on a sudden, and the children's school was carried away and drowned every girl and boy in it. I didn't make the world \u2013 let God or the Czar look to it.\n\nMICHAEL: But, Father Peter \u2013\n\nPETER: No, no, boy; no man could live if he took his neighbour's pack on his shoulder. ( _Enter_ VERA _in peasant's dress._ ) Well, my girl, you've been long enough away \u2013 where is the letter?\n\nVERA: There is none to-day, Father.\n\nPETER: I knew it.\n\nVERA: But there will be one to-morrow, Father.\n\nPETER: Curse him, for an ungrateful son.\n\nVERA: O Father, don't say that; he must be sick.\n\nPETER: Ay! Sick of Profligacy, perhaps.\n\nVERA: How dare you say that of him, Father? You know that is not true.\n\nPETER: Where does the money go, then? Michael, listen. I gave Dmitri half his mother's fortune to bring with him to pay the lawyer folk at Moscow. He has only written three times, and every time for more money. He got it, not at my wish, but at hers ( _pointing to_ VERA), and now for five months, close on six almost, we have heard nothing from him.\n\nVERA: Father, he will come back.\n\nPETER: Ay! The prodigals always return; but let him never darken my doors again.\n\nVERA ( _sitting down pensive_ ): Some evil has come on him; he must be dead! Oh! Michael, I am so wretched about Dmitri.\n\nMICHAEL: Will you never love any one but him, Vera?\n\nVERA ( _smiling_ ): I don't know; there is so much else to do in the world but love.\n\nMICHAEL: Nothing else worth doing, Vera.\n\nPETER: What noise is that, Vera? ( _A metallic clink is heard._ )\n\nVERA ( _rising and going to the door_ ): I don't know, Father; it is not like the cattle bells, or I would think Nicholas had come from the fair. Oh, Father! It is soldiers coming down the hill \u2013 there is one of them on horseback. How pretty they look! But there are some men with them, with chains on! They must be robbers. Oh! Don't let them in, Father; I couldn't look at them.\n\nPETER: Men in chains! Why, we are in luck, my child! I heard this was to be the new road to Siberia, to bring the prisoners to the mines; but I didn't believe it. My fortune is made! Bustle, Vera, bustle! I'll die a rich man after all. There will be no lack of good customers now. An honest man should have the chance of making his living out of rascals now and then.\n\nVERA: Are these men rascals, Father? What have they done?\n\nPETER: I reckon they're some of those Nihilists the priest warns us against. Don't stand there idle, my girl.\n\nVERA: I suppose, then, they are all wicked men.\n\n_Sound of soldiers outside; cry of 'Halt!' Enter Russian officer with a body of soldiers and eight men in chains, raggedly dressed; one of them on entering, hurriedly puts his coat above his ears and hides his face; some soldiers guard the door, others sit down; the prisoners stand._\n\nCOLONEL: Innkeeper!\n\nPETER: Yes, Colonel.\n\nCOLONEL ( _pointing to Nihilists_ ): Give these men some bread and water.\n\nPETER ( _to himself_ ): I shan't make much out of that order.\n\nCOLONEL: As for myself, what have you got fit to eat?\n\nPETER: Some good dried venison, your Excellency \u2013 and some rye whisky.\n\nCOLONEL: Nothing else?\n\nPETER: Why, more whisky, your Excellency.\n\nCOLONEL: What clods these peasants are! You have a better room than this?\n\nPETER: Yes, sir.\n\nCOLONEL: Bring me there. Sergeant, post your picket outside, and see that these scoundrels do not communicate with any one. No letter writing, you dogs, or you'll be flogged for it. Now for the venison. ( _To_ PETER _bowing before him._ ) Get out of the way, you fool! Who is that girl? ( _Sees_ VERA.)\n\nPETER: My daughter, your Highness.\n\nCOLONEL: Can she read and write?\n\nPETER: Ay, that she can, sir.\n\nCOLONEL: Then she is a dangerous woman. No peasant should be allowed to do anything of the kind. Till your fields, store your harvests, pay your taxes, and obey your masters \u2013 that is your duty.\n\nVERA: Who are our masters?\n\nCOLONEL: Young woman, these men are going to the mines for life for asking the same foolish question.\n\nVERA: Then they have been unjustly condemned.\n\nPETER: Vera, keep your tongue quiet. She is a foolish girl, sir, who talks too much.\n\nCOLONEL: Every woman does talk too much. Come, where is this venison? Count, I am waiting for you. How can you see anything in a girl with coarse hands? ( _He passes with_ PETER _and his aide-de-camp into an inner room._ )\n\nVERA ( _to one of the Nihilists_ ): Won't you sit down? You must be tired.\n\nSERGEANT: Come now, young woman, no talking to my prisoners.\n\nVERA: I shall speak to them. How much do you want?\n\nSERGEANT: How much have you?\n\nVERA: Will you let these men sit down if I give you this? ( _Takes off her peasant's necklace._ ) It is all I have; it was my mother's.\n\nSERGEANT: Well, it looks pretty enough, and is heavy too. What do you want with these men?\n\nVERA: They are hungry and wretched. Let me go to them?\n\nONE OF THE SOLDIERS: Let the wench be, if she pays us.\n\nSERGEANT: Well, have your way. If the Colonel sees you, you may have to come with us, my pretty one.\n\nVERA ( _advances to the Nihilists_ ): Sit down; you must be tired. ( _Serves them food._ ) What are you?\n\nA PRISONER: Nihilists.\n\nVERA: Who put you in chains?\n\nPRISONER: Our Father the Czar.\n\nVERA: Why?\n\nPRISONER: For loving liberty too well.\n\nVERA ( _to the prisoner who hides his face_ ): What did you want to do?\n\nDMITRI: To give liberty to thirty millions of people enslaved to one man.\n\nVERA ( _startled at the voice_ ): What is your name?\n\nDMITRI: I have no name.\n\nVERA: Where are your friends?\n\nDMITRI: I have no friends.\n\nVERA: Let me see your face!\n\nDMITRI: You will see nothing but suffering in it. They have tortured me.\n\nVERA ( _tears his cloak from his face_ ): O God! Dmitri! My brother!\n\nDMITRI: Hush! Vera; be calm. You must not let my father know; it would kill him. I thought I could free Russia. I heard men talk of Liberty one night in a cafe. I had never heard the word before. It seemed to be a new God they spoke of. I joined them. It was there all the money went. Five months ago they seized us. They found me printing the paper. I am going to the mines for life. I could not write. I thought it would be better to let you think I was dead; for they are bringing us to a living tomb.\n\nVERA ( _looking round_ ): You must escape, Dmitri. I will take your place.\n\nDMITRI: Impossible! You can only revenge us.\n\nVERA: I shall revenge you.\n\nDMITRI: Listen! There is a house in Moscow \u2013\n\nSERGEANT: Prisoners, attention! The Colonel is coming \u2013 young woman, your time is up.\n\n_Enter_ COLONEL, AIDE-DE-CAMP, _and_ PETER.\n\nPETER: I hope your Highness is pleased with the venison. I shot it myself.\n\nCOLONEL: It had been better had you talked less about it. Sergeant, get ready. ( _Givespurse to_ PETER.) Here, you cheating rascal!\n\nPETER: My fortune is made! Long live your Highness. I hope your Highness will come often this way.\n\nCOLONEL: By St. Nicholas, I hope not. It is too cold here for me. ( _To_ VERA): Young girl, don't ask questions again about what does not concern you. I will not forget your face.\n\nVERA: Nor I yours, or what you are doing.\n\nCOLONEL: You peasants are getting too saucy since you ceased to be serfs, and the knout is the best school for you to learn politics in. Sergeant, proceed.\n\n_The_ COLONEL _turns and goes to the top of stage. The prisoners pass out double file; as_ DMITRI _passes_ VERA _he lets a piece of paper fall on the ground; she puts her foot on it and remains immobile._\n\nPETER ( _who has been counting the money the_ COLONEL _gave him_ ): Long life to your Highness. I will hope to see another batch soon. ( _Suddenly catches sight of_ DMITRI _as he is going out of the door, and screams and rushes up._ ) Dmitri! Dmitri! My God! What brings you here? He is innocent, I tell you. I'll pay for him. Take your money ( _flings money on the ground_ ), take all I have, give me my son. Villains! Villains! Where are you bringing him?\n\nCOLONEL: To Siberia, old man.\n\nPETER: No, no; take me instead.\n\nCOLONEL: He is a Nihilist.\n\nPETER: You lie! You lie! He is innocent. ( _The soldiers force him back with their guns and shut the door against him. He beats with his fists against it._ ) Dmitri! Dmitri! A Nihilist! A Nihilist! ( _Falls down on floor._ )\n\n_VERA (who has remained motionless, picks up paper now from under her foot and reads_ ): '99 Rue Tchernavaya, Moscow. To strangle whatever nature is in me; neither to love nor to be loved; neither to pity nor to be pitied; neither to marry nor to be given in marriage, till the end is come.' My brother, I shall keep the oath. ( _Kisses the paper._ ) You shall be revenged!\n\nVERA _stands immobile, holding paper in her lifted hand._ PETER _is lying on the floor._ MICHAEL, _who has just come in, is bending over him._\n\nEND OF PROLOGUE\n\nACT ONE\n\nSCENE: _99 Tchernavaya, Moscow. A large garret lit by oil lamps hung from the ceiling. Some masked men standing silent and apart from one another. A man in a scarlet mask is writing at a table. Door at back. Man in yellow with drawn sword at it. Knocks heard. Figures in cloaks and masks enter._\n\n_Password._ Per crucem ad lucem.\n\n_Answer._ Per sanguinem ad libertatem.\n\n_Clock strikes._ CONSPIRATORS _form a semi-circle in the middle of the stage._\n\nPRESIDENT: What is the word?\n\nFIRST CONSPIRATOR: Nabat.\n\nPRESIDENT: The answer?\n\nSECOND CONSPIRATOR: Kalit.\n\nPRESIDENT: What hour is it?\n\nTHIRD CONSPIRATOR: The hour to suffer.\n\nPRESIDENT: What day?\n\nFOURTH CONSPIRATOR: The day of oppression.\n\nPRESIDENT: What year?\n\nFIFTH CONSPIRATOR: The year of hope.\n\nPRESIDENT: How many are we in number?\n\nSIXTH CONSPIRATOR: Ten, nine, and three.\n\nPRESIDENT: The Galilaean had less to conquer the world; but what is our mission?\n\nSEVENTH CONSPIRATOR: To give freedom.\n\nPRESIDENT: Our creed?\n\nEIGHTH CONSPIRATOR: To annihilate.\n\nPRESIDENT: Our duty?\n\nNINTH CONSPIRATOR: To obey.\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, the questions have been answered well. There are none but Nihilists present. Let us see each other's faces.\n\nTHE CONSPIRATORS _unmask._ Michael, recite the oath.\n\nMICHAEL: To strangle whatever nature is in us; neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor to be pitied, neither to marry nor to be given in marriage, till the end is come; to stab secretly by night; to drop poison in the glass; to set father against son, and husband against wife; without fear, without hope, without future, to suffer, to annihilate, to revenge.\n\nPRESIDENT: Are we all agreed?\n\nCONSPIRATORS: We are all agreed. ( _They disperse in various directions about the stage._ )\n\nPRESIDENT: 'Tis after the hour, Michael, and she is not yet here.\n\nMICHAEL: Would that she were! We can do little without her.\n\nALEXIS: She cannot have been seized, President? But the police are on her track, I know.\n\nMICHAEL: You always do seem to know a good deal about the movements of the police in Moscow \u2013 too much for an honest conspirator.\n\nPRESIDENT: If those dogs have caught her, the red flag of the people will float on a barricade in every street till we find her! It was foolish of her to go to the Grand Duke's ball. I told her so, but she said she wanted to see the Czar and all his cursed brood face to face for once.\n\nALEXIS: Gone to the State ball!\n\nMICHAEL: I have no fear. She is as hard to capture as a she-wolf is, and twice as dangerous; besides, she is well disguised. To-night it is a masked ball. But is there any news from the Palace, President? What is that bloody despot doing now besides torturing his only son? What sort of whelp is this Czarevitch, by the way? Have any of you seen him? One hears strange stories about him. They say he loves the people; but a king's son never does that. You cannot breed them like that.\n\nPRESIDENT: Since he came back from abroad a year ago his father has kept him in close prison in his palace.\n\nMICHAEL: An excellent training to make him a tyrant in his turn; but is there any news, I say?\n\nPRESIDENT: A council is to be held to-morrow, at four o'clock, on some secret business the committee cannot find out.\n\nMICHAEL: A council in a king's palace is sure to be about some bloody work or other. But in what room is it to be held?\n\nPRESIDENT ( _reading from letter_ ): In the yellow tapestry room called after the Empress Catherine.\n\nMICHAEL: I care not for such long-sounding names. I would know where it is.\n\nPRESIDENT: I cannot tell, Michael. I know more about the inside of prisons than of palaces.\n\nMICHAEL ( _speaking suddenly to_ ALEXIS): Where is this room, Alexis?\n\nALEXIS: It is on the first floor, looking out on to the inner courtyard. But why do you ask, Michael?\n\nMICHAEL: Nothing, nothing, boy! I merely take a great interest in the Czar's life and movements, and I knew you could tell me all about the palace. Every poor student of medicine in Moscow knows all about kings' houses. It is their duty, is it not?\n\nALEXIS ( _aside_ ): Can Michael suspect me? There is something strange in his manner to-night. Why doesn't she come? The whole fire of revolution seems fallen into dull ashes when she is not here.\n\nMICHAEL: Have you cured many patients, lately, at your hospital, boy?\n\nALEXIS: There is one who lies sick to death I would fain cure, but cannot.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay! And who is that?\n\nALEXIS: Russia, our mother.\n\nMICHAEL: The curing of Russia is surgeon's business, and must be done by the knife. I like not your method of medicine.\n\nPRESIDENT: Professor, we have read the proofs of your last article; it is very good indeed.\n\nMICHAEL: What is it about, Professor?\n\nPROFESSOR: The subject, my good brother, is assassination considered as a method of political reform.\n\nMICHAEL: I think little of pen and ink in revolutions. One dagger will do more than a hundred epigrams. Still, let us read this scholar's last production. Give it to me. I will read it myself.\n\nPROFESSOR: Brother, you never mind your stops; let Alexis read it.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay! He is as tripping of speech as if he were some young aristocrat; but for my own part I care not for the stops so that the sense be plain.\n\nALEXIS ( _reading_ ): 'The past has belonged to the tyrant, and he has defiled it; ours is the future, and we shall make it holy.' Ay! Let us make the future holy; let there be one revolution at least which is not bred in crime, nurtured in murder!\n\nMICHAEL: They have spoken to us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with labour or red with blood.\n\nPRESIDENT: Peace, Michael, peace! He is the bravest heart amongst us.\n\nMICHAEL ( _aside_ ): He will need to be brave to-night.\n\n_The sound of sleigh bells is heard outside._\n\nVOICE ( _outside_ ): Per crucem ad lucem. ( _Answer of man on guard_ ): Per sanguinem ad libertatem.\n\nMICHAEL: Who is that?\n\n_Enter_ VERA _in a cloak, which she throws off, appearing in full ball dress._\n\nVERA: God save the people!\n\nPRESIDENT: Welcome, Vera, welcome! We have been sick at heart till we saw you; but now methinks the star of freedom has come to wake us from the night.\n\nVERA: It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star! Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men called the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than any ever forged by tyranny against a people's life!\n\nMICHAEL: What has the tyrant done now?\n\nVERA: To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed over all Russia.\n\nOMNES: Martial law! We are lost! We are lost!\n\nALEXIS: Martial law! Impossible!\n\nMICHAEL: Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform.\n\nVERA: Ay, martial law. The last right to which the people clung has been taken from them. Without trial, without appeal, without accuser even, our brothers will be taken from their houses, shot in the streets like dogs, sent away to die in the snow, to starve in the dungeon, to rot in the mine. Do you know what martial law means? It means the strangling of a whole nation. The streets will be filled with soldiers night and day; there will be sentinels at every door. No man dare walk abroad now but the spy or the traitor. Cooped up in the dens we hide in, meeting by stealth, speaking with bated breath; what good can we do now for Russia?\n\nPRESIDENT: We can suffer at least.\n\nVERA: We have done that too much already. The hour is now come to annihilate and to revenge.\n\nPRESIDENT: Up to this the people have borne everything.\n\nVERA: Because they have understood nothing. But now we, the Nihilists, have given them the tree of knowledge to eat of, and the day of silent suffering is over for Russia.\n\nMICHAEL: Martial law, Vera! This is fearful tidings you bring.\n\nPRESIDENT: It is the death-warrant of liberty in Russia.\n\nVERA: Or the signal for revolution.\n\nMICHAEL: Are you sure it is true?\n\nVERA: Here is the proclamation. I stole it myself at the ball to-night from a young fool, one of Prince Paul's secretaries, who had been given it to copy. It was that which made me so late.\n\nVERA _hands proclamation to_ MICHAEL, _who reads it._\n\nMICHAEL: 'To ensure the public safety \u2013 martial law. By order of the Czar, father of his people.' The father of his people!\n\nVERA: Ay! A father whose name shall not be hallowed, whose kingdom shall change to a republic, whose trespasses shall not be forgiven him, because he has robbed us of our daily bread; with whom is neither might, nor right, nor glory, now or for ever.\n\nPRESIDENT: It must be about this time that the council meet to-morrow. It has not yet been signed.\n\nALEXIS: It shall not be while I have a tongue to plead with.\n\nMICHAEL: Or while I have hands to smite with.\n\nVERA: Martial law! O God, how easy it is for a king to kill his people by thousands, but we cannot rid ourselves of one crowned man in Europe! What is there of awful majesty in these men which makes the hand unsteady, the dagger treacherous, the pistol-shot harmless? Are they not men of like passions with ourselves, vulnerable to the same diseases, of flesh and blood not different from our own? What made Olgiati tremble at the supreme crisis of that Roman life, and Guido's nerve fail him when he should have been of iron and of steel? A plague, I say, on these fools of Naples, Berlin, and Spain! Methinks that if I stood face to face with one of the crowned men my eye would see more clearly, my aim be more sure, my whole body gain a strength and power that was not my own! Oh, to think what stands between us and freedom in Europe! A few old men, wrinkled, feeble, tottering dotards whom a boy could strangle for a ducat, or a woman stab in a night-time. These are the things that keep us from liberty. But now methinks the brood of men is dead and the dull earth grown sick of childbearing, else would no crowned dog pollute God's air by living.\n\nOMNES: Try us! Try us! Try us!\n\nMICHAEL: We shall try thee, too, some day, Vera.\n\nVERA: I pray God thou mayest! Have I not strangled whatever nature is in me, and shall I not keep my oath?\n\nMICHAEL ( _to_ PRESIDENT): Martial law, President! Come, there is no time to be lost. We have twelve hours yet before us till the council meet. Twelve hours! One can overthrow a dynasty in less than that.\n\nPRESIDENT: Ay! Or lose one's own head.\n\nMICHAEL _and the_ PRESIDENT _retire to one corner of the stage and sit whispering._ VERA _takes up the proclamation, and reads it to herself._ ALEXIS _watches and suddenly rushes up to her._\n\nALFXIS: Vera!\n\nVERA: Alexis, you here! Foolish boy, have I not prayed you to stay away? All of us here are doomed to die before our time, fated to expiate by suffering whatever good we do; but you, with your bright boyish face, you are too young to die yet.\n\nALEXIS: One is never too young to die for one's country!\n\nVERA: Why do you come here night after night?\n\nALEXIS: Because I love the people.\n\nVERA: But your fellow-students must miss you. Are there no traitors among them? You know what spies there are in the University here. O Alexis, you must go! You see how desperate suffering has made us. There is no room here for a nature like yours. You must not come again.\n\nALEXIS: Why do you think so poorly of me? Why should I live while my brothers suffer?\n\nVERA: You spake to me of your mother once. You said you loved her. Oh, think of her!\n\nALEXIS: I have no mother now but Russia, my life is hers to take or give away; but to-night I am here to see you. They tell me you are leaving for Novgorod to-morrow.\n\nVERA: I must. They are getting faint-hearted there, and I would fan the flame of this revolution into such a blaze that the eyes of all kings in Europe shall be blinded. If martial law is passed they will need me all the more there. There is no limit, it seems, to the tyranny of one man; but to the suffering of a whole people there shall be a limit. Too many of us have died on block and barricade: it is their turn to be victims now.\n\nALEXIS: God knows it, I am with you. But you must not go. The police are watching every train for you. When you are seized they have orders to place you without trial in the lowest dungeon of the palace. I know it \u2013 no matter how. Oh, think how without you the sun goes from our life, how the people will lose their leader and liberty her priestess. Vera, you must not go!\n\nVERA: You are right: I will stay. I would live a little longer for freedom, a little longer for Russia.\n\nALEXIS: When you die then Russia is smitten indeed; when you die then I shall lose all hope \u2013 all...Vera, this is fearful news you bring \u2013 martial law \u2013 it is too terrible. I knew it not, by my soul, I knew it not!\n\nVERA: How could you have known it? It is too well laid a plot for that. This great White Czar, whose hands are red with the blood of the people he has murdered, whose soul is black with this iniquity, is the cleverest conspirator of us all. Oh, how could Russia bear two hearts like yours and his!\n\nALEXIS: Vera, the Emperor was not always like this. There was a time when he loved the people. It is that devil, whom God curse, Prince Paul Maraloffski, who has brought him to this. To-morrow, I swear it, I shall plead for the people to the Emperor.\n\nVERA: Plead to the Czar! Foolish boy, it is only those who are sentenced to death that ever see our Czar. Besides, what should he care for a voice that pleads for mercy? The cry of a strong nation in its agony has not moved that heart of stone.\n\nALEXIS ( _aside_ ): Yet shall I plead to him. They can but kill me.\n\nPROFESSOR: Here are the proclamations, Vera. Do you think they will do?\n\nVERA: I shall read them. How fair he looks! Methinks he never seemed so noble as to-night. Liberty is blessed in having such a lover.\n\nALEXIS: Well, President, what are you deep in?\n\nMICHAEL: We are thinking of the best way of killing bears. ( _Whispers to_ PRESIDENT _and leads him aside._ )\n\nPROFESSOR ( _to_ VERA): And the letters from our brothers at Paris and Berlin. What answer shall we send to them?\n\nVERA ( _takes them mechanically_ ): Had I not strangled nature, sworn neither to love nor to be loved, methinks I might have loved him. Oh, I am a fool, a traitor myself, a traitor myself! But why did he come amongst us with his bright young face, his heart aflame for liberty, his pure white soul? Why does he make me feel at times as if I would have him as my king, Republican though I be? Oh, fool, fool, fool! False to your oath! Weak as water! Have done! Remember what you are \u2013 a Nihilist, a Nihilist!\n\nPRESIDENT ( _to_ MICHAEL): But you will be seized, Michael.\n\nMICHAEL: I think not. I will wear the uniform of the Imperial Guard, and the Colonel on duty is one of us. It is on the first floor, you remember; so I can take a long shot.\n\nPRESIDENT: Shall I not tell the brethren?\n\nMICHAEL: Not a word, not a word! There is a traitor amongst us.\n\nVERA: Come, are these the proclamations? Yes, they will do; yes, they will do. Send five hundred to Kiev and Odessa and Novgorod, five hundred to Warsaw, and have twice the number distributed among the Southern provinces, though these dull Russian peasants care little for our proclamations, and less for our martyrdoms. When the blow is struck, it must be from the town, not from the country.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, and by the sword, not by the goose quill.\n\nVERA: Where are the letters from Poland?\n\nPROFESSOR: Here.\n\nVERA: Unhappy Poland! The eagles of Russia have fed on her heart. We must not forget our brothers there.\n\nPRESIDENT: Is it true, Michael?\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, I stake my life on it.\n\nPRESIDENT: Let the doors be locked, then. Alexis Ivanacievitch entered on our roll of the brothers as a student of the School of Medicine at Moscow. Why did you not tell us of this bloody scheme of martial law?\n\nALEXIS: I, President?\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, you! You knew it, none better. Such weapons as these are not forged in a day. Why did you not tell us of it? A week ago there had been time to lay the mine, to raise the barricade, to strike one blow at least for liberty. But now the hour is past! It is too late, it is too late! Why did you keep it a secret from us. I say?\n\nALEXIS: Now by the hand of freedom, Michael, my brother, you wrong me. I knew nothing of this hideous law. By my soul, my brothers, I knew not of it! How should I know?\n\nMICHAEL: Because you are a traitor! Where did you go when you left us the night of our last meeting here?\n\nALEXIS: To mine own house, Michael.\n\nMICHAEL: Liar! I was on your track. You left here an hour after midnight. Wrapped in a large cloak, you crossed the river by a boat a mile below the second bridge, and gave the ferryman a gold piece, you, the poor student of medicine! You doubled back twice, and hid in an archway so long that I had almost made up my mind to stab you at once, only that I am fond of hunting. So! You thought you had baffled all pursuit, did you? Fool! I am a bloodhound that never loses the scent. I followed you from street to street. At last I saw you pass swiftly across the Place St. Isaac, whisper to the guards some secret password, enter the palace by a private door with your own key.\n\nCONSPIRATORS: The palace!\n\nVERA: Alexis!\n\nMICHAEL: I waited. All through the dreary watches of our long Russian night I waited, that I might kill you with your Judas hire still hot in your hand. But you never came back; you never left that palace. I saw the blood-red sun rise through the yellow fog over the murky town; I saw a new day of oppression dawn on Russia; but you never came back. So you pass nights in the palace, do you? You know the password for the guards; you have a key to a secret door. You are a spy \u2013 I never trusted you, with your soft white hands, your curled hair, your pretty graces. You have no mark of suffering about you; you cannot be of the people. You are a spy \u2013 a spy \u2013 traitor!\n\nOMNES: Kill him! Kill him! ( _Draw their knives._ )\n\nVERA: ( _rushing in front of_ ALEXIS): Stand back, I say, Michael! Stand back all! Do not dare lay a hand upon him! He is the noblest heart amongst us.\n\nOMNES: Kill him! Kill him! He is a spy!\n\nVERA: Dare to lay a finger on him, and I leave you all to yourselves.\n\nPRESIDENT: Vera, did you not hear what Michael said of him? He stayed all night in the Czar's palace. He has a password and a private key. What else should he be but a spy?\n\nVERA: Bah! I do not believe Michael. It is a lie! It is a lie! Alexis, say it is a lie!\n\nALEXIS: It is true. Michael has told what he saw. I did pass that night in the Czar's palace. Michael has spoken the truth.\n\nVERA: Stand back, I say; stand back! Alexis, I do not care. I trust you; you would not betray us; you would not sell the people for money. You are honest, true! Oh, say you are no spy!\n\nALEXIS: Spy? You know I am not. I am with you, my brothers, to the death.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, to your own death.\n\nALEXIS: Vera, you know I am true.\n\nVERA: I know it well.\n\nPRESIDENT: Why are you here, traitor?\n\nALEXIS: Because I love the people.\n\nMICHAEL: Then you can be a martyr for them?\n\nVERA: You must kill me first, Michael, before you lay a finger on him.\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, we dare not lose Vera. It is her whim to let this boy live. We can keep him here to-night. Up to this he has not betrayed us.\n\n_Tramp of soldiers outside, knocking at door._\n\nVOICE: Open, in the name of the Emperor!\n\nMICHAEL: He _has_ betrayed us. This is your doing, spy!\n\nPRESIDENT: Come, Michael, come. We have no time to cut one another's throats while we have our own heads to save.\n\nVOICE: Open, in the name of the Emperor!\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, be masked, all of you. Michael, open the door. It is our only chance.\n\n_Enter_ GENERAL KOTEMKIN _and soldiers._\n\nGENERAL: All honest citizens should be in their own houses an hour be fore midnight, and not more than five people have a right to meet privately. Have you not noticed the proclamation, fellows?\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, you have spoiled every honest wall in Moscow with it.\n\nVERA: Peace, Michael, peace. Nay, Sir, we know it not. We are a company of strolling players travelling from Samara to Moscow to amuse his Imperial Majesty the Czar.\n\nGENERAL: But I heard loud voices before I entered. What was that?\n\nVERA: We were rehearsing a new tragedy.\n\nGENERAL: Your answers are too _honest_ to be true. Come, let me see who you are. Take off those players' masks. By St. Nicholas, my beauty, if your face matches your figure, you must be a choice morsel! Come, I say, pretty one; I would sooner see your face than those of all the others.\n\nPRESIDENT: O God! If he sees it is Vera, we are all lost!\n\nGENERAL: No coquetting, my girl. Come, unmask, I say, or I shall tell my guards to do it for you.\n\nALEXIS: Stand back, I say, General Kotemkin!\n\nGENERAL: Who are you, fellow, that talk with such a tripping tongue to your betters? (ALEXIS _takes his mask off._ ) His Imperial Highness the Czarevitch!\n\nOMNES: The Czarevitch! It is all over!\n\nPRESIDENT: I knew he was a spy. He will give us up to the soldiers.\n\nMICHAEL ( _to_ VERA): Why did you not let me kill him? Come, we must fight to the death for it.\n\nVERA: Peace! He will not betray us.\n\nALEXIS: A whim of mine, General! You know how my father keeps me from the world and imprisons me in the palace. I should really be bored to death if I could not get out at night in disguise sometimes, and have some romantic adventure in town. I fell in with these honest folks a few hours ago.\n\nGENERAL: Actors, are they, Prince?\n\nALEXIS: Ay, and very ambitious actors, too. They only care to play before kings.\n\nGENERAL: I' faith, your Highness, I was in hopes I had made a good haul of Nihilists.\n\nALEXIS: Nihilists in Moscow, General! With you as head of the police! Impossible!\n\nGENERAL: So I always tell your Imperial father. But I heard at the council to-day that that woman Vera Sabouroff, the head of them, had been seen in this very city. The Emperor's face turned as white as the snow outside. I think I never saw such terror in any man before.\n\nALEXIS: She is a dangerous woman, then, this Vera Sabouroff?\n\nGENERAL: The most dangerous in all Europe.\n\nALEXIS: Did you ever see her, General?\n\nGENERAL: Why, five years ago, when I was a plain Colonel, I remember her, your Highness, a common waiting-girl in an inn. If I had known then what she was going to turn out, I would have flogged her to death on the roadside. She is not a woman at all; she is a sort of devil! For the last eighteen months I have been hunting her, and caught sight of her once last September outside Odessa.\n\nALEXIS: How did you let her go, General?\n\nGENERAL: I was by myself, and she shot one of my horses just as I was gaining on her. If I see her again I shan't miss my chance. The Emperor has put twenty thousand roubles on her head.\n\nALEXIS: I hope you will get it, General; but meanwhile you are frightening these honest folk out of their wits, and disturbing the tragedy. Good-night, General.\n\nGENERAL: Yes; but I should like to see their faces, your Highness.\n\nALEXIS: No, General; you must not ask that; you know how these gypsies hate to be stared at.\n\nGENERAL: Yes. But, your Highness \u2013\n\nALEXIS ( _haughtily_ ): General, they are my friends, that is enough. Good-night. And, General, not a word of my little adventure here, you understand.\n\nGENERAL: But shall we not see you back to the palace? The State ball is almost over and you are expected.\n\nALEXIS: I shall be there; but I shall return alone. Remember, not a word.\n\nGENERAL: Or your pretty gipsy, eh, Prince? Your pretty gipsy! I' faith, I should like to see her before I go; she has such fine eyes through her mask. Well, good night, your Highness; good night.\n\nALEXIS: Good night, General.\n\n_Exeunt_ GENERAL _and the soldiers._\n\nVERA ( _throwing off her mask_ ): Saved! And by you!\n\nALEXIS ( _clasping her hand_ ): Brothers, you trust me now?\n\n_Exit._\n\nTABLEAU\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT TWO\n\nSCENE: _Council Chamber in the Emperor's Palace, hung with yellow tapestry. Table, with chair of State, set for the Czar; window behind, opening on to a balcony. As the scene progresses the light outside gets darker._\n\n_Present_ : PRINCE PAUL MARALOFFSKI, PRINCE PETROVITCH, COUNT ROUVALOFF, BARON RAFF, COUNT PETOUCHOF.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: So our young scatter-brained Czarevitch has been forgiven at last, and is to take his seat here again.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Yes; if that is not meant as an extra punishment. For my own part, at least, I find these Cabinet Councils extremely tiring.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Naturally, you are always speaking.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: No; I think it must be that I have to listen sometimes. It is so exhausting not to talk.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: Still, anything is better than being kept in a sort of prison, like he was \u2013 never allowed to go out into the world.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: My dear Count, for romantic young people like he is the world always looks best at a distance; and a prison where one's allowed to order one's own dinner is not at all a bad place. ( _Enter the_ CZAREVITCH. _The courtiers rise._ ) Ah! Good afternoon, Prince. Your Highness is looking a little pale to-day.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _slowly, after a pause_ ): I want change of air.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _smiling_ ): A most revolutionary sentiment! Your Imperial father would highly disapprove of any reforms even with the thermometer in Russia.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _bitterly_ ): My Imperial father had kept me for six months in this dungeon of a palace. This morning he has me suddenly woke up to see some wretched Nihilists hung; it sickened me, the bloody butchery, though it was a noble thing to see how well these men can die.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: When you are as old as I am, Prince, you will understand that there are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Easy to die well! A lesson experience cannot have taught you, much as you know of a bad life.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _shrugging his shoulders_ ): Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. I never commit any.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _bitterly_ ): No; crimes are more in your line.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH ( _to the_ CZAREVITCH): The Emperor was a good deal agitated about your late appearance at the ball last night, Prince.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF ( _laughing_ ): I believe he thought the Nihilists had broken into the palace and carried you off.\n\nBARON RAFF: If they had you would have missed a charming dance.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: And an excellent supper. Gringoire really excelled himself in his salad. Ah! You may laugh, Baron; but to cook a good salad is a much more difficult thing than cooking accounts. To make a-good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist \u2013 the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.\n\nBARON RAFF: A cook and a diplomatist! An excellent parallel. If I had a son who was a fool I'd make him one or the other.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: I see your father did not hold the same opinion, Baron. But, believe me, you are wrong to run down cookery. Culture depends on cookery. For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. I have never had time enough to think seriously about it, but I feel it is in me, I feel it is in me.\n\nCZAREVITCH: You have certainly missed your _m\u00e9tier_ , Prince Paul; the _cordon bleu_ of the kitchen would have suited you much better than the Grand Cross of Honour. But you know you could never have worn your white apron well; you would have soiled it too soon, your hands are not clean enough.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _bowing_ ): You forget \u2013 or, how could they be? I manage your father's business.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _bitterly_ ): You mismanage my father's business, you mean! Evil genius of his life that you are! Before you came there was some love left in him. It is you who have embittered his nature, poured into his ear the poison of treacherous council, made him hated by the whole people, made him what he is \u2013 a tyrant!\n\n_The courtiers look significantly at each other._\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _calmly_ ): I see your Highness does want change of air. But I have been an eldest son myself. ( _Lights a cigarette._ ) I know what it is when a father won't die to please one.\n\n_The_ CZAREVITCH _goes to the top of the stage, and leans against the window, looking out._\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH ( _to_ BARON RAFF): Foolish boy! He will be sent into exile, or worse, if he is not careful.\n\nBARON RAFF: Yes. What a mistake it is to be sincere!\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: The only folly you never committed, Baron.\n\nBARON RAFF: One has only one head, you know, Prince.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: My dear Baron, your head is the last thing any one would wish to take from you. ( _Pulls out snuff-box and offers it to_ PRINCE PETROVITCH.)\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Thanks, Prince! Thanks!\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Very delicate, isn't it? I get it direct from Paris. But under this vulgar Republic everything has degenerated over there. _C\u00f4telettes \u00e0 l'imp\u011briale_ vanished of course with the Bonaparte, and omelettes went out with the Orleanists. La belle France is entirely ruined, Prince, through bad morals and worse cookery. ( _Enter the_ MARQUIS DE POIVRARD.) Ah! Marquis. I trust Madame la Marquise is well.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: You ought to know better than I do, Prince Paul; you see more _of_ her.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _bowing_ ): Perhaps I see more _in_ her, Marquis. Your wife is really a charming woman, so full of _esprit_ , and so satirical too; she talks continually of you when we are together.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH ( _looking at the clock_ ): His Majesty is a little late to-day, is he not?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: What has happened to you, my dear Petrovitch? You seem quite out of sorts. You haven't quarrelled with your cook, I hope? What a tragedy that would be for you; you would lose all your friends.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: I fear I wouldn't be so fortunate as that. You forget I would still have my purse. But you are wrong for once; my chef and I are on excellent terms.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Then your creditors or Mademoiselle Vera Sabouroff have been writing to you? They compose more than half of my correspondents. But really you needn't be alarmed. I find the most violent proclamations from the Executive Committee, as they call it, left all over my house. I never read them; they are so badly spelt as a rule.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Wrong again, Prince; the Nihilists leave me alone for some reason or other.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _aside_ ): True! Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: I am bored with life, Prince. Since the opera season ended I have been a perpetual martyr to _ennui._\n\nPRINCE PAUL: The _maladie du si\u00e8cle!_ You want a new excitement, Prince. Let me see \u2013 you have been married twice already; suppose you try \u2013 falling in love for once.\n\nBARON RAFF: I cannot understand your nature.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _smiling_ ): If my nature had been made to suit your comprehension rather than my own requirements, I am afraid I would have made a very poor figure in the world.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: There seems to be nothing in life about which you would not jest.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Ah! My dear Count, life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _coming back from window_ ): I don't think Prince Paul's nature is such a mystery. He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: _Parbleu_! I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _bitterly_ ): If to have enemies is a measure of greatness, then you must be a Colossus, indeed, Prince.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Yes, your Highness, I know I'm the most hated man in Russia, except your father, except your father of course. He doesn't seem to like it much, by the way; but I do, I assure you. ( _Bitterly._ ) I love to drive through the streets and see how the rabble scowl at me from every corner. It makes me feel I am a power in Russia; one man against millions! Besides, I have no ambition to be a popular hero, to be crowned with laurels one year and pelted with stones the next; I prefer dying peaceably in my own bed.\n\nCZAREVITCH: And after death?\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _shrugging his shoulders_ ): Heaven is a despotism. I shall be at home there.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Do you ever think of the people and their rights?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: The people and their rights bore me. I am sick of both. In these modern days to be vulgar, illiterate, common and vicious, seems to give a man a marvellous infinity of rights that his honest fathers never dreamed of. Believe me, Prince, in good democracy, every man should be an aristocrat; but these people in Russia who seek to thrust us out are no better than the animals in one's preserves, and made to be shot at, most of them.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _excitedly_ ): If they _are_ common, illiterate, vulgar, no better than the beasts of the field, who made them so? ( _Enter_ AIDE-DE-CAMP.)\n\nAIDE-DE-CAMP: His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor! (PRINCE PAUL _looks at the_ CZAREVITCH, _and smiles._ )\n\n_Enter the_ CZAR, _surrounded by his guard._\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _rushing forward to meet him_ ): Sire!\n\nCZAR ( _nervous and frightened_ ): Don't come too near me, boy! Don't come too near me, I say! There is always something about an heir to a crown unwholesome to his father. Who is that man over there? I don't know him. What is he doing? Is he a conspirator? Have you searched him? Give him till to-morrow to confess, then hang him! Hang him!\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Sire, you are anticipating history. This is Count Petouchof, your new Ambassador to Berlin. He is come to kiss hands on his appointment.\n\nCZAR: To kiss my hand? There is some plot in it. He wants to poison me. There, kiss my son's hand; it will do quite as well.\n\nPRINCE PAUL _signs to_ COUNT PETOUCHOF _to leave the room. Exeunt_ PETOUCHOF _and the guards._ CZAR _sinks down into his chair. The courtiers remain silent._\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _approaching_ ): Sire! Will your Majesty \u2013\n\nCZAR: What do you startle me for like that? No, I won't. ( _Watches the courtiers nervously._ ) Why are you clattering your sword, sir? ( _To_ COUNT ROUVALOFF): Take it off. I shall have no man wear a sword in my presence ( _looking at_ CZAREVITCH), least of all my son. ( _To_ PRINCE PAUL): You are not angry with me, Prince? You won't desert me, will you? Say you won't desert me. What do you want? You can have anything \u2013 anything.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _bowing very low_ ): Sire, 'tis enough for me to have your confidence. ( _Aside_ ): I was afraid he was going to revenge himself, and give me another decoration.\n\nCZAR ( _returning to his chair_ ): Well, gentlemen.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: Sire, I have the honour to present to you a loyal address from your subjects in the Province of Archangel, expressing their horror at the last attempt on your Majesty's life.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: The last attempt but two, you ought to have said, Marquis. Don't you see it is dated three weeks back?\n\nCZAR: They are good people in the Province of Archangel \u2013 honest, loyal people. They love me very much \u2013 simple, loyal people; give them a new saint, it costs nothing. Well, Alexis ( _turning to the_ CZAREVITCH) \u2013 how many traitors were hung this morning?\n\nCZAREVITCH: There were three men strangled, Sire.\n\nCZAR: There should have been three thousand. I would to God that this people had but one neck that I might strangle them with one noose! Did they tell anything? Whom did they implicate? What did they confess?\n\nCZAREVITCH: Nothing, Sire.\n\nCZAR: They should have been tortured then; why weren't they tortured? Must I always be fighting in the dark? Am I never to know from what root these traitors spring?\n\nCZAREVITCH: What root should there be of discontent among the people but tyranny and injustice amongst their rulers?\n\nCZAR: What did you say, boy? Tyranny! Tyranny! Am I a tyrant? I'm not. I love the people. I'm their father. I'm called so in every official proclamation. Have a care, boy; have a care. You don't seem to be cured yet of your foolish tongue. ( _Goes over to_ PRINCE PAUL _and puts his hand on his shoulder._ ) Prince Paul, tell me, were there many people there this morning to see the Nihilists hung?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Hanging is of course a good deal less of a novelty in Russia now, Sire, than it was three or four years ago; and you know how easily the people get tired even of their best amusements. But the square and the tops of the houses were really quite crowded, were they not, Prince? ( _To the_ CZAREVITCH, _who takes no notice._ )\n\nCZAR: That's right; all loyal citizens should be there. It shows them what to look forward to. Did you arrest any one in the crowd?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Yes, Sire; a woman, for cursing your name. ( _The_ CZAREVITCH _starts anxiously._ ) She was the mother of two of the criminals.\n\nCZAR ( _looking at_ CZAREVITCH): She should have blessed me for having rid her of her children. Send her to prison.\n\nCZAREVITCH: The prisons of Russia are too full already, Sire. There is no room in them for any more victims.\n\nCZAR: They don't die fast enough, then. You should put more of them into one cell at once. You don't keep them long enough in the mines. If you do they're sure to die; but you're all too merciful. I'm too merciful myself. Send her to Siberia. She is sure to die on the way. ( _Enter an_ AIDE-DE-CAMP.) Who's that? Who's that?\n\nAIDE-DE-CAMP: A letter for his Imperial Majesty.\n\nCZAR ( _to_ PRINCE PAUL): I won't open it. There may be something in it.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: It would be a very disappointing letter, Sire, if there wasn't. ( _Takes letter himself, and reads it._ )\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH ( _to_ COUNT ROUVALOFF): It must be some sad news. I know that smile too well.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: From the Chief of the Police at Archangel, Sire. 'The Governor of the province was shot this morning by a woman as he was entering the courtyard of his own house. The assassin has been seized.'\n\nCZAR: I never trusted the people in Archangel. It's a nest of Nihilists and conspirators. Take away their saints; they don't deserve them.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Your Highness would punish them more severely by giving them an extra one. Three governors shot in two months! ( _Smiles to himself._ ) Sire, permit me to recommend your loyal subject, the Marquis de Poivrard, as the new governor of your Province of Archangel.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD ( _hurriedly_ ): Sire, I am unfit for this post.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Marquis, you are too modest. Believe me, there is no man in Russia I would sooner see Governor of Archangel than yourself. ( _Whispers to_ CZAR.)\n\nCZAR: Quite right, Prince Paul; you are always right. See that the Marquis's letters are made out at once.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: He can start to-night, Sire. I shall really miss you very much, Marquis. I always liked your taste in wine and wives extremely.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD ( _to the_ CZAR): Start to-night, Sire?\n\n(PRINCE PAUL _whispers to the_ CZAR.)\n\nCZAR: Yes, Marquis, to-night; it is better to go at once.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: I shall see that Madame la Marquise is not too lonely while you are away; so you need not be alarmed for her.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF ( _to_ PRINCE PETROVITCH): I should be more alarmed for myself.\n\nCZAR: The Governor of Archangel shot in his own courtyard by a woman! I'm not safe here. I'm not safe anywhere, with that she-devil of the revolution, Vera Sabouroff, here in Moscow. Prince Paul, is that woman still here?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: They tell me she was at the Grand Duke's ball last night. I can hardly believe that; but she certainly had intended to leave for Novgorod to-day, Sire. The police were watching every train for her; but, for some reason or other, she did not go. Some traitor must have warned her. But I shall catch her yet. A chase after a beautiful woman is always exciting.\n\nCZAR: You must hunt her down with bloodhounds, and when she is taken I shall hew her limb from limb. I shall stretch her on the rack till her pale white body is twisted and curled like paper in the fire.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Oh, we shall have another hunt immediately, for her, Sire! Prince Alexis will assist us, I am sure.\n\nCZAREVITCH: You never require any assistance to ruin a woman, Prince Paul.\n\nCZAR: Vera, the Nihilist, in Moscow! O God, were it not better to die at once the dog's death they plot for me than to live as I live now! Never to sleep, or, if I do, to dream such horrid dreams that hell itself were peace when matched with them. To trust none but those I have bought, to buy none worth trusting! To see a traitor in every smile, poison in every dish, a dagger in every hand! To lie awake at night, listening from hour to hour for the stealthy creeping of the murderer, for the laying of the damned mine! You are all spies! You are all spies! You worst of all \u2013 you, my own son! Which of you is it who hides these bloody proclamations under my own pillow, or at the table where I sit? Which of ye all is the Judas who betrays me? O God! O God! Methinks there was a time once, in our war with England, when nothing could make me afraid. ( _This with more calm and pathos._ ) I have ridden into the crimson heart of war, and borne back an eagle which those wild islanders had taken from us. Men said I was brave then. My father gave me the Iron Cross of Valour. Oh, could he see me now, with this coward's livery ever in my cheek! ( _Sinks into his chair._ ) I never knew any love when I was a boy. I was ruled by terror myself, how else should I rule now? ( _Starts up._ ) But I will have revenge; I will have revenge. For every hour I have lain awake at night, waiting for the noose or the dagger, they shall pass years in Siberia, centuries in the mines! Ay! I shall have revenge.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Father! Have mercy on the people. Give them what they ask.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: And begin, Sire, with your own head; they have a particular liking for that.\n\nCZAR: The people! The people! A tiger which I have let loose on myself; but I will fight with it to the death. I am done with half measures. I shall crush these Nihilists at a blow. There shall not be a man of them, no, nor a woman either, left alive in Russia. Am I Emperor for nothing, that a woman should hold me at bay? Vera Sabouroff shall be in my power, I swear it, before a week is ended, though I burn my whole city to find her. She shall be flogged by the knout, stifled in the fortress, strangled in the square!\n\nCZAREVITCH: O God!\n\nCZAR: For two years her hands have been clutching at my throat; for two years she has made my life a hell; but I shall have revenge. Martial law, Prince, martial law over the whole Empire; that will give me revenge. A good measure, Prince, eh? A good measure.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: And an economical one too, Sire. It will carry off your surplus population in six months, and save you any expense in courts of justice; they will not be needed now.\n\nCZAR: Quite right. There are too many people in Russia, too much money spent on them, too much money on courts of justice. I'll shut them up.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Sire, reflect before \u2013\n\nCZAR: When can you have the proclamations ready, Prince Paul?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: They have been printed for the last six months, Sire. I knew you would need them.\n\nCZAR: That's good! That's very good! Let us begin at once. Ah, Prince, if every king in Europe had a minister like you \u2013\n\nCZAREVITCH: There would be less kings in Europe than there are.\n\nCZAR ( _in frightened whisper, to_ PRINCE PAUL): What does he mean? Do you trust him? His prison hasn't cured him yet. Shall I banish him? Shall I ( _whispers_ )...? The Emperor Paul did it. The Empress Catherine there ( _points to picture on the wall_ ) did it. Why shouldn't I?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Your Majesty, there is no need for alarm. The Prince is a very ingenuous young man. He pretends to be devoted to the people, and lives in a palace; preaches socialism, and draws a salary that would support a province. Some day he'll find out that the best cure for Republicism is the Imperial crown, and will cut up the red cap of liberty to make decorations for his Prime Minister.\n\nCZAR: You are right. If he really loved the people, he could not be my son.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: If he lived with the people for a fortnight, their bad dinners would soon cure him of his democracy. Shall we begin, Sire?\n\nCZAR: At once. Read the proclamation. Gentlemen, be seated. Alexis, Alexis, I say, come and hear it! It will be good practice for you; you will be doing it yourself some day.\n\nCZAREVITCH: I have heard too much of it already. ( _Takes his seat at the table._ COUNT ROUVALOFF _whispers to him._ )\n\nCZAR: What are you whispering about there, Count Rouvaloff?\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: I was giving his Royal Highness some good advice, your Majesty.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Count Rouvaloff is the typical spendthrift, Sire; he is always giving away what he needs most. ( _Lays papers before the_ CZAR.) I think, Sire, you will approve of this: 'Love of the people,' 'Father of his people,' 'Martial law,' and the usual allusions to Providence in the last line. All it requires now is your Imperial Majesty's signature.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Sire!\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _hurriedly_ ): I promise your Majesty to crush every Nihilist in Russia in six months if you sign this proclamation; every Nihilist in Russia.\n\nCZAR: Say that again! To crush every Nihilist in Russia; to crush this woman, their leader, who makes war upon me in my own city. Prince Paul Maraloffski, I create you Mar\u00e9chal of the whole Russian Empire to help you to carry out martial law. Give me the proclamation. I will sign it at once.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _points on paper_ ): Here, Sire.\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _starts up and puts his hands on the paper_ ): Stay! I tell you, stay! The priests have taken heaven from the people, and you would take away the earth away too.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _hurriedly_ ): We have no time, Prince, now. This boy will ruin everything. The pen, Sire.\n\nCZAREVITCH: What! Is it so small a thing to strangle a nation, to murder a kingdom, to wreck an empire? Who are we who dare lay this ban of terror on a people? Have we less vices than they have, that we bring them to the bar of judgment before us?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: What a Communist the Prince is! He would have an equal distribution of sin as well as of property.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Warmed by the same sun, nurtured by the same air, fashioned of flesh and blood like to our own, wherein are they different to us, save that they starve while we surfeit, that they toil while we idle, that they sicken while we poison, that they die while we \u2013\n\nCZAR: How dare \u2013?\n\nCZAREVITCH: I dare all for the people; but you would rob them of common rights of men.\n\nCZAR: The people have no rights.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Then they have great wrongs. Father, they have won your battles for you; from the pine forests of the Baltic to the palms of India they have ridden on victory's mighty wings! Boy as I am in years, I have seen wave after wave of living men sweep up the heights of battle to their death; ay, and snatch perilous conquest from the scales of war when the bloody crescent seemed to shake above our eagles.\n\nCZAR ( _somewhat moved_ ): Those men are dead. What have I to do with them?\n\nCZAREVITCH: Nothing! The dead are safe; you cannot harm them now. They sleep their last long sleep. Some in Turkish waters, others by the windswept heights of Norway and the Dane! But these, the living, our brothers, what have you done for them? They asked you for bread, you gave them a stone. They sought for freedom, you scourged them with scorpions. You have sown the seeds of this revolution yourself-!\n\nPRINCE PAUL: And are we not cutting down the harvest?\n\nCZAREVITCH: Oh, my brothers! Better far that ye had died in the iron hail and screaming shell of battle than to come back to such a doom as this! The beasts of the forest have their lairs, and the wild beasts their caverns, but the people of Russia, conquerors of the world, have no where to lay their heads.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: They have the headsman's block.\n\nCZAREVITCH: The block! Ay! You have killed their souls at your pleasure, you would kill their bodies now.\n\nCZAR: Insolent boy! Have you forgotten who is Emperor of Russia?\n\nCZAREVITCH: No! The people reign now, by the grace of God. You should have been their shepherd; you have fled away like the hireling, and let the wolves in upon them.\n\nCZAR: Take him away! Take him away, Prince Paul!\n\nCZAREVITCH: God hath given his people tongues to speak with; you would cut them out that they may be dumb in their agony, silent in their torture! But, He hath given them hands to smite with, and they shall smite! Ay! From the sick and labouring womb of this unhappy land some revolution, like a bloody child, may rise up and slay you.\n\nCZAR ( _leaping up_ ): Devil! Assassin! Why do you beard me thus to my face?\n\nCZAREVITCH: Because I am a Nihilist! ( _The ministers start to their feet; there is a dead silence for a few minutes._ )\n\nCZAR: A Nihilist! A Nihilist! Viper whom I have nurtured, traitor whom I have fondled, is this your bloody secret? Prince Paul Maraloffski, Mar\u00e9chal of the Russian Empire, arrest the Czarevitch!\n\nMINISTERS: Arrest the Czarevitch!\n\nCZAR: A Nihilist! If you have sown with them, you shall reap with them! If you have talked with them, you shall rot with them! If you have lived with them, with them you shall die!\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Die!\n\nCZAR: A plague on all sons, I say! There should be no more marriages in Russia when one can breed such Serpents as you are! Arrest the Czarevitch, I say!\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Czarevitch! By order of the Emperor, I demand your sword. (CZAREVITCH _gives up sword_ ; PRINCE PAUL _places it on the table._ )\n\nCZAREVITCH: You will find it unstained by blood.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Foolish boy! You are not made for a conspirator; you have not learned to hold your tongue. Heroics are out of place in a palace.\n\nCZAR ( _sinks into his chair with his eyes fixed on the_ CZAREVITCH): O God! My own son against me, my own flesh and blood against me; but I am rid of them all now.\n\nCZAREVITCH: The mighty brotherhood to which I belong has a thousand such as I am, ten thousand better still! ( _The_ CZAR _starts in his seat._ ) The star of freedom is risen already, and far off I hear the mighty wave Democracy break on these cursed shores.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _to_ PRINCE PETROVITCH): In that case you and I must learn how to swim.\n\nCZAREVITCH: Father, Emperor, Imperial Master, I plead not for my own life, but for the lives of my brothers, the people.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _bitterly_ ): Your brothers, the people, Prince, are not content with their own lives, they always want to take their neighbours' too.\n\nCZAR ( _standing up_ ): I am tired of being afraid. I have done with terror now. From this day I proclaim war against the people \u2013 war to their annihilation. As they have dealt with me, so shall I deal with them. I shall grind them to powder, and strew their dust upon the air. There shall be a spy in every man's house, a traitor on every hearth, a hangman in every village, a gibbet in every square. Plague, leprosy, or fever shall be less deadly than my wrath; I will make every frontier a graveyard, every province a lazar-house, and cure the sick by the sword. I shall have peace in Russia, though it be the peace of the dead. Who said I was a coward? Who said I was afraid? See, thus shall I crush this people beneath my feet! ( _Takes up sword of_ CZAREVITCH _off table and tramples on it._ )\n\nCZAREVITCH: Father, beware, the sword you tread on may turn and wound you. The people suffer long, but vengeance comes at last, vengeance with red hands and silent feet.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Bah! The people are bad shots; they always miss one.\n\nCZAREVITCH: There are times when the people are the instruments of God.\n\nCZAR: Ay! And when kings are God's scourges for the people. Take him away! Take him away! Bring in my guards. ( _Enter the Imperial Guard._ CZAR _points to_ CZAREVITCH, _who stands alone at the side of the stage._ ) We will bring him to prison ourselves: prison! I trust no prison. He would escape and kill me. I will have him shot here, here in the open square by the soldiers. Let me never see his face again. (CZAREVITCH _is being led out._ ) No, no, leave him! I don't trust guards. They are all Nihilists! ( _To_ PRINCE PAUL): I trust you, you have no mercy. ( _Throws window open and goes out on balcony._ )\n\nCZAREVITCH: If I am to die for the people I am ready. One Nihilist more or less in Russia, what does that matter?\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _looking at his watch_ ): The dinner is sure to be spoiled. How annoying politics are; and eldest sons!\n\nVOICE ( _outside, in the street_ ): God save the people! (CZAR _is shot, and staggers back into the room._ )\n\nCZAREVITCH ( _breaking from the guards, and rushing over_ ): Father!\n\nCZAR: Murderer! Murderer! You did it! Murderer! ( _Dies._ )\n\nTABLEAU\n\nACT DROP\n\n### ACT THREE\n\nSCENE: _same and business as Act One. Man in yellow dress, with drawn sword, at the door._\n\n_Password outside._ V\u00e6 tyrannis.\n\n_Answer._ V\u00e6 victis ( _repeated three times_ ).\n\n_Enter_ CONSPIRATORS, _who form a semicircle, masked and cloaked._\n\nPRESIDENT: What hour is it?\n\nFIRST CONSPIRATOR: The hour to strike.\n\nPRESIDENT: What day?\n\nSECOND CONSPIRATOR: The day of Marat.\n\nPRESIDENT: In what month?\n\nTHIRD CONSPIRATOR: The months of liberty.\n\nPRESIDENT: What is our duty?\n\nFOURTH CONSPIRATOR: To obey.\n\nPRESIDENT: Our creed?\n\nFIFTH CONSPIRATOR: _Parbleu_ , Monsieur le President, I never knew you had one.\n\nCONSPIRATORS: A spy! A spy! Unmask! Unmask! A spy!\n\nPRESIDENT: Let the doors be shut. There are others but Nihilists present.\n\nCONSPIRATORS: Unmask! Unmask! Kill him! kill him! ( _Masked Conspirator unmasks._ ) Prince Paul!\n\nVERA: Devil! Who lured you into the lion's den?\n\nCONSPIRATORS: Kill him! Kill him!\n\nPRINCE PAUL: _En v\u00e9rit\u00e9_ , Messieurs, you are not over-hospitable in your welcome.\n\nVERA: Welcome! What welcome should we give you but the dagger or the noose?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: I had no idea really that the Nihilists were so exclusive. Let me assure you that if I had not always had an _entree_ to the very best society, and the very worst conspiracies, I could never have been Prime Minister in Russia.\n\nVERA: The tiger cannot change its nature, nor the snake lose its venom; but are you turned a lover of the people?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Mon Dieu, non, Mademoiselle! I would much sooner talk scandal in a drawing-room than treason in a cellar. Besides, I hate the common mob, who smell of garlic, smoke bad tobacco, get up early, and dine off one dish.\n\nPRESIDENT: What have you to gain, then, by a revolution?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Mon ami, I have nothing left to lose. That scatter-brained boy, this new Czar, has banished me.\n\nVERA: To Siberia?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: No, to Paris. He has confiscated my estates, robbed me of my office and my cook. I have nothing left but my decorations. I am here for revenge.\n\nPRESIDENT: Then you have a right to be one of us. We also meet daily for revenge.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: You want money of course. No one ever joins a conspiracy who has any. Here. ( _Throws money on table._ ) You have so many spies that I should think you want information. Well, you will find me the best-informed man in Russia on the abuses of our Government. I made them nearly all myself.\n\nVERA: President, I don't trust this man. He has done us too much harm in Russia to let him go in safety.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Believe me, Mademoiselle, you are wrong. I will be a most valuable addition to your circle; and as for you, gentlemen, if I had not thought that you would be useful to me I shouldn't have risked my neck among you, or dined an hour earlier than usual so as to be in time.\n\nPRESIDENT: Ay, if he had wanted to spy on us, Vera, he wouldn't have come himself.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _aside_ ): No; I should have sent my best friend.\n\nPRESIDENT: Besides, Vera, he is just the man to give us the information we want about some business we have in hand to-night.\n\nVERA: Be it so if you wish it.\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, is it your will that Prince Paul Maraloffski be admitted, and take the oath of the Nihilist?\n\nCONSPIRATORS: It is! It is!\n\nPRESIDENT (holding out dagger and a paper): Prince Paul, the dagger or the oath?\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _smiles sardonically_ ): I would sooner annihilate than be annihilated. ( _Takes paper._ )\n\nPRESIDENT: Remember: Betray us, and as long as earth holds poison or steel, as long as men can strike or women betray, you shall not escape vengeance. The Nihilists never forget their friends, or forgive their enemies.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Really? I did not think you were so civilised.\n\nVERA ( _pacing up and down behind_ ): Why is he not here? He will not keep the crown. I know him well.\n\nPRESIDENT: Sign. (PRINCE PAUL _signs._ ) You said you thought we had no creed. You were wrong. Read it!\n\nVERA: This is a dangerous thing, President. What can we do with this man?\n\nPRESIDENT: We can use him. He is of value to us to-night and to-morrow.\n\nVERA: Perhaps there will be no morrow for any of us; but we have given him our word: he is safer here than ever he was in his palace.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _reading_ ): 'The rights of humanity'! In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger than itself. 'Nature is not a temple, but a workshop: we demand the right to labour.' Ah, I shall surrender my own rights in that respect.\n\nVERA ( _pacing up and down behind_ ): Oh, will he never come? Will he never come?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: 'The family as subversive of true socialistic and communal unity is to be annihilated.' Yes, President, I agree completely with Article 5. A family is a terrible incumbrance, especially when one is not married. ( _Three knocks at the door._ )\n\nVERA: Alexis at last!\n\n_Password_ : V\u00e6 tyrannis!\n\n_Answer_ : V\u00e6 victis! ( _Enter_ MICHAEL STROGANOFF.)\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, the regicide! Brothers, let us do honour to a man who has killed a king.\n\nVERA ( _aside_ ): Oh, he will come yet!\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, you have saved Russia.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, Russia was free for a moment when the tyrant fell, but the sun of liberty has set again like that false dawn which cheats our eyes in autumn.\n\nPRESIDENT: The dread night of tyranny is not yet past for Russia.\n\nMICHAEL ( _clutching his knife_ ): One more blow, and the end is come indeed.\n\nVERA ( _aside_ ): One more blow! What does he mean? Oh, impossible! But why is he not with us? Alexis! Alexis! Why are you not here?\n\nPRESIDENT: But how did you escape, Michael? They said you had been seized.\n\nMICHAEL: I was dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Guard. The Colonel on duty was a brother, and gave me the password. I drove through the troops in safety with it, and, thanks to my good horse, reached the walls before the gates were closed.\n\nPRESIDENT: What a chance his coming out on the balcony was!\n\nMICHAEL: A chance? There is no such thing as chance. It was God's finger led him there.\n\nPRESIDENT: And where have you been these three days?\n\nMICHAEL: Hiding in the house of the priest Nicholas at the cross-roads.\n\nPRESIDENT: Nicholas is an honest man.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, honest enough for a priest. I am here now for vengeance on a traitor!\n\nVERA ( _aside_ ): O God, will he never come? Alexis! Why are you not here? You cannot have turned traitor!\n\nMICHAEL ( _seeing_ PRINCE PAUL): Prince Paul Maraloffski here! By St. George, a lucky capture! This must have been Vera's doing. She is the only one who could have lured that serpent into the trap.\n\nPRESIDENT: Prince Paul has just taken the oath.\n\nVERA: Alexis, the Czar, has banished him from Russia.\n\nMICHAEL: Bah! A blind to cheat us. We will keep Prince Paul here, and find some office for him in our reign of terror. He is well accustomed by this time to bloody work.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _approaching_ MICHAEL): That was a long shot of yours, _mon camarade._\n\nMICHAEL: I have had a good deal of practice shooting, since I have been a boy, off your Highness's wild boars.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Are my gamekeepers like moles, then, always asleep?\n\nMICHAEL: No, Prince. I am one of them; but, like you, I am fond of robbing what I am put to watch.\n\nPRESIDENT: This must be a new atmosphere for you, Prince Paul. We speak the truth to one another here.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: How misleading you must find it! You have an odd medley here, President.\n\nPRESIDENT: You recognise a good many friends, I dare say?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Yes, there is always more brass than brains in an aristocracy.\n\nPRESIDENT: But you are here yourself?\n\nPRINCE PAUL: I? As I cannot be a Prime Minister, I must be a Nihilist. There is no alternative.\n\nVERA: O God, will he never come? The hand is on the stroke of the hour. Will he never come?\n\nMICHAEL ( _aside_ ): President, you know what we have to do? 'Tis but a sorry hunter who leaves the wolf cub alive to avenge his father. How are we to get at this boy? It must be to-night. To-morrow he will be throwing some sop of reform to the people, and it will be too late for a republic.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: You are quite right. Good kings are the only dangerous enemies that modern democracy has and when he has begun by banishing me you may be sure he intends to be a patriot.\n\nMICHAEL: I am sick of patriot kings; what Russia needs is a Republic.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Messieurs, I have brought you two documents which I think will interest you \u2013 the proclamation this young Czar intends publishing to-morrow, and a plan of the Winter Palace, where he sleeps to-night. ( _Hands papers._ )\n\nVERA: I dare not ask them what they are plotting about. Oh, why is Alexis not here?\n\nPRESIDENT: Prince, this is most valuable information. Michael, you were right. If it is not to-night it will be too late. Read that.\n\nMICHAEL: Ah! A loaf of bread flung to a starving nation. A lie to cheat the people. ( _Tears it up._ ) It must be to-night. I do not believe him. Would he have kept his crown had he loved the people? But how are we to get at him, and shall we who could not bear the scorpions of the father suffer the whips of the son? No; whatever is, must be destroyed: whatever is, is wrong.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: The key of the private door in the street. ( _Hands key._ )\n\nPRESIDENT: Prince, we are in your debt.\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _smiling_ ): The normal condition of the Nihilists.\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, but we are paying our debts off with interest now. Two Emperors in one week. That will make the balance straight. We would have thrown in a Prime Minister if you had not come.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Ah, I am sorry you told me. It robs my visit of all its picturesqueness and adventure. I thought I was perilling my head by coming here, and you tell me I have saved it. One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.\n\nMICHAEL: It is not so romantic a thing to lose one's head, Prince Paul.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: No, but it must often be very dull to keep it. Don't you find that sometimes? ( _Clock strikes six._ )\n\nVERA ( _sinking into a seat_ ): Oh, it is past the hour! It is past the hour!\n\nMICHAEL ( _to_ PRESIDENT): Remember to-morrow will be too late.\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, it is full time. Which of us is absent?\n\nCONSPIRATORS: Alexis! Alexis!\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, read Rule 7.\n\nMICHAEL: 'When any brother shall have disobeyed a summons to be present, the president shall inquire if there is anything alleged against him.'\n\nPRESIDENT: Is there anything against our brother Alexis?\n\nCONSPIRATORS: He wears a crown! He wears a crown!\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, read Article 7 of the Code of Revolution.\n\nMICHAEL: 'Between the Nihilists and all men who wear crowns above their fellows, there is war to the death.'\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, what say you? Is Alexis, the Czar, guilty or not?\n\nOMNES: He is guilty!\n\nPRESIDENT: What shall the penalty be?\n\nOMNES: Death!\n\nPRESIDENT: Let the lots be prepared; it shall be to-night.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: Ah, this is really interesting! I was getting afraid conspiracies were as dull as courts are.\n\nPROFESSOR MARFA: My forte is more in writing pamphlets than in taking shots. Still a regicide has always a place in history.\n\nMICHAEL: If your pistol is as harmless as your pen, this young tyrant will have a long life.\n\nPRINCE PAUL: You ought to remember, too, Professor, that if you were seized, as you probably would be, and hung, as you certainly would be, there would be nobody left to read your own articles.\n\nPRESIDENT: Brothers, are you ready?\n\nVERA ( _starting up_ ): Not yet! Not yet! I have a word to say.\n\nMICHAEL ( _aside_ ): Plague take her! I knew it would come to this.\n\nVERA: This boy has been our brother. Night after night he has perilled his own life to come here. Night after night, when every street was filled with spies, every house with traitors. Delicately nurtured like a king's son, he has dwelt among us.\n\nPRESIDENT: Ay! Under a false name. He lied to us at the beginning. He lies to us now at the end.\n\nVERA: I swear he is true. There is not a man here who does not owe him his life a thousand times. When the bloodhounds were on us that night, who saved us from arrest, torture, flogging, death, but he ye seek to kill? \u2013\n\nMICHAEL: To kill all tyrants is our mission!\n\nVERA: He is no tyrant. I know him well! He loves the people.\n\nPRESIDENT: We know him too; he is a traitor.\n\nVERA: A traitor! Three days ago he could have betrayed every man of you here, and the gibbet would have been your doom. He gave you all your lives once. Give him a little time \u2013 a week, a month, a few days; but now! O God, not now!\n\nCONSPIRATORS ( _brandishing daggers_ ): To-night! To-night! To-night!\n\nVERA: Peace, you gorged adders! Peace!\n\nMICHAEL: What, are we not here to annihilate? Shall we not keep our oath?\n\nVERA: Your oath! Your oath! Greedy that you are of gain, every man's hand lusting for his neighbour's pelf, every heart set on pillage and rapine; who, of ye all, if the crown were set on his head, would give an empire up for the mob to scramble for? The people are not yet fit for a republic in Russia.\n\nPRESIDENT: Every nation is fit for a republic.\n\nMICHAEL: The man is a tyrant.\n\nVERA: A tyrant! Hath he not dismissed his evil counsellors. That ill-omened raven of his father's life hath had his wings clipped and his claws pared, and comes to us croaking for revenge. Oh, have mercy on him! Give him a week to live!\n\nPRESIDENT: Vera, pleading for a king!\n\nVERA ( _proudly_ ): I plead not for a king, but for a brother.\n\nMICHAEL: For a traitor to his oath, a coward who should have flung the purple back to the fools that gave it him. No, Vera, no. The brood of men is not yet dead, nor the dull earth grown sick of child-bearing. No crowned man in Russia shall pollute God's air by living.\n\nPRESIDENT: You bade us try you once. We have tried you, and you are found wanting.\n\nMICHAEL: Vera, I am not blind; I know your secret. You love this boy, this young prince with his pretty face, his curled hair, his soft white hands. Fool that you are, dupe of a lying tongue, do you know what he would have done to you, this boy you think loved you? He would have made you his mistress, used your body at his pleasure, thrown you away when he was wearied of you; you, the priestess of liberty, the flame of revolution, the torch of democracy.\n\nVERA: What he would have done to me matters little. To the people, at least, he will be true. He loves the people, at least, he loves liberty.\n\nPRESIDENT: So, he would play the citizen-king, would he, while we starve? Would flatter us with sweet speeches, would cheat us with promises like his father, would lie to us as his whole race have lied.\n\nMICHAEL: And you whose very name made every despot tremble for his life, you, Vera Sabouroff, you would betray liberty for a lover and the people for a paramour!\n\nCONSPIRATORS: Traitress! Draw the lots; draw the lots!\n\nVERA: In thy throat thou liest, Michael! I love him not. He loves me not.\n\nMICHAEL: You love him not? Shall he not die then?\n\nVERA ( _with an effort, clenching her hands_ ): Ay, it is right that he should die. He hath broken his oath. There should be no crowned man in Europe. Have I not sworn it? To be strong, our new republic should be drunk with the blood of kings. He hath broken his oath. As the father died so let the son die too. Yet not to-night, not to-night. Russia, that hath borne her centuries of wrong, can wait a week for liberty. Give him a week.\n\nPRESIDENT: We will have none of you! Begone from us to this boy you love.\n\nMICHAEL: Though I find him in your arms I shall kill him.\n\nCONSPIRATORS: To-night! To-night! To-night!\n\nMICHAEL ( _holding up his hand_ ): A moment! I have something to say. ( _Approaches_ VERA; _speaks very slowly._ ) Vera Sabouroff, have you forgotten your brother? ( _Pauses to see effect;_ VERA _starts._ ) Have you forgotten that young face, pale with famine; those young limbs twisted with torture; the iron chains they made him walk in? What week of liberty did they give him? What pity did they show him for a day? (VERA _falls in a chair._ ) Oh! You could talk glibly enough then of vengeance, glibly enough of liberty. When you said you would come to Moscow, your old father caught you by the knees and begged you not to leave him to die childless and alone. I seem to hear his cries still ringing in my ears, but you were as deaf to him as the rocks on the roadside. You left your father that night, and three weeks after he died of a broken heart. You wrote to me to follow you here. I did so; first because I loved you; but you soon cured me of that; whatever gentle feeling, whatever pity, whatever love, whatever humanity, was in my heart you withered up and destroyed, as the canker worm eats the corn. You bade me cast out love from my breast as a vile thing, you turned my hand to iron, and my heart to stone; you told me to live for freedom and revenge. I have done so. But you, what have you done?\n\nVERA: Let the lots be drawn! (CONSPIRATORS _applaud._ )\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _aside_ ): Ah, the Grand Duke will come to the throne sooner than he expected. He is sure to make a good king under my guidance. He is so cruel to animals, and never keeps his word.\n\nMICHAEL: Now you are yourself at last, Vera.\n\nVERA ( _standing motionless in the middle_ ): The lots, I say, the lots! I am no woman now. My blood seems turned to gall; my heart is as cold as steel is; my hand shall be more deadly. From the desert and the tomb the voice of my prisoned brother cries aloud, and bids me strike one blow for liberty. The lots, I say, the lots!\n\nPRESIDENT: Are ready. Michael, you have the right to draw first: you are a regicide.\n\nVERA: O God, into my hands! Into my hands! ( _They draw the lots from a bowl surmounted by a skull._ )\n\nPRESIDENT: Open your lots.\n\nVERA ( _opening her lot_ ): The lot is mine! See, the bloody sign upon it! Dmitri, my brother, you shall have your revenge now.\n\nPRESIDENT: Vera Sabouroff, you are chosen to be a regicide. God has been good to you. The dagger or the poison? ( _Offers her dagger and vial._ )\n\nVERA: I can trust my hand better with the dagger; it never fails. ( _Takes dagger._ ) I shall stab him to the heart, as he has stabbed me. Traitor, to leave us for a ribbon, a gaud, a bauble, to lie to me every day he came here, to forget us in an hour. Michael was right, he loved me not, nor the people either. Methinks that if I was a mother and bore a man-child, I would poison my breast against him, lest he might grow to a traitor or to a king. (PPRINCE PAUL _whispers to the_ PRESIDENT.)\n\nPRESIDENT: Ay, Prince Paul, that is the best way. Vera, the Czar sleeps to-night in his own room in the north wing of the palace. Here is a key of the private door in the street. The password of the guards will be given to you. His own servants will be drugged. You will find him alone.\n\nVERA: It is well. I shall not fail.\n\nPRESIDENT: We will wait outside in the Place Saint Isaac, under the window. As the clock strikes twelve from the tower of St. Nicholas you will give us the sign that the dog is dead.\n\nVERA: And what shall the sign be?\n\nPRESIDENT: You are to throw us out the bloody dagger.\n\nMICHAEL: Dripping with the traitor's life.\n\nPRESIDENT: Else we shall know that you have been seized, and we will burst our way in, drag you from his guards.\n\nMICHAEL: And kill him in the midst of them.\n\nPRESIDENT: Michael, you will lead us?\n\nMICHAEL: Ay, I shall lead you. See that your hand fails you not, Vera Sabouroff.\n\nVERA: Fool, is it so hard a thing to kill one's enemy?\n\nPRINCE PAUL ( _aside_ ): This is the ninth conspiracy I have been in in Russia. They always end in a _voyage en Siberie_ for my friends and a new decoration for myself.\n\nMICHAEL: It is your last conspiracy, Prince.\n\nPRESIDENT: At twelve o'clock, the bloody dagger.\n\nVERA: Ay, red with the blood of that false heart. I shall not forget it. ( _Standing in middle of stage._ ) To strangle whatever nature is in me, neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor to be pitied. Ay! It is an oath, an oath. Methinks the spirit of Charlotte Corday has entered my soul now. I shall carve my name on the world, and be ranked among the great heroines. Ay! The spirit of Charlotte Corday beats in each petty vein, and nerves my woman's hand to strike, as I have nerved my woman's heart to hate. Though he laugh in his dreams I shall not falter. Though he sleep peacefully I shall not miss my blow. Be glad, my brother, in your stifled cell; be glad and laugh to-night. To-night this new-fledged Czar shall post with bloody feet to hell, and greet his father there! This Czar! O traitor, liar, false to his oath, false to me! To play the patriot among us, and now to wear a crown; to sell us, like Judas, for thirty silver pieces, to betray us with a kiss! ( _With more passion._ ) O Liberty, O mighty mother of eternal time, thy robe is purple with the blood of those who have died for thee! Thy throne is the Calvary of the people, thy crown the crown of thorns. O crucified mother, the despot has driven a nail through thy right hand, and the tyrant through thy left! Thy feet are pierced with their iron. When thou wert athirst thou calledst on the priests for water, and they gave thee bitter drink. They thrust a sword into thy side. They mocked thee in thine agony of age on age. Here, on thy altar, O Liberty, do I dedicate myself to thy service; do with me as thou wilt! ( _Brandishing the dagger._ ) The end has come now, and by thy sacred wounds, O crucified mother, O Liberty, I swear that Russia shall be saved!\n\nACT DROP\n\nACT FOUR\n\nSCENE: _Antechamber of the Czar's private room. Large windows at the back, with drawn curtains over it._\n\n_Present_ : PRINCE PETROVITCH, BARON RAFF, MARQUIS DE POIVRARD, COUNT ROUVALOFF.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: He is beginning well, this young Czar.\n\nBARON RAFF ( _shrugs his shoulders_ ): All young Czars do begin well.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: And end badly.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: Well, I have no right to complain. He has done me one good service, at any rate.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Cancelled your appointment to Archangel, I suppose?\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: Yes; my head wouldn't have been safe there for an hour.\n\n_Enter_ GENERAL KOTEMKIN.\n\nBARON RAFF: Ah! General, any more news of our romantic young Emperor?\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN: You are quite right to call him romantic, Baron; a week ago I found him amusing himself in a garret with a company of strolling players; to-day his whim is all the convicts in Siberia are to be recalled, and the political prisoners, as he calls them, amnestied.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Political prisoners! Why, half of them are no better than common murderers!\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: And the other half much worse?\n\nBARON RAFF: Oh, you wrong them, surely, Count. Wholesale trade has always been more respectable than retail.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: But he is really too romantic. He objected yesterday to my having the monopoly of the salt tax. He said the people had a right to have cheap salt.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: Oh, that's nothing; but he actually disapproved of a State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern provinces. ( _The young_ CZAR _enters unobserved, and overhears the rest._ )\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: _Quelle b\u00eatise_!\n\nThe more starvation there is among the people the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue, Baron.\n\nBARON RAFF: I have often heard so.\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN: He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the people should have deputies to represent them.\n\nBARON RAFF: As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already, but we must give the people a room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform of the public service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: He can't be serious there. What is the use of the people except for us to get money out of? But talking of the taxes, my dear Baron you must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow; my wife says she must have a new diamond bracelet.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF ( _aside to_ BARON RAFF): Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave her last week, I suppose.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: I must have sixty thousand roubles at once, Baron. My son is overwhelmed with debts of honour which he can't pay.\n\nBARON RAFF: What an excellent son to imitate his father so carefully!\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN: You are always getting money. I never get a single kopeck I have not got a right to. It's unbearable; it's ridiculous! My nephew is going to be married. I must get his dowry for him.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: My dear General, your nephew must be a perfect Turk. He seems to get married three times a week regularly.\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN: Well, he wants a dowry to console him.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: I am sick of town. I want a house in the country.\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: I am sick of the country. I want a house in town.\n\nBARON RAFF: Gentlemen, I am extremely sorry for you. It is out of the question.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: But my son, Baron?\n\nGENERAL KOTEMKIN: But my nephew?\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: But my house in town?\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: But my house in the country?\n\nMARQUIS DE POIVRARD: But my wife's diamond bracelet?\n\nBARON RAFF: Gentlemen, impossible! The old regime in Russia is dead; the funeral begins to-day.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: Then I shall wait for the resurrection.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Yes; but, _en attendant_ , what are we to do?\n\nBARON RAFF: What have we always done in Russia when a Czar suggests reform? Nothing. You forget we are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action. Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: I wish Prince Paul were here. By the by, I think this boy is rather ungrateful to him. If that clever old Prince had not proclaimed him Emperor at once without giving him time to think about it, he would have given up his crown, I believe, to the first cobbler he met in the street.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: But do you think, Baron, that Prince Paul is really going?\n\nBARON RAFF: He is exiled.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Yes; but is he going?\n\nBARON RAFF: I am sure of it; at least he told me he had sent two telegrams already to Paris about his dinner.\n\nCOUNT ROUVALOFF: Ah! That settles the matter.\n\nCZAR ( _coming forward_ ): Prince Paul had better send a third telegram and order ( _counting them_ ) six extra places.\n\nBARON RAFF: The devil!\n\nCZAR: No, Baron, the Czar. Traitors! There would be no bad kings in the world if there were no bad ministers like you. It is men such as you are who wreck mighty empires on the rock of their own greatness. Our mother, Russia, hath no need of such unnatural sons. You can make no atonement now; it is too late for that. The grave cannot give back your dead, nor the gibbet your martyrs, but I shall be more merciful to you. I give you your lives! That is the curse I would lay on you. But if there is a man of you found in Moscow by tomorrow night your heads will be off your shoulders.\n\nBARON RAFF: You remind us wonderfully, Sire, of your Imperial father.\n\nCZAR: I banish you all from Russia. Your estates are confiscated to the people. You may carry your titles with you. Reforms in Russia, Baron, always end in a farce. You will have a good opportunity, Prince Petrovitch, of practising self-denial, that excellent virtue! That excellent virtue! So, Baron, you think a Parliament in Russia would be merely a place for brawling. Well, I will see that the reports of each session are sent to you regularly.\n\nBARON RAFF: Sire, you are adding another horror to exile.\n\nCZAR: But you will have such time for literature now. You forget you are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action.\n\nPRINCE PETROVITCH: Sire, we did hut jest.\n\nCZAR: Then I banish you for your bad jokes. _Bon voyage_ Messieurs. If you value your lives you will catch the first train for Paris. ( _Exeunt Ministers._ ) Russia is well rid of such men as these. They are the jackals that follow in the lion's track. They have no courage themselves except to pillage and rob. But for these men and for Prince Paul my father would have been a good king, would not have died so horribly as he did die. How strange it is, the most real parts of one's life always seem to be a dream! The council, the fearful law which was to kill the people, the arrest, the cry in the court-yard, the pistol-shot, my father's bloody hands, and then the crown! One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour. I had no time to think. Before my father's hideous shriek of death had died in my ears I found this crown on my head, the purple robe around me, and heard myself called a king. I would have given it up all then; it seemed nothing to me then; but now, can I give it up now? Well, Colonel, well? ( _Enter_ COLONEL OF THE GUARD.)\n\nCOLONEL: What password does your Imperial Majesty desire should be given to-night?\n\nCZAR: Password?\n\nCOLONEL: For the cordon of guards, Sire, on night duty around the palace.\n\nCZAR: You can dismiss them. I have no need of them. ( _Exit_ COLONEL). ( _Goes to the crown lying on the table._ ) What subtle potency lies hidden in this gaudy bauble, the crown, that makes one feel like a god when one wears it? To hold in one's hand this little fiery-coloured world, to reach out one's arm to earth's uttermost limit, to girdle the seas with one's galley; to make the land a highway for one's hosts; this is to wear a crown! To wear a crown! The meanest serf in Russia who is loved is better crowned than I. How love outweighs the balance! How poor appears the widest empire of this golden world when matched with love! Pent up in this palace, with spies dogging every step, I have heard nothing of her; I have not seen her once since that fearful hour, three days ago, when I found myself suddenly the Czar of this wide waste, Russia. Oh, could I see her for a moment; tell her now the secret of my life I have never dared to utter before; tell her why I wear this crown, when I have sworn eternal war against all crowned men! There was a meeting to-night. I received my summons by an unknown hand; but how could I go? I, who have broken my oath! Who have broken my oath!\n\n_Enter_ PAGE.\n\nPAGE: It is after eleven, Sire. Shall I take the first watch in your room to-night?\n\nCZAR: Why should you watch me, boy? The stars are my best sentinels.\n\nPAGE: It was your Imperial father's wish, Sire, never to be left alone while he slept.\n\nCZAR: My father was troubled with bad dreams. Go, get to your bed, boy; it is nigh on midnight, and these late hours will spoil those red cheeks. (PAGE _tries to kiss his hand._ ) Nay, nay; we have played together too often for that. Oh, to breathe the same air as her, and not to see her! The light seems to have gone from my life, the sun vanished from my day.\n\nPAGE: Sire \u2013 Alexis \u2013 let me stay with you to-night! There is some danger over you; I feel there is.\n\nCZAR: What should I fear? I have banished all my enemies from Russia. Set the brazier here, by me; it is very cold, and I would sit by it for a time. Go, boy, go; I have much to think about to-night. ( _Goes to back of stage, draws aside a curtain. View of Moscow by moonlight._ ) The snow has fallen heavily since sunset. How white and cold my city looks under this pale moon! And yet what hot and fiery hearts beat in this icy Russia, for all its frost and snow. Oh, to see her for a moment; to tell her all; to tell her why I am a king! But she does not doubt me; she said she would trust in me. Though I have broken my oath, she will have trust. It is very cold. Where is my cloak? I shall sleep for an hour. Then I have ordered my sledge, and, though I die for it, I shall see Vera to-night. Did I not bid thee go, boy? What! Must I play the tyrant so soon? Go, go! I cannot live without seeing her. My horses will be here in an hour; one hour between me and love! How heavy this charcoal fire smells. ( _Exit the_ PAGE. _Lies down on a couch beside brazier._ )\n\n_Enter_ VERA, _in a black cloak._\n\nVERA: Asleep! God, thou art good! Who shall deliver him from my hands now? This is he! The democrat who would make himself a king, the republican who hath worn a crown, the traitor who hath lied to us. Michael was right. He loved not the people. He loved me not. ( _Bends over him._ ) Oh, why should such deadly poison lie in such sweet lips? Was there not gold enough in his hair before, but he should tarnish it with this crown? But my day has come now; the day of the people, of liberty, has come! Your day, my brother, has come! Though I have strangled whatever nature is in me, I did not think it had been so easy to kill. One blow and it is over, and I can wash my hands in water afterwards, I can wash my hands afterwards. Come, I shall save Russia. I have sworn it. ( _Raises the dagger to strike._ )\n\nCZAR ( _starting up, seizes her by both hands_ ): Vera, you here! My dream was no dream at all. Why have you left me three days alone, when I most needed you? O God, you think I am a traitor, a liar, a king? I am, for love of you. Vera, it was for you I broke my oath and wear my father's crown. I would lay at your feet this mighty Russia, which you and I have loved so well; would give you this earth as your footstool; set this crown on your head. The people will love us. We will rule them by love, as a father rules his children. There shall be liberty in Russia for every man to think as his heart bids him; liberty for men to speak as they think. I have banished the wolves that preyed on us; I have brought back your brother from Siberia; I have opened the blackened jaws of the mine. The courier is already on his way; within a week Dmitri and all those with him will be back in their own land. The people shall be free \u2013 are free now. When they gave me this crown first, I would have flung it back to them, had it not been for you, Vera. O God! It is men's custom in Russia to bring gifts to those they love. I said, I will bring to the woman I love a people, an empire, a world! Vera, it is for you, for you alone, I kept this crown; for you alone I am a king. Oh, I have loved you better than my oath! Why will you not speak to me? You love me not! You love me not! You have come to warn me of some plot against my life. What is life worth to me without you? (CONSPIRATORS _murmur outside._ )\n\nVERA: Oh, lost! Lost! Lost!\n\nCZAR: Nay, you are safe here. It wants five hours still of dawn. To-morrow, I will lead you forth to the whole people \u2013\n\nVERA: To-morrow \u2013\n\nCZAR: Will crown you with my own hands as Empress in that great cathedral which my fathers built.\n\nVERA ( _loosens her hand violently from him, and starts up_ ): I am a Nihilist! I cannot wear a crown!\n\nCZAR ( _falls at her feet_ ): I am no king now. I am only a boy who has loved you better than his honour, better than his oath. For love of the people I would have been a patriot. For love of you I have been a traitor. Let us go forth together, we will live amongst the common people. I am no king. I will toil for you like the peasant or the serf. Oh, love me a little too! (CONSPIRATORS _murmur outside._ )\n\nVERA ( _clutching dagger_ ): To strangle whatever nature is in me, neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor \u2013 oh, I am a woman! God help me, I am a woman! O Alexis! I too have broken my oath; I am a traitor. I love. Oh, do not speak, do not speak \u2013 ( _kisses his lips_ ) \u2013 the first, the last time. ( _He clasps her in his arms; they sit on the couch together._ )\n\nCZAR: I could die now.\n\nVERA: What does death do in thy lips? Thy life, thy love are enemies of death. Speak not of death. Not yet, not yet.\n\nCZAR: I know not why death came into my heart. Perchance the cup of life is filled too full of pleasure to endure. This is our wedding night.\n\nVERA: Our wedding night!\n\nCZAR: And if death came himself, methinks that I could kiss his pallid mouth, and such sweet poison from it.\n\nVERA: Our wedding night! Nay, nay. Death should not sit at the feast. There is no such thing as death.\n\nCZAR: There shall not be for us. (CONSPIRATORS _murmur outside._ )\n\nVERA: What is that? Did you not hear something?\n\nCZAR: Only your voice, that fowler's note which lures my heart away like a poor bird upon the limed twig.\n\nVERA: Methought that someone laughed.\n\nCZAR: It was but the wind and rain; the night is full of storm. (CONSPIRATORS _murmur outside._ )\n\nVERA: It should be so, indeed. Oh, where are your guards? Where are your guards?\n\nCZAR: Where should they be but at home? I shall not live pent round by sword and steel. The love of a people is a king's best bodyguard.\n\nVERA: The love of a people!\n\nCZAR: Sweet, you are safe here. Nothing can harm you here. O love, I knew you trusted me! You said you would have trust.\n\nVERA: I have had trust. O love, the past seems but some dull, grey dream from which our souls have wakened. This is life at last.\n\nCZAR: Ay, life at last.\n\nVERA: Our wedding night! Oh, let me drink my fill of love to-night! Nay, sweet, not yet, not yet. How still it is, and yet methinks the air is full of music. It is some nightingale who, wearying of the south, has come to sing in this bleak north to lovers such as we. It is the nightingale. Dost thou not hear it?\n\nCZAR: O sweet, mine ears are clogged to all sweet sounds save thine own voice, and mine eyes blinded to all sights but thee, else had I heard that nightingale, and seen the golden-vestured morning sun itself steal from its sombre east before its time, for jealousy that thou art twice as fair.\n\nVERA: Yet would that thou hadst heard the nightingale. Methinks that bird will never sing again.\n\nCZAR: It is no nightingale. 'Tis love himself singing for very ecstasy of joy that thou art changed into his votaress. ( _Clock begins striking twelve._ ) Oh, listen, sweet, it is the lovers' hour. Come, let us stand without, and hear the midnight answered from tower to tower over the wide white town. Our wedding night! What is that? What is that? ( _Loud murmurs of_ CONSPIRATORS _in the street._ )\n\nVERA ( _breaks from him and rushes across the stage_ ): The wedding guests are here already! Ay! You shall have your sign! ( _Stabs herself._ ) You shall have your sign! ( _Rushes to the window._ )\n\nCZAR ( _intercepts her by rushing between her and window, and snatches dagger out of her hand_ ): Vera!\n\nVERA ( _clinging to him_ ): Give me back the dagger! Give me back the dagger! There are men in the street who seek your life! Your guards have betrayed you! This bloody dagger is the signal that you are dead. (CONSPIRATORS _begin to shout below in the street._ ) Oh, there is not a moment to be lost! Throw it out! Throw it out! Nothing can save me now; this dagger is poisoned! I feel death already in my heart. There was no other way but this.\n\nCZAR ( _holding dagger out of her reach_ ): Death is in my heart too; we shall die together!\n\nVERA: Oh, love! Love! Love! Be merciful to me! The wolves are hot upon you! \u2013 you must live for liberty, for Russia, for me! Oh, you do not love me! You offered me an empire once! Give me this dagger, now! Oh, you are cruel! My life for yours! What does it matter? ( _Loud shout in the street_ , 'VERA! VERA! _To the rescue! To the rescue!'_ )\n\nCZAR: The bitterness of death is past for me.\n\nVERA: Oh, they are breaking in below! See! The bloody man behind you! (CZAR _turns round for an instant._ ) Ah! (VERA _snatches dagger and flings it out of window._ )\n\nCONSPIRATORS ( _below_ ): Long live the people!\n\nCZAR: What have you done?\n\nVERA: I have saved Russia! ( _Dies_ ).\n\nTABLEAU\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## A Florentine Tragedy\n\n_Enter_ THE HUSBAND\n\nSIMONE: My good wife, you come slowly, were it not better  \nTo run to meet your lord? Here, take my cloak.  \nTake this pack first. 'Tis heavy. I have sold nothing:  \nSave a furred robe unto the Cardinal's son,  \nWho hopes to wear it when his father dies,  \nAnd hopes that will be soon.  \nBut who is this?  \nWhy you have here some friend. Some kinsman doubtless,  \nNewly returned from foreign lands and fallen  \nUpon a house without a host to greet him?  \nI crave your pardon, kinsman. For a house  \nLacking a host is but an empty thing  \nAnd void of honour; a cup without its wine,  \nA scabbard without steel to keep it straight,  \nA flowerless garden widowed of the sun.  \nAgain I crave your pardon, my sweet cousin.\n\nBIANCA: This is no kinsman and no cousin neither.\n\nSIMONE: No kinsman, and no cousin! You amaze me.  \nWho is it then who with such courtly grace  \nDeigns to accept our hospitalities?\n\nGUIDO: My name is Guido Bardi.\n\nSIMONE: What! The son\n\nOf that great Lord of Florence whose dim towers  \nLike shadows silvered by the wandering moon  \nI see from out my casement every night!  \nSir Guido Bardi, you are welcome here,  \nTwice welcome. For I trust my honest wife,  \nMost honest if uncomely to the eye,  \nHath not with foolish chatterings wearied you,  \nAs is the wont of women.\n\nGUIDO: Your gracious lady,\n\nWhose beauty is a lamp that pales the stars  \nAnd robs Diana's quiver of her beams  \nHas welcomed me with such sweet courtesies  \nThat if it be her pleasure, and your own,  \nI will come often to your simple house.  \nAnd when your business bids you walk abroad  \nI will sit here and charm her loneliness  \nLest she might sorrow for you overmuch.  \nWhat say you, good Simone?\n\nSIMONE: My noble Lord,\n\nYou bring me such high honour that my tongue  \nLike a slave's tongue is tied, and cannot say  \nThe word it would. Yet not to give you thanks  \nWere to be too unmannerly. So, I thank you,  \nFrom my heart's core.  \nIt is such things as these  \nThat knit a state together, when a Prince  \nSo nobly born and of such fair address,  \nForgetting unjust Fortune's differences,  \nComes to an honest burgher's honest home  \nAs a most honest friend.  \nAnd yet, my Lord,  \nI fear I am too bold. Some other night  \nWe trust that you will come here as a friend,  \nTo-night you come to buy my merchandise.  \nIs it not so? Silks, velvets, what you will,  \nI doubt not but I have some dainty wares  \nWill woo your fancy. True, the hour is late,  \nBut we poor merchants toil both night and day  \nTo make our scanty gains. The tolls are high,  \nAnd every city levies its own toll,  \nAnd prentices are unskilful, and wives even  \nLack sense and cunning, though Bianca here  \nHas brought me a rich customer to-night.  \nIs it not so, Bianca? But I waste time.  \nWhere is my pack? Where is my pack, I say?  \nOpen it, my good wife. Unloose the cords.  \nKneel down upon the floor. You are better so.  \nNay not that one, the other. Despatch, despatch!  \nBuyers will grow impatient oftentimes.  \nWe dare not keep them waiting. Ay! 'tis that,  \nGive it to me; with care. It is most costly.  \nTouch it with care. And now, my noble Lord \u2013  \nNay, pardon, I have here a Lucca damask,  \nThe very web of silver and the roses  \nSo cunningly wrought that they lack perfume merely  \nTo cheat the wanton sense. Touch it, my Lord.  \nIs it not soft as water, strong as steel?  \nAnd then the roses! Are they not finely woven?  \nI think the hillsides that best love the rose,  \nAt Bellosguardo or at Fiesole,  \nThrow no such blossoms on the lap of spring,  \nOr if they do their blossoms droop and die.  \nSuch is the fate of all the dainty things  \nThat dance in wind and water. Nature herself  \nMakes war on her own loveliness and slays  \nHer children like Medea. Nay but, my Lord,  \nLook closer still. Why in this damask here  \nIt is summer always, and no winter's tooth  \nWill ever blight these blossoms. For every ell  \nI paid a piece of gold. Red gold, and good,  \nThe fruit of careful thrift.\n\nGUIDO: Honest Simone,\n\nEnough, I pray you. I am well content,  \nTo-morrow I will send my servant to you,  \nWho will pay twice your price.\n\nSIMONE: My generous Prince!  \nI kiss your hands. And now I do remember  \nAnother treasure hidden in my house  \nWhich you must see. It is a robe of state:  \nWoven by a Venetian: the stuff, cut-velvet:  \nThe pattern, pomegranates: each separate seed  \nWrought of a pearl: the collar all of pearls,  \nAs thick as moths in summer streets at night.  \nAnd whiter than the moons that madmen see  \nThrough prison bars at morning. A male ruby  \nBurns like a lighted coal within the clasp.  \nThe Holy Father has not such a stone,  \nNor could the Indies show a brother to it  \nThe brooch itself is of most curious art,  \nCellini never made a fairer thing  \nTo please the great Lorenzo. You must wear it.  \nThere is none worthier in our city here,  \nAnd it will suit you well. Upon one side  \nA slim and horned satyr leaps in gold  \nTo catch some nymph of silver. Upon the other  \nStands Silence with a crystal in her hand,  \nNo bigger than the smallest ear of corn,  \nThat wavers at the passing of a bird,  \nAnd yet so cunningly wrought that one would say  \nIt breathed, or held its breath.  \nWorthy Bianca,  \nWould not this noble and most costly robe  \nSuit young Lord Guido well?  \nNay, but entreat him;  \nHe will refuse you nothing, though the price  \nBe as a prince's ransom. And your profit  \nShall not be less than mine.\n\nBIANCA: Am I your prentice?  \nWhy should I chaffer for your velvet robe?\n\nGUIDO: Nay, fair Bianca, I will buy your robe,  \nAnd all things that the honest merchant has  \nI will buy also. Princes must be ransomed,  \nAnd fortunate are all high lords who fall  \nInto the white hands of so fair a foe.\n\nSIMONE: I stand rebuked. But you will buy my wares?  \nWill you not buy them? Fifty thousand crowns  \nWould scarce repay me. But you, my Lord, shall have them  \nFor forty thousand. Is that price too high?  \nName your own price. I have a curious fancy  \nTo see you in this wonder of the loom  \nAmidst the noble ladies of the court,  \nA flower among flowers.  \nThey say, my lord,  \nThese highborn dames do so affect your Grace  \nThat where you go they throng like flies around you,  \nEach seeking for your favour.  \nI have heard also  \nOf husbands that wear horns, and wear them bravely,  \nA fashion most fantastical.\n\nGUIDO: Simone,  \nYour reckless tongue needs curbing; and besides,  \nYou do forget this gracious lady here  \nWhose delicate ears are surely not attuned  \nTo such coarse music.\n\nSIMONE: True: I had forgotten,  \nNor will offend again. Yet, my sweet Lord,  \nYou'll buy the robe of state. Will you not buy it?  \nBut forty thousand crowns. 'Tis but a trifle,  \nTo one who is Giovanni Bardi's heir.\n\nGUIDO: Settle this thing to-morrow with my steward  \nAntonio Costa. He will come to you.  \nAnd you will have a hundred thousand crowns  \nIf that will serve your purpose.\n\nSIMONE: A hundred thousand!  \nSaid you a hundred thousand? Oh! Be sure  \nThat will for all time, and in everything  \nMake me your debtor. Ay! From this time forth  \nMy house, with everything my house contains  \nIs yours, and only yours.  \nA hundred thousand!  \nMy brain is dazed. I will be richer far  \nThan all the other merchants. I will buy  \nVineyards, and lands, and gardens. Every loom  \nFrom Milan down to Sicily shall be mine,  \nAnd mine the pearls that the Arabian seas  \nStore in their silent caverns.  \nGenerous Prince,  \nThis night shall prove the herald of my love,  \nWhich is so great that whatsoe'er you ask  \nIt will not be denied you.\n\nGUIDO: What if I asked  \nFor white Bianca here?\n\nSIMONE: You jest, my Lord,  \nShe is not worthy of so great a Prince.  \nShe is but made to keep the house and spin.  \nIs it not so, good wife? It is so. Look!  \nYour distaff waits for you. Sit down and spin.  \nWomen should not be idle in their homes.  \nFor idle fingers make a thoughtless heart.  \nSit down, I say.\n\nBIANCA: What shall I spin?\n\nSIMONE: Oh! Spin  \nSome robe which, dyed in purple, sorrow might wear  \nFor her own comforting: or some long-fringed cloth  \nIn which a new-born and unwelcome babe  \nMight wail unheeded; or a dainty sheet  \nWhich, delicately perfumed with sweet herbs,  \nMight serve to wrap a dead man. Spin what you will;  \nI care not, I.\n\nBIANCA: The brittle thread is broken,  \nThe dull wheel wearies of its ceaseless round,  \nThe duller distaff sickens of its load;  \nI will not spin to-night.\n\nSIMONE: It matters not.  \nTo-morrow you shall spin, and every day  \nShall find you at your distaff. So, Lucretia  \nWas found by Tarquin. So, perchance, Lucretia  \nWaited for Tarquin. Who knows? I have heard  \nStrange things about men's wives. And now, my lord,  \nWhat news abroad? I heard to-day at Pisa  \nThat certain of the English merchants there  \nWould sell their woollens at a lower rate  \nThan the just laws allow, and have entreated  \nThe Signory to hear them.  \nIs this well?  \nShould merchant be to merchant as a wolf?  \nAnd should the stranger living in our land  \nSeek by enforced privilege or craft  \nTo rob us of our profits?\n\nGUIDO: What should I do  \nWith merchants or their profits? Shall I go  \nAnd wrangle with the Signory on your count?  \nAnd wear the gown in which you buy from fools,  \nOr sell to sillier bidders? Honest Simone,  \nWool-selling or wool-gathering is for you.  \nMy wits have other quarries.\n\nBIANCA: Noble Lord,  \nI pray you pardon my good husband here,  \nHis soul stands ever in the market-place,  \nAnd his heart beats but at the price of wool.  \nYet he is honest in his common way.\n\n_To_ SIMONE.\n\nAnd you, have you no shame? A gracious Prince  \nComes to our house, and you must weary him  \nWith most misplaced assurance. Ask his pardon.\n\nSIMONE: I ask it humbly. We will talk to-night  \nOf other things. I hear the Holy Father  \nHas sent a letter to the King of France  \nBidding him cross that shield of snow, the Alps,  \nAnd make a peace in Italy, which will be  \nWorse than war of brothers, and more bloody  \nThan civil rapine or intestine feuds.\n\nGUIDO: Oh! We are weary of that King of France,  \nWho never comes, but ever talks of coming.  \nWhat are these things to me? There are other things  \nCloser, and of more import, good Simone.\n\nBIANCA ( _to_ SIMONE): I think you tire our most gracious guest.  \nWhat is the King of France to us? As much  \nAs are your English merchants with their wool.\n\nSIMONE: Is it so then? Is all this mighty world  \nNarrowed into the confines of this room  \nWith but three souls for poor inhabitants?  \nAy! There are times when the great universe,  \nLike cloth in some unskilful dyer's vat,  \nShrivels into a handsbreadth, and perchance  \nThat time is now! Well! Let that time be now.  \nLet this mean room be as that mighty stage  \nWhereon kings die, and our ignoble lives  \nBecome the stakes God plays for.  \nI do not know  \nWhy I speak thus. My ride has wearied me.  \nAnd my horse stumbled thrice, which is an omen  \nThat bodes not good to any.  \nAlas! My lord.  \nHow poor a bargain is this life of man,  \nAnd in how mean a market are we sold!  \nWhen we are born our mothers weep, but when  \nWe die there is none weep for us. No, not one. ( _Passes to back of stage._ )\n\nBIANCA: How like a common chapman does he speak!  \nI hate him, soul and body. Cowardice  \nHas set her pale seal on his brow. His hands  \nWhiter than poplar leaves in windy springs,  \nShake with some palsy; and his stammering mouth  \nBlurts out a foolish froth of empty words  \nLike water from a conduit.\n\nGUIDO: Sweet Bianca,  \nHe is not worthy of your thought or mine.  \nThe man is but a very honest knave  \nFull of fine phrases for life's merchandise,  \nSelling most dear what he must hold most cheap,  \nA windy brawler in a world of words.  \nI never met so eloquent a fool.\n\nBIANCA: Oh, would that Death might take him where he stands!\n\nSIMONE ( _turning round_ ): Who spake of Death? Let no one speak of Death.  \nWhat should Death do in such a merry house,  \nWith but a wife, a husband, and a friend  \nTo give it greeting? Let Death go to houses  \nWhere there are vile, adulterous things, chaste wives  \nWho grow weary of their noble lords  \nDraw back the curtains of their marriage beds,  \nAnd in polluted and dishonoured sheets  \nFeed some unlawful lust. Ay! 'Tis so  \nStrange, and yet so. _You_ do not know the world.  \n_You_ are too single and too honourable.  \nI know it well. And would it were not so,  \nBut wisdom comes with winters. My hair grows grey,  \nAnd youth has left my body. Enough of that.  \nTo-night is ripe for pleasure, and indeed,  \nI would be merry, as beseems a host  \nWho finds a gracious and unlooked-for guest  \nWaiting to greet him. ( _Takes up a lute._ )  \nBut what is this, my lord?  \nWhy, you have brought a lute to play to us.  \nOh! Play, sweet Prince. And, if I am bold,  \nPardon, but play.\n\nGUIDO: I will not play to-night.  \nSome other night, Simone.  \n( _To_ BIANCA) You and I  \nTogether, with no listeners but the stars,  \nOr the more jealous moon.\n\nSIMONE: Nay, but my lord!  \nNay, but I do beseech you. For I have heard  \nThat by the simple fingering of a string,  \nOr delicate breath breathed along hollowed reeds,  \nOr blown into cold mouths of cunning bronze,  \nThose who are curious in this art can draw  \nPoor souls from prison-houses. I have heard also  \nHow such strange magic lurks within these shells  \nAnd innocence puts vine-leaves in her hair,  \nAnd wantons like a maenad. Let that pass.  \nYour lute I know is chaste. And therefore play:  \nRavish my ears with some sweet melody;  \nMy soul is in a prison-house, and needs  \nMusic to cure its madness. Good Bianca,  \nEntreat our guest to play.\n\nBIANCA: Be not afraid,  \nOur well-loved guest will choose his place and moment:  \nThat moment is not now. You weary him  \nWith your uncouth insistence.\n\nGUIDO: Honest Simone,  \nSome other night. To-night I am content  \nWith the low music of Bianca's voice,  \nWho, when she speaks, charms the too amorous air.  \nAnd makes the reeling earth stand still, or fix  \nHis cycle round her beauty.  \nSIMONE: You flatter her.  \nShe has her virtues as most women have,  \nBut beauty is a gem she may not wear.  \nIt is better so, perchance.  \nWell, my dear lord,  \nIf you will not draw melodies from your lute  \nTo charm my moody and o'er-troubled soul  \nYou'll drink with me at least? ( _Sees table._ )  \nYour place is laid.  \nFetch me a stool, Bianca. Close the shutters.  \nSet the great bar across. I would not have  \nThe curious world with its small prying eyes  \nTo peer upon our pleasure.  \nNow, my lord,  \nGive us a toast from a full brimming cup. ( _Starts back._ )  \nWhat is this stain upon the cloth? It looks  \nAs purple as a wound upon Christ's side.  \nWine merely is it? I have heard it said  \nWhen wine is spilt blood is spilt also,  \nBut that's a foolish tale.  \nMy lord, I trust  \nMy grape is to your liking? The wine of Naples  \nIs fiery like its mountains. Our Tuscan vineyards  \nYield a more wholesome juice.\n\nGUIDO: I like it well,\n\nHonest Simone; and, with your good leave,  \nWill toast the fair Bianca when her lips  \nHave like red rose-leaves floated on this cup  \nAnd left its vintage sweeter. Taste, Bianca. (BIANCA _drinks._ )  \nOh, all the honey of Hyblean bees,  \nMatched with this draught were bitter!  \nGood Simone,  \nYou do not share the feast.\n\nSIMONE: It is strange, my lord,  \nI cannot eat or drink with you to-night.  \nSome humour, or some fever in my blood,  \nAt other seasons temperate, or some thought  \nThat like an adder creeps from point to point,  \nThat like a madman crawls from cell to cell,  \nPoisons my palate and makes appetite  \nA loathing, not a longing. ( _Goes aside._ )\n\nGUIDO: Sweet Bianca,  \nThis common chapman wearies me with words.  \nI must go hence. To-morrow I will come.  \nTell me the hour.\n\nBIANCA: Come with the youngest dawn!  \nUntil I see you all my life is vain.\n\nGUIDO: Ah! Loose the falling midnight of your hair,  \nAnd in those stars, your eyes, let me behold  \nMine image, as in mirrors. Dear Bianca,  \nThough it be but a shadow, keep me there,  \nNor gaze at anything that does not show  \nSome symbol of my semblance. I am jealous  \nOf what your vision feasts on.\n\nBIANCA: Oh! Be sure  \nYour image will be with me always. Dear,  \nLove can translate the very meanest thing  \nInto a sign of sweet remembrances.  \nBut come before the lark with its shrill song  \nHas waked a world of dreamers. I will stand  \nUpon the balcony.\n\nGUIDO: And by a ladder  \nWrought out of scarlet silk and sewn with pearls  \nWill come to meet me. White foot after foot,  \nLike snow upon a rose-tree.\n\nBIANCA: As you will.  \nYou know that I am yours for love or Death.\n\nGUIDO: Simone, I must go to mine house.\n\nSIMONE: So soon? Why should you? the great Duomo's bell  \nHas not yet tolled its midnight, and the watchmen  \nWho with their hollow horns mock the pale moon,  \nLie drowsy in their towers. Stay awhile.  \nI fear we may not see you here again,  \nAnd that fear saddens my too simple heart.\n\nGUIDO: Be not afraid, Simone. I will stand  \nMost constant in my friendship. But to-night  \nI go to mine own home, and that at once.  \nTo-morrow, sweet Bianca.\n\nSIMONE: Well, well, so be it.  \nI would have wished for fuller converse with you,  \nMy new friend, my honourable guest,  \nBut that it seems may not be.  \nAnd besides,  \nI do not doubt your father waits for you,  \nWearying for voice or footstep. You, I think,  \nAre his one child? He has no other child.  \nYou are the gracious pillar of his house,  \nThe flower of a garden full of weeds.  \nYour father's nephews do not love him well.  \nSo run folk's tongues in Florence. I meant but that;  \nMen say they envy your inheritance  \nAnd look upon your vineyard with fierce eyes  \nAs Ahab looked on Naboth's goodly field.  \nBut that is but the chatter of a town  \nWhere women talk too much.  \nGood night, my lord.  \nFetch a pine torch, Bianca. The old staircase  \nIs full of pitfalls, and the churlish moon  \nGrows, like a miser, niggard of her beams,  \nAnd hides her face behind a muslin mask  \nAs harlots do when they go forth to snare  \nSome wretched soul in sin. Now, I will get  \nYour cloak and sword. Nay, pardon, my good Lord,  \nIt is but meet that I should wait on you  \nWho have so honoured my poor burgher's house,  \nDrunk of my wine, and broken bread, and made  \nYourself a sweet familiar. Oftentimes  \nMy wife and I will talk of this fair night  \nAnd its great issues.  \nWhy, what a sword is this!  \nFerrara's temper, pliant as a snake,  \nAnd deadlier, I doubt not. With such steel  \nOne need fear nothing in the moil of life.  \nI never touched so delicate a blade.  \nI have a sword too, somewhat rusted now.  \nWe men of peace are taught humility,  \nAnd to bear many burdens on our backs,  \nAnd not to murmur at an unjust world,  \nAnd to endure unjust indignities.  \nWe are taught that, and like the patient Jew  \nFind profit in our pain.  \nYet I remember  \nHow once upon the road to Padua  \nA robber sought to take my pack-horse from me,  \nI slit his throat and left him. I can bear  \nDishonour, public insult, many shames,  \nShrill scorn, and open contumely, but he  \nWho filches from me something that is mine,  \nAy! Though it be the meanest trencher-plate  \nFrom which I feed mine appetite \u2013 oh! He  \nPerils his soul and body in the theft  \nAnd dies for his small sin. From what strange clay  \nWe men are moulded!\n\nGUIDO: Why do you speak like this?\n\nSIMONE: I wonder, my Lord Guido, if my sword  \nIs better tempered than this steel of yours?  \nShall we make trial? Or is my state too low  \nFor you to cross your rapier against mine,  \nIn jest, or earnest?\n\nGUIDO: Naught would please me better  \nThan to stand fronting you with naked blade  \nIn jest, or earnest. Give me mine own sword.  \nFetch yours. To-night will settle the great issue  \nWhether the Prince's or the merchant's steel  \nIs better tempered. Was not that your word?  \nFetch your own sword. Why do you tarry, sir?\n\nSIMONE: My lord, of all the gracious courtesies  \nThat you have showered on my barren house  \nThis is the highest.  \nBianca, fetch my sword.  \nThrust back that stool and table. We must have  \nAn open circle for our match at arms,  \nAnd good Bianca here shall hold the torch  \nLest what is but a jest grow serious.\n\nBIANCA ( _to_ GUIDO): Oh! Kill him, kill him!\n\nSIMONE: Hold the torch, Bianca. ( _They begin to fight._ )  \nHave at you! Ah! Ha! Would you?\n\n( _He is wounded by_ GUIDO.)\n\nA scratch, no more. The torch was in mine eyes.  \nDo not look sad, Bianca. It is nothing.  \nYour husband bleeds, 'tis nothing. Take a cloth,  \nBind it about mine arm. Nay, not so tight.  \nMore softly, my good wife. And be not sad,  \nI pray you be not sad. No: take it off.  \nWhat matter if I bleed? ( _Tears bandage off._ )  \nAgain! Again!\n\n(SIMONE _disarms_ GUIDO.)\n\nMy gentle Lord, you see that I was right.  \nMy sword is better tempered, finer steel,  \nBut let us match our daggers.\n\nBIANCA ( _to_ GUIDO): Kill him! Kill him!\n\nSIMONE: Put out the torch, Bianca. (BIANCA _puts out torch._ )  \nNow, my good Lord,  \nNow to the death of one, or both of us,  \nOr all the three it may be. ( _They fight._ )  \nThere and there.  \nAh, devil! Do I hold thee in my grip?\n\n(SIMONE _overpowers_ GUIDO _and throws him down over table._ )\n\nGUIDO: Fool! take your strangling fingers from my throat.  \nI am my father's only son; the State  \nHas but one heir, and that false enemy France  \nWaits for the ending of my father's line  \nTo fall upon our city.\n\nSIMONE: Hush! Your father  \nWhen he is childless will be happier.  \nAs for the State, I think our state of Florence  \nNeeds no adulterous pilot at its helm.  \nYour life would soil its lilies.\n\nGUIDO: Take off your hands.  \nTake off your damned hands. Loose me, I say!\n\nSIMONE: Nay, you are caught in such a cunning vice  \nThat nothing will avail you, and your life  \nNarrowed into a single point of shame  \nEnds with that shame and ends most shamefully.\n\nGUIDO: Oh! Let me have a priest before I die!\n\nSIMONE: What wouldst thou have a priest for? Tell thy sins  \nTo God, whom thou shalt see this very night  \nAnd then no more for ever. Tell thy sins  \nTo Him who is most just, being pitiless,  \nMost pitiful being just. As for myself...\n\nGUIDO: Oh! Help me, sweet Bianca! Help me, Bianca,  \nThou knowest I am innocent of harm.\n\nSIMONE: What, is there life yet in those lying lips?  \nDie like a dog with lolling tongue! Die! Die!  \nAnd the dumb river shall receive your corse  \nAnd wash it all unheeded to the sea.\n\nGUIDO: Lord Christ receive my wretched soul to-night!\n\nSIMONE: Amen to that. Now for the other.\n\n_He dies._ SIMONE _rises and looks at_ BIANCA. _She comes towards him as one dazed with wonder and with outstretched arms._\n\nBIANCA: Why  \nDid you not tell me you were so strong?\n\nSIMONE: Why  \nDid you not tell me you were beautiful? ( _He kisses her on the mouth._ )\n\nCURTAIN\n\n## [La Sainte Courtisane  \nor  \nThe Woman Covered With Jewels](03_toc.html#c09)\n\n_The scene represents a corner of a valley in the Thebaid. On the right hand of the stage is a cavern. In front of the cavern stands a great crucifix._\n\n_On the left, sand dunes._\n\n_The sky is blue like the inside of a cup of lapis lazuli. The hills are of red sand. Here and there on the hills there are clumps of thorns._\n\nFIRST MAN: Who is she? She makes me afraid. She has a purple cloak and her hair is like threads of gold. I think she must be the daughter of the Emperor. I have heard the boatmen say that the Emperor has a daughter who wears a cloak of purple.\n\nSECOND MAN: She has birds' wings upon her sandals, and her tunic is the colour of green corn. It is like corn in spring when she stands still. It is like young corn troubled by the shadows of hawks when she moves. The pearls on her tunic are like many moons.\n\nFIRST MAN: They are like the moons one sees in the water when the wind blows from the hills.\n\nSECOND MAN: I think she is one of the gods. I think she comes from Nubia.\n\nFIRST MAN: I am sure she is the daughter of the Emperor. Her nails are stained with henna. They are like the petals of a rose. She has come here to weep for Adonis.\n\nSECOND MAN: She is one of the gods. I do not know why she has left her temple. The gods should not leave their temples. If she speaks to us let us not answer and she will pass by.\n\nFIRST MAN: She will not speak to us. She is the daughter of the Emperor.\n\nMYRRHINA: Dwells he not here, the beautiful young hermit, he who will not look on the face of woman?\n\nFIRST MAN: Of a truth it is here the hermit dwells.\n\nMYRRHINA: Why will he not look on the face of woman?\n\nSECOND MAN: We do not know.\n\nMYRRHINA: Why do ye yourselves not look at me?\n\nFIRST MAN: You are covered with bright stones, and you dazzle our eyes.\n\nSECOND MAN: He who looks at the sun becomes blind. You are too bright to look at. It is not wise to look at things that are very bright. Many of the priests in the temples are blind, and have slaves to lead them.\n\nMYRRHINA: Where does he dwell, the beautiful young hermit who will not look on the face of woman? Has he a house of reeds or a house of burnt clay or does he lie on the hillside? Or does he make his bed in the rushes?\n\nFIRST MAN: He dwells in that cavern yonder.\n\nMYRRHINA: What a curious place to dwell in.\n\nFIRST MAN: Of old a centaur lived there. When the hermit came the centaur gave a shrill cry, wept and lamented, and galloped away.\n\nSECOND MAN: No. It was a white unicorn who lived in the cave. When it saw the hermit coming the unicorn knelt down and worshipped him. Many people saw it worshipping him.\n\nFIRST MAN: I have talked with people who saw it.\n\nSECOND MAN: Some say he was a hewer of wood and worked for hire. But that may not be true.\n\nMYRRHINA: What gods then do ye worship? Or do ye worship any gods? There are those who have no gods to worship. The philosophers who wear long beards and brown cloaks have no gods to worship. They wrangle with each other in the porticoes. The [manuscript illegible] laugh at them.\n\nFIRST MAN: We worship seven gods. We may not tell their names. It is a very dangerous thing to tell the names of the gods. No one should ever tell the name of his god. Even the priests who praise the gods all day long, and eat of their food with them, do not call them by their right names.\n\nMYRRHINA: Where are these gods ye worship?\n\nFIRST MAN: We hide them in the folds of our tunics. We do not show them to any one. If we showed them to any one they might leave us.\n\nMYRRHINA: Where did ye meet with them?\n\nFIRST MAN: They were given to us by an embalmer of the dead who had found them in a tomb. We served him for seven years.\n\nMYRRHINA: The dead are terrible. I am afraid of Death.\n\nFIRST MAN: Death is not a god. He is only the servant of the gods.\n\nMYRRHINA: He is the only god I am afraid of. Ye have seen many of the gods?\n\nFIRST MAN: We have seen many of them. One sees them chiefly at night time. They pass one by very swiftly. Once we saw some of the gods at daybreak. They were walking across a plain.\n\nMYRRHINA: Once as I was passing through the market place I heard a sophist from Gilicia say that there is only one God. He said it before many people.\n\nFIRST MAN: That cannot be true. We have ourselves seen many, though we are but common men and of no account. When I saw them I hid myself in a bush. They did me no harm.\n\nMYRRHINA: Tell me more about the beautiful young hermit. Talk to me about the beautiful young hermit who will not look on the face of woman. What is the story of his days? What mode of life has he?\n\nFIRST MAN: We do not understand you.\n\nMYRRHINA: What does he do, the beautiful young hermit? Does he sow or reap? Does he plant a garden or catch fish in a net? Does he weave linen on a loom? Does he set his hand to the wooden plough and walk behind the oxen?\n\nSECOND MAN: He being a very holy man does nothing. We are common men and of no account. We toil all day long in the sun. Sometimes the ground is very hard.\n\nMYRRHINA: Do the birds of the air feed him? Do the jackals share their booty with him?\n\nFIRST MAN: Every evening we bring him food. We do not think that the birds of the air feed him.\n\nMYRRHINA: Why do ye feed him? What profit have ye in so doing?\n\nSECOND MAN: He is a very holy man. One of the gods whom he has offended has made him mad. We think he has offended the moon.\n\nMYRRHINA: Go and tell him that one who has come from Alexandria desires to speak with him.\n\nFIRST MAN: We dare not tell him. This hour he is praying to his God. We pray thee to pardon us for not doing thy bidding.\n\nMYRRHINA: Are ye afraid of him?\n\nFIRST MAN: We are afraid of him.\n\nMYRRHINA: Why are ye afraid of him?\n\nFIRST MAN: We do not know.\n\nMYRRHINA: What is his name?\n\nFIRST MAN: The voice that speaks to him at night time in the cavern calls to him by the name of Honorius. It was also by the name of Honorius that the three lepers who passed by once called to him. We think that his name is Honorius.\n\nMYRRHINA: Why did the three lepers call to him?\n\nFIRST MAN: That he might heal them.\n\nMYRRHINA: Did he heal them?\n\nSECOND MAN: No. They had committed some sin: it was for that reason they were lepers. Their hands and faces were like salt. One of them wore a mask of linen. He was a king's son.\n\nMYRRHINA: What is the voice that speaks to him at night time in his cave?\n\nFIRST MAN: We do not know whose voice it is. We think it is the voice of his God. For we have seen no man enter his cavern nor any come forth from it.\n\nMYRRHINA: Honorius.\n\nHONORIUS ( _from within_ ): Who calls Honorius?\n\nMYRRHINA: Come forth, Honorius.\n\nMy chamber is ceiled with cedar and odorous with myrrh. The pillars of my bed are of cedar and the hangings are of purple. My bed is strewn with purple and the steps are of silver. The hangings are sewn with silver pomegranates and the steps that are of silver are strewn with saffron and with myrrh. My lovers hang garlands round the pillars of my house. At night time they come with the flute players and the players of the harp. They woo me with apples and on the pavement of my courtyard they write my name in wine.\n\nFrom the uttermost parts of the world my lovers come to me. The kings of the earth come to me and bring me presents.\n\nWhen the Emperor of Byzantium heard of me he left his porphyry chamber and set sail in his galleys. His slaves bare no torches that none might know of his coming. When the King of Cyprus heard of me he sent me ambassadors. The two Kings of Libya who are brothers brought me gifts of amber.\n\nI took the minion of Caesar from Caesar and made him my play-fellow. He came to me at night in a litter. He was pale as a narcissus, and his body was like honey.\n\nThe son of the Praefect slew himself in my honour, and the Tetrarch of Cilicia scourged himself for my pleasure before my slaves.\n\nThe King of Hierapolis who is a priest and a robber set carpets for me to walk on.\n\nSometimes I sit in the circus and the gladiators fight beneath me. Once a Thracian who was my lover was caught in the net. I gave the signal for him to die and the whole theatre applauded. Sometimes I pass through the gymnasium and watch the young men wrestling or in the race. Their bodies are bright with oil and their brows are wreathed with willow sprays and with myrtle. They stamp their feet on the sand when they wrestle and when they run the sand follows them like a little cloud. He at whom I smile leaves his companions and follows me to my home. At other times I go down to the harbour and watch the merchants unloading their vessels. Those that come from Tyre have cloaks of silk and earrings of emerald. Those that come from Massilia have cloaks of fine wool and earrings of brass. When they see me coming they stand on the prows of their ships and call to me, but I do not answer them. I go to the little taverns where the sailors lie all day long drinking black wine and playing with dice and I sit down with them.\n\nI made the Prince my slave, and his slave who was a Tyrian I made my Lord for the space of a moon.\n\nI put a figured ring on his finger and brought him to my house. I have wonderful things in my house.\n\nThe dust of the desert lies on your hair and your feet are scratched with thorns and your body is scorched by the sun. Come with me, Honorius, and I will clothe you in a tunic of silk. I will smear your body with myrrh and pour spikenard on your hair. I will clothe you in hyacinth and put honey in your mouth. Love \u2013\n\nHONORIUS: There is no love but the love of God.\n\nMYRRHINA: Who is He whose love is greater than that of mortal men?\n\nHONORIUS: It is He whom thou seest on the cross, Myrrhina. He is the Son of God and was born of a virgin. Three wise men who were kings brought Him offerings, and the shepherds who were lying on the hills were wakened by a great light.\n\nThe Sibyls knew of His coming. The groves and the oracles spake of Him. David and the prophets announced Him. There is no love like the love of God nor any love that can be compared to it.\n\nThe body is vile, Myrrhina. God will raise thee up with a new body which will not know corruption, and thou wilt dwell in the Courts of the Lord and see Him whose hair is like fine wool and whose feet are of brass.\n\nMYRRHINA: The beauty...\n\nHONORIUS: The beauty of the soul increases till it can see God. Therefore, Myrrhina, repent of thy sins. The robber who was crucified beside Him He brought into Paradise. ( _Exit._ )\n\nMYRRHINA: How strangely he spake to me. And with what scorn he did regard me. I wonder why he spake to me so strangely.\n\nHONORIUS: Myrrhina, the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see now clearly what I did not see before. Take me to Alexandria and let me taste of the seven sins.\n\nMYRRHINA: Do not mock me, Honorius, nor speak to me with such bitter words. For I have repented of my sins and I am seeking a cavern in this desert where I too may dwell so that my soul may become worthy to see God.\n\nHONORIUS: The sun is setting, Myrrhina. Come with me to Alexandria.\n\nMYRRHINA: I will not go to Alexandria.\n\nHONORIUS: Farewell, Myrrhina.\n\nMYRRHINA: Honorius, farewell. No, no, do not go.\n\nI have cursed my beauty for what it has done, and cursed the wonder of my body for the evil that it has brought upon you.\n\nLord, this man brought me to Thy feet. He told me of Thy coming upon earth, and of the wonder of Thy birth and the great wonder of Thy death also. By him, O Lord, Thou wast revealed to me.\n\nHONORIUS: You talk as a child, Myrrhina, and without knowledge. Loosen your hands. Why didst thou come to this valley in thy beauty?\n\nMYRRHINA: The God whom thou worshipped led me here that I might repent of my iniquities and know Him as the Lord.\n\nHONORIUS: Why didst thou tempt me with words?\n\nMYRRHINA: That thou shouldst see Sin in its painted mask and look on Death in its robe of Shame.\n\n## About the Author\n\n**Oscar Wilde** was a Victorian-era British author and playwright. In his youth, Wilde became attached to the Aesthetic Movement, which emphasized the appreciation of the aesthetic value of cultural creations above social or political purposes, and this philosophy influenced his work throughout his career. The themes of art and beauty are particularly present in his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and in his two most popular dramatic works, _An Ideal Husband_ and _The Importance of Being Earnest_. A quarrel with the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred, resulted in Wilde's arrest and imprisonment for gross indecency. Wilde died in 1900, penniless and in exile, as a result of cerebral meningitis contracted while in prison.\n\n## About the Series\n\nHarper _Perennial_ Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the Harper _Perennial_ Classics collection to build your digital library.\n\n## Copyright\n\nHarper _Perennial_ Classics\n\nAn imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  \n2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor  \nToronto, Ontario, Canada  \nM4W 1A8 __\n\n_www.harpercollins.ca_\n\nEPub Edition December 2014 ISBN: 9781443442015\n\nThis title is in Canada's public domain and is not subject to any licence or copyright.\n\n## About the Publisher\n\n**HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.**\n\nLevel 13, 201 Elizabeth Street  \nSydney, NSW 2000, Australia  \n<http:\/\/www.harpercollins.com.au> ****\n\n**HarperCollins Publishers (Canada) Ltd.**\n\n2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor  \nToronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada  \n<http:\/\/www.harpercollins.ca> ****\n\n**HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited**\n\nP.O. Box 1  \nAuckland, New Zealand  \n<http:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.nz> ****\n\n**HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.**\n\n77-85 Fulham Palace Road  \nLondon, W6 8JB, UK  \n<http:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.uk> ****\n\n**HarperCollins Publishers Inc.**\n\n10 East 53rd Street  \nNew York, NY 10022  \n<http:\/\/www.harpercollins.com>\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"Contents\n\nIntroduction: When a Tie Is More Than Just a Tie\n\nApril 28, 2004: Steve Benardete Gets His Wish; The World Suffers\n\nChapter 1: The Greatest Story Never Told\n\nChapter 2: Origins\n\nChapter 3: They Tried to Save Us\n\nChapter 4: Regulatory Embracement\n\nChapter 5: Abetting the CDO Party\n\nChapter 6: VaR Goes to Washington\n\nChapter 7: The Common Sense That Should Rule the World\n\nFinale: The Perils of Making the Simple Too Complex\n\nGuest Contributions: Why Was VaR Embraced? A Q&A with Nassim Taleb\n\nA Pioneer Wall Street Rocket Scientist's View An Essay by Aaron Brown\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\n\nIndex\nPraise for The Number That Killed Us\n\n\"Finally, here is a book that puts value-at-risk, VaR, at the center of the financial crisis, where it belongs. Pablo Triana deftly traces the history of VaR, from what seemed like a good idea at Bankers Trust to a cancer that has infected the markets for more than two decades. In the late 1980s, when financial innovation began to explode, VaR-type models appeared to be a reasonable way of capturing mounting new risks with a single numerical measure. But, as Triana's in-depth research shows, regulators foolishly hard-wired VaR into the rules governing risk, and disaster soon followed. Even after numerous VaR-related crises\u2014the Asian currency devaluation, the fall of Long-Term Capital Management, and the recent subprime and CDO fiascos\u2014VaR remains a maddeningly central player, even as it promises to continue distorting risk and wreaking financial havoc. This book is a cautionary tale.\"\n\n\u2014Frank Partnoy, University of San Diego School of Law\nVaR is an essential component of sound risk management systems.\n\n\u2014Professor Philippe Jorion, April 1997\n\nI believe that VaR is the alibi that bankers will give shareholders (and the bailing-out taxpayer) to show documented due diligence, and will express that their blow-up came from truly unforeseeable circumstances and events with low probability not from taking large risks that they didn't understand. I maintain that VaR encourages untrained people to take misdirected risks with shareholders', and ultimately the taxpayers', money.\"\n\n\u2014Trader and Best-Selling Author Nassim Taleb, April 1997\n\nA mega\u2013financial cataclysm and a mega\u2013public bailout later . . .\n\nThe risk-taking model that emboldened Wall Street to trade with impunity is broken and everyone is coming to the realization that no algorithm can substitute for old-fashioned due diligence. VaR failed to detect the scope of the market's collapse. The past months have exposed the flaws of a financial measure based on historical prices.\n\n\u2014Financial Reporter Christine Harper, January 2008\n\nIt is clear in retrospect that the VaR measures of risk were faulty. When the crisis broke VaR proved highly misleading.\n\n\u2014Financial Regulator Lord Turner, February 2009\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2012 by Pablo Triana. All rights reserved.\n\nPublished by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.\n\nPublished simultaneously in Canada.\n\nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750\u20138400, fax (978) 646\u20138600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748\u20136011, fax (201) 748\u20136008, or online at www.wiley.com\/go\/permissions.\n\nLimit of Liability\/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.\n\nFor general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762\u20132974, outside the United States at (317) 572\u20133993 or fax (317) 572\u20134002.\n\nWiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:\n\nTriana, Pablo.\n\nThe number that killed us : a story of modern banking, flawed mathematics, and a big financial crisis \/ Pablo Triana.\n\np. cm.\n\nIncludes index.\n\nISBN 978-0-470-52973-7 (hardback); 978-1-118-17154-7 (ebk); 978-1-118-17153-0 (ebk); 978-1-118-17155-4 (ebk)\n\n1. Financial futures. 2. Global Financial Crisis, 2008\u20132009. 3. Risk management. I. Title.\n\nHG6024.A3T75 2012\n\n332.64'52\u2014dc23\n\n2011029937\nTo those interested in the safety of the markets, the economy, and society.\nIntroduction\n\nWhen a Tie Is More Than Just a Tie\n\nOn September 10, 2009, former trader and best-selling author Nassim Taleb did something that he very seldom does: He wore a tie. By so graphically breaking with tradition (Taleb has publicly expressed his distaste for the blood-constraining artifacts, as well as for those who tend to don them), the Lebanese-American let the world know that that was a very special day for him, so special that it amply justified the sacrifice of temporarily betraying a sacred personal predisposition.\n\nSo what prompted the author of The Black Swana to uncharacteristically don such an alien piece of clothing? Well, he had been invited to a very solemn venue by very distinguished hosts, with such occasion quite likely demanding certain formalism in the way of attire. And that was an invitation that Taleb had every intention of accepting. In fact, he had been waiting and expecting for more than a decade; there was no way he was going to miss it. The raison d'\u00eatre of the event for which his company was now being required had been close to Taleb's heart for most of his professional and intellectual life. It represented a central theme in his actions and ideas, close to an obsession, akin to an identity definer. He had through the years amply warned as to the havoc that might be wreaked should others massively act in a manner counter to his convictions. Such concerns typically went unheeded (to the detriment, it turned out, of society), but now he was being offered a pulpit that seemed irresistibly magnificent, impossibly far-reaching. This time, it seemed, the world would have no option but to attentively listen.\n\nAs Taleb entered the Rayburn Building of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington DC that September morning, he must have felt anticipation and, especially, vindication. As he approached the sober room where several men and women awaited the start of the House Committee on Science and Technology's hearing on the responsibility of mathematical model Value at Risk (VaR) for the terrible economic and financial crisis that had caused so much misery since the previous couple of years, Taleb probably reflected proudly on all those times when, indefatigably, and in the face of harsh opposition, he alerted us of the lethal threat to the system posed by the widespread use of VaR in financeland. Now that the damage wrought by VaR was so inescapably obvious that lawmakers from the most powerful nation on the planet had been motivated into investigating the device, Taleb no longer seemed like a lone wolf howling in the markets wild, but rather appeared as imperially prescient.\n\nWhat is so wrong about VaR, and why was Taleb so concerned about its impact? Most importantly, why should VaR be held responsible for the historic 2007\u20132008 credit crisis? VaR is a number that purports to estimate future losses deriving from a portfolio of trading assets, with a degree of statistical confidence, and presents two major problems: (1) it is doomed to being a very wrong estimate, due to its analytical foundations and the realities of real-life markets; and (2) in spite of such (well-known) deficiencies, it has for the past two decades become a ubiquitously influential force in the financial world, capable of directing decision making inside the most important banks. In other words, by letting trading activity be guided by VaR, we have essentially exposed our economic fate to a deeply flawed mechanism. Such flawedness, as was the case not only in this crisis but also before, can yield untold malaise.\n\nThe main issue with VaR is that it can easily and severely underestimate market risk. Given the model's powerful presence in financeland, that underestimation translates into recklessly huge and recklessly leveraged risk-taking on the part of banks. A particularly big problem is that VaR can translate not just into huge risk-taking and leverage for regular assets, but also for very toxic assets. As a tool that ignores the fundamental characteristics of assets, VaR can easily label the obviously risky as non-risky. VaR can mask risk so well that an entire financial system can be inundated with the worst kinds of exposures and still consider itself comfortably safe, assuaged by the rosy comforting dictates from the glorified analytical radar. VaR makes accumulating lots of toxic trading assets extremely feasible. VaR, in sum, enables danger.\n\nVaR is an untrustworthy and dangerous measure of future market risk for one main reason: It is calculated by looking at the past. The upcoming risk of a financial asset (a stock, a bond, a derivative) is essentially assumed to mirror its behavior over the historical time period arbitrarily selected for the calculation (one year, five years, etc.). If such past happened to be placid (no big setbacks, no undue turbulence) then VaR would conclude that we should rest easy, safe in the statistical knowledge that no nasty surprises await. For instance, in the months prior to the kick-starting of the crisis in mid-2007, the VaR of the big Wall Street firms was relatively quite low, reflecting the fact that the immediate past had been dominated by uninterrupted good times and negligible volatility, particularly when it came to the convoluted mortgage-related securities that investment banks had been enthusiastically accumulating on their balance sheets. A one-day 95 percent VaR of $50 million was typical, and typically modest in its estimation of losses: At that level, a firm would be expected to lose no more than $50 million from its trading positions 95 percent of the time (in other words, it would be expected to lose more than $50 million only 12 days out of a year's 250 trading days). When you consider that those Wall Street entities owned trading assets worth several hundred billion dollars and that the eventual setbacks amounted to several dozen billion dollars, we can appreciate that VaR's predictions were excruciatingly off-base. The soulless data rearview mirror may have detected no risk, but certainly that did not mean that the system was not flooded with the worst kind of risk, ready to explode at any time. In finance, the past is simply not prologue, but someone forgot to tell VaR about it.\n\nThe fact that the mathematical engineering behind VaR tends to assume that markets follow a Normal probability distribution (thus assuming extreme moves to have negligible chance of happening, something obviously quite contrary to empirical evidence) can also contribute to the model churning unrealistically low numbers as big losses are ruled out, as can do VaR's reliance on the statistical concept of correlation, which calculates the future expected co-movement of different asset classes, based on how such codependence worked out in the past. If several assets in the portfolio happened to be uncorrelated or, better yet, \"negatively correlated\" in the past, VaR will take for granted that those exposures should cancel each other out, yielding lower overall portfolio risk estimates. However, as any seasoned trader would tell you, just because several assets were negatively correlated we can't infer that they won't move in tandem (positively correlated, implying that chances are that they can all tumble concurrently, thus painting a much worse overall risk picture) next month. Market history is flooded with cases when assets that were supposed to move independent of each other all tanked at the same time. Correlation in finance simply can't be captured mathematically.\n\nAnd let's not forget that VaR measures risk only up to a degree of statistical confidence (typically 95 percent or 99 percent), thus leaving out the so-called \"tail events,\" or those market episodes that have a lower chance of taking place. Big losses may lurk in those extremes, but that's beyond VaR's territory, so the model won't register such possibilities. Yet another rationale for taking VaR's results with a pinch of salt. If the very worst loss that took place in the relevant historical sample was, say, $500 million, then VaR won't be as high as $500 million because the model's statistical reach doesn't cover 100 percent of past bad scenarios, just 95 percent or 99 percent (if the 99th worst result in that sample happened to be, say, $34 million then that would be the 99 percent VaR, obviously well below the worst-case $500 million). The most unlikely scenarios are not captured by the model, and the most unlikely scenarios may be the ones we should worry most about. So even if the engineering behind the model was right (that is, even if VaR was an accurate forecast of what could be lost with 95 percent or 99 percent probability), VaR would still not be an entirely reliable measure of market risk given how it neglects the 5 percent or 1 percent probability events that can be so monstrously impacting in financial markets. Even if, a very big if, we could count on VaR up to the 95 percent or 99 percent confidence level, VaR still won't capture the unpredictable high-impact events that can quickly devastate many a trading portfolio.\n\nAs the alert reader may have by now noticed, the main problem with VaR is not so much that, as a tool that borrows from the past and from deficient and untrustworthy analytical foundations (while neglecting any fundamental commonsensical analysis of an asset's riskiness), its forecasts won't be accurate, but that it can be quite easy to arrive at a low VaR, and thus to allow for the accumulation of too much risk (it is obviously easier, and cheaper capital-wise, to get approval for a $1 billion trade when your VaR says that the max that can be lost from the punt is, say, $10 million as opposed to, say, $200 million; big positions that may not have been put on otherwise are put on because their VaR happens to be low). You just need a portfolio of assets that happened to have recently enjoyed benevolent calm and\/or little correlation with each other. If you manage to compose such a grouping, the model will yell to the world that you run a sound, riskless operation. That's exactly what was taking in place on Wall Street all those years prior to late 2007. According to VaR, the situation could not have been rosier and less worrisome, risk-wise.\n\nVaR's problem is one of original sin: trying to measure financial risk with precision may be utterly hopeless. Market prices change for one reason and one reason only: unpredictable, undecipherable, chaotic human action. Who knows who will buy and who will sell and when and how intensely? Can we numerically capture those wild spirits? Seems hard. A $50 million one-day VaR on a portfolio made up of, say, equities, currencies, and commodities is believable only if the human action behind price changes in those asset families ends up yielding a maximum daily loss of $50 million 95 percent or 99 percent of the time. Will that invariably happen? Can we guarantee it ex-ante? Even if the model is analytically very sophisticated, it seems tough to believe that it can divine upcoming market developments.\n\nSo VaR's \"predictions\" are bound to be wrong. But there are wrongs and there are wrongs. You can miss true risk on the upside (VaR overestimates risk) or on the downside (VaR underestimates risk). The latter scenario is naturally more worrisome, not only because its effects would be more harmful, leading to an excessive build-up of exposures on the back of such permissive loss estimates. But, again, the model's natural tendency may be in that direction. By itself, VaR will have large odds of delivering unrealistically modest numbers, as past data can't capture the next big never-before-seen crisis around the corner and as the Normality assumption rules out extremes. But there's another factor at play, further steering VaR towards lowly figures: Many financial operators have strong incentives to keep VaR as subdued as possible. Traders who want to trade in bigger sizes and who want to accumulate tons of high-risk assets, and bankers looking for enhanced leverage will fight to come up with the low VaRs that make those things possible. Since financial regulators have left them in control to calculate their own VaRs, the task is doable. VaR systems can be gamed until you arrive at your desired figure. Traders who want to trade more in an apparently \"risk-lite\" manner and bankers who want the greater returns on equity that leverage provides have vested personal interests (in the form of bonuses) in churning out a very subdued risk estimate. Databases will be played around with, volatility and correlation calculations will be tweaked, portfolio compositions will be altered, all with the goal of delivering the lowest VaR feasible. VaR will tend to be low, and thus risk will tend to be underrepresented, because that is its structural nature and because that's what makes a lot of influential people very happy. VaR will tend to paint a very optimistic picture, deceivingly so.\n\nSuch misplaced generosity would not be a big concern if VaR did not play a relevant role in the markets. But, rather unfortunately, the tool could not have played a more decisive part. Simply put, VaR may have been the single most influential metric in the history of finance. No other single number ever impacted, shaped, and disturbed market (and thus economic) activity as profoundly as VaR. VaR's perilously inexact estimations of risk mattered because the model mattered so much.\n\nInvented by Wall Street in the late 1980s, VaR quickly became the accepted de rigueur market risk measurement tool inside dealing floors around the globe. Trading decisions and traders compensation began to depend on what VaR said; if the number churned by the model was deemed unacceptably large, a trader would be asked to cut down their positions, if the number was deemed comfortably tame the trader would be assigned more capital. If you made good money while enjoying a lowish VaR, you would be considered a hero by your bosses, someone capable of bringing in big bucks with seemingly minimal risk. Clearly, traders had every incentive to own portfolios endowed with low VaRs, and thus began a long-honored tradition to try to game the system into delivering subdued mathematical risk estimates. The pernicious effects of such gaming may have come fully home to roost during the credit crisis, two decades after the quantitative prodigal son was first allowed to infiltrate us.\n\nEven more important than becoming the in-house method for calculating and managing risk (and for informing the rest of the world as to a firm's riskiness; VaR is regularly and very prominently displayed on banks regulatory filings and annual reports), VaR was adopted by policy makers as the tool to be used for the crucial purpose of determining the mandatory capital charges that financial institutions should face for their trading activities. Trading, you see, is not free. A while back, international regulators decided to impose a capital levy on market punting: for every trading position that a bank took on, a certain amount of capital had to be set aside to act as protective cushion for possible future setbacks. Naturally, the size of said capital requirement can play a huge role in the amount (and type) of trading assets that a bank would hold. If the charges are too exacting, accumulating tons of assets will be excruciatingly capital-intensive (i.e., excruciatingly expensive). You may want to build a $1 billion position, but if the capital charge is $200 million, you may consider the affair too capital-costly and forgo the trade; perhaps you don't have the $200 million to begin with. On the other hand, were the charge to be $10 million then you would surely forge ahead and build the (now very economical) position.\n\nIn essence, the size of the requirements will determine how much trading-related leverage a bank can enjoy. If the capital charge is modest, then traders need only to put up a small upfront deposit to own a whole lot of assets, being allowed to finance their portfolio mostly via borrowing. That is, by crowning VaR as the king of capital requirements, regulators essentially left the determination of banks leverage in the hands of a mathematical construct of dubious reliability. As the history of economic meltdowns clearly shows, few things can be as impacting as the amount of gearing and risk undertaken by financial institutions. If banks take on too much leverage and too much risk, they can easily go down, sinking the rest of the economy in the process. By endowing VaR with such powers, politicians made it a number that could, in fact, shape the world.\n\nAnd, as we said earlier, because VaR can tend to be (or can be made to be) quite small, it follows that the reign of VaR is likely to deliver dangerously substantial leverage. Not only that. VaR can deliver the worst kind of leverage. VaR does not fundamentally discriminate between different types of asset families, treating, say, Treasury Bonds the same as, say, subprime CDOs (the convoluted residential mortgage-related securities at the heart of the 2007\u20132008 meltdown; essentially, re-securitizations of subprime mortgages) when it comes to measuring their future risk. All that matters is the recent behavior of the given asset, not its obvious intrinsic characteristics. The fact that Treasuries are per definition less adventuresome and more robust than CDOs would not matter one iota to VaR. VaR doesn't know that Treasuries are issued and backed by the U.S. government while complex mortgage derivatives are stuffed with toxic NINJA loans. VaR doesn't read the newspapers, or watch television. It doesn't know that the U.S. government is by its very nature a less risky debtor than an unemployed mortgage borrower. To VaR, Treasuries and CDOs are the same thing: just blips of historical data on a screen. If the CDO data (for, say, the last two years) happens to be less volatile than the Treasuries data, the model will say with a straight face that CDOs are less risky than Treasuries.\n\nThis is not theory, this can actually happen. Even the most lethal of asset families can spend a relatively long period setback-free, showing nothing but continuous gains in value as a bubble is built and sustained (in fact, it could be argued that the most toxic assets will, before their inevitable collapse, only show a rosy past devoid of setbacks, and their VaRs would in essence always be low; VaR may thus always vastly underestimate the most toxic risks). That's exactly what happened with subprime CDOs until the middle of 2007, and that is why according to VaR those Wall Street firms holding those assets were not facing much trouble and thus should not be demanded to post too much protective capital. Anybody with half a brain who chooses to use it understands that subprime CDOs are far from risk-lite. Unluckily for us, VaR was not endowed with a brain. The result: VaR permitted investment banks to accumulate untold amounts of very illiquid, very lethal assets in an extremely highly leveraged fashion (i.e., on the cheap, capital-wise). Just before the crisis, the typical VaR-dictated trading-related leverage around Wall Street and the City of London was 100 to 1 (even 1,000 to 1). That is, banks were forced to post only $1 in capital for every $100 (or $1,000) of assets that they wanted to own. That's a lot of leverage. The most insignificant drop in value of your portfolio can wipe you out, fast. Given that the portfolio that was being financed with so little equity and so much debt was (thanks to VaR's blindness as to the true nature of an asset) inundated with poisonous stuff, it is easy to understand why the meltdown, when it inevitably came, was so shocking and so sudden. When asset prices began to dive following disruptions in the U.S. mortgage market in mid-2007, the huge and toxic trading positions that banks had built on the back of very modest VaR numbers began to bleed very large losses, quickly eating away the very small capital bases sanctioned by those very modest VaR numbers, and making the banking industry insolvent over night.\n\nToo much risk-taking had been financed with too much debt. Courtesy of VaR. The model had been hiding tons of risk all along, under the statistical disguise. Subprime bonds and subprime CDOs (accumulated across banks by the hundreds of billions of dollars) are assets that can, and did, lose most of their value in the blink of an eye, and should therefore require a lot of back-up capital. But VaR was saying that no such capital largesse was needed. After all, hadn't those securities enjoyed a placid existence during their entire lifetime?\n\nWould a VaR-less, math-less, commonsense-grounded approach have allowed such dangerous immense leverage? No, it wouldn't have. One hundred-to-1 or 1,000-to-1 leverage on portfolios loaded with very problematic stuff would have never been okayed by a thinking person. By letting an unthinking model dictate outcomes, the otherwise unacceptable is okayed.\n\nBy endowing VaR with the power to dictate the positions and the leverage that banks could take on, regulators effectively left the fate of the world in the hands of a tool with a natural capacity to severely underestimate risk. It is not only that VaR's internal plumbing can easily result in the underestimation of danger, as many problematic assets can present calm past periods, assets in the portfolio may have by sheer coincidence moved in an uncorrelated fashion, the Normal distribution assigns a probability to extreme events that is much lower than what is observed in reality, and past crises may not mirror the next unpredictable even bigger meltdown. Banks also have been allowed to calculate their own VaRs, pretty much any way they like. Given how bankers are incentivized to go for larger and more leveraged positions, they have a very good reason to churn out VaRs as low as possible and thus to manipulate the calculation method to that end. If we pair the structural deficiencies with the personal incentives, it seems clear that with VaR around, risk forecasts and capital requirements will tend to be subdued.\n\nThe VaR reign is thus almost a guarantee that the system will be more exposed and more fragile. There are simply too many conduits through which the model can deliver very modest numbers. Banks can employ an army of quants whose only job is to come up with the right combination of assets, the right statistical tricks, and the right calculation methodology so that their VaRs are optimized to be as small as feasible. The VaR reign allows punters to accumulate gargantuan amounts of risk under the veil of no risk.\n\nIf risk is underestimated, more risk and more leverage will be embraced and made possible. It is sadly ironic that all this was done in the name of prudence: VaR was supposed to help control risk, not to lead to more and more dangerous risk. The model-free old ways were tossed aside because the model was assumed to improve things and to make everyone safer. But a desire for prudence led to a very imprudent reality. The world's destiny was left in the hands of a device with an in-bred tendency to hide and augment risk. No wonder things turned out so badly.\n\nNassim Taleb was in a good position to understand from the get-go that VaR could result in destructive toxic risk taking if allowed to be influential. As a seasoned and successful options trader who had experienced several market roller coasters that had been prospectively assumed (by the same theoretical notions underpinning VaR) not to be possible, Taleb quickly realized that it is useless to try to measure that which does not lend itself to be measured. Market activity is simply too untamable, too wild, too undecipherable. In an environment where everything is possible and where the next unprecedented crash may be around the corner, it is hopeless to try to infer much from the historical record. As a quantitatively educated individual, Taleb knew only too well that the rotten math behind VaR only make things worse. For Taleb there was no doubt: rather than helping understand, control, and reduce risk, VaR will result in higher and worse risks. Bothered by such possibility, in the mid-1990s he embarked on a loud anti-VaR campaign. At the time, going at VaR was truly heretic. The acceptance of the tool within academic, theoretical, and regulatory circles was unassailably unquestionable, religiously so. Its defenders wasted no time in ruthlessly lambasting Taleb, dismissing him as a ranting worrymonger incapable of appreciating the magic that the mathematical risk technology could deliver. Financial risk, VaR fans declared, had been finally conquered, subjugated into a neat number by the unalterable precision of the precious analytics. How could anyone dare criticize such gloriousness? Had that Lebanese fellow gone mad?\n\nTaleb was first vindicated in 1997 and 1998. As markets everywhere succumbed to the chaos ignited by the Asian crisis, first, and the disaster of mega\u2013hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) afterward, VaR was openly revealed as a gravely malfunctioning guide. As real trading losses climbed way above those predicted by VaR, the hitherto rock-solid reputation of the model began to suffer. Worse, VaR itself had a large hand in accelerating those losses, by prompting banks to engage in sudden and massive liquidations of positions, fueling a devastating snowballing debacle. In a rehearsal of what would take place a decade later, VaR not only failed to warn of the upcoming danger but essentially contributed to the realization of such danger.\n\nDespite the temporary tarnishing of its name, VaR was not discarded or abandoned in financeland following those nasty episodes (which, particularly in the case of LTCM, threatened the system's viability). Quite the opposite, actually. Not only did those regulators who had originally embraced the tool continue to do so, avoiding in the process a much-needed rethink of VaR's true value, but another, rather significant, one decided to join the party. In 2004, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission established a rule that allowed large Wall Street broker-dealers (the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers) to use their own risk management practices for capital requirements purposes, recognizing outright that charges were destined to be lower under the new approach. VaR was predictably sanctioned as the main method of calculation, and as we know this implied that illiquid securities (\"no ready market securities\" in the jargon), which previously would have been subjected to something like 100 percent deduction for capital purposes (about 1-to-1 leverage, making it unaffordably expensive to buy billions and billions of dollars in those securities), were now afforded the same VaR treatment as more conservative and conventional alternatives: If the mathematically driven number happened to be low, the required capital charge would be low.\n\nEngaging in unapologetically risky activities instantly became much cheaper and convenient for U.S. investment banking powerhouses. VaR numbers were unrealistically low back then, hiding a lot of real risk. The VaR-transmitted regulatory encouragement was probably too tempting to resist, as a return measured against a tiny capital base makes for very tasty quarterly results. The end result, of course, was a highly levered, undercapitalized financial industry whose fate was exposed to the soundness of subprime securities and other trading plays. Or, in slightly different wording, a ticking time bomb, which duly exploded not long after. The 2007 crisis was a crisis of toxic leverage, made possible by VaR's inexcusably low risk estimates.\n\nBy jumping onto the VaR bandwagon in 2004, the SEC allowed Taleb to enjoy a second, much stronger, vindication three years later. Had the SEC not adopted that policy, which some have salaciously termed \"The Bear Stearns Future Insolvency Act,\" it is quite probable that the crisis would not have happened (as the lethal securities would either have not been accumulated, or would have been backed by a lot more cushiony capital) and that Nassim Taleb would not have had to don that bothersome tie that September morning.\n\nThe key question, naturally, is \"Why?\" Why did regulators choose to adopt a model that is so obviously foundationally flawed and that fails dramatically in the real world? What motivated the financial mandarins? Why was VaR allowed to become the most important financial metric ever? This book deals with those irrepressibly pressing issues, from which so many have tended to shy away.\n\nIn October 1994, JP Morgan flashily unveiled to the world something called Riskmetrics. The amalgamation of technical documents, software, and data became the equivalent of a global debutante ball for VaR. By popularizing its own internal procedures, the U.S. investment bank, one of the early pioneers in quantitative risk management, took VaR into the mainstream and solidified its role as the preeminent tool. In fact, it can be argued that without that display of generosity, the industry-wide adoption of VaR may not have proceeded in such a quick and profound fashion (if at all). By helping other less-resourceful financial institutions with the calculation of their risks, JP Morgan guaranteed that the same methodology would be adopted, concurrently, by all significant players. This, in turn, helped convince regulators that banks had found a magic way to tame exposures once and for all, and that the wise course of action would be to embrace, sanction, and enforce the use of such proprietary intelligence. Thus was born the modern trading regime that has dominated the market environment till our days.\n\nThe approach chosen by JP Morgan was particularly grounded in standard finance theory, with its belief in Normality and the power of historical precedent to indicate future asset volatility and correlations. That path has a high potential for leading toward modest VaR numbers, through a lethal combination of unworldly statistical assumptions and a naive confidence in the concept of diversification. JP Morgan's invention and its widely publicized spreading through financeland did wonders for the general reputation of VaR as a to-be-trusted measure; it endowed the construct with unlimited credibility, and those hundreds of equations-filled pages did the trick by terminally enchanting regulators and overwhelmingly impressing observers. It seemed implausible that anything other than saintly robustness and divine accuracy could emerge from such a potent display of braininess. Riskmetrics was the cherry on top that fully tempted policymakers into the VaR lovefest.\n\nIn this light, one could mark October 1994 as the true starting date of the 2007\u20132008 crisis. The coronation of VaR that took place back then ensured that, at some point in the future, the financial industry would be allowed to ingest vast amounts of securities (including very complex securities) in an impossibly geared way. It was just a matter of time for the stars of the VaR universe to align themselves right (a period of prolonged market calm, the imperial rise of an apparently risk-lite easily marketable toxic asset, low interest rates, friendly mathematical correlations) and unleash a torrent of cheap, leveraged, lethal speculation.\n\nIn fact, referring, as almost everyone did and continues to do, to the chaos of three years ago as a mortgage crisis or a subprime crisis appears less than accurate. It wasn't mortgages or CDOs, it was VaR. It was the inevitable arrival of the financial tsunami that a tool like VaR will inevitably unleash if given enough staying power among us. It was the inevitable VaR crisis, which could have happened a few years earlier or a few years later, but happen it was most definitely going to. The subprime stuff is just an anecdote, a simple momentary transmission mechanism, it could have been any other type of exotic asset, at any other time. VaR does not care about the exact nature of the asset as long as it fulfills the necessary conditions for it to be very low, thus excusing the reckless leveraged punting that VaR uniquely permits. It was only a matter of time before the VaR stars were aligned correctly and the right type of exotic punt showed up. It turned out to be housing-related securities, but it could just as well have been equity, or currency, or commodity related stuff behind a monstrous VaR-enabled crisis. As long as the asset has experienced quietness of late, as long as a sensible-sounding sales pitch can be built around it, and as long as financing the purchase of the asset is made easy by easy monetary policy, the reign of VaR as capital king can guarantee the emergence of an unseemly ultra-leveraged bubble, ready to wreak destruction as soon as the asset tumbles in value just a bit.\n\nVaR waited patiently until the day when global blood could be shed. VaR always was a permanent structural flaw in the system, a terrible accident waiting to happen, a terminal cancer that would unforgivably catch up with the patient, and policy makers, rather puzzlingly, loved nothing more than promoting it and helping it become ever stronger, guaranteeing that the eventual pain would be maximum.\n\nIt is not exactly expected that the brains behind JP Morgan's VaR (which was first conceived around 1989) would have anticipated that their analytical creature would turn out to be irrevocably associated with tumultuousness and chaos, let alone envision its role as principal instigator of the mayhem. We would rather want to believe that their intentions were nothing but benevolent, and that they trusted that the quantitative and theoretical foundations of their beloved concoction would represent a welcome addition of rigor and concreteness to an otherwise slightly pedestrian financial risk management field. Few of the earlier VaR pioneers may have imagined that the life of the model would be surrounded by high-octane drama, mystery, and a first-row role in some of finance's most notoriously nasty episodes. And yet, that's what happened. VaR turned out to be a far more exciting and (often, negatively) influential invention than any of the inventors may have ever thought possible. As concerned inhabitants of the financial and economic spheres, we wish that things had evolved less noisily and that the crises had been less frequent. But that doesn't mean that, as people intrigued by the nature of the forces that truly shape our world, we should shy away from telling the story of the malfeasant. Though it may feel as scant compensation for the damage caused, we can at least be certain that the story of VaR will not be devoid of interesting anecdotes, important happenstances, intellectual accomplishments, eye-catching characters, and the drama of the monster market meltdown.\n\nI have enjoyed writing this book quite a lot. If penning my prior tome, Lecturing Birds on Flying: Can Mathematical Theories Destroy the Financial Markets? (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), was the result of initial external encouragement (some very prominent people thought that I should do it and indicated me so), The Number That Killed Us was a project that I pushed for, energetically, before anyone could push me first. As I was completing Lecturing Birds, the role of VaR in the 2007\u20132008 credit crisis became unmistakably inescapable, and I thought that the analysis and the story deserved fully fledged treatment. I couldn't help but desperately realize that there was so much more to say. So I incessantly bothered my editors at John Wiley & Sons until they agreed to sign me on for this one, too.\n\nThere were plenty of books on VaR out there already, but they were all of a technical-descriptive nature (many of them highly mathematical). I wasn't interested in going that route, naturally. I am not particularly enchanted by the equations behind VaR (or most any other finance theory) but rather by the impact that VaR can have on the world. And, frankly, we don't need to become connoisseurs of all the geeky details behind VaR's precise calculation to understand said impact. In fact, all we would need to know is that VaR borrows from past data and from Normality-based statistical parameters. That gives us the requisite conceptual backing to argue that VaR will always, conceptually, tend to be an unreliable guide in the markets, and thus the wrong choice for risk radar and, especially, regulatory capital charge-setter. We can greatly improve our analysis by looking at actual banks reported results to comprehend how, in fact, VaR did churn out very humble figures and thus dangerously leverage and off-base loss predictions. That's all we really need to accuse VaR of inciting the crisis. We don't need to dig much deeper into the actual calculation technicalities.\n\nActually, we could have concluded that VaR created the leverage and the failed predictions even if we had no clue whatsoever as to how it is arrived at, simply by looking at the reported figures. This book could still have been written perfectly fine even if we didn't know at all where the VaR number comes from. Once we get a basic idea as to its analytical DNA we, of course, become yet more convinced of its guiltiness, but a basic idea is all we need for our purposes here. This tome is about how VaR contributed to sinking us, not about the minutiae of how VaR is precisely calculated. That makes it uniquely different and, I believe, uniquely relevant.\n\nWriting a book on VaR and its responsibility for market crises was an obsession for me for the obvious reasons. Understanding what truly contributed to the carnage is understandably attractive, both as a theme to muse about and as a way to share impacting ideas. I have a demonstrable interest in how financial theorems can impact the markets and the world. I would too like to think that perhaps I could be making a contribution toward the prevention of similar future crises, at the very least forcing a rethink of the embracement of suspect technical machinations in finance, and their sponsorship by public servants.\n\nBut I was also seeking for vindication, and not specifically for me. I wanted to tell people how a (very) few freethinking skeptics had been warning for years that all this could happen, only to receive the opprobrium of the technical apparatchiks, only to see their platitudes ignored by policy makers and many financial pros. Those maverick contrarians had no other interest but to try to make the financial terrain a more robust one, less prone to murderous chaos, and they could see (more than a decade ago) that VaR had the capacity to wreak just such havoc. They tried to alert us. They tried to protect us. But the coalition of those who benefit personally from the reign of VaR and those who became bewitched by the endlessly advertised \"scientificness\" and \"rigorousness\" of the methodology (and who may have been intimidated into not raising too many concerns about the deified risk benchmark) closed ranks and fought mercilessly to prevent any of the sinful contrarianism from permeating too deeply. The world was thus prevented from hearing (and understanding) the warnings. The very small coterie of visionary \"Noahs of finance,\" led as we know by Nassim Taleb, had seen the flood coming from miles away, and tried to save the planet from drowning. But those who provoked the life-threatening inundations stopped the message from filtering through, and no comprehensive preventive measures were taken (note that those investors smart enough to embark on Taleb's ark before the killing rains started found bountiful refuge from the malaise, not only avoiding a horrible death but actually enjoying a majestic existence; Taleb's crash-hedging fund made many millions for its backers in 2008). Those who ruthlessly censored intelligence that might have saved us, while relentlessly peddling the remedy that suffocated us, should be held responsible.\n\nI wanted everyone to know that a band of contrarians had tried to prevent the great VaR flood from happening. I saw this book as, among other things, a conduit to that end. I thought that they deserved widely shared kudos.\n\naRandom House, 2007\nApril 28, 2004\n\nSteve Benardete Gets His Wish; The World Suffers\n\nImagine an escort service that offers two kinds of escorts. One is mildly attractive, with a boring personality, and overall not entirely arousing. The other is drop-dead gorgeous and undeniably enchanting. The discrepancies don't end there. The more desirable companion obviously charges a much bigger fee. Spending day after day with her comes at a price; if you don't want the, by comparison, boring alternative, you have to pay much more. But that's not all. Going with the queen of escorts would not only be more costly economically, but also maybe physically. For you see, the statuesque sophisticated bombshell dates a Russian mobster. He doesn't like to share. If he sees you frequenting his doll too often, he might just endow you with new concrete shoes and take you for a (rather deadly) aquatic adventure. So patronizing the comparatively more promising gal would carry lots of risk. Being content with her less-ravishing colleague, on the other hand, could be not only friendlier on the wallet but also easier on your sleep quality. She is single and while certain exposures may be inevitable, one could safely assume modest collateral damage. As they say in other fields, less return tends to be accompanied by less risk. Or rather, more return (in this case, enjoying top-shelf company) goes hand in hand with more risk (succumbing at the merciless whim of the enraged boyfriend). Even if you could afford the more titillating prospect, you may shy away on account of the accompanying threat. If you value your safety you may be content to spend time with the less attractive but also less potentially explosive companionship.\n\nWhat the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC; the regulator of securities firms in the United States) did in April of 2004, in a decision that would ultimately contribute to shaking the world to its knees, was the equivalent of financing endless adventures with the more attractive (market) escort for U.S. investment banks. The SEC made enjoying the better-returning alternative (read exotic, thus higher-yielding, high-risk trading assets) possibly as affordable, if not more affordable, as enjoying less-glamorous possibilities (read standard, typically low-yielding, low-risk trading assets). And banks rushed in as if there were no tomorrow, accumulating now-economical exotic assets in vast numbers. \"You mean the charming bombshell now charges as little as the other one? Book me six weeks straight!\" Some may ask: What about the Mobster? What about the dangers derived from selecting the most attractive choice? Didn't bankers care about ending up sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of the river? Was the prospect of amazing financial interrelationship really worth it?\n\nThe answers from Wall Street all too often were no and yes. There were several good reasons for this. For one, every time a trader was escorted by the more striking alternative (every time he accumulated higher-yielding daring assets) his bosses typically rewarded him with a point in the score blackboard. At the end of the year, the blackboard would be looked at and if you had scored a lot of points you would be paid huge amounts of money in the form of a bonus. So you have a clear incentive to pay up that sharply reduced fee for glamorous rendezvous (thanks, SEC!), over and over again. Of course, the more points for you in that board, the closer the day of reckoning when the Russian fellow loses his patience (the closer the day when your exotic riskier positions sink in value and blow you up). But you don't care much because in the Street the rules of the street don't always apply: Here if the risk materializes you don't necessarily have to die. The worst that may happen is that you have to seek alternative employment, comfily cushioned by all the millions you just earned. Hey, you may actually get to keep your job courtesy of the bailing-out government. Here it's other people who die at the hands of the brusquely enraged killer. You may be the one who forced the financial Mobster into the scene in the first place, but the real suffering is reserved for others, including plenty of unsuspecting bystanders.\n\nWhat the SEC forgot is that if you charge the same for two financial assets, bankers (many, at least) will always gorge on the one offering the prospect of a far more pleasurable experience, return-wise, possibly disregarding entirely the (often, systemic) risks that such choice may entail. They may not care about the risk, only about its affordability. They may not care about the negative consequences from owning the asset, only about its costliness. Wildly asymmetric remuneration structures assure that the risk of sweet-looking plays is not feared; in fact, it is preferred. You get to enjoy and keep the returns; you don't suffer (much) if ugliness materializes. That type of one-sided bargain pushes bankers into frantically searching for the bombshells of finance, accumulating potential lethality for others. In the markets, as in our fictional escort service story, terrible danger can accompany the most attractive-looking of entertainments. Sophisticated, daring, high-stakes assets that deliver wonderful results for a while can abruptly sink in value as their inner riskiness unsurprisingly manifests itself fully, taking institutions into the abyss. If you set fees for those tempting toys that are so low that no-holds-barred munching within banking circles is guaranteed, you are essentially signing a death sentence down the road for the rest of the populace.\n\nThe SEC's April 2004 ruling effectively treated toxic, illiquid yet tempting punts (like subprime collateralized debt obligations [CDOs]) exactly the same as staid, boring plays (like Treasury Bonds) when it came to calculating the all-important regulatory capital to be prudently set aside for trading games. Regulatory capital is a mandatory cushion, ideally in the form of core shareholders equity, that aims at guaranteeing that banks will be, in theory, shielded from market turmoil; regulatory capital is supposed to be able to absorb possible future losses and protect banks from going under when severe setbacks take place. In effect, regulatory capital is the price tag that determines whether speculative activities are affordable or not as the lower the capital charge the cheaper trading becomes since the same upfront capital \"deposit\" can finance more punting. Most importantly, regulatory capital will determine the amount of leverage that a bank can take on (a capital charge of, say, 3 percent of assets allows the position to be financed with more leverage, i.e., debt, than a capital charge of, say, 10 percent), and thus its exposure to sudden market gyrations (the more your positions are financed with debt the more vulnerable you are to bad news, as your equity capital cushion will be \"eaten\" faster by the losses). Up to April 2004, obviously riskier stuff like subprime CDOs, which were made up of the worst kinds of mortgage loans, would have required a much higher capital charge than obviously safer T-Bonds, as leveraged punting on the former was commonsensically assumed to be way more dangerous than on the latter.\n\nThe new SEC rule now afforded both types of excruciatingly dissimilar asset families exactly the same calculation treatment. Under such unseemly level playing fields, the more daring punt could actually end up requiring the same or perhaps even less cushiony capital commitment. Punting on the riskier, illiquid alternative could well become less costly than punting on the much-sounder, liquid choice. The end result may not always be so, but the crux of the matter is that the new SEC ruling would in principle allow for such possibility (it is crucial to note that exotic trades did not have to cost the same or even less than Treasury Bonds in regulatory capital terms for bankers to create a gold rush in the former; it was more than enough that their particular capital charge was vastly reduced and this the SEC ruling definitely guaranteed, thus making it much cheaper for traders to gorge on such potentially lethal asset class). The SEC's 2004 change of heart aided the lascivious accumulation of troublesome assets on Wall Street's balance sheets, which predictable unraveling generated the billionaire write-downs that gave way to what is known as the 2007\u20132008 credit crisis.\n\nIf you want to preserve global calm you can't make speculating on highly tempting, highly dangerous things like subprime CDOs irresistibly economical. If you facilitate a bubble in enchanting yet danger-promising beauties, don't be surprised by the subsequent destruction.\n\nOn December 31, 1996, Steven M. Benardete wrote a letter to the SEC. Addressed to the Honorable Arthur Levitt, the SEC's chairman at the time, the missive's heading read \"Re: Possible Amendments to the Net Capital Rule.\" Mr. Benardete (a very senior Morgan Stanley derivatives executive when he penned the note) was communicating with the SEC in his capacity as chairman of the then recently formed Risk Management Committee of the Securities Industry Association, a trade body (lobby) for Wall Street traders. What did Benardete want, and why should we care today? Well, he wanted a very special favor from Levitt and the SEC: the regulatory adoption of VaR models for trading-related capital charge determination purposes. Again, capital charges determine how much banks have to put up-front in order to play the trading game; the lower the mandatory charge, the more they are allowed to finance their trading activities through debt rather than equity. The letter was, in effect, a determined lobbying effort. It asked the chief of financial police to, please, just let Wall Street dealers use VaR to determine the capital costliness of their market activities. \"Other regulators already allow commercial banks to use VaR, so why can't we, Mr Levitt?\" went the spirit of the petition, \"Come on, let us Wall Streeters join the VaR party.\"\n\nThere are several reasons why the Masters of the Trading Floor in New York would want to have VaR crowned capital emperor. But besides specific nit-picking, we can be irrepressibly adventurous and conclude that if Wall Streeters wanted VaR to replace the old capital order then perhaps, just maybe, Wall Street thought that VaR could help it achieve its goals better than the old ways ever could. If Mr. Benardete and his crowd wanted VaR so bad we have to assume that they saw something in VaR that could truly make them happier. Just like someone who marries for money, the object of adoration might be honestly adored for their intrinsic qualities, but that was not the main reason behind your romantic overtures; rather, you were seeking a material benefit that only that particular partner could satisfy. Wall Street may have truthfully loved VaR for its inner beauty, but that was likely not the main reason why Benardete sat on his desk and scribbled his letter. He most likely did so because he thought that VaR could uniquely help him and his friends achieve something golden.\n\nWhy did Wall Street court VaR so passionately? What was Wall Street truly after? Keep this particular rationale firmly in mind: VaR, by, as we know, tending to be unrealistically low, can dictate very humble capital requirements for trading activities, including the most toxic kind. And there can be few things more generally loved by punters than being able to punt on the cheap, in a highly leveraged way, especially if the punt is exotic and thus higher-yielding. Why? Because the higher the leverage, the greater the returns on capital for every increase in the value of the positions; a highly leveraged play that goes well can translate into record results and compensation (of course, leverage works both ways: If you have a large portfolio backed by little equity, when your positions fall in value, even a bit, you may be wiped out as your tiny equity base can't cope with the losses). We further elaborate in later pages, but let's first concentrate our attention on Benardete's actual words, how he peddled his adored VaR to the regulators. Let's see how Wall Street asked the SEC for VaR's hand.\n\nAs you know, VaR models are increasingly used by major banks and securities firms as an internal tool for managing market and credit risk. We believe that these models hold promise as a methodology for determining regulatory capital standards, as indicated by the actions of bank regulators to permit banks to utilize models in assessing their capital requirements.\n\nTranslation: I want to marry VaR for capital purposes, please let me.\n\nFurther down the missive, Benardete referenced several studies that suggested that the ability of the SEC's Net Capital Rule, the set of policies dealing with broker-dealer capital requirements, to judge the capital adequacy of securities firms has been surpassed by other methodologies. These studies concluded that the prevailing ways (the so-called comprehensive approach) worked much less satisfactorily than a VaR-based approach would, since, as the researchers posited, \"under the former methodology there was no correlation between the relative riskiness of a portfolio and the amount of capital required.\" VaR, it was implied (then as nowadays), was a great improvement on things because of its ability to match capital requirements to an asset's \"true\" risk, as expressed by its volatility, obtained through the model with the help of past market data and statistical trickeries. As is thoroughly analyzed in this book, such claim is in fact of suspect validity: What VaR calls risk is usually nothing but dangerous make-believe. But it has nonetheless tended to work quite well as a sales pitch for VaR promoters.\n\nYet further down in his letter, Steve Benardete sang VaR's praises again when it came to another desirable potential application, the posting of margins (collateral) between trading counterparts; here, too, Wall Street wanted the prevailing rule firmly replaced by its ever-so-useful tool.\n\nWe believe that the same principles that apply to questions of capital adequacy should also apply to margin questions. . . . The portfolio margining approach (i.e., VaR) is a much more efficient system for collateralizing risk exposures and achieves substantially the same market risk protection as the strategy based on Regulation T (an approach similar to that of the Net Capital Rule) but with collateral levels that are mere fractions of those required by Regulation T. In light of the greater statistical rigor that VaR models introduce into efforts to measure risk, we hope that the Commission will look favourably upon the attempts to amend the rules.\n\nThis last sentence is critical. This is Wall Street employing VaR's scientific-looking \"rigorousness\" as a promotional pitch, another traditional practice by VaR lovers. VaR's analytical glamour can be used to tear down obstacles to its spreading. VaR's quantitative complexion could be employed to intimidate others into giving in (who but an uncouth hick would dare oppose such sophistication? Embrace VaR and join the ranks of the smart people!). Whether Wall Street honestly bowed at the altar of VaR's statistical foundations or rather was concurring in naughty deceit wouldn't be the key issue, what really mattered is that said quantitative adornments sufficiently impressed other people. Given folks' general tendency to slavishly submit to anything laden with mathematical symbols and backed by serious-looking holders of prestigious academic degrees, the fact that VaR was, in its origins at least, a profoundly analytical construct (take a look at VaR-inventor JP Morgan's original documentation if you don't believe me) quite possibly scored lots of brownie points for the device. It is a safe bet that had VaR not been technical, the Street's peddling efforts may have been less successful. Complex math sells well in the markets.\n\nThe 1996 communication concluded by reinforcing the declaration of love, \"We believe that VaR modeling is the most powerful tool presently available for quantifying market risk in a portfolio of diverse financial instruments, allowing for comprehensive risk assessment across different risk types and markets.\"\n\nAnd then doubled-down on its lobbying efforts: \"Integration of VaR models into the regulatory scheme for broker-dealers would have the important benefit of creating closer links between internal risk management and supervisory standards, and could establish a consistent framework within which regulators, traders, and risk managers could examine and discuss questions of risk.\" Translation: We have already developed and fine-tuned a risk guide that works well for us, now adopt it for policy purposes, make it the law of the land and we can all become best of friends.\n\nOn April 28, 2004, the SEC finally obliged. The marriage to VaR was finally okayed. In return for agreeing to more intrusive supervision, the five big American investment banks saw their fantasies come true. From then on, VaR would be used to calculate the costliness, and thus affordability and leverage of their trading rendezvous. With Arthur Levitt no longer at the helm, a response to Benardete's plea fell to one of his successors (former investment banking godfather Bill Donaldson). If Benardete's request had been compressed in exactly three pages, the SEC's delayed complaisance, at 100-plus pages, was decidedly richer in details.\n\nThe 2004 reply, titled \"Alternative Net Capital Requirements for Broker-Dealers That Are Part of Consolidated Supervised Entities,\" began matter-of-factly by confronting the main issue head on:\n\nThe Commission is amending the \"net capital rule\" to establish a voluntary, alternative method of computing net capital for certain broker-dealers. Under the amendments, a broker-dealer that maintains certain minimum levels of net capital may apply to the Commission for a conditional exemption from the application of the standard net capital calculation. As a condition to granting the exemption, the broker-dealer's ultimate holding company must consent to group-wide Commission supervision. The amendments should help the Commission to protect investors and maintain the integrity of the securities markets by improving oversight of broker-dealers and providing an incentive for broker-dealers to implement strong risk management practices. Under the alternative method, firms with strong internal risk management practices may utilize mathematical modeling methods already used to manage their own business risk, including value-at-risk (\"VaR\") models, for regulatory purposes.\n\nTranslation: You let us be more snoopily supervisory and we'll scratch those bothersome old market capital rules; what's more, we'll let you substitute the disliked ancient ways for the ones you truly prefer.\n\nAnd the SEC's accommodativeness went further than that: Not only did the financial police officers agree to hand Wall Street its capital weapons of choice, it went as far as to openly admit the benefits to be derived from such armory, \"A broker-dealer's deductions for market and credit risk probably will be lower under the alternative method of computing net capital than under the standard net capital rule.\" In other words, indulging in all kinds of trading should result cheaper going forward; the lower the capital haircuts the more bang for your buck, the more positions you can take for a given level of net capital. This point is driven home even more profoundly later in the document, as if to try to dissipate any doubts Wall Street may have had as to the SEC's utter willingness to give it want it wanted: \"The mix of positions held by the broker-dealer may change if the regulatory cost of holding certain positions is reduced. We estimated that broker-dealers taking advantage of the alternative capital computation would realize an average reduction in capital deductions of approximately 40%.\" Whatever the actual accuracy of those estimates, there can be no doubt as to the aroma scenting from the regulators' message: we firmly believe that VaR will result in sizably diminished capital charges and subsequently altered portfolio compositions. Let the reign of cheap trading begin!\n\nWe'll probably never know how critical Steve Benardete's particular letter was in helping steer the regulators toward compliance, but we are certain that the Morgan Stanley bigwig got his wish granted on a silver platter. At last, Wall Street could afford endless adventures with the most desirably exotic financial fare; at last, gone were the days when mesmerizingly attractive financial toys were unaffordably expensive, when beyond-average entertainments cost way too much. Under the previous VaR-deprived, \"comprehensive\" regime punting on nonstandard assets tended to be prohibitively taxing, capital-wise. Building a mountain of exotic positions would have required a similarly sized mountain of protective equity (this seemed only prudent, given how fast and hard nonstandard securities can sink in value). With VaR imperial, Wall Street was allowed to support that trading mountain with potentially just a few grains of equity, with massive borrowings making up for the rest. Amassing vast amounts of risky stuff became extremely convenient for banks, making it much easier for those entities to go under all of a sudden, thus posing a lethal threat to global economic and social stability.\n\nSo why did Wall Street lobby so stringently for VaR? Really, why the obviously intense infatuation? Was it true love or interested love? Let's be benevolent first. Perhaps Steve Benardete and others honestly believed that the \"intuitional\" approach to financial risk needed (no, demanded) a healthy dose of curative \"rigorousness.\" The old ways may simply have looked exceedingly rusty in the brave new world of super-size bets and complex derivatives. It was urgent that risks be measured more accurately. A math infusion was in order, according to this argument. Capital charges, the storyline would go, could no longer be based on inflexible preset fixed numbers dependent on an arbitrarily selected list of different asset families (x charge for equities, y charge for corporate bonds, z charge for government securities, and so on), as was the case under the standard approach. Modern Wall Street, VaR cheerleaders would have sincerely postulated, could not afford to let the old pedestrian ways go on ruling supreme; they just couldn't cope with exposures anymore. The new analytical high-tech was required to tame risks more efficiently and wisely. That would be, roughly, the more innocent version of Wall Street's VaR pitch. Those of a more merciful bent may choose to fully buy into it.\n\nBut even the most charitably indulgent have to admit that there are plausible, less puritanical, alternative explications behind the VaR wooing. What if the VaR marketing campaign launched almost two decades ago was a conscious effort to have inscribed into law edicts that would let financial dealers insatiably guzzle leveraged exotic punts, like, for example, those that would give rise to the 2007 credit crisis?\n\nUnder this naughtier version of the story VaR is not espoused and forced onto the world due to its (purported) magical capacity to improve our lot by mapping financial risks in a grander fashion than previously existing alternatives. Rather, it was endorsed as a once-in-a-lifetime vehicle to improve the lot of Wall Streeters beyond the wildest of dreams. You badly want the humble capital charges and the humble risk estimates that VaR can uniquely deliver, especially if they can make trading on higher-return assets much cheaper, so even if you may not believe in its analytical foundations you forcefully endorse it nonetheless. Maybe Wall Street looked at VaR and didn't see (as advertised) the new golden paradigm of risk management that could, through its magic wand, warn us and protect the system by forever preventing the manifestation of crises. Perhaps what it really saw was a powerful alibi that could be profitably milked into untold millions. The key question, of course, becomes: Did someone, somewhere on the Street understand from early on that something like VaR did not only present a less-than-rosy report card when it came to structural soundness but would also tend to encourage the kind of misguided and reckless trading that could steer the system into breakdown? Did some Wall Streeters peddle as crisis-preventer a gadget they knew contained the seeds of out-of-control turmoil? Did they push into law a device they knew could open the fences of hell down the road?\n\nEven if that was the case, was it an entirely unexpected one? Wall Streeters, like any businesspeople, are typically looking for any advantage that may yield additional profits and enhanced compensation. And it's not like endorsing VaR in search of personal advantages, and maybe under false pretenses, was illegal, or even fraudulent. It was a self-servingness that served the world badly in the end, but, if we are fair, not outrageously unbecoming. Wall Street is a place that attracts people who want to make money, and if they find (actually invent, in the case of VaR) a mechanism that assists them greatly in that respect don't be entirely surprised if they fall head over heels. If Wall Streeters reached the conclusion that VaR could help multiply their earnings, are we to show utter shock when they abandon all promotional restraints and present the tool as the best thing since sliced bread?\n\nThe real unexplainable conduct surrounding the VaR saga lies not so much with the bankers but rather with the regulators. Much as we can try to make sense of it, a scarcity of reasonable reasons dominates the atmosphere when attempting to comprehend why the financial police backed a flawed methodology, which potential for disruption was so easily detectable. The sight of the market police, paid to rid us of crime, consciously arming the Wall Street gangs with weapons of mass destruction surely must rank as one of the most puzzling happenstances in financial history.\n\nFrankly, few things could go so contrary to the public mission of the regulators as their embracement of VaR as capital emperor. It's not so much that the April 2004 rule gave unfettered carte blanche to Wall Street gearing and yielded higher leverage ratios. Much more important than the overall leverage itself was, once more, the kind of leverage that the inscribing of VaR into law helped produce. Bad leverage, of the toxic kind. Not the one that you would expect policy makers to be helping spread around. Giving the same capital treatment to a very risky asset and to a very safe asset can generate untold economic tremors, not the kind of outcomes that politicians should be encouraging.\n\nUnder the old rules that Wall Street so desperately wanted scrapped, very bad leverage was impossibly expensive, under VaR very bad leverage can be very economical. If you dangle such incentives in front of bonus-hungry traders, chances are that banks will take full advantage and load up their balance sheets with toxic assets. Eerily enough, the regulators admitted themselves to be fully in-the-know as to the likely consequences of having VaR enthroned those years ago. It's not just that, as we have seen, they happily conceded that leverage was bound to climb as the costs of trading were sharply reduced across the board; creepily presciently they went further and even foresaw the possibility that that enhanced leverage would now be allowed to alter its composition. Let's recall what could well be the most dangerously prophetic sentence ever uttered in finance: \"The mix of positions held by the broker-dealer may change if the regulatory cost of holding certain positions is reduced,\" the SEC admitted on that fateful April 28, 2004. Did no one at the Commission realize that \"certain positions\" may grow up to mean poisonous system-threatening garbage?\n\nGreat love affairs have often resulted in tragedy and pain (think Romeo and Juliet). The SEC and Wall Street's torrid VaR affair honored that tradition. We are all for love, but the ill-fated VaR romance between regulators and bankers has cost the world dearly. For the future sake of the world's economic and social health, it would have been better if the courted SEC had resisted the advances by the trading floor heartthrobs. Steve Benardete's insinuations should have not been acceded to.\nChapter 1\n\nThe Greatest Story Never Told\n\n  * The Leverage That Killed Us\n  * The Number That Leads to Toxic Leverage\n  * Financial Risk Mismanagement\n  * Too Many Exceptions\n  * Lessons Unlearned\n\nAmid all the pomposity that surrounded the analysis of the 2007 credit crisis (\"Capitalism is over!,\" \"The American way is doomed!,\" \"Hang anyone with a pinstriped suit!\") it was easy to forget what had really happened, and what truly triggered the malaise. Simply put, a tiny bunch of guys and gals inside a handful of big financial institutions made hugely leveraged, often-complex, massively sized bets on the health of the (mostly U.S.) subprime housing market. In essence, the most influential financial firms out there bet the house on the likelihood that precariously underearning mortgage borrowers would honor their insurmountable liabilities. As the subprime market inevitably turned sour, those bets (on occasions many times larger than the firm's entire equity capital base) inevitably sank the punters, making some of them disappear, forcing others into mercy sales, and sending all into the comforting arms of a public bailout. As these global behemoths floundered, so did the financial system and thus the economy at large. Confidence evaporated, lending froze, and markets everywhere became uncontrollable chute-the-chutes. Investors lost their shirts, workers lost their jobs.\n\nIt wasn't a failure of capitalism or a reminder that perhaps we had forgone socialism a tad too prematurely (so far, we haven't yet heard calls for the rebuilding of the Berlin Wall). The crisis did not symbolize how rotten our system was. While certain bad practices were most certainly brought to the fore by the meltdown, and should be thoroughly corrected, the crisis did not symbolize the urgency of a drastic overhaul in the way we interact economically or politically. What the crisis truly stands for is the failure to prevent a tiny group of mortgage and derivatives bankers (I'm talking just a few hundred individuals here) from recklessly exposing their entities to the most toxic, unseemly, irresponsible of punts. The fact that Wall Street and the City of London were allowed to bet, via highly convoluted conduits, their very existence and survival on whether some folks from Alabama with no jobs, no income, and no assets would repay unaffordable, ill-gotten loans is the theme that should really matter, and not whether we should hastily resurrect Lenin. If capitalism was fine (overall) in May 2007, it should be just as fine today.\n\nRather than try to fix beyond recognition an arrangement that overall has served humanity quite well, why not focus on understanding what truly happened and on making sure that it can never happen again? If we don't address the heart of the matter, instead devoting all our time to distracting platitudes, we may be condemning ourselves to a repeat down the road. We surely don't want to go through this capitalism-doubting song and dance again five years from now, do we?\n\nSo the key questions throughout should have been: What really allowed those insanely reckless bets to take place? Several factors were and for the most part have continued to be held responsible for allowing this very specific mess to take place.\n\nThe conventional list of culprits typically has included the following key malfeasants: a less-than-perfect pay structure at banks, the use of deleteriously complex securities, asleep-at-the-wheel regulators, fraudulent mortgage practices, blindly greedy investors, and ridiculously off-target rating agencies. It is clear that each and every one of those factors played a substantial role and deserves a large share of the blame. But the familiar list has tended to leave out what I would categorize as the top miscreant. While the more conventionally acknowledged elements were definitely required, the carnage would not have reached such immense body count had that prominent, typically ignored, factor not been present. I put forth the contention that that one variable (a number, in fact) ultimately allowed the bets to be made and the crisis to happen.\n\nThat number is, of course, VaR. In its very prominent role as market risk measure around trading floors and, especially, the tool behind the determination of bank regulatory capital requirements for trading positions, VaR decisively aided and abetted the massive buildup of high-stakes positions by investment banks. VaR said that those punts, together with many other trading plays, were negligibly risky thus excusing their accumulation (any skeptical voice inside the banks could be silenced by the very low loss estimates churned out from the glorified model) as well as making them permissibly affordable (as the model concluded that very little capital was needed to support those market plays). Without those unrealistically insignificant risk estimates, the securities that sank the banks and unleashed the crisis would most likely not have been accumulated in such a vicious fashion, as the gambles would not have been internally authorized and, most critically, would have been impossibly expensive capital-wise.\n\nBefore banks could accumulate all the trading positions that they accumulated in a highly leveraged fashion, they needed permission to do so from financial regulators. Whether such leveraged trading is possible is up to the capital rules imposed by the policymakers. Capital rules for market risk (under which banks placed those nasty CDOs) were dictated by VaR. So by being so low ($50 million VaR out of a trading portfolio of $300 billion was typical), VaR ultimately allowed the destructive leverage.\n\nHad trading decisions and regulatory policies been ruled by old-fashioned common sense, the toxic leverage that caused the crisis would not have been permitted, as it insultingly defied all prudent risk management. But with VaR ruling, things that should have never been okayed got the okay. By focusing only on mathematical gymnastics and historical databases, VaR turned common sense on its head and sanctioned much more risk and much more danger than would have been sanctioned absent the model. VaR can lie big time when it comes to assessing market exposures, unseemly categorizing the risky as riskless and thus giving carte blanche to the no-holds-barred accumulation of the risky. By disregarding the fundamental, intrinsic characteristics of a financial asset, VaR can severely underestimate true risk, providing the false sense of security that gives bankers the alibi to build huge portfolios of risky stuff and regulators the excuse to demand little capital to back those positions. VaR allowed banks to take on positions and leverage that would otherwise not have been allowed. Those positions and that leverage killed the banks in the end.\n\nThus, we didn't need all that pomposity calling for all-out revolution. What was, and continues to be, needed is to target the true, yet still wildly mysterious to most, decisive force behind the bloodshed and wholeheartedly reform the fields of financial risk management and bank capital regulation. The exile of VaR from financeland, not the nationalization of economic activity or the dusting-off of Das Kapital, would have been the truly on-target, preventive, healing response to the mess.\n\nAnd yet few (if any) commentators or gurus focused on VaR. You haven't seen the CNBC or Bloomberg TV one-hour special on the role of VaR in the crisis. This is quite puzzling: The model, you see, had already contributed to chaos before and had been amply warned about by several high-profile figures By blatantly ignoring VaR's role in past nasty system-threatening episodes as well as its inherent capacity for enabling havoc, the media made sure that the populace at large was kept unaware of how their economic and social stability can greatly depend on the dictates of a number that has been endowed with way too much power by the world's leading financiers and policymakers. VaR, in fact, may have been the greatest story never told.\n\nImagine that someone has just had a terrible accident driving a bright red Ferrari, perhaps while cruising along the South of France's coastline. Not only is the driver dead, but there were plenty of other casualties as the recklessly conducted vehicle crashed into a local market, at the busiest hour no less. The bloodbath is truly ghastly, prompting everyone to wonder what exactly happened. How could the massacre-inducing event have taken place? Who, or what, should be held primarily responsible? Public outrage demands the unveiling of the true culprit behind the mayhem.\n\nAfter a quick on-site, postcrash check technicians discover that the Ferrari contained some seriously defective parts, which inevitable malfunctioning decisively contributed to the tragic outcome. So there you have it, many would instantly argue: The machine was based on faulty engineering. But wait, would counter some, should we then really put the blame on the car manufacturer? What about the auto inspectors, whose generously positive assessment of the vehicle's quality (deemed superior by the supposedly wise inspectors) decisively encouraged the reckless driver to purchase the four-wheeled beast? In this light, it might make sense to assign more blame onto the inspectors than on the manufacturers.\n\nHowever, this is not the end of the story. Just because automobile inspectors attest to the superior craftsmanship of the Ferrari doesn't mean that you can just own it. While the (misguidedly, it turned out) enthusiastic backing by the inspectors facilitated the eventual matching of driver and car, it wasn't in itself enough. Necessary yes, but not sufficient. Unless the driver positively purchased the red beauty, he could never have killed all those people. And in order to own a Ferrari, you absolutely must pay for it first.\n\nIt turns out that our imaginary reckless conductor had not paid in cash for the car as by far he did not have sufficient funds, but had rather been eagerly financed by a lender. He had bought the Ferrari in a highly leveraged (i.e., indebted) way under very generous borrowing terms, being forced to post just a tiny deposit. Now, this driver had a record of headless driving, having been involved in numerous incidents. It appeared pretty obvious that one day he might cause some real trouble behind the wheel. And yet, his financiers more than happily obliged when it came time to massively enable the purchase of a powerfully charged, potentially very dangerous machine. Without such puzzlingly friendly treatment and support, the future murderer (and past malfeasant) would not have been able to afford the murder weapon.\n\nYes, he was obviously personally responsible for the accident. Yes, the manufacturing mistakes also played a decisive part. Yes, the okay from the inspectors mightily helped, too. All those factors were required for the fatality to occur. But, at the end of the day, none of that would have mattered one iota had the Ferrari not been bought. So if you are looking for a true culprit for the French seaside town massacre, indiscriminately point your finger at the irresponsible financiers that ultimately and improbably made possible the acquisition of the dysfunctional vehicle by the speed demon who, having trusted the misguidedly rosy expert assessment, inevitably took his own life and that of dozens of unsuspecting innocent bystanders.\n\nThis fictional story serves us to appreciate the perils of affording excessive leverage to purchase daring toys, and so to illustrate why the 2007 meltdown took place. If you substitute the reckless driver with investment banks, the red Ferrari with racy toxic securities, the auto inspectors with the credit rating agencies (Moody's, Standard & Poor's), and the eager financiers with financial regulators, then you get a good picture of the process that caused that very real terrible accident. In order for the wreckage to take place you obviously needed the wild-eyed bankers to make the ill-fated punts, the toxic mechanisms through which those punts were effected (you can't have a subprime CDO crisis without subprime mortgages and CDOs), and the overtly friendly AAA ratings (without such inexcusably generous soup letters the CDO business would not have taken flight as it did). But at the end of the day, the regulators allowed all that to matter explosively by sponsoring methodologies (VaR) that permitted banks to ride the trading roller coaster on the cheap, having to post up just small amounts of expensive capital while financing most of the punting through economical debt. Such generous terms resulted in a furious amalgamation of temptingly exotic assets. And when you gorge on such stuff in a highly indebted manner the final outcome tends to be a bloody financial crash.\n\nIf VaR had been much higher (thus better reflecting the risks faced by banks), the positions would have been smaller and\/or safer. This was a subprime CDO crisis because VaR allowed banks to accumulate subprime CDOs very cheaply. Without the model, the capital cost of those intrinsically very risky securities would have been higher, making the system more robust.\n\nWhy exactly can sanctioning leveraged punting be so dangerous in the real financial world? What's so wrong with gearing? Why can an undercapitalized banking industry pose a threat to the world? In short: It is far easier for a bank to blow up fast if it's highly leveraged. Given how important and influential banks tend to be for a nation's economy, anything that makes it easier for banks to go under poses a dire threat to everyone. The bad thing about leverage is that it substantially magnifies the potential negative effects of bad news: Just a small reduction in value of the assets held by a bank may be enough to wipe out the institution. Conversely, the less leverage one has the more robust one is to darkish developments.\n\nA bank's leverage can be defined as the ratio of assets over core equity capital (the best, and perhaps only true, kind of capital, essentially retained earnings plus shareholders' contributed capital). The difference between assets and equity are the bank's liabilities, which include its long-term and short-term borrowings. For a given volume of assets, the higher the leverage the less those assets are financed (or backed) by equity capital and the more they are financed by debt. That is, financial leverage indicates the use of borrowed funds, rather than invested capital, in acquiring assets. Regulated financial institutions face minimum capital requirements, in essence a cap on the maximum amount of leverage they can enjoy. A bank with $15 billion in capital may want to own $200 billion in assets, but if policy makers have capped leverage at 10 (i.e., a 10 percent capital charge across the board) the bank must either raise an additional $5 billion of capital (so that those $200 billion are backed by a $20 billion capital chest, keeping the leverage ratio at 10) or lower the size of its bet to $150 billion; under such regulatory stance, $15 billion can only buy you $150 billion of stuff. Were regulators to become more permissive, say increasing the maximum leverage ratio to 20 (from a 10 percent to a 5 percent minimum capital requirement), the bank could now own as much as $300 billion in assets without having to raise extra capital. It is clear that minimum capital rules will impact the size of a bank's balance sheet: If those rules are very accommodating, a lot of stuff will be backed by little capital (we'll see in a moment how accommodating a VaR-based rules system can be). VaR can easily lead to a severely undercapitalized banking industry; few things can create more economic and social problems than a severely undercapitalized banking industry.\n\nIf an entity has no equity it is said to be worth zero, as the value of its assets is equal to that of its liabilities (i.e., everything I own I owe). If assets go down in value, those losses must be absorbed by the equity side of the balance sheet (equity is actually defined as the overall amount of an entity's loss-absorbing capital, or the maximum losses an entity can incur before it defaults on its liabilities); if those losses are severe, the entire equity base may be erased before there's time or chance to raise some more, leaving the bank insolvent. Therefore, the more equity capital (i.e., the less leverage), the more a bank can sustain and survive setbacks.\n\nShouldn't then banks try to finance their assets with as much equity as possible? After all, bank executives are supposed to be trying hard to preserve their firms' salubriousness. Well, it's not that simple. Banks, almost by definition, must run somewhat leveraged operations, otherwise making decent returns might be hard; after all, the prospect of such positive results is what attracts equity investors in the first place. At the same time, equity capital can be expensive (since equity investors, unlike creditors, have no claims on a firm's assets and are first in line to absorb losses they would demand a greater rate of return) and inconvenient (as new shareholders dilute existing ones and may imply a redesign of the firm's board of directors) to raise, especially when debt financing is cheap and amply available. So banks will almost unavoidably have x amounts of equity backing several times x amounts of assets. Leverage, in other words, is part of banking life. Gearing needn't be destructive as a concept.\n\nBut if the size of the gearing and\/or its quality get, respectively, too large or too trashy big problems could beckon. If a bank has $10 million in equity backing up $100 million in assets (a 10-to-1 leverage ratio), a 1 percent drop in the value of the assets would eat away 10 percent of its equity, an ugly but possibly nonterminal occurrence. However, if those same $10 million had now to sustain $500 million in assets (50-to-1 gearing), for the same decrease in assets value the decline in equity would be 50 percent, a decidedly more brutal meltdown. The key question, naturally becomes: What's the chance that the assets will drop in value? If we believe it to be zero, then perhaps a higher leverage would be the optimal choice even for those banks most eager to run a safe and sound operation: If assets are not going to fall by even that modest 1 percent, I would rather go with the 50-to-1 ratio, as any increase in assets value will yield a greater return on equity (in this case, plus 50 percent versus plus 10 percent). Thus, if the assets being purchased are iron-clad guaranteed to never descend in worth, more gearing will be no more harmful, return-wise, than less gearing while offering more juice on the upside.\n\nLeverage, in other words, can be a great deal when asset values go up all the time (or almost all the time) since for every increase in value, I get wonderful returns on capital. That is why banks often prefer a lot of leverage rather than just a little bit of it. It is obviously better to make 50 percent positive returns on capital than 10 percent positive returns on capital. Traders and their bosses get bigger bonuses when they are generating 50 percent returns on capital than when they are generating 10 percent, so building up massive leverage is a big temptation for them. VaR can be wonderful for those purposes, given how easy it is for the model to churn out very low capital requirements. But this only works fine if your trading portfolio is behaving well, otherwise the plus 50 percent bliss could quickly transform into a minus 50 percent nightmare.\n\nOf course, in real life few assets (if any) come with a guarantee never to lose value. Since even the soundest-looking possibilities can be worth less, more leverage can be safely ruled as more daring than less of it, for a given asset portfolio. Having said that, the nature of the portfolio can also dictate whether the leverage ratio is prudent or not. Whether a larger leverage ratio will be a more harmful choice will depend on the quality of the asset side of the balance sheet. A 10-to-1 ratio can seem wisely conservative or recklessly wild, depending on what type of assets we're talking about. Illiquid, complex, toxic assets that can sink in value abruptly and very profoundly may render the $10 million cushion extremely insufficient, extremely rapidly. Relatively more trustworthy and liquid plays, like Microsoft stock or World Bank bonds, should (in principle) be more foreign to sudden debacles, rendering the $10 million grandiosely sufficient. In fact, a, say, 30-to-1 gearing ratio exclusively on standard assets may be considered a safer, more insolvency-proof capital structure than 10-to-1 gearing exclusively on toxic assets, as it could be deemed more likely to witness a 10 percent tumble in the weird stuff than a 3 percent decline in the vanilla stuff (of course, this cuts both ways: During good times, a rapid 10 percent rise in complex securities may be more feasible than a 3 percent vanilla uplift, which is naturally why the nasty stuff can be so tempting).\n\nNaturally, the very worst thing would be a higher leverage structure comprised largely of high-stakes punts; essentially, a recipe for sure disaster. Encouraged and enabled by the low equity requirements sanctioned by VaR and other tools as well as by the very economical access to short-term credit, most of the world's leading financial institutions spent the first years of the twenty-first century hard at work arriving at such a perilous state of affairs. Banking leverage was not invented by VaR; it existed before the model showed up. Not even very large leverage was invented by VaR (in the pre-VaR days, the rules essentially allowed banks to build unlimited leverage on debt securities issued by developed countries, an asset class that, as more recent events have showcased is not exactly devoid of problems). But VaR did signify a revolutionary, potentially very chaotic development, pertaining to banking gearing: thanks to VaR, vast leverage on vastly toxic assets was now possible, something that the pre-VaR financial police did not allow.\n\nThe mayhem that officially started in the summer of 2007 was the inevitable result of a regulatory structure that had allowed too many influential players to afford too many financial Ferraris too cheaply. For the past 15 years or so, worldwide financial institutions (to a greater or lesser degree) have enjoyed extremely generous financing terms from the markets' policemen whose job description supposedly includes the safeguarding of the system. The rules have actively encouraged wild leveraged punting, and not just on semi-safe assets like government bonds (the Volvos of finance) but also on impossibly exotic, accident-prone stuff. Negligible regulatory capital requirements were demanded from banks in years prior to the meltdown when it came to obviously lethal assets, both trading-related and credit-related; and given how easy and economical it was to obtain borrowed funds, bankers found it irresistibly convenient to load up on subprime CDOs and other trading stuff. Without the humongous losses suffered on such largesse, there would have been no farewell funerals for Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, or Merrill Lynch. In other words, no real crisis.\n\nHow can we be so sure that the regulatory measures abetted bankers' ferociously enthusiastic embarking on the leverage express, which eventual derailment sank the world? Among other things, because the numbers dictate so. The proof, if you want, is in the pudding. As of August 31, 2007, for instance, the $400 billion\u2013strong asset side of Bear Stearns balance sheet contained $141 billion in financial instruments, $56 billion of which were mortgage-related. All those billions were supported by just $13 billion in equity. That means that at the outset of the crisis, Bear was leveraged more than 30 times over (the ratio for November 2006 was pretty similar). Or consider Lehman Brothers. As of May 31, 2007, $21 billion supported $605 billion in assets, half of which were of the financial instruments variety ($80 billion mortgage-related). Similarly, on September 31, 2007, Merrill Lynch's balance sheet showed $1 trillion in assets ($260 billion trading assets, $56 billion mortgage-related, $22 billion subprime residential-related) on top of just $38 billion of equity. That's three for three so far when it comes to Wall Street powerhouses leveraged 30 times, with trading positions outnumbering equity by around 10 to 1, and with mortgage positions (including very nasty stuff) by themselves way above the entire equity capital base. If losses exceeded just 3 percent of assets value, the entire equity cushion would be gone and the firm would collapse; given how many of those assets were suspect and how low the value of suspect assets can go in a short period of time, it seems clear that those Wall Street giants were sitting on dynamite.1\n\nBut wait, there's more. Swiss giant UBS was on September 28, 2007, the proud owner of assets worth $2.2 trillion ($39 billion in U.S. subprime residential-related garbage, $20 billion of which were mega-toxic CDO tranches), backed by $42 billion of equity. That's right, the Helvetian entity had not only been allowed to gear itself 50 times over, but, apparently not content with such feat alone, had decided to make bets for an amount equal to its whole equity base on the likelihood that a bunch of poorly employed, income-challenged, assets-deprived faraway Americans would repay their (mostly ill-gotten) unaffordably inflated home loans.\n\nEven the most notorious white-shoe legends incurred in geared action. As of November 2007, Goldman Sachs' $42 billion equity base shouldered $452 billion of trading assets ($1.1 trillion total assets). Coincidentally in time, Morgan Stanley's $31 billion equity capital resourcefulness carried the burden of $375 billion in financial instruments ($1 trillion total).\n\nIt is abundantly clear that banks had become amply leveraged, overall. But it gets worse. Those figures don't reflect the vast gearing that was allowed specifically for trading games. The prior analysis reflects banks' equity levels as a whole. Capital charges for market risk-specific were far smaller preceding the crisis, making the leverage experienced on trading activities alone sordidly unbounded, way beyond the already highly geared ratios implied by the all-encompassing (trading assets plus all other kinds of assets) above data. That is, the leverage enjoyed by investment banks on their trading activities (usually their riskiest activities by far) was immensely larger than those overall, by themselves headline-grabbing 30-to-1 ratios.\n\nThe Bank for International Settlements (BIS; the Switzerland-based central bank for international central bankers) studied the trading-specific capitalization prowess of a group of banks for 2007 and found that although trading assets accounted for between 27 percent and 57 percent of total assets, trading risk capital only constituted between 4 percent and 11 percent of total capital requirements (and yes, the bank with 57 percent of its possessions into trading was the one boasting the gargantuan 4 percent trading\/total capital ratio). In other words, capital requirements against trading books (precisely where asset growth was taking place, and where the toxic waste was mostly being laid) were extremely light compared to those for (in principle, more solid) banking books. In further words, required trading book capital was obscenely insignificant, morbidly inadequate. And (hold on to your seats), the BIS found that market risk capital requirements as a percentage of total trading assets were in the range of between 0.1 percent and 1.1 percent (only one of the banks had posted capital in excess of 1 percent of all its trading positions).2 Yes, that would be between 1,000-times leverage and 100-times leverage. If assets go down by just 1 percent or even by just 0.1 percent the capital allocated to those trading positions would be wiped out. Pretty leveraged, if you ask me. Especially when a lot of those trading assets are junk, as (thanks to yet more permissive regulation) banks had been parking billions and billions of dollars in subprime CDOs and related securities inside their VaR-ruled trading books (as opposed to inside their banking books, where as credit-related illiquid positions they truly belonged; capital requirements for trading books have traditionally been assumed to be lower than for banking books).\n\nBy crowning VaR as the capital-charge king, financial policy makers pretty much assured banks that they could, very economically and basically worry-free, fool around with even the most adventurous of financial fare. That VaR can produce tiny capital charges, and thus encourages and affords risk-taking beyond common sense, is borne out by the numbers exposed above. VaR demanded only $1 or even just $0.1 for every $100 in trading assets that a bank would want to accumulate; it is clear that the model can make it extremely easy for massive risks to be taken on in an incredibly unprotected manner. VaR allowed banks to expose themselves to being blown up if their positions went down by less than 1 percent. That is, VaR made it essentially certain that those banks would blow up. Prevalent regulatory rules for trading-related capital requirements resulted in massive speculative gearing up to the 2007\u20132008 massacre. VaR was the prevalent regulatory rule. VaR, thus, resulted in massive speculative gearing.\n\nAnd as was just said, the resultant leverage ratios on illiquid complex assets alone may be deemed intolerably reckless. As famed fund manager David Einhorn put it,3 if Bear Stearns' only business was to have $29 billion of illiquid, hard-to-mark assets, supported by its entire $10.5 billion of tangible equity that by itself would be an aggressive, very risky strategy; were the high-risk positions to sink they could well lose half their value (or even all of it: toxic financial stuff has been known to be worth zero on occasions), wiping out the bank's capital. But on top of all that, that sliver of equity also had to support an extra $366 billion of other assets, making it essentially improbable that the firm could survive even the slightest of setbacks. That is, a tool that allows you to accumulate illiquid exotic assets three times over your entire equity capital resources would be dangerous already; one that lets you add 12 times that in other financial stuff is lethally permissive. A ticking time bomb, patiently waiting to detonate a casualties-infested bloodbath.\n\nAs 2006 ended and 2007 approached, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers had one-day 95 percent VaR of $50 million, while Bear Stearns disclosed a 95 percent VaR of $30 million. Regulatory capital requirements were roughly defined as 10-day 99 percent VaR multiplied by a factor of three, which (again roughly) would imply multiplying one-day VaR by 9. That would be the amount of capital that would have to be committed by the banks. Let's say, roughly, $470 million in the cases of Merrill and Lehman, $280 million in the case of Bear Stearns. Merrill at the time owned $203 billion of on-balance-sheet trading assets, Lehman $226 billion, and Bear $125 billion. $1 billion equals $1,000 million. This would yield market risk capital requirements equal to 0.23 percent, 0.21 percent, and 0.22 percent of total trading assets respectively. Am I the only one who would categorize such cushions as insufferably small? Certainly, my off-the-cuff calculations are bound to be less than exact, but it is interesting to note that even if we doubled the nominal size of those capital requirements the trading-specific leverage ratio would be remarkably in line with the results outlined in the BIS study highlighted earlier. Even if we doubled them again, none of the three institutions would have presented, barely six months before the unleashing of the mayhem, market-specific capital charges of at least 1 percent of (on-balance-sheet) trading positions. I think this is again more than enough to allow us to say that VaR wildly erred on the side of excessive gearing.\n\nWe can do similar calculations for other banks. Take UBS, for instance. In June 2007, the venerable European institution was the proud owner of CHF950 billion in on-balance sheet trading assets, backed by a 10-day 99 percent VaR of CHF455 million.4 Let's then do the math once more: This yields a capital requirement of (again, roughly) CHF1.365 billion, or 0.14 percent of total trading assets. Want to double that number, just to be on the safe side and correct for any unacceptably erroneous calculating on my part? Okay, let's say 0.28 percent of total trading assets. That would still be an awful lot of leverage, wouldn't it? Especially when UBS at the time had accumulated truly vast amounts of subprime junk in its trading book. Just like at many of UBS's peers, VaR was allowing unheard-of-before gearing on portfolios containing unheard-of-before amounts of financial trash.\n\nOr take Citigroup. Its December 31, 2006, one-day VaR was $98 million, measured over trading assets worth $394 billion. Thus the corresponding rough capital charge of $882 million would amount to only 0.22 percent of trading positions. Clearly, trading books all around had been allowed to gear themselves up enormously. Thanks to VaR's permissiveness, the area where banks kept the riskiest and wildest stuff had been allowed to operate essentially with no capital. VaR's insultingly low estimations permitted banks to play the trading game almost for free, precisely at the time when such entertainment was becoming both more voluminous and dangerous than ever before.\n\nWould a thinking person have considered 100-to-1, 500-to-1, or 1,000-to-1 leverage on trading portfolios loaded up with nasty subprime securities prudent? Of course not. It would not have been allowed.\n\nGiven how dominant the trading division had become inside banks, an extremely leveraged trading book naturally translates into an overall extremely leveraged banking industry, translating into an extremely fragile financial, economic, and social system. Now we better understand why the banks had large total leverage ratios. VaR was simply too little relative to trading assets, leading to very humble VaR-total assets ratios. For instance, the 2007 year-end levels of that ratio for JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs were, respectively, 0.006 percent, 0.007 percent, and 0.012 percent. The 2008 year-end levels, with VaR figures that had gone considerably up due to the setbacks and turbulence caused by the financial meltdown, the ratios were still just between 0.015 percent and 0.016 percent for JP and Citi and 0.028 percent for Goldman. While the trading component of a bank's overall activities was increasingly sizeable, trading added little to the overall capital pot. By year-end 2007, the contribution of regulatory VaR to total equity capital was 0.75 percent at JP Morgan, 1.30 percent at Citigroup, and 2.93 percent at Goldman.5 The corresponding figures for UBS and Merrill Lynch as of late September 2007 were 3.66 percent and 2.02 percent. Not too high, right? Particularly, again, given how much smelly mortgage-related stuff these and other firms held as market assets (on December 31, 2007, Citigroup held $40 billion in gross subprime CDO tranches, which it kept in its trading book; one year later the exposure was still sizeable at $19 billion. UBS and Merrill Lynch held similar amounts). It seems obvious that the contribution of the trading book to the overall equity base was negligible, completely out of tune with how big and how daring those trading activities were. Something funny was definitely going on inside those trading books, something that was very unrealistically saying that the stuff inside them was nothing to be worried about and therefore nothing that warranted even a mildly decent capital cushion against. Balance sheets across Wall Street and the City of London had a lot of toxic waste because VaR made it very cheap to have toxic waste.\n\nOnce you have let the toxic leverage dynamite in, you are doomed. You've irremediably poisoned yourself. Once that junk inevitably takes a dive, you are a goner, fast. If you have financed a lot of trading bets with a lot of very short-term debt and very little equity as soon as your bets turn a bit sour no one believes you can save yourself and your very short-term financing lines are rashly cut off, instantly preventing you from surviving as a going concern. And that is precisely why VaR can be so destructive as a capital-charge setter. A VaR-less system would have essentially forbidden the billionaire trading orgy, as much more capital would have been required to back up such unbounded speculating, especially in the case of the smelliest assets. Once those billions found a home inside Wall Street's institutions, the game was up. The tiny capital cushions could not even begin to cope with the precipitous fall in value of those punts. VaR opened the gates to the destructive stuff. It let it in. That's what sealed our fate, and the pre-VaR universe would not have allowed it.\n\nInstitutions with the power to ignite global tremors (the kind that result in bankrupt companies and lost jobs all over the world) played for several years a game of Russian roulette, with the gun loaded with not just one but several bullets, manufactured in the famously lethal subprime mortgage factory. VaR allowed them to rabidly imitate Christopher Walken's suicidal character in The Deer Hunter, by making sure that the gun and the ammo would be affordably economical. The fate of the globe was left in the hands of a clique of traders that were given unfettered permission to gamble our well-being on the (implausible) chance that the CDO gun would not fire. VaR made that happen, by persistently denying that the gun contained any bullets. Akin to Robert DeNiro telling his pal Walken to go ahead and keep pulling the trigger in that last movie scene at the shady Asian parlor; go ahead, shoot, there's no risk.\n\nEven without hard cold numerical evidence, we could have easily guessed that VaR would have a weakness toward tiny capital figures and risk estimates. Besides the empirical evidence, we would have conceptual backing. VaR's structural foundations dictate that the concoction would tend to disappoint those with a predisposition for conservative risk management. It is very likely that VaR, by design, will tend to underestimate true risk.\n\nFirst, and for the umpteenth time, VaR heavily borrows from historical data. This is particularly true in the case of possibly the two most popular methods for calculating VaR, so-called Historical Simulation and Covariance. Historical Simulation, which became the favorite of banks leading up to the crisis, literally simulates how a current portfolio would have behaved during a preselected past period and builds estimation of future losses based on those results. As simple as that. It's interesting to note that while VaR was promoted and embraced by bankers and regulators largely due to its perceived sophistication and high-tech engineering, in the end, the number was calculated with the simplest, most rudimentary of methods: Take a look at a database of past market prices and manually select the worst loss that took place; not a lot of high-tech sophistication there. Covariance was the original methodology and is much more mathematically and computationally intensive, and also resorts to past market data for the purposes of estimating the future volatilities of and correlations between the portfolio's components. If during the selected sample market volatility was tame and the presence of extreme negative events was limited or nonexistent, then the risk estimates and the amount of required capital churned out from the model will be in accordance with such an apparently placid environment, that is, a pretty lenient number. If the past was calm, VaR will be tiny. Of course, the opposite holds true: sometimes VaR may be quite large rather than quite low; in fact sometimes VaR may be overestimating real risk, for instance if the market for certain otherwise sound securities just experienced nastiness; so the true problem with VaR is not that it will perennially underestimate risks but rather that it is very easy for VaR to underestimate risks, in particular those of the intrinsically most risky assets; VaR will not always understate upcoming danger, but as long as VaR is around there's a big chance that upcoming danger will be understated.\n\nIn finance, the past behavior of an asset and the true riskiness of that asset need not be perfectly correlated. Just because an asset behaved well during a certain past period doesn't mean it will always behave well. Many times, an apparently well-behaving asset suddenly becomes much naughtier and losses ensue \"unexpectedly.\" In fact, and as anticipated earlier in the book, it could be said that, conditional on existing, highly risky assets will only present a rosy past. Given the nature of those plays, they just don't tumble a bit in value if a market correction takes place. Rather, they sink all the way to zero and are never traded again. So those daring assets are either worth a lot (as a bubble in them is created and sustained) or nothing (as the bubble inevitably blows up). VaR would analyze those positions and proclaim that everything is fine, based on the rosy performance. But in reality, the trades couldn't be more dangerous. A clear example of how the model can hide true risk. In abiding by historical financial evidence, VaR follows a mischievous and untrustworthy guide. Blinded by what happened yesterday, VaR can be very deceitful about real risk. In markets, the rearview mirror often lies about what lays ahead.\n\nEven if the past did contain tumultuousness, who is to say that such agitation would be a good predictor of future, yet-to-be-seen, perhaps doubly (or more) agitated developments? Financial markets are simply dominated by monstrous rare events for which there tends to be little historical precedent, so chances are that when such freakish events present themselves capital levies calculated by looking at the past would be rendered exceedingly inadequate.\n\nIn the run-up to summer 2007, markets had been trotting along calmly (recall, for instance, the notorious, widely reported, death of volatility in years prior? Or the never-ending mentions to the \"great moderation\"?), making sure that VaR would be very small. VaR was saying, \"There's no risk!,\" all the while letting banks accumulate as much risk as possible. When VaR declares the nonexistence of future risk the opposite may well be true, courtesy of VaR's very declaration. VaR would not only be lying (by denying the existence of present danger) but would itself have created the lie (by encouraging the trades that guarantee that the future will not be as tame as the past). A low VaR can help fuel a trading bubble through the complacency, false sense of security, and humble capital requirements that such modest number enables; by denying the existence of risk, the glorified risk radar can create risk out of thin air, making VaR a tool that can transform tranquility into chaos.\n\nSecondly, the probabilistic foundations on which the tool typically rests don't assign large odds to the extreme materializing out there (while the Covariance method does assume Normality, the Historical Simulation method doesn't make any initial assumption as to the portfolio's probability distribution; rather, it lets the market reveal its \"true\" distribution through its past behavior). By endowing VaR with Normality, the tool's engineers condemned it to being unrealistically small. Financial markets are simply not Normal, and extreme moves and big losses take place quite a lot and quite severely. The Normality straightjacket introduces two highly suspect statistical parameters into the calculation: standard deviation (or \"sigma\") and correlation. Sigma is supposed to measure turbulence in a given asset, and correlation is supposed to measure co-movement between different assets. But these variables are in themselves calculated by looking at the rearview mirror, and so will only reflect upcoming chaos and joint dependencies accurately if those statistical siblings display the same behavior going forward as they did before. However, time after time, the markets behave in a rebellious nonstationary fashion: what was volatile (timid) yesterday can well be timid (volatile) tomorrow, what moved together (disparately) yesterday can well move disparately (together) tomorrow. This is, by the way, what took place before the credit crisis. The statistical guidance on which VaR is built was again proven to be less than worthy, precisely at the time when such steering was most urgently needed.\n\nNaturally, it doesn't take a genius to understand that a tool based on \"the past is prologue\" and \"Normality rules\" can't deserve to be considered inalterably trustworthy. Many may have been fully aware of VaR's deficient foundations but chose to keep their doubts to themselves as they had more to gain from the preservation of VaR as a relevant tool. Bankers have been basically allowed to calculate their VaR in any way they wanted, using as much past data as they see fit, employing the mathematical trickeries of their choice, and even choosing which financial assets should be included in the calculation. Essentially, a bank's VaR will be whatever that bank wants it to be. And the temptation to have a VaR as low as possible can be difficult to fight: For many financiers, more leverage and more risk-taking can be the path to untold quick riches. So what do you do? You can search for the most favorable historical time period: If the past two years contain too much volatility you may want to also borrow from the three years prior, which happened to be quite sunny and tranquil, so as to compensate and obtain an overall sample that will paint the desired not-too-turbulent picture that can yield a not-too-abundant VaR. Or you can search for the most desirable combination of assets that happen to display the right type of historical correlation (i.e., no or negative co-movements) that, through the diversification effects allowed by the model, can deliver a tamed VaR. Definitely another strong argument for concluding that VaR will tend to be too low. And bank leverage and risk-taking, thus, a tad too overextended.\n\nTo illustrate the reductions in overall VaR (and thus in risk estimates and capital charges) that the use of correlation can yield, take a look at the table below, which indicates asset-specific and firmwide VaR levels for Merrill Lynch at several dates.\n\nAs can be seen, overall VaR can be reduced by almost 50 percent as a result of including in the calculation estimated co-movements among asset families (what Merrill called \"diversification benefits\"). Where do those diversification figures come from? Historical evidence. Here is Merrill's literal justification for enjoying a sharply reduced final VaR: \"The aggregate VaR for our trading portfolios is less than the sum of the VaRs for individual risk categories because movements in different risk categories occur at different times and, historically, extreme movements have not occurred in all risk categories simultaneously.\"6 But what if the future betrays the (selective) past and asset families that were not supposed to move together begin to naughtily move together? What if assets that were not supposed to move againts Merrill at the same time begin to move against Merrill at the same time? Then the correlation argument would have turned out to be a hoax, a conduit to hiding true risk, and to produce undercapitalized banks incapable of coping with real danger when it materializes.\n\nIf you think about it, the entire notion of basing bank regulation and risk management practices on the arbitrary personal selection of a bunch of historical data is childish, and prone to generate dangerously silly results in areas that are anything but child-play. To base outcomes as critical as bank capital and bank risk-taking on whether, say, two or six years of data are selected is astonishingly short-sighted. Keep in mind that you could achieve VaR numbers that are completely different based on the chosen sample: The two-year VaR may be twice or half as big as the six-year VaR, thus giving rise to twice or half as big leverage and risk taking. But nothing about the bank or its trading portfolio or the markets or the economic environment has changed one bit. Just because someone arbitrarily decides to calculate VaR with two years or with six years of data doesn't mean that more or less leverage or more or less risk should be automatically welcomed. Whether X amount of leverage and X amount of risk are acceptable or not should depend on more robust fundamental analysis, not on the arbitrary technicalities of a statistical analysis. Let's illustrate with an example.\n\nImagine that you are using the Historical Simulation method. If you select the past six years, the 99th percentile loss was $50 million, but if you select just the past two years the 99th percentile loss was $1 million. So what do you do if you want much lower capital requirements? You select two years and churn out the much lower VaR. Just like that, by simply making the internal voluntary decision of using two years of data, a bank is allowed to be immensely more (50 times more) leveraged on its trading portfolio. Just like that, trading desks are allowed to accumulate lots more positions. As a result of those capricious decisions, the system becomes much more leveraged and exposed, thus much more prone to accidents. Nothing else has taken place that would justify such increase in danger. All that has occurred is that a few risk managers inside a handful of big institutions have selected more or less cells in their historical price data Excel spreadsheets. Is that an adult and responsible way to determine factors as influential as bank capital and bank risk? Why not leave it all to coin-tossing? \"How much leverage should the banking industry enjoy? How much risk should banks take on? Uh, let me see. . . . Heads we use two years of data to get VaR; tails we use six years of data. Flip it up!\" Call me crazy, but I suspect there must be sounder approaches to dealing with issues that affect the lives of millions around the globe.\n\nI personally learned of the flakiness of making financial estimations based on past data more than a decade ago, when I was trying to build a VaR system for a corporate treasury department. All the quantitative technicalities, all the advanced statistical indoctrination stopped to matter about one minute after I opened the spreadsheet containing all the historical price series. A decidedly much more plebeian, much less scientific issue took center stage: How much data, exactly, should I use to get the volatility, the correlations, the loss percentiles? Two years? Five? Ten? The myriad of technical documents and books piled on my desk and of quantitative risk management lectures attended ceased to matter one iota. High-minded considerations of probability distributions and econometric models were suddenly swept aside. At the end of the day, and when confronted with the inescapably practical decision of how to actually arrive at a VaR number, the only thing that truly mattered was how far down I should drag my computer mouse so that the Excel column housing the past data used for the calculation would contain more or fewer cells. Should I drag it down a lot or stop midway? Whether I went one way or another, I began to notice, my results could be excruciatingly different: Based on how I operated my mouse, my company's interest rate risk could be $100 million or $35 million or $234 million. This made no sense to me. After all, my company's exposure to interest rates should be a fixed quantity (whatever that was), not a roller coaster that goes up by 100 percent or down by 50 percent based simply on my capricious dragging of the cell selection. How can my company's perceived risk, and thus the perceived appropriateness of its policies, ultimately depend entirely on how many Excel cells I arbitrarily feel like selecting? I began to wonder how the big boys were dealing with this. I realized that far from laughing at such flakiness, they seemed to take the data selection thing quite seriously. I found that different banks used different rules: One went for two years of data, another for five years, and so on. I was perplexed. Why two years? Why five years? What's the basis for such decisions? I now knew that said selection could yield completely differing risk estimates, so why even attempt to follow such fishy guidance? Historical counsel can be such an unreliable grey area that perhaps it would be much better to not rely on it too much.\n\nWhen presenting my VaR calculations, I was left with no option but to illustrate several possible scenarios, based on several different data selections (I wasn't pretentious enough to assume that I could precisely select a single unalterably superior period with perfect forecasting powers, even if such thing existed at all). My bosses received several, widely different, risk estimates. They, too, grew skeptical of the results. I don't think they fully bought into the \"scientificness\" of modern risk modeling.\n\nIn essence, by basing banks' trading decisions and regulatory capital requirements on past market behavior, the fate of the system was determined by how far down risk managers felt like dragging their computer mouse. How's that for a rigorous, solid structure?\n\nHaving a regulatory capital measure that is calculated by looking at the data rearview mirror can be a uniquely permissive enabler not only of overall leverage, but in particular of toxic leverage. For here is where the cost savings in terms of capital can become incredibly large with respect to a VaR-less, fundamentals-based regulatory system. When it comes to vanilla financial plays, VaR can still likely result in sizably reduced capital charges, but the play may nonetheless still have been put on under the more conservative alternative policy: If you want to accumulate standard assets, the pre-VaR capital requirement (based on rather commonsensical assessments of an asset's intrinsic and fundamental riskiness) would still have been relatively permissible (in fact, some government bonds were assigned a capital charge of 0 percent, a feat that not even the most generously accommodating VaR figure may be able to accomplish). So the punt on, say, bonds issued by an Italian bank would likely still have happened, even if perhaps in less substantial volumes than under a VaR system, as the latter may deliver a number below the 1.6 percent mandatory charge (20 percent risk weight times the 8 percent minimum mandatory capital levy) that was typical for claims on developed countries' banks under the old, so-called Basel I, international bank capital regulatory regime. Even if VaR-based figures would at times have allowed cheaper punting on vanilla assets, the older methods possibly were permissive enough to not entirely deter trading in those assets. Large-scale vanilla speculation by banks did not necessarily have to wait for VaR to show up.\n\nBut the same can't be said about nonstandard punts. Here, the old policies were quite taxing, reflecting among other things the need to make sure that obviously riskier stuff should demand more cushiony capital backing than obviously safer stuff. Anything too exotic was made very expensive capital-wise by the regulators. If you were a bank in the pre-VaR days, it was tough for you to fool around with adventurous fare, forcing you to either limit the size of those nonvanilla bets or to raise tons of additional capital, which may be costly or even well nigh impossible. In this case, the older methods did most possibly act as strict deterrent, preventing the accumulating of too many weird securities.\n\nOnce VaR showed up, things changed drastically. Since VaR has no idea whether an asset is intrinsically daring or not, it does not discriminate between asset families and can't place those families in different risk buckets according to fundamentals. VaR can't say outright that Treasury Bonds should automatically be cheaper than complex mortgage derivatives. VaR doesn't know what a Treasury Bond is. All VaR knows are blips of historical data, thus leveling the field for all types of securities, no matter their obvious intrinsic differences. Given that it is certainly not impossible for toxic securities to have behaved more placidly than sounder ones during a specific period of time, it is certainly possible for VaR to dictate that the former should require less capital commitment; and recall that the most toxic assets may always have low VaRs as long as they are trading. So a system based on past market data rather than fundamental analysis will structurally declare the most risky plays risk-free. If you can find a complex asset that happens to have enjoyed recent calm (and\/or the right correlations with the other assets in your portfolio), VaR will allow you to trade it in a much more leveraged fashion than the preexisting system would. VaR can make the difference between not being able to afford exotic plays at all and being able to afford monstrous amounts of them.\n\nThis is most likely a side effect of VaR that did not go on unacknowledged by at least some of the original VaR-promoters within financial institutions; in fact, that has most likely continued to not go unrecognized through the years. Toxic leverage can be the most desirable kind for many a trader, as few things can lead to greater and faster profits and returns on equity than accumulating higher-yielding positions on borrowed money. The unique comparative advantage of VaR for traders is that it makes that kind of leverage possible; alternative risk methodologies, in sharp contrast, made it utterly impossible. The temptations that VaR makes uniquely possible can in fact be so irresistible that it may seduce bankers into creating bubbles on all kinds of convoluted funny-looking securities: Since toxic leverage can be so easy, why not make sure that the market value of that toxic stuff goes up and up and up and so reap enormous short-term rewards from our hugely geared positions? If VaR lets you accumulate, say, $100 billion in complex securities backed up by just, say, $1 billion in regulatory capital that's a great thing because the market value of said illiquid trades is (in good times, at least) controlled by you and a few other firms, and all you have to do is consensually decide that the stuff is worth 1 percent more for your returns to be a whopping 100 percent. So VaR may end up encouraging the development and pushing of less-than-sound financial products.\n\nIs that a good thing?\n\nIt is critical to note that VaR can (and did) cause trouble via multiple conduits. Inconveniently smallish capital requirements for trading activities are not the only possible deleterious by-product of the model. It can contribute to havoc-wreaking by just playing its originally conceived role, the part that it was intended to act since the very beginning, before policy makers picked it up and adopted it for regulatory purposes. In other words, VaR can hurt us by simply being VaR. You see, VaR was not initially invented as capital-charge setter. That came later, as financial mandarins became irremediably infatuated. VaR was, and of course still is, designed as a measure of market risk, probabilistically speaking. VaR was invented so that bank executives could be told how much money they could lose, say, 99 percent or 95 percent of the time, according to the model's assumptions. That number (e.g., $100 million) tells you the maximum market-related setback that you will experience, say, 99 or 95 days out of 100 (the confidence level can be whatever the user wants; 99 percent and 95 percent levels are the norm, with the former typically delivering a higher VaR figure than the latter). Or, more important, tells you that only on, say, 1 day or 5 days out of a 100 you will lose more than $100 million, without going so far as indicating the size of that isolated negative development (though, as we've seen, the model's engineering dictates that odds are that it won't be exceedingly large). Of course, \"will experience\" and \"will lose\" become truisms only if the model's underlying assumptions hold true out there in real-life finance.\n\nVaR was then invented to measure in monetary terms what can happen to your trading positions, probabilistically speaking. Bank CEOs worried about the enhanced levels of their (increasingly complex, increasingly larger) market exposures apparently found such neatly presented numbers useful, and gave their quantitative analysts carte blanche to play with their VaR toys. And that's how VaR became, some 20 years ago, the worldwide market risk radar de rigueur. Inside Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and the like, trading decisions began to be subjected to what VaR said, and with the rise of VaR came the general rise of financial risk management as both executives and quants fully bought into the assuaging certainties that the model promised. It is no exaggeration to say that the advent of VaR produced revolutionary changes within the financial industry. Nothing would ever be the same.\n\nVaR's impact as imperial risk beacon has not been neutral. By endowing VaR with acceptability, bankers gave VaR the power to affect their own actions, and therefore market activity in general. By judging trades (and traders) based on their VaR figures, by setting trading limits based on VaR, and by describing your exposures to the outer world via the VaR lenses, financiers allowed a stranger to influence their play and, most poignantly, all economic participants (many of whom, naturally, would not be expected to have a clue as to what that VaR thing is and how it works). Such influence can't be counted on to be magnanimous for two main reasons. One, by attempting to measure that (financial markets) which is not amenable to quantification, VaR encourages the development of misplaced confidence and an unfettered faith in complacency-building \"precision.\" Clearly, those would not count as the strongest of foundations for financial decision making. With VaR, you may think that you know something about the future, but all you have is a description of the past (a subjectively selected subset, to boot) mixed in with inappropriate probabilistic assumptions. VaR's presumptuously precise take on future risks is bound to be woefully misleading. In the name of soothing concreteness, financial players (and their stakeholders) would be given a map replete with falsehoods. Second, its natural tendency to be unrealistically low and to hide true danger encourages reckless, even deceitful wild risk-taking, and can cause untold volatility both as the VaR-aided bubble collapses and as a result of forced (and typically en masse) liquidations directly mandated by VaR.\n\nIt is straightforward to understand how VaR can, besides its role as determiner of the capital cushion, encourage excessive risk-taking. If you are a punter, you may love nothing more than being able to collect rich returns (in the short term, at least) while giving the impression of running a robustly riskless operation. You are making good money in an apparently wholesome way. You are a hero inside the dealing room, and you are paid accordingly. Your trading limits are expanded. You make yet more money. You love your life.\n\nHow can VaR help you achieve such state of rapture? Easy. Just scour the financial world for assets that have the following attributes: (1) they are to a greater or lesser extent \"trashy,\" and thus offer a good return; (2) they have enjoyed little volatility and negligible setbacks in the recent past; (3) you can attach some story to them, some feel-good argument for justifying your choice (\"selling pet food online is the new paradigm,\" \"Russia can't default,\" and \"solid as house prices\" are known to have been used at one point or another). It is not exactly impossible to find such golden combinations; plenty of nonstandard markets have enjoyed prolonged days in the sun throughout history. VaR, per attribute #2, will testify in court as to the Fort Knox\u2013like safeness of the punt, and everything else will follow. When the glorified number claims to see no danger, who's to argue with such wisdom? \"Punt, punt, punt!\" would utter your bosses and your risk managers. Keep printing those risk-free profits.\n\nSoon, many of your colleagues, jealously eyeing your fattened bank account, replicate your strategy. So do some of your rivals at enemy firms. Suddenly, VaR has helped you create a bull market in your chosen exotic product. As other traders join the bandwagon, values go up, and complacency gets further enhanced. The prospect of a surprise gets further diminished. VaR goes down, becoming even smaller. Yet more cash is showered on the punt, all across the Street.\n\nNaturally, the fact that VaR says there's no risk does not eliminate real risk from the picture. Financial institutions in effect become concurrently exposed, in huge amounts, to a drop in the value of an asset of suspect fundamental soundness, notwithstanding its placid recent past. A monstrous bubble is created, but VaR is conveniently hiding the potential for trouble. VaR is in effect a risk-management device that can decisively contribute to creating, not controlling, risk. VaR's low numbers can be used as an alibi to initially take on the exposures and can add fuel to the fire progressively as more and more participants are attracted to the apparently-risk-lite high-return party.\n\nThe presence of VaR in finance can lead very influential and sizable players to own exactly the same positions, not only because they would all face the same VaR-stamped encouragement (if a bank can find an asset or group of assets with a placid past and accommodating correlations, so can all the other banks) but also due to the self-feeding effect that a VaR-based trading architecture can give rise to: A low VaR (especially in the case of an exotic play) will generate interest from traders in the asset and will make complacent risk officers and executives okay the trades, driving up the asset's value and thus attracting yet more traders and thus ever-lower quantitative risk estimates. After a few years of such juicy states of affairs, even the most skeptical and reluctant of players has no option but to join the party. Soon everybody is long Thailand bonds, or Mexican index volatility, or U.S. residential mortgages.\n\nGiven how low VaR numbers have become, the slightest of setbacks will result in internal VaR limits being breached across essentially all banks at exactly the same time. When a VaR limit is breached (i.e., when the real losses suffered by a trading desk happen to be higher than the maximum loss limit imposed on it by risk managers), traders are typically asked to cut down positions until their exposures are reduced back below their VaR limit. In a quest to reduce risk, traders are forced to sell some of their portfolio into the market. If many firms do this concurrently, massive volatility and crashing prices may rapidly ensue; if everyone (or almost everyone) is dumping large amounts of the same stuff, liquidity can quickly disappear as prospective buyers either shy away or bid their time waiting for prices to unavoidably tumble yet further. The end result: massive liquidations leading to additional massive liquidations (as VaR gets breached over and over again), causing huge losses and potentially a system-wide breakdown (as after one point not only the more exotic stuff, but all types of assets get sold in a desperate search for liquidity). Market correlations go to one as every asset family is dumped, banks stop trusting each other, average investors lose their shirts (without knowing exactly why), short-term credit is constrained, and politicians may have to come to the rescue.\n\nThis type of phenomena is exactly what took place during the now legendary 1997 and 1998 market crises. When Asian economies ran into trouble and Russia defaulted, respectively, the complacent VaR numbers that had aided the big similar bets were quickly overtaken by the initial increase in volatility, kick-starting a liquidation cascade that led, among other things, to the blowup of mega\u2013hedge fund LTCM and a government-coordinated intervention. For a few days, the viability of the financial system held in the balance.\n\nWith VaR as the preeminent risk management tool, volatile crashes may be easier because banks' trading decisions and policies become homogeneous, coordinated into consensus by the VaR beacon. It's as if all banks shared the same risk department, which counsel they all followed at once. Risk concentration becomes much more feasible this way, and risk concentration within banking circles can be a bad thing for the economy. What hurts one bank will hurt all the rest, in a self-feeding downward spiral. Not only can VaR make everyone own the same stuff at the same time, it can make them dump it at the same time too. And given how ridiculously modest VaR numbers can be, massive risk concentration and massive liquidations both become extremely likely. If VaR was more realistic and less unworldly, neither the concentration nor the liquidations would be so worrisome.\n\nUnfortunately, nothing was learned from the 1997\u20131998 lessons and VaR remained the undisputable risk management paradigm. This allowed the model to have a starring role in the even more monstrous 2007\u20132008 cataclysm, an event that highlighted like nothing else how bad a risk manager VaR is.\n\nMerrill Lynch's one-day VaR on December 29, 2006 was a paltry $52 million ($50 million average daily VaR for the entire 2006), implying mathematically projected one-year losses of around $800 million (with 95 percent probability), not a devastatingly large amount for such a towering firm. In those pre-crisis (crisis-manufacturing, in fact) days Merrill's VaR endowed the firm's trading operations with sublime complacency. Bear Stearns' November 30, 2006, VaR was not only typically modest at $28 million ($440 million annual projection, 95 percent probability), but was actually slightly higher than the one prevailing on February 28, 2007, and exactly the same as May 31, 2007. The complacency inside the firm was kept unchecked literally until seconds before the explosion. Lehman's average daily VaR for the quarter ending on November 30, 2006, was $48 million, which also appears a tad appeasing. All those humble analytical estimates of losses turned out to be exaggeratedly off the mark. Real losses turned out to be excruciatingly larger than what VaR had predicted. The 2007 year-end one-day VaR for JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs was respectively $103 million (99 percent), $163 million (99 percent), and $134 million (95 percent), implying projected annual 2008 trading setbacks of, respectively, $1.62 billion, $2.57 billion, and $2.12 billion. Contrast this with real credit crisis-related write-downs for the three firms for that year of $41 billion, $102 billion, and $8 billion.7 Merrill Lynch's maximum daily VaR for Q3 2007 was $92 million (average $76 million), and yet the firm suffered a trading-inflicted $8.4 billion write-down,8 rather above the $730 million projected annual loss that one would obtain by scaling that $92 million figure three months into the future. VaR proved to be a very unreliable risk estimator, across all banks. VaR's \"predictions\" are bound to be off-base, but what happened during the crisis was flat-out obscene. The analytical misfirings were monumental. Take Swiss giant UBS, a prominent victim of the crash. It reported 50 VaR exceptions for 2008 and 29 for 2007. At the 99 percent confidence level chosen by UBS, there should have only been about 2.5 exceptions (trading days when actual losses exceeded VaR's predictions; 1 percent of roughly 250 trading days per year in this case) per year. Or take local rival Credit Suisse. The Zurich powerhouse experienced 25 and 9 VaR exceptions in 2008 and 2007, respectively; also at 99 percent confidence, this implies above six times more real losses than theoretically forewarned. It seems unnecessary to state that VaR did not properly warn the Helvetians during the unfolding of the bloodbath.\n\nYou didn't need to be based in a neutral country with magnificent ski slopes and exquisite private bankers in order to experience your own dose of VaR disillusionment. Being American, for instance, would also do. Perhaps it shouldn't be exceedingly surprising that Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns witnessed less-than-glorious VaR behavior, particularly in the latter case (around 30 exceptions during its last three quarters as a living independent entity, more than three times the predicted number for the adopted 95 percent confidence level, which allows for only 12 yearly exceptions or 5 percent of 250 annual trading days); but they were not alone by any means, with Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Bank of America (BoA), for example, similarly witnessing the breakdown of the theoretical dogma (BoA 14 violations in 2007 at 99 percent, JP Morgan 8 in 2007 at 99 percent, Morgan Stanley 18 violations in 2008 at 95 percent). And other Europeans can boast plenty of misguiding, too. Mighty Deutsche Bank, for one, was surprised to observe 35 VaR violations in 2008 and 12 the year before, in all around 10 times higher than theory would dictate.\n\nBy pulling together all the institutions listed above, we would roughly have about 120 VaR exceptions for 2007. Those banks' VaRs (using differing degrees of confidence) would have altogether allowed for some 50 exceptions annually. So that would amount to something like two-and-a-half times more real setbacks than theoretically predicted. But because basically all the breaches took place in the second half of the year, we could state that when it came to crisis time, the theory actually underperformed five-to-one (120 real violations versus 25 allowed). And this analysis crucially does not include Merrill Lynch or Citigroup, which don't seem to have reported their own figures for breaches. It is highly feasible that they posted huge exceptions during the fall and winter of 2007, given that they shouldered monstrous losses. Also, don't forget that the real\/theoretical exceptions ratio only conveys the magnitude of VaR's disappointing performance, not its size. Many of those exceptions were brutally large. We are not talking here about real losses overtaking theoretical projections by just a few dollars (in which case, frankly, who would care much?). The reality check was expressed in the millions. For instance, of UBS's 30 breaching days, more than 10 saw setbacks in excess of CHF150 million over VaR. That is, it's not simply that VaR failed; the real drama is that it failed by a lot. And keep in mind that all those scandalously prevalent violations were taking place as VaR (drinking from the enhanced volatility) was itself growing substantially; that is, VaR was unveiled as vastly underestimating even as it was going up! In fact, for those of the above-listed institutions that made it through 2008, the ratio of actual exceptions to allowed-for exceptions was 133\u2013134 (a fourfold theoretical underperformance) even though VaR, on average, was in most cases approximately twice that of 2007.\n\nWhen Merrill Lynch inaugurated its descent into meltdown by posting trading-originating losses in excess of $2 billion in Q3 2007, it was quick to publicly betray the tool that had given it so much for so long, by openly finger pointing:\n\nVaR significantly underestimated the magnitude of actual loss from the unprecedented credit market environment, in particular the extreme dislocation that affected US subprime residential mortgage-related and Asset-Backed-Securities CDO positions. In the past, these AAA ABS CDO securities had never experienced a significant loss of value.9\n\nMerrill's statement is a double-blow to VaR, and serves well to highlight why its presence among us can be so pernicious. First, the befallen Wall Streeter reminded the world, the tool can't be even in the vicinity of predicting turmoil when it truly matters. Second, the tool can itself help create the turmoil in the first place. Keep these words in mind: \"In the past, these AAA ABS CDO securities had never experienced a significant loss of value.\" That is, it was VaR heaven for all those punters wishing to earn good money (temporarily) on the wager that subprime borrowers may be able to meet their mountainous obligations. The rearview mirror swore that those bets (impossibly toxic to anyone with half a brain) could not be expected to sustain heavy losses. Here is Merrill mercifully letting us know how VaR abetted it, and its cousins, into succumbing to multibillion dollar write-downs. The toxic stuff had never seen cloudy days (among other things because it had been invented two minutes ago, a commonsensical individual might opine), so in VaR fantasyland that translates into unfettered permission to ride the CDO roller coaster.\n\nMerrill, of course, learned about VaR's deceitful limitations the hardest way. Even though it had one of the lowest VaR numbers on the Street, it became one of the largest sufferers from the cataclysm. For instance, while Goldman Sachs, with a VaR double in size, went as far as posting record earnings, Merrill saw a net downfall of $8.5 billion in 2007, which contrasts sharply with the theoretical \"prediction\" of just $800 million discussed earlier.\n\nSome may wonder how seriously financial pros really took VaR as guide through the market jungle. Perhaps they voiced to the world that they followed VaR for risk-management purposes, but they didn't entirely abide by the tool when making risk-based decisions, such as trading. Banks may report VaR religiously, but how obediently do they actually listen to it? How intensely do they actually let it influence their decisions? This is admittedly a potentially gray area. Traders are assumed to be restricted by internal VaR limits, so, yes, a low VaR will always tend to help those eager to punt and punt and punt. A low VaR will always assist those eager to take risky bets in the name of risklessness. But it is not incontrovertibly clear how each institution truly lets its internal trading wishes be affected by its VaR numbers. Some may postulate that such grayness may diminish the charge that VaR caused the crisis; perhaps banks would have acted just the same in the absence of low VaR figures, even in the absence of VaR itself.\n\nOf course, we know that not to be the case because there is nothing gray about VaR's prominent role when it came to determining capital requirements for trading activities. Its presence in the formula was indelible. There's not a shred of doubt as to VaR's decisively deterministic role there. Banks' individual preferences and intrinsic ways of doing things don't matter one iota in this case (except when it comes to the actual chosen methodology behind the calculation of VaR, naturally). Whatever your trading preferences, whatever your risk appetite, your final actions would be hostage to the capital price tag dictated by VaR. You will only be able to leverage yourself to the hilt if VaR lets you. You may not have cared much for what VaR says about future danger, but your trading prowess would be ultimately determined by VaR. You may want to trade a lot but only VaR would tell you if you can afford it.\n\nThere's no controversy whatsoever about the requisiteness of low VaRs before banks could afford the leverage that sank the world. In order for VaR to help cause the crisis it wasn't an absolute requirement that bankers listened to VaR (though they did, and many were mightily glad to hear the model condone wild risk-taking). The only true requirement was that the capital price of their trading lottery tickets would be set by VaR. That's the ultimately incontestable, unquestionable conduit through which VaR aided mayhem. What are we saying here? That while banks' use of VaR as an internal risk beacon can indeed have problematic repercussions, VaR's real threat to the world lies in its other main role. Perhaps it wouldn't be unjustifiable if financial entities kept calculating and following their VaR (provided that they don't abide too much by it), as long as the tool is irrevocably abandoned by regulators. Although we may be able to live with VaR as a risk-management instrument, we may not be able to survive with VaR as a bank capital utensil.\n\nSo the truly key questions concerning VaR are: Will policy makers continue to embrace such an inaccurate and potentially deleterious concoction? Why did they fall in love with such a visibly flawed tool in the first place? How was this allowed to happen by the financial police?\n\nOne of the most puzzling developments to take place in finance over the past 15 years or so has been the overenthusiastic embracement of VaR by international regulators. The tool, as we've said, was initially developed by banks themselves, not imposed from above by intruding policy makers. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, financial institutions were starting to run inundating amounts of trading-related exposures in a myriad of different markets and through an intoxicatingly diverse family of products. This put risk measuring at the top of the to-do list inside dealing floors and Wall Street executive suites. The technical resources to embark on the task had also become conveniently available, with fast-delivery computer power and long databases of historical prices now within easy reach. Banks wanted a risk measure that was easy to understand and interpret and that could be equally applied across all asset categories. VaR dutifully obliged, and could be mathematically and computationally tamed with the help of the hundreds of PhD-endowed scientists that had been progressively invading the financial industry for the prior few years. Soon, trading firms began to experiment with their own proprietary creations for internal use. All that was now required for VaR to become prevalent was a little push, an incentivizing propellant that directed banks toward no-holds-barred, even fanatical adoption of the tool.\n\nBureaucrats provided that necessary jolt. In 1993 the Basel Committee10 decided to add market risk to its mandate and put forward a proposal for measuring trading-related capital requirements. While the recommendations may lack force of law, countries implicitly commit to adopting them into their domestic rules book. Confrontingly, though the U.S. SEC initially refused to give up its own cherished method for calculating the capital charges of Wall Street broker-dealers for the one preferred by the Committee, thus guaranteeing that, in the case of the United States, banking (regulated by the Basel-abiding Federal Reserve) and securities requirements would remain, in principle, not harmonically homogeneous (as was the case in the European Union) but rather distinct.\n\nBy the time the Basel market risk proposal was released, tons of financial institutions were already using their own proprietary, and typically quite complex, versions of VaR. Banks liked their beloved tools much more than the methodology initially put forward by the regulators, the so-called standard model, which was a building block approach that assigned fixed predetermined arbitrary capital charges to each different asset class. In essence, Basel was attempting to treat market risk just like it had been treating credit risk, with very little flexibility, no equations, and no allowance for historical data-driven volatility or correlation effects. To the banks such an arrangement seemed inhospitably archaic (and, quite possibly, also too expensive; VaR, by allowing you to select the data sample of your liking and to make friendly mathematical assumptions, can be made to be much less taxing on your capital wallet).\n\nSoon, banks began to lobby to have things changed. The \"science\" of risk measurement would have to rule supreme over more boorish proposals. The first big lobbying salvo came in July 1993, when the influential Group of Thirty (G30; an assemblage of top bankers, academics, and regulators) released a report on derivatives best practices that included as the main recommendation the adoption of VaR as the most appropriate measure of market risk.11 Interestingly, this document may be the first time that the term Value at Risk appeared in print. The G30 backing of VaR put substantial pressure on the Basel Committee to endow VaR with capital powers. It took a little while for the financial mandarins to finally succumb. The definite convincing moment probably came in October 1994, when JP Morgan released unto the open world its RiskMetrics system, symbol-filled documentation and data-inundated software describing and facilitating the calculation of the bank's version of VaR (deeply rooted in the math-heavy, hypothesis-inundated Covariance methodology).\n\nWhy was this a seminal moment? Because it gave a tremendous popularity boost to the model (a public relations firm placed ads and articles in the press, JP Morgan staff went on a multicity promotional tour12) and because it made it much easier for any type of entity to calculate their own VaR. JP Morgan's VaR provided a one-two punch to any reluctance to bring the model into the regulatory fold: It looked intelligently complex and sophisticated, but at the same time it could be very easy to compute. The best risk-measurement techniques that elite Wall Street brainiacs can devise within convenient reach? Who could resist that? VaR became unassailable gospel.\n\nWhether or not JP Morgan's 1994 move was self-interestingly aimed at knocking down any resistance to the global imposition of the VaR regime (maybe the bank was engaging in a selfless act of community service?), that's exactly the effect it had. So as not to disrupt things too much and in order to avoid being perceived as promoting backwardness, the Committee did in January 1996 flexibly accept the use of banks' internal VaR models, subject to its veto, through the famous Market Risk Amendment to the original 1988 Basel Capital Accord (interestingly, the regulators favored the banks twice, with the introduction of a strange thing called Tier 3 capital that banks could use to satisfy market risk requirements; Tier 3 was not really capital, as it was composed not of hard-core equity but of subordinated debt; so the 1996 policy U-turn not only delivered a tool that was almost certain to enable lots of high-risk leverage but also lowered the quality of the capital supporting all that trading, something that would come to bite the banking industry severely some 10 years later). In the words of an expert witness, \"This was a significant step forward. Prior to this, regulatory requirements and internal risk calculations had been diverging at an increasing rate. The 1995 Internal Markets Proposal, for the first time, represented a significant convergence between banking regulation and internal practice.\"13 By the way, that expert, when analyzing the bank capital regulatory arena in VaR-crazed 1998, outrightly recognized that the arrival of VaR on the scene meant substantially lower market risk capital charges. Banks could choose whether to employ the standard model or VaR (an early study showed that VaR could deliver capital savings of as much as 85 percent when compared to the standard model14). Should they, as has tended to be the case ever since, select the latter, the minimum daily market risk capital charge is to be calculated as the maximum of the previous day's VaR or the result of multiplying the average VaR for the past 60 days by a multiplication factor (typically equal to three, maybe higher if VaR behaves badly as an estimator of losses). Banks were free to select any VaR calculating method they wanted and any historical data sample beyond one year.\n\nThis arrangement is the one that essentially prevailed for more than a decade, until the 2007\u20132008 crisis prompted regulators to introduce some add-ons and twists to the formula described above. As we know, even U.S. securities regulators eventually became enchanted when in 2004 the SEC developed an enhanced sense of international solidarity and decided to join the Basel bandwagon by allowing Goldman Sachs and its domestic siblings to compute capital charges according to VaR.\n\nWhat explains the regulatory lovefest with VaR? Anyone who spends a few minutes thinking about it would understand that there is something very fishy about assuming that when it comes to the markets Normality rules, or that the past is prologue. Financial regulators are smart people, typically with tons of years at the job, so how could they miss such no-brainers?\n\nThough it is true that some financial mandarins have now shown some (atonement-seeking?) contrition and some desire to correct for the tool's failures\u2014all the while refusing to do away with it\u2014it all feels like too little too late. No amount of atonement may be able to compensate for the fact that for so long the watchdogs that we trust to take care of our system encouraged, promoted, and endorsed the peddling of airbags that won't inflate if we hit a wall.\n\nThe response of many (nonregulatory) VaR-lovers to the VaR crisis that unleashed the 2007 subprime crisis has been, in general, quite disturbing. Rather than admitting to the utterly visible failures that have produced so much wreckage, they cling to old, tired, empty arguments in a desperate attempt to preserve the tool, at all cost. Although disappointing, said response is welcomed for one key reason: It allows the world to contemplate, now without any shred of doubt, the dogmatism of these people, as well as their allergic relationship with empirical truth. Empirical evidence (all those exceptions, all those stupidly insufficient capital charges, all those huge trading-related losses, all those failed measurements and predictions) is a nuisance, to be radically discarded at the slightest sign of VaR-negating proof. They just don't care if the thing works out there or not. They just want it to remain alive, forever.\n\nThe postcrisis tactic appears to have been to try to confuse with the ultimate goal of erasing from the debate any discussion on the actual performance of VaR and the actual consequences of having VaR around. Many VaR defenders have taken to lecture people on how, whatever the circumstances, you must definitely go on using VaR because it wasn't VaR, it was the mishandling of the poor analytical baby by impudent rogues inside trading floors and policy-making circles! That's it, that's right, VaR doesn't kill people, people kill people; VaR wasn't the problem, it was people who never understood VaR, they were the problem; poor misunderstood VaR was manhandled, it wasn't VaR it was those idiotic people! After years of excitedly calling it the golden new benchmark for risk, the new paradigm that would change the world, the arrival of the Chosen One, many VaRistas have suddenly developed a weird tendency to belittle the model; (it is true that VaR has been disclaimed about in the past by its more ardent peddlers, but those statements were rather mild compared to the post-crisis belittling; in any case, warning about the model's shortcomings should not earn VaR and its fans brownie points: the point should not be to employ flawed models which weaknesses are adequately warned about, rather the point should be to stop using flawed models, no matter how intensely the flaws have been emphasized; a model that has to be disclaimed about all the time should not be used, period). You can't just convert to sincerity and admit that you had been peddling a deleteriously fallible tool that just happened to help cause the worst crisis ever. But at the same time, you badly want to preserve the model, and in the face of bloodshed and unremitting criticism you may have to talk-down VaR a little, so as to keep it around, in a diminished form perhaps, but alive nonetheless. The reputation of your tool may suffer a slide, but you can live with that. What you surely can't live without is VaR. So you do whatever it takes to keep VaR around, and if that includes publicly betraying the thing a bit, that's okay.\n\nOf course, in reality VaR was used exactly as it was intended to be used. As it had always been used. There was no confusion here. There was no mishandling. No misunderstanding. If anything, it could be posited that VaR (and what it can do) had been understood all too well by financial players. VaR was not embraced under false pretenses by confused pros and policy wonks. They knew exactly what VaR is about. VaR failed because that's its nature, not because folks used it inappropriately.\n\nSoon after the credit crisis materialized, a public debate on VaR's strengths and weaknesses broke out. As was mentioned earlier, this had the beneficial side effect of unveiling VaRistas' way of thinking, openly showing how detached from terra firma many of the analytical risk managers can be. As an illustrative sample, consider the following statement by an enthusiastic VaR defender participating in one of those debates:\n\nWe can improve our \"weather forecast\" methods and it would be a real mistake to abandon all the work done and leave again risk management to the common sense of the practitioners.15\n\nIt can be said louder, but not clearer. For such VaR espousers the \"common sense of the practitioners\" is nothing more than a mistake. Something to be avoided at all costs. The opposite of goodness. The enemy.\n\nTo all those financial professionals who have dared toil the markets for centuries (millennia?) unassisted by the holy quantitative scriptures and drawing only on their experience-honed common sense, let me tell you what VaRistas think you are: a big mistake, an unacceptable aberration. How dare you try to act on your own freethinking intuition and on the accumulated practical knowledge of your peers rather than blindly follow the dictates of a failed quant dogma?\n\nAbig problem for those quantitative risk managers and academics (let's call them QuAnts) denying VaR's capacity for destruction and for malfunctioning is that even the regulators have, rather rashly, left them behind. The hopelessly in-denial QuAnts may end up like those WWII Japanese soldiers who were left stranded in the jungles by their retreating, defeated generals; believing the conflict to still be going on, trusting their contribution to still be required, hoping that victory is still within reach. Long after the divine Emperor signed the concession papers aboard that U.S. ship, some of his soldiers were still thinking that they were fighting His war. Now that the regulatory demigods have (to all effects) conceded defeat, will the jungles of finance be filled with disoriented, lost VaR soldiers still flying the flag?\n\nIn essence, regulators have decided to kill VaR without going as far as definitely removing it from the land. What have they done? They have modified the formula for setting trading-related capital charges in such a way as to basically guarantee that going forward requirements will be several times above what VaR alone would have traditionally dictated. In other words, they are recognizing that the prior arrangement (i.e., VaR alone) had delivered unrealistically low charges, especially, naturally, in the buildup to the crisis. They are recognizing, in fact, VaR's crucial role in fueling the leveraged fire that engulfed us all. Through their actions, regulators are saying that VaR was dangerously inappropriate. Guilty.\n\nThey still keep VaR around (perhaps so as to avoid hard questioning on their loving adoption of the tool all those years; brusquely dumping the model may unwelcomingly cause some to wonder why it was ever embraced in the first place). But the new formula clearly shouts that VaR is wrong, and can't be trusted with as relevant a task as setting bank capital charges.\n\nVaR is still in the formula, but its influence has been noticeably diminished. Regulators no longer want VaR to be the sole determiner of market risk regulatory capital, of trading-related leverage. So they've made up something that achieves such goal without having to actually send out invitations to VaR's official burial ceremony.\n\nThe new Basel capital formula, as was mentioned, adds several add-ons to the prior method. The new capital levies required for market punting would be the number that the previous VaR-only methodology would have churned plus the add-ons. One of those add-ons is something called Stressed VaR (sVaR), introduced in 2008 and that is calculated by selecting a historical time series from a particularly, well, stressful past market period; kind of a parallel VaR where the data used for the calculation is the most volatile possible for each asset, thus in principle guaranteeing modest estimations of future losses. VaR + sVaR, thus, should be expected to yield far more conservative capital requirements than just VaR, in line with the regulatory desires to never again err on the side of undercapitalized banks and excessive leverage.\n\nAnother postcrisis add-on to the Basel capital formula is the so-called Incremental Risk Charge (IRC), introduced to better capture some risks not well covered by VaR and which importance was indelibly highlighted by the 2007\u20132008 meltdown. IRC applies only to nonsecuritized positions, and deals with default risk (direct and indirect losses derived from an obligor's default) and credit migration risk (losses due to other credit-related events, such as a rating downgrade). The IRC model estimates expected losses over a one-year horizon and with a 99.9 percent confidence interval. Just like with sVaR (and, naturally, VaR), banks can use any analytical methodology they wish to calculate IRC.\n\nFinally, international regulators have dictated that securitizations (things like mortgage-backed-securities) and re-securitizations (things like CDOs made up of mortgage-backed-securities) should carry the same capital charge whether a bank includes the position in its banking book or its trading book, thus eliminating the possibility of \"regulatory arbitrage\" whereby bankers would shift an asset from one type of book to the other depending on which imposed a cheaper capital requirement at any point in time (precrisis banking book requirements depended on more or less fixed credit ratings, precrisis trading book requirements depended on much more volatile VaR; if market developments rendered the latter lower than the former, a bank could punt in a more leveraged way via the trading book and vice versa).\n\nSome studies have estimated that under the revised, new methodology capital charges could be increased as much as three- or fourfold. It seems obvious that the hastily-put-together fixes were an unmitigated declaration by regulators that they had got it exceedingly wrong for so many years, that their beloved tool can't cope with reality, and that they eagerly want to make amends with a victimized world. Only problem is that we had to be killed by VaR before VaR could be killed.\n\nThose QuAnts desperately hanging on to VaR may not want the world to know about VaR's perilous deficiencies, but their erstwhile allies from the public sector have already taken to the megaphones and let the populace know. One of the globe's most important financial regulators, the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority, stated its view rather unshyly as part of its widely circulated and influential Turner Report in February 2009. When discussing the problem of enhanced banking leverage from 2003 onward under the heading of \"What Went Wrong?\" the FSA declared that, \"It is clear in retrospect that the VaR measures of risk were faulty and that required trading book capital was inadequate.\"16 It continued, \"Mathematical sophistication ended up not containing risk, but providing false assurance that other prima facie indicators of increasing risk (e.g., rapid credit extension and balance sheet growth) could be safely ignored.\" So there you have it: The mandarins (the ones who endowed VaR with unlimited power in the first place) are saying that VaR delivered the leveraged punting and the faulty risk assessments. In other words, the crisis.\n\nWill the QuAnts now show repentance, too? It's unlikely, I fear. If, as VaRistas tend to believe, history is any guide, it's a safe bet that they'll keep skirting the issue, ignoring the empirical evidence, and blaming those using VaR (the traders and the executives that give them shelter inside financial institutions) for not being intelligent enough to truly comprehend how to use the poor misunderstood tool. They'll keep proposing to badmouth the users, never the instrument (and those who manufacture it). Akin to someone saying that nuclear bombs had nothing to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that only those flying the planes should be held responsible; that nuclear bombs don't kill people, only people who drop nuclear bombs kill people; that nuclear bombs were never meant to be nuclear; that if we want a mushroom cloud-free planet we should get rid of all the military pilots, but not get rid of the bombs (and those who manufacture them). Just because some physical person must eventually use the destructive instrument (be it a real or a financial bomb) does not diminish the intrinsically destructive nature of the device; stop using such toys and nuclear winter (real or financial) will be instantly avoided.\n\nTo QuAnts, VaR is never the problem, those who (to the delight of QuAnts) used VaR are. QuAnts are like engineers who build an arsenal, sweet-talk the generals into using it, and then blame the inevitable unpleasant consequences on the men in uniform, while lobbying furiously for the continuing preservation and manufacturing of the bombs, and denying that they were ever supposed to act like bombs.\n\nThere is a key reason why the above analogies may be less than perfect (and not only because, as some may posit, military weaponry may oftentimes serve honorable purposes). With nuclear weapons, there's no deceit. No one is claiming the bombs to do anything but cause destruction. No one describes them as, say, fertilizer from which flowers will blossom. Everyone involved in the nuclear discussion understands that the bombs are made to destroy stuff. The same, of course, can't be said of VaR. We were never told by those promoting VaR that VaR could enable destruction; we were rather told that VaR could save us from destruction. VaR was imposed on us in the name of tranquility, a device that would prevent the shedding of blood in finance. The tool that (rather inevitably) claimed untold casualties was peddled on us as the tool that would deliver us from evil. We were, now we know, misled. As much as if an army general would sell us the benefits of nuclear armory by arguing that before they hit ground the bombs will morph into a sea of peaceful white doves.\n\nWhat would a VaR-less world look like? Well, we may be already living in a VaR-lite universe given how policy makers have semi-abandoned the model, so the query may best be posited as: What should a VaR-less world look like? If VaR does in fact get killed, or terminally marginalized into irrelevant obscurity, what should replace it?\n\nI am of the opinion that simply getting rid of a bad solution is in itself a valid solution, so answering \"No VaR\" to the question sounds optimal to me: First and foremost, let's make sure that we appreciate the benefits of not living under flawed practices (quitting cigarettes is no less healthy because you don't offer to do something alternative to puffing). By just erasing a bad model from financeland, we would make tremendous strides. No-VaR in itself would be a wonderful improvement over VaR.\n\nHaving said that, financial risks would continue to need managing and bank capital would continue to need regulating even in a post-VaR order so it probably doesn't hurt if we make tangible proposals as to how such system should operate. In a nutshell: Going forward let's do less mathematical financial risk analysis, please. Softer sapience based on traders' war scars, experience-honed intuition, historical lessons, and networking with other players will not only typically beat quant sapience when it comes to understanding and deciphering exposures (we humans can't be that bad!), but most crucially should be far more effective in preventing obviously lethal, chaos-igniting practices. Commonsensical, rather than analytical, counsel ought not only identify risks much better, but especially keep toxicity at bay much more resolutely. And, at the end of the day, what's risk management if not the prevention of the worst kind of ills? With VaR as king, it can be quite easy for the system to drown in destructive lethality. With commonsensical steering at the helm, it can be quite difficult (if not well nigh impossible) for such a nightmarish outcome to materialize. Results that would be deemed outright lunacy under the commonsensical lens (say, 1,000-to-1 leverage in a trading portfolio that contains lots of nasty stuff) are accepted and encouraged if churned out from the analytical strainer. Recommendations that would have never been arrived at under the rule of common sense can be easily put forth when analytics reign.\n\nThe gargantuan toxic leverage that VaR did sanction and can sanction was the type of aberration that can result when common sense is dilapidated under the weight of the analytical rock. A commonsensical way of doing things would not allow the crazy, trading that VaR did and can so uniquely allow. Reckless actions by financiers and reckless policies by regulators, forbidden under commonsensical decision making, are permitted by VaR. Commonsense decision making makes terrible market crises much less likely. Models-based decision making makes terrible market crises much more likely.\n\nIt all comes down to how risk-blind VaR can be. VaR doesn't know anything about the true riskiness of an asset, only about soulless data series. Without models, we would have no option but to think about the actual risks of a portfolio. Our conclusions may not always be on the mark, but it would surely beat flying blindfolded. Any risk analysis of subprime CDOs by a flesh-and-bone trader that is at the very least slightly aware of the nature of the underlying mortgages making up the structure runs circles around an analysis based exclusively on how the security happens to have behaved of late. While past data can hide true risk, it's much more difficult for thoughtful introspection to do so. While VaR can take an obviously trashy asset and label it as risk-free, thoughtful introspection won't. By choosing common sense over VaR we at least manage to avoid such idiotic dictates from permeating the economy, and the pronounced bloodshed that would surely follow.\n\nShouldn't that be the main goal of risk management and prudential regulation? First and foremost, make sure that the obviously unacceptable is not possible. Then you deal with the other stuff, but first implacably forbid the dangerously unacceptable from rearing its ugly head. Any risk system that sanctions 1,000-to-1 (even 100-to-1) gearing on banks trading books is unacceptable. Any risk system that allows banks to own more super-toxic assets than their entire equity base is unacceptable. Any risk system that predicts placidity days before giant legendary banks sink into oblivion is unacceptable.\n\nWhile commonsense-grounded Basel I blockaded the unacceptable, its later models-based siblings Basel II and Basel III happily permitted the unacceptable. Under Basel I, financial mandarins chose to use their brains and come up with fundamentals-based risk rankings, making sure that capital requirements rose as the nonstandard character of a particular asset family is enhanced (i.e., government bonds required less capital than claims on banks, which in turn required less capital than municipal bonds and much less capital than underdeveloped-countries debt, and so on). It's well known that those risk buckets were far from perfect, but at the very least it made it hard for illiquid, complex assets to be relatively very cheap capital-wise. Under Basel II and III, regulators put their brains under lock and key and outsourced risk control to the fancy VaR and credit models developed internally by banks. Fundamentals stopped playing any role whatsoever. This made toxic leverage suddenly economical and possible, especially because traders could now effectively calculate their own capital requirements. The old, imperfect risk buckets that discriminated between quality and trashy assets would not have allowed the 2007 crisis to take place. VaR, in contrast, is much less discriminating. By welcoming the unacceptable in, modern risk rules sealed our fates.\n\nSo let's use the latest market crisis and the latest VaR disaster to redefine risk management and risk regulation as the prospective prevention of the unacceptable. It's clear that no risk management-measurement system and no risk policing mechanism will get it right 100 percent of the time: Many exposures will be underestimated or overestimated, regulatory capital will end up being a bit too taxing or a bit too scarce. It will always be an inexact art, full of uncertainty. But we do have the capacity to ex ante identify intrinsically daring securities, and to make them apart from naturally safer alternatives. While no one can guarantee that punting on the latter will perennially be setback-free, it seems clear that global stability is much better served if we discourage the massive accumulation of weird assets that can lose their entire value on a whim. The rule should be never to endow relevance on risk tools and policies that have even the slimmest chance of yielding such results. As simple as that. If there is a possibility that a risk mechanism can deliver toxic leverage, then such mechanism should be banned from the premises, immediately. It is true that, as was said earlier, regulators seem to have learned the key lessons from the latest market debacle (\"VaR can kill,\" \"Metrics-based financial policing can kill,\" \"Toxic leverage can kill\"), but their response has not been exactly the most appropriate one (as long as VaR is kept around in the regulatory capital formula it remains influential; besides, all those postcrisis add-ons to the formula could be quietly removed in the future, perhaps following a prolonged turmoil-free period that seduces policy makers into imposing less restrictive rules on bankers, essentially taking us back to the explosive precrisis VaR-only system). The current regulatory architecture still requires further, more radical tweaking, notwithstanding the reforms undertaken. Even those who are willing and able to learn some of the important lessons still have lessons to learn.\n\nMany experts will tell you that risk management is about risk measurement and loss prevention, but those things are not attainable: We can't map markets probabilistically, and bad news will always be indelible possibilities. There's not much we can do about all this. We shouldn't be judged too harshly for not anticipating all that \"day-to-day\" stuff. But we should be penalized ruthlessly if we fail to do the one thing we can definitely do, and the one thing that truly matters: Make obviously reckless behavior (i.e., that which has consequences that are destined to be catastrophic with almost total, or indeed total, certainty) impossible. Crises may still happen through other conduits, but the by-far potentially more lethal paths (the insane leverage, the insane toxicity) would have been roadblocked.\n\n(Good) bankers and (good) politicians would benefit from this proposed new risk paradigm. As many healthy financial institutions can attest, toxic leverage is not a requirement for a bank to deliver attractive results and generate investor interest; there are plenty of other, much more system-friendly, conduits through which positive (and long-lasting) performance can be obtained. Those bankers disproportionately interested in the survival of their firms and of the financial system should welcome with open arms any risk policy that decisively curbs leverage madness. Similarly, any policy maker bent on safeguarding national stability should be in favor of rules that clamp down on destructive bank behavior, given how the latter tends to give raise to mass unemployment and unsustainable public deficits. The coalition of good bankers and good politicians should push for the banning of the unacceptable, and help make that the central target of risk policing.\n\nThere'll always be a chance that banks and other players suffer some types of setbacks in the cold hard markets; and as long as humans shape the action, those events will be pretty much unpredictable. Risk control shouldn't be judged on its capacity to eliminate or foresee such pretty unavoidable outcomes. Risk control should be about the doable task of making sure that the odds of such setbacks being destructively monstrous are not guaranteed to be 100 percent. In that light, VaR was the worst possible contribution to risk control imaginable. The number that ruled the world should never be given such powers ever again.\n\nNotes\n\n1. Data source: Companies Quarterly and Annual Reports.\n\n2. Lord Turner, The Turner Review, UK Financial Services Authority (March 2009) 20.\n\n3. Based on November 2007 data.\n\n4. UBS, Q3 2007 Report.\n\n5. Parr Schoolman, \"Risk Disclosures and the Credit Crisis,\" Risk Management (September 2009).\n\n6. Merrill Lynch 10-Q, September 28, 2007.\n\n7. Ibid.\n\n8. Christine Harper, \"Death of VaR Evoked,\" Bloomberg (January 28, 2008).\n\n9. Quarterly Report, Q3 2007.\n\n10. The Basel committee is the Switzerland-based compendium of central bankers and policy wonks established 20 years earlier and the goal of which is to make recommendations on minimum, uniform, capital charges for global commercial banks, starting in 1988 (Basel I) with credit risk-related guidelines.\n\n11. G-30 Global Derivatives Study Group\u2014Practices and Principles.\n\n12. Glyn Holton, \"History of Value at Risk,\" (July 25, 2002), www.stat.wharton.upenn.edu\/~steele\/Courses\/434\/434Context\/RiskManagement\/VaRHistlory.pdf\n\n13. Philip Best, Implementing Value at Risk (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998).\n\n14. Ibid.\n\n15. Financial Times Fund Management online debate on VaR.\n\n16. Lord Turner, The Turner Review, UK Financial Services Authority (March 2009).\nChapter 2\n\nOrigins\n\n  * History Lessons\n  * The Unknown Inventors of VaR\n  * Till and His Band of Correlated Brothers\n  * Number Crunching\n  * The Dangerous Charm of Lazy Precision\n\nLet's dwell a little bit more on VaR's nature. In prior pages we touched on some of the essential key points. We got some historical background: We amply know by now that JP Morgan is credited with having invented the thing in the late 1980s, that the model was quite mathematical in its early days, that it was very publicly spread to the rest of the populace in the mid-1990s. We got an idea as to how the risk number is calculated. But let's now act more snoopily and pry more intensely into VaR. Let's find out more about its past. How did the whole thing begin? In so doing, we get a better idea as to how the tool was and is calculated (while reminding ourselves that the particular technicalities are not our main concern in this book; comprehension of the basics is more than enough). Let's, in sum, know more about what VaR is and where it comes from. This will help us not only to better understand the model's insides and thus to appreciate why it can underperform, but will also put a human face to the whole affair. Aren't you intrigued to find out the names and surnames of those who gave birth to the analytical maven? Who first invented the most powerful and influential machine ever to trot the financial landscape, and why? What type of people were they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? One of those pioneers (Aaron Brown, to this day a top risk manager) regales us with an essay-length contribution at the end of the book. But VaR had other fathers, and we will present them here. Some of them have been often profiled and are well known. Others have remained anonymous beyond the small circle of VaR cognoscenti; they will be properly unearthed here, doing justice to their pioneerism. Ready to learn more about the history of the model that has ruled the world for the past 20 years and that may continue to do so for a while longer?\n\nKenneth Garbade is most likely not a household name for most people. And yet for the purposes of this book he is an important figure, for he may have been the first person inside a bank to concoct VaR-type models. The former academic and current Federal Reserve of New York economist spent several years in the 1980s at then derivatives powerhouse Bankers Trust (now a long defunct institution, after the very daring strategies pursued by the famously aggressive firm backfired drastically in the mid-1990s) where he put together several research studies dealing with statistical measures of market risk, bringing on board many of the same tools behind the version of VaR that later became popular. Assets were assumed to be distributed Normally, standard deviation was used to represent risk, and 99 percent confidence intervals were chosen. These reports were meant as components of the marketing efforts to Bankers' clients, and do not seem to have been distributed externally with any particular zest or to have gathered much attention. Bankers Trust (already a pioneer in risk management methods) may have had the chance to be widely known as the true father of VaR, but it may not have been much interested in that. Kenneth Garbade could have been globally famous, but he may not have pursued that type of stardom too eagerly (some years later he assembled in book form a compilation of some of his research pieces; the ones related to VaR were not included).\n\nIf the cowboys at Bankers Trust gave up on VaR glory, the same can't be said about their cross-town rivals at JP Morgan. They grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Not only did the firm enthusiastically embrace the model for internal purposes, it very eagerly shared it with the outside world, engaging in the most notorious and loud VaR marketing campaign ever launched. And that is why everyone has always regarded JP Morgan as the inventor of VaR. It simply made too much noise for someone to conclude otherwise. But if the role of JP Morgan is well understood, what may have been less accurately told is the story of how things enveloped inside the legendary Wall Street giant. Two individuals (Dennis Weatherstone and Till Guldimann, then the firm's chairperson and head of research, respectively) have been traditionally credited with the original manufacturing of VaR inside JP Morgan. Every single source (every single source that I was aware of, which includes all the well-known sources and then some) unfailingly tells the same tale: It was Weatherstone and Guldimann. If you want to praise, or blame, someone for the initial design and push to the model that would come to rule the land, those two individuals would be the main targets. And yet, it seems that the conventional story might be woefully incomplete. There is an unsung hero. The real inventor may have gone externally unnoticed and unrecognized all these years. Someone else inside JP Morgan did at least as much, if not more, to lift VaR off the ground. The true architect of VaR has remained in the shadows.\n\nRaymond May was born in a remote farm in Kenya, as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get. He describes the experience as equivalent to living in Nebraska in 1830: no electricity, no running water, no TV, no radio, no outside influences. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, his father having died when he was six months old. He grew his own chickens and sold rabbit meat, in an early sign of the entrepreneurial spirit that would be fully unleashed in later years. At the age of 17, May ran away from Kenya and joined the British Army, rising to the level of lieutenant. He soon decided that such a life was too constraining, heading to the University of Exeter for a physics degree. A desire for a business career led him to one of the big accounting firms, where he spent four years, and then to the City of London, starting at JP Morgan as an accountant. There, opportunity knocked. Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has stated that success in life is often the overwhelming result of being in the right place at the right time,1 and this dictum seems to fit Raymond May to a tee. Just as Microsoft's Bill Gates' stroke of fortune was to attend in the late 1960s one of the few high schools in the world that at that time provided students with access to computers (thus affording him a unique global competitive advantage among his age group), Raymond May was fortunate to get into banking just as the swaps business was being developed. In due course, swaps would, of course, become the most voluminous members of the derivatives family, in essence one of the biggest markets in the world. But in 1986, when May joined JP Morgan, swaps were still very much nascent and infant, allowing him to get in on the ground floor of a financial revolution. In Gladwellian terminology, this made Raymond May an \"outlier\": someone whose success is explained as much by chance and external opportunity as by talent and hard work. Raymond May invented VaR because Raymond May happened to be hired by a financial firm exactly as the new breed of exotic financial risk products that would eventually dominate the markets was being developed. Had he joined a couple of years earlier, it might have been too soon, swaps and derivatives still too youngish to warrant special attention. Had he joined a couple of years after, it might have been too late, the position already filled. But mid-1986 was about right: swaps were promising enough to matter but also small enough to need people that would lift them off the ground. An unexpected opportunity opened up, and Raymond May took it.\n\nHe became JP Morgan's internal accountant for swaps and other derivatives. As he tells it, the business was run by half a dozen dealers who cared \"only about the deal, not about the shop.\" May's job was to care about the shop. He approached JP Morgan's technology department and asked for help to support the derivatives area. He was given a $15 million price tag and a two-year timeline. He offered to do it himself for half a million and in six months. May and his small team engineered what may have been the first derivatives technological platform ever built by a bank. As he tells it,\n\nMy first project was to build a Back Office System for swaps. This allowed us to process, make payments and account for swaps. My second project was building a Mark to Market accounting process for swaps. Once this was completed I was asked by the business to move from accounting to the business and develop systems to the front office. The needs were limitless\u2014they had nothing but a calculator. First was a position management and pricing (what we called an unwind model), then came credit and end-of-day profit and loss. We imported a Sun from the US. The principal tool was Lotus.2\n\nThe entrepreneurial spirit honed by a childhood spent selling rabbit meat was now proving all its worth. The Kenyan farmer had become an indispensable member of an elite investment bank.\n\nMuch more was to come. Soon, he was asked to calculate the risk of all those swaps:\n\nIn 1989 Connie Volstad who had started the swap business at JPM was replaced by Michael Eindhoven\u2014Michael had no previous knowledge of swaps\u2014his previous role was as a senior banker. After a while Michael asked me into his office and told me he needed a method to understand the risk being taken\u2014with spread, basis, delta, vega, gamma, and curve, how could he get a handle on what everyone was doing? I left his office and began to think about the problem.3\n\nThat meeting may have been the true genesis of VaR. Raymond May got to work and delivered:\n\nThe first simple model was to create three simple scenarios\u2014a parallel move of the yield curve, a steepening of the yield curve and \"humping\" of the curve (note: the value of an interest rate swap, those by far most popular back then and today still market dominants, varies when the yield curve, a depiction of interest rates across many maturities, moves). This was applied to the positions and a single number calculated\u2014we tagged this Value at Risk. It was a fairly meaningless number but it had value in the relative risk in different books, and we soon saw it as value in setting trading limits.4\n\nThat is, what the inventor of VaR is saying is that the VaR number doesn't say much in itself but can be useful when comparing different positions. The VaR number doesn't say much about the risk of a position, but it may say something about whether that position is riskier than other positions.\n\nIn order to improve things, May needed more resources. If VaR was to grow up, efforts would have to be stepped up. He reminisces:\n\nIn order to do better I needed two things\u2014data and a quant. For data I set up a Lotus spreadsheet and started collecting all the prices, rates, and spreads used in the swap business. I collected this at end of day London. For the quant I called the Research group in New York (read Till Guldimann) and asked if they had a resource they may lend me for the project. I was sent Gustavo Domingo. Gustavo came to London and sat next to me for three months and we developed the VaR model that everyone knows. By this time I had more than three months of good data. I developed the model in a Lotus spreadsheet. At this time it was only a single currency single portfolio model. In the swaps business at JPM at the time we ran a swap portfolio in all the major currencies, and we calculated an individual VaR for each. The option business had yet to really develop. I developed a position spreadsheet for each portfolio which allowed the trader to graph their positions and calculate their end of day profit and loss. I then spent all of 1990 and 1991 trying to get the traders to use my end-of-day spreadsheet!5\n\nWhat was Raymond May's VaR like? Its calculation assumed a Normal probability distribution and employed the Variance-Covariance method, the one also preferred by the Research team and, not surprisingly, the one that was initially most popularized across the industry. The confidence level was set at 95 percent, so that traders should not lose more than that number 19 out of 20 days. The \"Ray May spreadsheet\" was a huge one (\"I always believed it was the largest Lotus spreadsheet ever used\").\n\nTired of seeing how traders and dealers made all the money while he did all the work, Raymond May decided to switch hats. He asked his boss to move to trading, and was duly okayed and sent to New York in January 1992. He used his new home to convert the last holdout in his VaR quest, the U.S. dollar rates book, and to expand the methodology to indices and options positions. In 1994, he became head of New York trading for interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives.\n\nBy the end of 1989, there were two VaR tracks within the bank. One was the original Ray May spreadsheet. The other was the Research Group's, alerted of May's efforts by Gustavo Domingo. \"Gustavo had returned (to New York) and clearly must have told Till, who then took the idea and began to do a lot of research into the topic\u2014none of this was I aware of at the time. I can't remember ever communicating again.\"6 A naughty thought springs to mind: Was VaR internally stolen from Raymond May by Till Guldimann's team? This wouldn't be the first time in the history of financial markets that someone else appropriates a project from the original founder and then goes on to achieve fame and notoriety as the perceived inventor of an eventually highly popular endeavor. Something like that, for instance, took place at Morgan Stanley in the 1980s when it came to \"statistical arbitrage,\" a widespread quantitative trading technique; conventional wisdom held for years that Nunzio Tartaglia had been the indisputable father of the sophisticated and potentially very lucrative strategy, and yet a 2007 book written by an eyewitness openly revealed to the world that the real inventor had in fact been a guy called Gerry Bamberger (whom Tartaglia, apparently better connected inside the firm, ruthlessly elbowed out). So, was Till Guldimann the Nunzio Tartaglia of the VaR saga?\n\nRaymond May doesn't seem to think so. He is not aware of any internal VaR competition, and he only found out about Research's efforts when they released their model to the world in 1994 amid great fanfare. While he admits that the limelight may have been taken away from him, he has praiseful words for what his JP Morgan colleagues were doing. \"They did a lot of work and the final documentation they generated was high quality and I would never have gone to such lengths\u2014I am a practical type\u2014I was about building models not writing research documentation. It needed their work to take it to the next level,\" he says today.7\n\nWhat's more, Ray May's VaR continued to be internally relevant throughout. Even as Research was working on its VaR version, some higher-ups inside the firm still wanted to rely on May's figures. Recounts the unsung VaR hero:\n\nI can't remember when the next step happened\u2014'93 or '94\u2014but by this stage Peter Hancock ran Derivatives at JP Morgan. Peter called me into his office and said he wanted a consolidated single VaR for all currencies and he wanted it by 4:15 pm\u2014the time all the senior managers met to discuss \"risk.\" I would guess this was a lot about one-upmanship. Initially I looked for a technical person to come and help me\u2014but after three weeks of endless meetings I decided to do it myself! All portfolios under Hancock used my spreadsheet. And the last in the timeline was NY which I managed. I embedded a macro in each to export the end of day results to a server. I then developed a master VaR spreadsheet which ran individual and consolidated results. I had this all done inside a week while running the U.S. Dollar business. I had my assistant then run this and distribute the reports for the 4:15 meeting. It almost needed no effort to operate and no one knew it was going on.\n\nHe kept supporting the Lotus spreadsheet even after switching to trading, and the 4:15 report (the one that found its way daily to the firm's chairman) was, according to May, still being fed with his model by the time he departed from JP Morgan in 1997.\n\nWhat does Raymond May today make of VaR's role in the 2007 crisis? Is it fair to blame the model? \"I don't think VaR caused this,\" comes the blunt response. He thinks it unfair that VaR is fingered because, at the end of the day, it didn't matter that much anymore: Risk management, he asserts, had in recent years moved on, relying little on VaR. His conclusions are based on practices at his old employer (which almost uniquely managed to escape the crisis pretty much unscathed, a testament, May says, to the firm's solid risk culture). \"By the mid 2000s at JPM VaR was a much less used risk management tool than stress testing as everyone knew that what really mattered was what was lurking in the wings of the distribution. VaR was still calculated, but I think it's doing a big injustice to the industry to suggest that's how risk was still being run in the 21st century. Maybe other institutions misused it\u2014but I don't think that was the case at JPM.\" This may be so (though in this book we provide evidence that VaR in fact did overwhelmingly guide trading and risk decisions inside many banks in the run-up to the crisis) but it is crucial to keep in mind that the main indictment against the model lies on its role in bank capital regulation, not so much on its role as trading floor risk radar; and, again, there's absolutely no doubt that when it came to determining trading book leverage VaR was the one and only thing that determined the, eventually very sad, outcome. Even if VaR deserved (because, as Ray May argues, the model's counsel may not have been what really mattered for internal decision making) to be acquitted of the charge of providing the bad risk guidance that led banks to accumulate toxic assets, that still would not acquit it from the charge of having enabled the crisis.\n\nAfter departing Wall Street, Raymond May tried to become Wall Street's competitor. He decamped to North Carolina and began to develop a start-up company charged with the mission of designing an alternative electronic trading platform for derivatives. Ray May in essence decided to bring efficiency and transparency into the derivatives business by offering an open alternative dealing route, in the process locking horns with the over-the-counter derivatives industry. Three years and $40 million in raised capital later, Blackbird was ready to go. Soon, obstacles presented themselves. First came the regulators, who were not sure whether they should police the new venture (Was it an organized exchange like those in Chicago? Was it over the counter?). The banks lent their support in the joint aim of keeping regulation at bay. But soon, the same banks turned against Blackbird. They were making too much money trading derivatives in an \"inefficient and opaque\" way to risk the arrival of such a competitor. Blackbird's launch was blocked.\n\nIn later years, he continued on an entrepreneurial quest. He started a headhunting firm. He started an education-services company. What about VaR? Does Ray May ever reminisce about the \"Ray May spreadsheet\"? Does the past ever show up in his mind? Well, the credit crisis did rekindle old memories, and brought the inventor of VaR back face-to-face with his invention, almost two decades after the fateful meeting where Michael Eindhoven asked him to come up with a single risk number for JP Morgan's derivatives business. \"Since 2008 I have joked to friends that I was responsible for the blow up of the world because I never managed the 20th day\u2014and left that to managers on Wall Street\u2014they would take max advantage of that hole! My friends did not take me seriously\u2014they had no idea what I was talking about.\"8\n\nAfter acting unconventionally by introducing the story of VaR through Raymond May's lens, let's now embrace orthodoxy and tell the conventional tale behind VaR's birth. In this tale, Ray May is nowhere to be found. He is not mentioned. He doesn't exist. In this tale, Dennis Weatherstone and Till Guldimann are the only names mentioned. They are the unique inventors, the only pioneers. Upon listening to Ray May's story we doubt that conventional line, but it is nonetheless quite useful to direct our attention toward it, for it helps us understand the role of two people that, indeed, had a very big part in VaR's nurturing and development. Ray May might have been the true original technical architect, but we can't talk about VaR's early life without talking at length about Weatherstone and Guldimann.\n\nLet's begin with the chairman. In recent times it's almost become de rigueur that a bank's CEO would come from a trading floor background. Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns are examples of very big firms that at one point or another in the past decade were (and are) run by people with a financial products past, rather than an advisory or commercial banking one. But when British-born Dennis Weatherstone became chairman of JP Morgan in 1990, his appointment seemed out of the ordinary. He had been a trader, not a traditional banker, throughout his career, rising to head the foreign exchange desk. Given such background, it is not surprising that market risk management was prioritized inside the firm during his mandate. Weatherstone had firsthand knowledge of how critical it was to keep a lid on things in the brave new world of derivatives and financial engineering. JP Morgan, like its competitors in general, was by that time engaged more and more in trading-related activities, and Weatherstone was bent on pushing that trend even further. But such boldness would have to be accompanied by stronger risk controls. When you are doing a lot of swaps and selling a lot of options, simple and naive approaches to risk won't cut it. Innovations in risk management were needed to safely navigate the waters of financial innovation.\n\nWeatherstone, the conventional storyline goes, picked Till Guldimann to lead that effort. Produce something fancier than what we currently have, were the marching orders. Guldimann would have been an obvious choice. As head of research he would have had a predisposition toward big-thought projects and a team of highly trained quanty types at the ready. He also knew the bank well, from the inside, having previously held several senior risk-related roles. A Swiss national with an engineering degree from the prestigious ETH institute in Zurich (where Albert Einstein studied) and an MBA from Harvard Business School, Guldimann found the pre-VaR ways sadly rudimentary. \"How should I know if a trader should get an increase in his limits? All I could do is ask around. Is he a good guy? Does he know what he's doing? It was ridiculous.\"9 Guldimann was itching for something more scientific. He and his team focused (just like Ray May had already been doing for a while) on a Covariance approach to VaR. The model was unveiled at the bank's 1993 client conference, with market risk management at the height of fashion, and many attendees showed lots of interest in the device. In October 1994, Guldimann's team's RiskMetrics VaR methodology was made public to the outer world. Why? Why not keep proprietary techniques and information secret and away from competitors? Why give up on charging fees for the thing? According to Guldimann, JP Morgan decided that sharing its VaR would make everyone better off by reducing risk in the system. \"It popularized a methodology, and it enhanced the reputation of JP Morgan,\"10 came the summation.\n\nRiskMetrics documentation stated three reasons behind the unseemly sharing of knowledge and intelligence: One, JP Morgan was interested in promoting greater transparency of market risk since transparency is the key to risk management; two, JP Morgan aim's was to create a benchmark for market risk measurement since the absence of a common point of reference makes it difficult to compare different approaches to and measures of market risks; and three, JP Morgan intended to provide its clients with sound advice on market risk management, with RiskMetrics being an aid in such pursuit.\n\nThe bank noted that the methodology behind RiskMetrics was similar but not exactly the same as the one it internally used. So RiskMetrics VaR was not exactly the same as JP Morgan's VaR (Ray May's VaR?). And it warned of the model's limitations, \"We remind our readers that no amount of sophisticated analytics will replace experience and professional judgment in managing risks. RiskMetrics is nothing more than a high-quality toolkit for the professional risk manager involved in the financial markets and is not a guarantee of specific results.\" As you can see, VaR was disclaimed about from the very beginning. If even JP Morgan doubted the reliability of the thing, one wonders why just a few months after the public launch of VaR regulators endowed the model with the ultimate power and influence (much greater than that of just a risk radar). If VaR, according to its very parents, was not exactly foolproof for the relatively less relevant tasks of setting trading limits and determining staff compensation, why should it be considered reliable for the much more important role of bank capital regulation?\n\nThe gift of RiskMetrics most certainly made it easier for VaR to spread around. JP Morgan's analytical child was an invitation to calculate VaR, it made it so convenient. Not only was the math thoroughly explained in a thick user manual, but JP Morgan gave away the data, too. Generation of the statistical inputs needed to obtain a Covariance VaR is no picnic, and the daunting effort may have held many institutions back. But now that the estimations of volatilities and correlations derived from reams of historical prices were given away (accessible daily through the Internet), anybody with a computer could calculate their own VaR. A diskette (this was the 1990s!) with spreadsheets showing examples of VaR calculations was included. JP Morgan went as far as providing a list of specialist companies that could calculate your VaR using RiskMetrics, in case you didn't want to do it yourself. VaR was God and Till Guldimann was His Prophet. The world had to be converted and what better way than giving away thousands of RiskMetrics Bibles and helping a crop of VaR priests spread the gospel around.\n\nRiskMetrics was a global sensation from the get-go. By October 1994, everybody and their brother was focused on risk, following a spate of continuous derivatives disasters (the very enthusiastically reported cases of Japan's Showa Shell oil company, Germany's Metallgesellschaft, Chile's Codelco, and Orange County, Procter & Gamble, Gibson Greetings, and others in the United States). The world was thirsty for a remedy, or for something that could be sold as a remedy. JP Morgan was a top firm, VaR looked impressively intelligent, and you had lots of help calculating it. It may have seemed impossible not to be seduced.\n\nOriginally, RiskMetrics technical document was 50 pages in length and the volatility and correlation data covered about 20 markets. By mid-1998 the document had been updated three times and run at almost 300 pages, while the free dataset had expanded to cover foreign exchange, equity, fixed income, and commodities in more than 30 countries. That year, as outside demands for JP Morgan's risk expertise became overwhelming, RiskMetrics was spun off into a different company. It was also successful as a stand-alone entity. By 2001, 1,000 copies of the technical document and 6,000 datasets were still being downloaded each month from its web site. In early 2008, the RiskMetrics Group listed on the New York Stock Exchange, a testament of how far VaR had come. Two years later, it was acquired by MSCI, a leading financial indices and analytics firm founded by Morgan Stanley.\n\nBy then, Dennis Weatherstone and Till Guldimann had long departed JP Morgan. On leaving the firm in 1994, Weatherstone (who had joined JP Morgan as a bookkeeper when he was 16) assisted the Bank of England's supervisory activities and served on several corporate boards. He died in Connecticut in June 2008. The New York Times obituary spoke of him as a \"banking sage\" that helped usher a new era of banking by realizing that the future laid in trading and securities.\n\nGuldimann left JP Morgan in June 1995, departing for Infinity, a financial software company. He was excited about the opportunity to develop new risk gadgets. In his farewell e-mail to his JP Morgan colleagues, he certainly sounded upbeat: \"Their products are terrific, the troops are half my age and twice as smart (thus equal) and they will conquer the world even with me hanging on (jealous?).\"11 At Infinity, Guldimann relished the chance to go beyond derivatives and trading risks to focus on firm-wide risk management covering all positions and asset classes, \"I don't want to sit in long meetings and manage a lot of people any more, I want to focus on advancing the craft of risk management and building new products,\" he explained. \"This is my second life.\"12 He retired in May 2011, having risen to vice chairman of the company. These days, Till Guldimann owns and runs Chateau Hetsakais, a winery in the San Francisco area.\n\nAs we've said, the Variance-Covariance method was originally the most widely used way of getting to the VaR number. RiskMetrics became useful precisely because it produced the analytical information needed to use that method. Variance-Covariance must have impressed people, since it looked impressive: The documentation was inundated with statistical and mathematical symbols and its foundations borrowed from revered classic financial theory principles. If you wanted to peddle the new science of financial risk management, Variance-Covariance was a great tool. Particularly in those early days, when the financial industry was still predominantly dominated by innumerate chums and innumerate practices, VaR looked as unassailably sophisticated and as undoubtedly superior as an alien spacecraft.\n\nHow does Variance-Covariance work? Roughly, you need the following pieces of information: the size of the positions (naturally), the volatility of the assets-risk factors, the selection of a statistical degree of confidence (implying the selection of a probability distribution), and the correlations between the different assets-risk factors making up the portfolio. Mixing all those things together, and with the help of some historical data, you arrive at your VaR number. The techniques have evolved through time, adding extra layers of complexity as more quants joined the risk world and as more academics focused on VaR (for instance, very advanced models were developed to forecast volatility; one of those approaches received a Nobel Prize), but the essence remains unaltered.\n\nLet's start with a very simple case. Imagine a portfolio consisting of one single position on a single asset. The size of the position is $1,000,000. We look at our selected historical data (going back several years) and see that the volatility (standard deviation, sigma) during the period was 0.55 percent. If we multiply $1,000,000 times 0.55 percent (if we multiply the position by its volatility) then we obtain the one-standard deviation VaR, $5,500 in this case. That is how much you could lose tomorrow. With what probability? According to the Normal distribution typically underpinning the Variance-Covariance method, an assumption that in fact allows us to use standard deviation as proxy for volatility, one standard deviation covers 68 percent of the entire \"probability mass\" inside the famous bell curve that describes how probable each particular outcome is under Normality (this bell-shape curve accumulates most of the total probability mass around the center, or the mean value, with events to the left and to the right of that center progressively receiving less and less probability, until they get a negligible portion of probability; the Normal curve, thus, is a curve that assigns a lot of chance to habitual events and very little chance to nonhabitual events, whether to the left or to the right, and thus is very appropriate to model things like human height that are dominated by the absence of outliers). That is, there would be a 16 percent chance of seeing values greater (right-hand side of the bell curve, or positive deviations) than the one-sigma value and a 16 percent chance of seeing values lower (left-hand side of the bell curve, or negative deviations) than the one-sigma value. So a single sigma delivers a two-tailed 68 percent statistical confidence interval: It tells you what can happen inside that 68 percent probability mass, but not what lies outside. Since VaR only concerns itself with losses, we focus only on the left-hand tail. Everything to the right of that area is now \"worth\" 84 percent of probability mass (the bell curve's entire right-hand tail plus its center plus part of the left-hand side). With 84 percent confidence, bad news should not be greater than the one-sigma value. So the one-sigma VaR is the 84 percent confidence VaR. That is the risk measure that we need. Now we can complete our analysis: for that particular $1,000,000 portfolio, one-day losses should not exceed $5,500 with 84 percent probability.13\n\nWhat if we want to fine-tune things and get a higher confidence level? Easy. The Normal distribution playbook conveniently gives us very precise numerical guidance. If you want to go from 84 percent confidence to, say, 95 percent confidence you just multiply sigma by 1.65. (Why? Because 1.65 times the standard deviation happens to cover 90 percent of the bell curve, leaving just 5 percent of probability mass on each tail; we only care about one tail, so it becomes a 95 percent confidence level.) So the 95 percent VaR would be $5,500\u2217 1.65 = $9,075. That's the most you should lose 95 percent of the time. Want to fine-tune even more and jump to a 99 percent confidence? Then multiply sigma by 2.33 (2.33 times the standard deviation covers 98 percent of the bell curve). Our 99 percent VaR becomes $12,815. You should be expected to lose more than that amount only one day out of a hundred. Not surprisingly, as we reduce the probability that the loss would be superior to VaR, VaR becomes greater (it owns a larger share of the entire curve, thus a larger number of possible negative outcomes). As can be glanced, a loss beyond 2.33 sigmas is pretty much assumed not to take place (less than 1 percent chance). The problem, of course, is that in real life markets regularly register moves way beyond that (5 sigmas, 10 sigmas, 20 sigmas). A 5-sigma or 10-sigma VaR is not supposed to happen, but it does happen. If we are calculating our losses or capital with a 2.33-sigma tool and then much more extreme things take place often, then obviously our risk estimates and capital levels will prove very insufficient. If you guide yourself by a 1.65 or 2.33 sigmas radar in a 5- or 10- or 20-sigmas universe, you will be hopelessly lost.\n\nWhat if my portfolio has more than one asset? How do I obtain the portfolio's volatility and thus its VaR? Here is where the math gets interesting. Devices known as matrices make an appearance. A matrix is a combination of rows and columns containing a bunch of different numbers. You can perform arithmetic operations between matrices. Matrices in essence allow you to collect bunches of numbers in big groups and then perform multiplications, or additions, or subtractions between those big chunks. They are a great way of dealing with calculations where a lot of numbers and variables are involved. And the great news is that the result of all that amalgamation of calculations may be a neat single number. You could start with thousands of figures grouped in several chunks and, after much toiling, end up with a single number as the final result.\n\nSo if you have several assets in your portfolio and you want a single portfolio VaR, you don't just calculate the individual positions' VaRs and add them up. Rather, you go with matrices. Why? Because this allows you to take account of the statistical correlation among the assets, a key component of the Variance-Covariance methodology. Correlation is useful because it may allow for diversification benefits and thus yield a lower (perhaps much lower) overall VaR number than if you simply added individual VaRs. The magic of Variance-Covariance for those praying for low VaR estimates lies not only in those unrealistically low sigmas, but also on the blessing of correlation: If assets happened to be uncorrelated or, better, negative correlated in the selected past period, the total VaR will be much lower than otherwise as assets are supposed to not move in tandem or even to match each other off (the chance of them crashing all together, your worst case scenario, would seem greatly diminished). The correlation parameters can make a huge difference. For instance, in a three-asset portfolio example14 total VaR can go from $41,000 to $66,000 if all assets are assumed to be perfectly correlated with each other (i.e., all the numbers in the Covariance matrix are 1), or down to $31,000 if just two of the assets are perfectly negative correlated with each other (i.e., \u22121 numbers in the relevant row-column spaces in the matrix). The premia of negative correlation can be vast. The drawbacks of positive correlation can be painful.\n\nDrinking from Modern Portfolio Theory (the one famously invented in the early 1950s by a man named Harry Markowitz who went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics), two matrices are built. One contains the individual VaRs, at the chosen level of confidence, for each asset-risk factor in the portfolio. The other contains the different correlations between all assets-risk factors (how asset A correlates with asset B, how asset B correlates with asset C, how asset A correlates with asset C, how asset C correlates with asset D, and so on). Obviously, if you have a lot of assets, the Covariance matrix will be enormous. These two matrices are then multiplied, and, voila, you get a single number: VaR.\n\nObviously, the more components (assets, risk factors) the portfolio holds the more sensitive your calculation is to the assumptions behind Variance-Covariance. The greater the chance that the past volatility of some assets-risk factors will not be an accurate depiction of future volatility, and (specially) the greater the chance that the Covariance matrix would be unreliable: Correlation is a knowingly tricky concept in financial markets, with past guidance not exactly fully trustworthy; pretending to precisely map how dozens, let alone hundreds or even thousands, of individual assets are going to co-move together may be closer to voodoo than to real science.\n\nWhile Variance-Covariance was the predominant methodology and to this day is probably the approach most closely associated with VaR (seems hard to think of VaR without thinking of sigma, correlation matrices, and probabilistic hypothesis), in time banks appear to have migrated toward the Historical Simulation alternative. The latter presents a few key advantages: It is model-independent (you do not have to make assumptions about the statistical behavior of the assets), it is conceptually extremely simple so anybody can understand it (the insides of Variance-Covariance can be indigestible for nonquants), it represents actual market behavior, and it copes well with any type of financial product (some derivatives can be hard to deal with via Variance-Covariance). Most of the banks involved in the 2007 crisis were using Historical Simulation, so understanding this method is key to understanding why those banks took on so much leveraged risk. Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse, Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale, and UBS all relied on Historical Simulation for their VaR calculations during the critical period.15\n\nHow does Historical Simulation work? You take a portfolio of assets and using a history of market prices for those assets revalue the portfolio, seeing what kind of performance today's portfolio would have enjoyed during those past data points. That is, you want to see what type of gains or losses your current portfolio would have registered had it been \"alive\" in each and every one of the trading days in your historical sample. Armed with that information, you proceed to generate a distribution of profits and losses from which the VaR at any given confidence level can be obtained. So-called percentiles are created, each containing 1 percent of the portfolio value changes. Instead of making theoretical assumptions about the probability distribution governing markets, you would imply the \"true\" distribution from actual market action. That's the main difference with Variance-Covariance, and from which platform the confidence levels are obtained. If we work with theoretical distributions (such as the Normal) then we have a precise rulebook that tells how to arrive at a given statistical estimation (say, multiply volatility by 2.33 or 1.65). If we instead work with \"real\" distributions then rather than borrow from an analytical guide, we look at actual money results that would have been experienced by the portfolio. We don't need to calculate volatilities or correlations, they are already embedded in and reflected by those past market prices. For example, the 95 percent VaR is the number corresponding to the 95th percentile worst performance that the portfolio would have registered using past prices. Imagine that the worst 95th percentile daily return for the portfolio in the preselected time frame (say, two years of data) would have been, say, \u22122.3 percent equivalent, given the notional size of each of the assets in the portfolio, to, say, \u2212$1,250,000. That is your one-day 95 percent VaR. We didn't need sigma, we didn't need a Covariance matrix, we didn't need the Normality hypothesis. Just a plain simple look back through the market rearview mirror, to see how our portfolio would have fared back then. Of course, we are being very presumptuous and assuming that the road already traveled is a good indication (as good as 95 percent or even 99 percent) as to the road ahead. We are assuming that the probability distribution and statistical properties that held in the chosen sample (that were \"revealed\" by the chosen past) are the true ones and thus can be safely extrapolated into the future. Just like Covariance is way too cocky by pretending to know what is the right distribution, Historical Simulation is way too cheeky by pretending that the market knows what is the right distribution.\n\nHistorical Simulation may have seemed too provincial a method to impress anybody in the early days of VaR. Variance-Covariance (and Monte Carlo Simulation, another complex tool based on computationally randomly generating a lot of possible future outcomes and then applying those to the portfolio to get a estimation as to its possible future values) likely appeared as a much more powerful and impressive presentation card for the model. A better way to convince regulators and investors that the banking industry had finally subjugated the age-old beast of market risk. Sophisticated volatility and correlation mathematical exercises look more reassuringly high-tech than just collecting a bunch of old data and scouring for the least favorable days in the sample. While you may need high-powered science PhDs for the former task, a high-school dropout may be able to perform the latter. So maybe banks embraced the most complex VaR models first and then, once the royal dominance of the tool had been assured thanks to the complexity disguise, switched to more simplistic ways. Notice, poignantly, how JP Morgan itself eventually went Historical. Raymond May, for one, recognizes the PR value that the RiskMetrics Covariance-heavy exercise delivered at the critical beginning:\n\nIn 1994 the Derivatives (Swaps) Business in the US hit a really nasty bump. Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greetings took huge losses from derivative trades executed through Bankers Trust. Congress went into high gear and regulation became a real possibility. Till and JPM came to the rescue\u2014they released VaR and Risk Metrics as a model for how well JPM managed this complex business, and as part of a campaign to persuade Congress that derivatives where not a risk to the system. The rest is history.\n\nWhy did VaR catch on? JP Morgan was obviously enthusiastic from the get-go and VaR had a glorious launch, but the model could have died a quick death. Why didn't it? What made it stick? Well, VaR had several things going for it. First of all, it was a single figure that anybody could understand. The alternative to a firm-wide consolidated VaR was a messy myriad of risk reports pertaining to each product line, to each trading desk, and to each geographical location. Also, VaR was (duh!) numerical: The risk of a giant bank could be looked at in five seconds, rather than the hours and hours that it may take to obtain detailed verbal explanations as to the different market risks that were being run. So VaR was easy and comfortable. It also provided a benchmark for managers to evaluate their underlings: traders and risk managers could now be judged according to the same tool, their actions and compensation linked to the same neutral (i.e., nonpersonal, nonemotional, nonsubjective) parameter. VaR, too, allowed different banks to be compared in a similarly objective manner; to this day, many analysts and reporters would consider Bank A more daring than Bank B if the former's VaR is above the latter's. VaR was also assumed to be smarter than the previous status quo: It drew on actual market signals and rewarded portfolio diversification (in itself, a good way to reduce a bank's risk; something to be deservedly prized). An easy, comfortable, convenient, smart benchmark. No wonder it was a hit inside dealing floors worldwide.\n\nOf course, we are leaving out the cynical reasons for loving VaR. Maybe bankers understood from the beginning how low VaR can be or can be made to be, a great thing if you want to run risks and (once you've sold the model to the regulators) build leverage. VaR also gave banks the ultimate word on their riskiness: If Bank A's VaR is low, any external complaints that it is nonetheless running a very risky operation may be drowned and silenced by the model's sanctified edict. VaR allowed a lot of people to make a living as VaR operators, lending golden respectability and scientific cred to the risk management profession.\n\nBesides all the above rationales (both purist and cynical), there's quite likely another key reason why people fell head over heels: VaR offered a dream. An irresistibly enchanting promise: the promise of precision. And in an effortless fashion. Just pay some people to collect some data, run some computer programs, and every day after markets close your exposures are distilled precisely. No need to laboriously argue about risks, to pore over positions, to get a feel for things, to think about fundamentals. Those actions, you say to yourself, may in any case lead to inconclusiveness, to the vagueness of human opinion. Not to concrete specific dictums. Lost in the sea of information and opinionated takes, you may pray for conclusive unequivocal guidance. Even if you doubt that something like that could ever exist in the markets, the temptation to fool and delude yourself is ample. What's the risk of a portfolio comprised of gold bullion, currency options, and interest rate swaps? You could go the thinking way and slowly analyze the prospects for inflation, economic growth, global trade imbalances, the future path of Libor, and the inexhaustible list of other variables that could affect the value of your holdings. Or you can just press the \"calculate VaR\" key on your computer.\n\nNotes\n\n1. http:\/\/loomlearning.com\/category\/tags\/raymond-may (video interview).\n\n2. Author interview with Ray May.\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Ibid.\n\n5. Ibid.\n\n6. Ibid.\n\n7. Ibid.\n\n8. Ibid.\n\n9. Bethany MacLean and Joe Nocera, All the Devils Are Here (Portfolio Penguin, 2010).\n\n10. Ibid.\n\n11. \"Till Guldimann's Second Life,\" DerivativesStrategy.com, November 1995.\n\n12. Ibid.\n\n13. Philip Best, Implementing Value at Risk (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998).\n\n14. Ibid.\n\n15. Celine Lazaregue-Bazard, \"Exceptions to the Rule,\" Risk Magazine (January 2010).\nChapter 3\n\nThey Tried to Save Us\n\n  * Not Everyone Loved VaR\n  * The Lebanese Seer\n  * The Man from Barbados\n  * The Icelandic Professor\n  * Lost Prophecies\n\nFrom the late 1980s to mid-2007, VaR was generally deeply loved and highly respected. Bankers were proud of their invention (and thankful for the beautiful things it could deliver), quants were enchanted by the technical possibilities it afforded and the legitimacy it showered on their skills, software vendors and risk consultants were in awe as to the commercial opportunities the model provided, financial theoreticians applauded the analytical conquest of finance that the model symbolized, the specialist media enthusiastically devoted pages and pages to its calculation methodology, and regulators couldn't wait to bow at its altar. Famed economist John Maynard Keynes once talked of the difficulties of guessing other people's votes during a beauty contest; rather than focusing on which contest participant you consider to be prettier, the key, Keynes said, was to be able to predict which participant the other judges will consider prettier. Applying this logic to risk management beauties, it seems hard not to conclude that during that two-decade period everyone would have guessed that everyone else's vote would have gone to VaR. The alternative (that someone would renege on VaR) just looked too unthinkable.\n\nAnd yet, the VaR field in those days was not entirely devoid of rebel contrarians, more than willing to accuse the deified model of terrible shortcomings and of containing the seeds of chaos. Perhaps a ragtag bunch of misfits rather than a consolidated and coordinated movement, but still enormously noteworthy and telling. For, if VaR is really so great, why are these (quite high-quality and reputable) individuals so busy proclaiming the opposite message? We should be interested in what those mavericks had to say not so much out of an interest in two-sided debates or a belief in the benefits of diverse views. What should matter most to us is that the heeding of those bravely contrarian arguments could have prevented the 2007\u20132008 financial crisis. If VaR had been severely doubted and second-guessed following the warnings of the rebels, then maybe VaR's role in the markets would have been diminished, perhaps even into oblivion. The insurgents who refused allegiance to the VaR dictatorship first spoke their minds many years before anybody had heard of subprime CDOs. There would have been plenty of time to fix banks' internal risk management practices and bank capital regulation, so that they wouldn't abide by a tool that conveniently facilitates lethality and instead based themselves on commonsensical rules that don't lead to 1,000-to-1 toxic leverage and to proclaiming as riskless the riskiest securities ever conceived.\n\nThe truly sad aspect of the historically destructive 2007\u20132008 mayhem is that it could have been avoided had the world chosen to attentively listen to the heretical VaR dissenters who, out of nothing but concern for the system's health, tried to warn us.\n\nIn 1995, Nassim Taleb made his international intellectual debut. A very successful and veteran option trading professional by then, he had yet to amply share his views with the world. The release of a book called Dynamic Hedging (John Wiley & Sons, 1997) changed that. Widely considered the bible of option trading to this day, the book didn't just overnight make Taleb the indisputable authority in a complex and arcane field, but most crucially provided a platform for the expression and spreading of his views. Just like Dynamic Hedging contained ideas, insights, and language never seen before in such a tome, Taleb quickly showed himself to be a pioneer of unique ideas, insights, and language. Financial people became eager to listen to what this fiercely outspoken battler of conventional wisdom had to share.\n\nOne of Taleb's earliest public appearances was curiously one of the most relevant (for the purposes of this book, the most relevant in fact). In what remains the classic debate on VaR, now long defunct Derivatives Strategy magazine invited Taleb and a pro-VaR nemesis to lock horns on the model's reliability. The Lebanese-American went first, in the December 1996 issue.\n\n\"What do you think of VaR?\" Taleb was asked back in those youthful times.1 His answer set the tone not just for that particular interview but for a truth-spreading campaign that continues to the present day,\n\nVaR has made us replace about 2500 years of market experience with a covariance matrix. We made a tabula rasa of years of market lore that was picked up from trader to trader and crammed everything into a covariance matrix. Why? So a management consultant or an unemployed electrical engineer can understand financial risks. To me, VaR is charlatanism because it tries to estimate something that is not scientifically possible to estimate. It gives people misleading precision that could lead to the build-up of positions. It lulls people to sleep.2\n\nBut surely, Mr. Taleb, VaR must be better than what we had before, right? Wrong.\n\nYou are worse off relying on misleading information than if you had no information at all. If you give a pilot an altimeter that is sometimes defective he will crash the plane. Give him nothing and he will look out the window. Technology is safe only if it's flawless. A lot of people reduce their anxiety when they see numbers. Before VaR we looked at positions and understood them. After VaR all we see is numbers, that depend on strong assumptions. I'd much rather see the details of the positions than some number that is supposed to reflect the risk.3\n\nFor instance, Taleb mentioned how the massive selling of options (a potentially very risky strategy that can send one to the cleaners very suddenly and dramatically should markets fluctuate) that would have been frowned on by the old risk management approaches could after VaR be condoned on account of the model registering no risk (perhaps because of a lack of market volatility, possibly due to the probabilistic assumptions behind the model). Just an example of how financial modeling can lead to the hiding and utter misinterpretation of risks (and keep firmly in mind that the 2007 crisis was essentially the result of a lot of important people massively selling optionality under the VaR-aided disguise of no-risk). Are you, Mr. Taleb, implying that VaR should not be used inside trading floors to measure risks? \"The risks that do not matter perhaps, but not those that truly matter. Moreover traders will find the smallest crack in the models and try to find a way to take the largest position they can while showing the smallest amount of risk.\"\n\nSo what's going to happen as a result of everybody and their cousin adopting VaR in financeland? Since you are so opposed to the model, are you worried about its future side effects? \"VaR players are all dynamic hedgers (i.e. mechanically following certain model-dictated trading instructions) and need to revise their portfolios at different levels. VaR can thus make very uncorrelated markets become very correlated, by forcing people to dump assets at the same time.\" In other words, if we all become VaR robots and VaR clones and automatically base our actions on the model's guidelines, big market shake-ups may ensue as we all liquidate at the same time once our VaR limits are all breached at the same time. Also, if people know that you will have to take certain actions in blind obedience to VaR, they will try to force you to take that action and front-run you so as to milk millions while bankrupting you. A bit less mathematically driven sectarian groupthink and a bit more intuition-driven individualistic decision making would be healthier and more effective as crisis preventer.\n\nSmelling an exclusive attention-grabbing scoop, Derivatives Strategy proceeded to stir the pot by requesting academic Philippe Jorion (a staunch VaRista, then and now) to provide a reply to Taleb's unshy ruminations. Noting that Taleb's stance was \"somewhat unusual given the widespread interest in VaR,\"4 the California-based professor proceeded to peddle the model by noting one of its most often cited advantages, namely how easy it is for anybody to understand its outputs. Anybody can get the meaning of \"You won't lose more than $100 million 99 percent of the time\" or \"You will only lose more than $100 million twice a year.\" Even the most boorish of bank executives can understand what VaR says. This has traditionally been seen as a very potent selling point for the model (okay, we are all for clarity, but clarity is useless or worse if the $100 million 99 percent of the time storyline turns out to be a very false representation of actual risks; if VaR's numbers are structurally wrong I don't care how easy they are to understand).\n\nTrotting along familiar VaR-endorsing paths, Jorion stated that without VaR it is not possible to get an estimate of the overall trading floor risks of a bank, that VaR would have prevented the derivatives disasters of the mid-1990s, that VaR, while admittedly a wobbly measure, is better than nothing and better than relying on \"market lore\"5 (call me crazy, but it seems a bit disrespectful for a cloistered academic to belittle like that the actions of the real men and women shaping market activity through their hands-on activities, to demean the hundreds of thousands of pros who toiled and toil the markets without recourse to VaR as actors of \"nothingness\"; I wonder what pre-VaR market legends and masters of risk would think of the professor). Jorion, who seems to have done quite well for himself out of VaR's popularity and out of his carefully crafted position as the go-to VaR guru (I am told that he was in a real hurry 15 years ago to be the first to publish a book on VaR), concluded his rebuttal with the following words, \"It seems premature to describe VaR as charlatanism. VaR is an essential component of sound risk management systems.\"6 I, for one, wonder how he views things after the VaR reign that he so fanatically advocated for has yielded a monstrous market crisis full of toxic leverage and irrepressibly obscene risk underestimations. How's that for robust?\n\nPerhaps intoxicated by all the back-and-forth, the folks at Derivatives Strategy could not resist asking Nassim Taleb to rebut Philippe Jorion's rebuttal. The first thing the uncloistered trader did was remind people where each of the two protagonists stood: While he was for the suspension of VaR as potentially dangerous malpractice, Jorion was for the preservation of VaR and its supplementing with other methods. Proclaimed Taleb:\n\nI find that the risk managers I hear recommend a \"guarded\" use of VaR on the grounds that it \"generally works\" or \"works on average\" do not share my definition of risk management. The risk management objective function is survival, not profits and losses. According to legend, one trader made $8 million in eight years and lost $80 million in eight minutes. According to the VaRista standards, he would be in general and on average a good risk manager.7\n\nSound familiar? It should. As this is exactly what happened to many banks up to and during the 2007 crisis. They made money consistently for several years and then got spectacularly blown up by the very same positions that had delivered the earlier windfalls (and that according to VaR were trouble-free and gloriously prudently managed). Would you catalog such conduct as commendable risk management?\n\nAfter pointing out that the fact that VaR was embraced by all major financial players does not grant it instant credibility, as banks have been known to consensually make erring decisions before, Taleb delivered the truly gifted insight, the truly memorable line, the truly for-the-ages prediction,\n\nI believe that VaR is the alibi that bankers will give shareholders (and the bailing-out taxpayer) to show documented due diligence, and will express that their blow-up came from truly unforeseeable circumstances and events with low probability not from taking large risks that they didn't understand. I maintain that VaR encourages untrained people to take misdirected risks with shareholders', and ultimately the taxpayers', money.8\n\nIt is almost insultingly prescient. Taleb nailed the 2007 crisis 10 years earlier. I guess it pays to keep an open mind and to refuse to be fooled by quantitative snake oil.\n\nTaleb could have stopped right there and the 1997 debate would have already been sufficiently legendary. But he still had time to offer some extra pearls: the applications of engineering methods to the social sciences in the name of progress has led to economic and social disaster; no self-respecting scientist would ever think anyone would hold on to a falsified theory and VaR was falsified several times (via the prevalence of extreme market events, which likelihood is deemed impossible by the model); traders are trained to seek for truth and look into reality's garbage can, not the elegant idealized world of models; probabilities in the markets are unknownable and nonstationary (volatility and correlation can't be estimated reliably); and we can't learn much from past data (among other things, because traders adjust their behavior following market events).\n\nThe anti-VaR diatribe concluded by equating the model to the Maginot line. The more unpredictable something is, the more harmful it is. Or the most harmful events are unpredictable, as we learn from experience and correct that which caused harm in the past. VaR can't capture the German Army going around the \"impregnable\" fortifications because it had never happened. Thus, the Nazi advance (the crisis, the mega losses) is not prevented. That which was supposed to protect ended up making you vulnerable and led to your destruction. So much like VaR, indeed.\n\nAvinash Persaud is a lucky man: He lives and works in the Caribbean. He is also a smart man: He was an early identifier of VaR's appetite for destruction. The grist of his year 2000 denunciation9 was straight: Market-sensitive risk measures will lead to less stable and more crisis-prone markets. The more popular VaR is the less likely it is to work. Widespread use of VaR can lead to sudden snowballing asset liquidations across a myriad of apparently unrelated markets, as correlations among asset classes increase. Why? If large banks see their VaR limits breached because of some piece of bad news in a particular market segment (say, U.K. technology stocks), they may cut positions not only in that particular segment but also in other holdings so as to bring VaR numbers under control. This dumping can enhance volatility across different market sectors, which begin to move in tandem. Now smaller banks that may not have had significant (if any) exposure to U.K. tech stocks get impacted and see their VaR limits get surpassed, demanding that they engage in their own round of liquidation, possibly involving assets different from the ones the big banks are dumping. Now the number of asset classes and products behaving in a correlated fashion increases, in a self-feeding mechanism (large banks may be prompted into further liquidations in the type of assets that the smaller banks were forced to get rid of). Potentially, all the way to a major crisis.\n\nThis is compounded by what Persaud sees as a tendency among financial players to copycat each other and to build portfolios similar to those of their competitors, for several reasons. Thus, at any one point many firms would have identical positions. If one is forced to liquidate, that means all will have to liquidate. VaR forgot to consider the impact of having it around, giving orders. If one VaR-compliant institution is losing more than its specified limit, chances are that many firms will begin to suffer losses way above those previously indicated by their VaR models. As VaR becomes predominant, the fall of one bank can result in the fall of all banks. VaR may work for a single bank but not in a universe with many banks, particularly if there is herding behavior in position-building. VaR-dictated liquidations will impact market prices and volatility as long as VaR is widely employed and followed. Of course, the real issue is that VaR may force banks to liquidate way too soon, thus giving rise to a systemic catastrophe at the slightest increase in turbulence or losses. Given VaR's capacity for humble risk estimates, banks' limits may be too easily breachable and risk managers too easily scared into forcing a reduction of risk (especially following a complacency-building calm market period that yields very low VaR numbers while sanctioning the accumulation of large positions). So, many times a sharp increase in VaR following sudden market gyrations may not so much indicate a really troublesome situation as much as the fact that prior VaR figures were extremely underestimating true risk. If those figures had been realistically higher, the gyrations may be less impactful and the liquidations less urgent, making the snowballing disaster less likely. The key issue is that thanks to VaR relatively modest market developments can morph into a very big crisis.\n\nAlso, VaR may start to ascend for the wrong reasons. Just because an asset happens to experience some temporary convulsions does not outright imply that the asset has become intolerably daring and thus a portion of those holdings should be gotten rid of. Foundationally sound and robust securities can nonetheless waltz around, slaves to the whims of emotional investors and frantic opinion makers. Such waltzing need not be indicative of a decline in the safeness of the play, and yet that's what VaR would unfailingly proclaim. Reading from the tea leaves of ever-changing, never-stable, dubiously informative market action can indeed lead to abominably misguided risk assessments. Just like a decrease in volatility need not imply lower risk, an increase in turbulence need not beget danger. Data-driven volatility is simply not an accurate depiction of true risk. That is, those massive snowballing liquidations that take place in the name of risk reduction may have been instigated by numerical instructions that have nothing to do with real risk (in fact, the liquidated asset could well be in the midst of a de-risk-ification process; for instance, as the value of corporate bonds may, for whatever reasons, be fluctuating a bit economic growth and consumer confidence may be on the rise, thus lowering the chance that companies won't repay their debts and reducing the real risk of owning those bonds). Subjecting traders to VaR limits is odd because VaR may have absolutely nothing to do with real risk. In their desperation for measurable concreteness and precision, banks have allowed a meaningless ghost to shape markets and to determine whether crises happen or not.\n\nAccording to Persaud (a globally recognized guru who at the time was a senior buy-side analyst, following a long stint at JP Morgan), \"The predominance of herding behavior and its lethal combination with the practice of VaR limits may explain why the 1990s have been a decade of such financial dislocation: the financial system has been in crisis for 40 out of the 120 months.\"10 In light of this, Persaud found it quite paradoxical that regulators would actively support the adoption of VaR.\n\nAlmost a decade later, and motivated by a financial cataclysm several notches more intense than those that prompted him to first denounce VaR, Persaud revisited the issue.11 Reminiscing on the 1998 Asian Crisis (when VaR was for the first time publicly unveiled as flawed and problematic), Persaud reminded us of a crucial point: VaR may make people sell even when they don't want to and when they would otherwise not have sold. He recalls the explications given back then by one reluctant liquidator: \"I wanted to hold on now that prices had fallen so far, but my risk systems pushed me out and kept me out.\"12 It was inevitable then that market prices would drive market prices, in a vicious circle. Writing in mid-2008, Persaud recognized the chaos afflicting markets at the time. He had seen it before, a decade earlier. He knew what VaR was capable of: the unleashing of a \"liquidity black hole\" with price declines triggering not bargain hunting but further selling. And all this caused by a mechanism that was supposed to help financial institutions control risks.\n\nAs the Caribbean sage understands only too well, VaR encourages traders to scour the financial planet for punts that appear risk-free, statistically speaking. It is not just that by doing so VaR may end up on occasions discriminating against fundamentally sounder investments and in favor of naturally shakier ones (remember, volatility is not risk), but that VaR is a tool that transforms calm into chaos. Placidity into war. Once the model that every bank is using detects the placid spots in the market jungle, every bank will be motivated into settling in those spots, eager to gorge on \"no-problem\" fare that requires very little in the way of capital commitments and that contains the promise of lascivious returns on equity. The more exotic the game to be found in those soothed places the greater the motivation. Such communal, model-directed actions can end up ugly. \"The observation of safe sectors by risk models turns them into risky sectors: increasingly overvalued, highly correlated, and prone to volatility,\" posited Persaud.13\n\nIt is highly interesting that Persaud learned firsthand of VaR's troubling impact while being employed by the firm that invented and, most crucially, provided the key initial marketing push for the model. He worked for JP Morgan as the Asian debacle unfolded and as his views on VaR became indelibly formed. In 2008 he described his 1998 epiphany, and how his counsel was received:\n\nI had learned firsthand that whereas risk-sensitive systems may help banks manage their risks during quiet times, they are like seatbelts that don't work when you drive fast. They are not crisis-prevention measures: They make crises worse. This lesson prompted me to write my 1999 essay warning on the disturbing interaction of herding behavior and market-sensitive risk management practices. Mature risk managers found resonance in the story, but regulators queued up to dismiss the criticisms.14\n\nSo the front-row views of this battle-scarred practitioner went unheeded by the detached regulatory community. The skeptic's words could not prevent VaR from continuing to populate the rulebooks (in spite of the notoriety of Persaud's original critique; the essay won a coveted international prize). The VaR-incorporating 1996 market risk amendment to VaR-devoid Basel I was enshrined into Basel II, while in the United States the SEC modified its earlier stance and also fell for the model. If it was up to Persaud, bank capital regulations would have never been based on VaR. It must have been disheartening for the Barbados-born economist to witness how VaR's dominance and power became even more extended following the release of his warning. He is obviously not a fan of letting banks capture bank regulation,\n\nIf the object of regulation is to align banks internal controls more closely with regulation, then why engage in extremely costly regulation in the first place? Leave it to banks' risk controls. If the purpose of regulation is to avoid market failures, we cannot rely on market prices as the instruments of regulation. Risk sensitivity as a regulatory principle sounds sensible until you think about it.15\n\nThe veteran market-trotter was not surprised one bit that the imperial reign of VaR led to a vastly undercapitalized banking industry, even while regulators, blinded by the models, had assumed it to be extremely well capitalized just as the nastiness arose. Market risk-based measures are just too lethally procyclical and lead to too lethally procyclical capital requirements, blindly fueling the boom and possibly prolonging the bust.\n\nVaR and other metrics promote bad banking, argues Persaud, where decisions are not based on on-the-ground analysis by analysts with long knowledge of market and credit risk, but on the pseudoscience of data-driven computations that can lead all banks (all using the same publicly available information behind the calculation of those metrics) to own identical portfolios and \"herd in and out of markets eventually causing systemic collapse.\"16 When diversity in risk assessment is eliminated by a flawed technical construct, bad things ensue. In closing his I-told-you-so post-crisis summation, Persaud could not resist delivering one final lashing: \"Let's not forget that the proponents of Basel II said that the criticisms were far-fetched and that the system was now safer than ever before.\"17 Let's not, indeed.\n\nJon Danielsson is a cosmopolitan who suffered a double blow from the 2007 crisis. As a resident of London, he experienced firsthand the debacles of Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland, and the myriad of large international investment banks with a heavy City presence. As a native of Iceland, he had to in parallel endure the personal pain of seeing his country sink into a financial and social abyss. The naive observer may even be tempted to argue that the London School of Economics (LSE) academic maven seems to have a habit of chasing crises around the world. He was a student in the United States during the period that saw the greatest one-day stock market drop in Wall Street's history, the chaotic disappearance of legendary bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, the meltdown of the junk bond market, and the collapse of the savings and loan industry, not to mention the first economic recession in a long time. And his 1997 arrival at the LSE coincided like clockwork with the unleashing of the Asian, and then Russia-LTCM, meltdowns.\n\nIn light of this biographical background, it may surprise few that financial risk counts among professor Danielsson's strongest interests. He has been opining on risk modeling and risk regulation for a long time. Such ventures inevitably put him face-to-face with VaR. And he didn't like what he saw. As far as I could tell, Danielsson began to muse on VaR as early as 1997. He seems to have originally been mostly interested in the statistical fine print of the model, rightly pointing out that VaR models (especially the earlier ones) suffer from the Normality affliction and thus are bad capturers of the non-Normal extreme events that characterize markets. Danielsson and colleagues consequently applied new quantitative techniques that attempted to tackle said issue. They heartedly recommended the use of those calculation tricks given how standard VaR models appeared to underestimate risk, making them ill-suited to the regulatory task. Interestingly (and cheekily), already in 1998 they expressed their doubts as to banks' eagerness to embrace their suggested approaches since the standard approach could yield so humble capital requirements. Even more intriguing was their wondering about regulators' motivations for imposing VaR as a regulatory measure. They didn't seem entirely convinced, \"In our opinion, the regulatory basis for VaR is not well understood and merits further study.\"18\n\nThe Icelandic and his team of accomplices may have been among the very first (if not the very first) hard-core finance theoreticians to focus on the economic and social rationale for the imposition of the model as risk and capital king. In other words, they focused on the truly critical questions. Which led them to the truly critical answers. Danielsson clarified:\n\nThe measurement and implementation of VaR is an active and exciting area of research, with numerous contributions. This research has almost exclusively been concerned with the accuracy of the various estimation techniques. Compared to the statistical approach, the economic analysis of VaR has been neglected. The wider issue of the benefits for society of VaR-based risk management and supervision has hardly been addressed.19\n\nAnd then proceeded to their own analysis of the economic rationales:\n\nWe suggest that the drive for VaR regulation derives from the regulatory capture by the financial industry to safeguard its power and the preference of regulators for silent action instead of overt actions like bail-outs.20\n\nPretty strong stuff, no doubt. Just like Nassim Taleb was implying in those nascent times, Danielsson and his gang seemed convinced that the self-interest of banks was the real driver behind the imposition of the VaR dictatorship. And if they were right and regulators acceded out of a desire for discretion and distaste for loud action, well we know how that backfired 10 years later, as a VaR-infected system gave rise to the mother of all public planetary bailouts.\n\nAfter having fought the opening VaR battles with the backing of his team, Danielsson gave it a go at a solo effort in 2000. He came out swinging:\n\nFor regulatory use, the VaR measure is lacking in its ability to fulfill its intended task, it gives misleading information about risk, and in some cases may actually increase both idiosyncratic (i.e., bank-specific) and systemic risks. Risk modeling is not an appropriate foundation for regulatory design.21\n\nAs Danielsson points out, data-based risk models can't work during market crises because at those chaotic points the statistical properties change with regard to less chaotic, calmer times. So what was predicted improbable during stability is suddenly very real. VaR breaks down during instability. A big reason for this is that in finance, unlike the case of weather forecasting, the use of prediction models can impact the prediction: While the weather won't be impacted by what meteorologists say, what financial models say will impact what financial actors do; the very presence of VaR makes probability distributions in finance nonstationary and thus very hard to tackle. VaR can change the nature of risk in a market. It can create instability just by being there. It can unleash crises out of nothing. What's more, its very destiny may be to break down, as it transforms placidity into (unpredicted) catastrophe. In Danielsson's words, \"A risk model breaks down when used for its intended purpose.\"\n\nLike Avinash Persaud, Danielsson saw VaR as dangerously leading to a dangerously undiversified financial industry, with every firm owning the same positions and thus increasing the risk of cascading liquidations. Mechanical model-driven trading can introduce otherwise inexistent disturbances. \"If every financial institution has its own trading strategy, no individual technique can lead to a liquidity crisis. If many of these market participants need to execute the same strategies during crisis, they will change the distributional properties of risk. As a result, the distribution of risk is different during crisis than in other periods, and risk modeling is not only useless but may exasperate the crisis,\" came the summation.\n\nThe London-based professor ended his solitary 2000 lambasting of VaR by reminding us that modeling as a regulatory tool cannot be recommended. Risk modeling is simply too unreliable and the models can be too easily manipulated. The theoretical foundations of VaR conceptually result in misleading information regarding a firm's riskiness. It is crazy to have capital requirements fluctuate with the whims of market action (a selective and limited sample of recent market action, to boot); the capital required to back a trade should be a much more stable figure. Financial mandarins, the Icelandic pondered, should do away with VaR and try better ways to make sure that banks are sufficiently capitalized and protected. Danielsson made two proposals: crude leverage ratios, or forcing banks to purchase insurance (he cited the example of cross-insurance in New Zealand, with banks effectively hedging each other). After all, if solid solutions are available and even tried-and-tested, why roll the dice on the very unlikely chance that mathematical models built on wildly dubious foundations would get risk right?\n\nA few months after his lone ranger dismissal of VaR, Jon Danielsson was back to assembling a strong anti-VaR squad with which to launch a concerted all-out assault on the regulatory fortifications. Submitted in response to the Basel Committee's request for comments, the May 2001 \"An Academic Response to Basel II\" paper was an assemblage of professorial grandees, with no less than six campus heavyweights lending their support to the contrarian Icelander. The regulatory elite was putting the final touches to the new Basel II rulebook and as is customary were requesting feedback from industry and academic sources. It was clear from the start that Danielsson's new team was looking to pick up a fight with the status quo:\n\nIt is our view that the Basel II proposals have failed to address many of the key deficiencies of the global financial regulatory system and even created the potential for new sources of instability. VaR can destabilize an economy and induce crashes when they would not otherwise occur. The Basel Committee has chosen poor quality measures of risk. Heavy reliance on credit rating agencies is misguided. This set of proposals will exacerbate the procyclicality of financial regulation. In so far as the purpose of regulation is to reduce the likelihood of systemic crisis, these proposals will tend to negate, not promote this useful purpose. There is considerable scope for the underestimation of financial risk.22\n\nThe university Cassandras went as far as to, prophet-like, warn Basel to \"Reconsider before it is too late.\" Didn't I tell you that these people tried to save us?\n\nUnfortunately, and as we know only too well, Basel did not reconsider. VaR and the other flawed metrics were not second-guessed. They were left authoritatively in place so that things like subprime CDOs could be evaluated according to their (eventually very friendly) dictates. Writing in May 2008 on the ugly consequences of regulators not having heeded his decade-long recommendations, Jon Danielsson showed that age had not vanquished the campaigner in him. \"Model-driven mispricing produced the crisis, and risk models don't perform during crisis conditions. The belief that a really complicated statistical model must be right is merely foolish sophistication,\" opined his aptly named \"Blame the Models\" salvo.23 The Viking warrior could not understand how, even in the midst of a models-authored apocalypse, regulators could continue embracing bad modeling. Perhaps, as he put it, the math is a conveniently lazy way out for the rule makers. Rather than devote time to understanding the actual positions held by banks and the interactions among them (that is, rather than devote time to really understand risk), regulators settled for the comfort of numbers. But in this case, Danielsson reminds us, \"numbers do not imply understanding.\"\n\nAmen.\n\nIn spite of having had their warnings subliminally ignored by bankers and regulators as the twentieth century gave way to the twenty-first and as the latter advanced, the insurgent trio has done quite well for themselves since those days when they tried to draw attention towards VaR's lethality. Nassim Taleb is, of course, a much better known figure now than he was then, having magnificently succeeded at becoming a world-renowned intellectual. Avinash Persaud became a hedge fund manager and built a very high international profile as financial and economic expert. And Jon Danielsson appears to have consolidated his top-flight academic career, going from lecturer to reader at the London School of Economics, as well as becoming a fixture as commentator in the specialized and general media.\n\nHowever, chances are that these men, widely known and followed as they are, are (with the possible exception of the Icelandic professor) not remembered for their anti-VaR prophecies. This is most definitely so in the case of the most outspoken, and by far the most famous, of the three. Of the millions of people worldwide who read Nassim Taleb's books and articles and follow him on Facebook, it is a safe bet that very few associate him with VaR. In the many interviews that I have observed and listened to, Taleb is almost never (or plain never) asked about VaR, the model's role in the 2007 crisis, and his earlier unheeded accusations. Beyond a small coterie of risk junkies, Taleb may not be recognized at all for his role in the VaR debate. I suspect that on the many occasions that he brings VaR into the fore, most of his followers simply don't know what that three lettered term means nor are they aware of its influence. I vividly remember a postcrisis TV interview in which Taleb was frantically trying to raise the VaR issue and the interviewers looked completely at a loss, as if he had been speaking in an alien tongue. They just didn't recognize that VaR word.\n\nIn July 2010 I sent Avinash Persaud an article of mine dealing with VaR's role in the crisis and lauding his landmark work of ten years earlier. He remarked to me that he was beginning to feel that nobody remembered his old analysis. I have to take this as evidence that no one had thought of dusting off those views following a VaR-abetted cataclysm, most likely because no one remembered those views in the first place.\n\nJust like you, I have yet to see the special TV program or newspaper report on how Taleb, Persaud, and Danielsson (and very few others) foresaw the 2007 crisis many years prior by quickly understanding the consequences to be had from having a deleteriously malfunctioning concoction be given the keys to the risk and capital kingdom. This is doubly puzzling given the reality of a media world obsessed with seers, futurists, and prognosticators, and that is so desperate to crown prophets that it readily crowns the wrong prophets. (Of all the gurus that have been regularly presented by mass media as either ex-ante golden forecasters or ex-post golden explicators of the crisis, essentially none of them has ever mentioned VaR as a factor.)\n\nEven when the predicted event is of the highest magnitude and even when the predictions are excruciatingly on the mark, the prophesies may be utterly ignored. And so the truly important lessons are not learned. The visionary wisdom of the rebel triad may thus get irremediably lost, rather than handed down to today's and future bankers and policy makers so that they know better than to repeat the same mistakes. In the end, VaR's best line of defense may be its anonymity, how little of it is known beyond a small band of insiders and risk wonks. If such an eventful development as the 2007 crisis (perhaps one of the most thoroughly and globally covered events ever) has not been able to make VaR generally known and if neither Taleb's, nor Persaud's, or Donalsson's predictions of the model's mischief have been pointed out to the public, then VaR can rest easy. When the damage that you've caused goes unnoticed, you get to live another day.\n\nNotes\n\n1. Nassim Taleb, \"The World According to Nassim Taleb,\" Derivatives Strategy (December\/January 1997).\n\n2. Ibid.\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Philippe Jorion, \"In Defense of VaR,\" Derivatives Strategy (April 1997).\n\n5. Ibid.\n\n6. Ibid.\n\n7. Nassim Taleb, \"Against VaR,\" Derivatives Strategy (April 1997).\n\n8. Ibid.\n\n9. Avinash Persaud, \"Sending the Herd Off the Cliff Edge,\" (December 2000), personal essay.\n\n10. Ibid.\n\n11. Ibid.\n\n12. Ibid.\n\n13. Ibid.\n\n14. Ibid.\n\n15. Ibid.\n\n16. Ibid.\n\n17. Ibid.\n\n18. Jon Danielsson et al., \"The Value of VaR: Statistical, Financial, and Regulatory Considerations,\" Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review (October 1998).\n\n19. Jon Danielsson et al., \"On the (Ir)relevance of VaR Regulation,\" London School of Economics, mimeo (1998).\n\n20. Ibid.\n\n21. Jon Danielsson, \"The Emperor Has No Clothes: Limits to Risk Modelling,\" (June 2000), www.ioes.hi.is\/publications\/wp\/w0004.pdf.\n\n22. Jon Danielsson et al., \"An Academic Response to Basel II,\" (May 2001), personal essay.\n\n23. Jon Danielsson, \"Blame the Models,\" Voxeu.org (May 8, 2008).\nChapter 4\n\nRegulatory Embracement\n\n  * Basel Power\n  * They Asked for VaR\n  * They Got VaR\n  * They Kept VaR\n  * They Keep VaR\n\nBasel can claim ownership to several noteworthy accomplishments. It apparently is the warmest and least rainy city in Switzerland, something quite appealing in a country better known for its snowfalls. It annually hosts the premier international show for modern and contemporary art. It, of course, produced Roger Federer, arguably the best tennis player ever. And, as home of the (what else?) Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, many of the world's most influential decisions are taken within its midst.\n\nFounded in 1974, the Basel Committee is a kind of consigliere when it comes to global bank supervision and, most notably, bank capital adequacy. While it doesn't possess any formal supranational supervisory authority, and while its conclusions do not per se have legal force, the Committee's recommendations are usually taken on board by national supervisors, at the very least when it comes to the more developed nations. The Committee formulates broad standards and guidelines in the expectation that individual authorities will eventually implement them, perhaps after having added a bit of local flavor to those general suggestions. Global convergence toward common approaches and common standards is thus a big aim. The Committee's representatives are central bankers and heads of supervisions of member countries. At last count, the following nations were part of the gang: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.\n\nGiven how important banks are for an economy and a society, a body that coordinates bank regulators and supervisors worldwide and that influences the shape of that regulation and supervision was always bound to be highly influential. But important as it already was and would be, the Committee became inescapably relevant 14 years after its establishment, with the introduction in 1988 of the Capital Accord. More commonly known as Basel I, the Accord proposed a measurement system for credit risk\u2013related bank capital requirements. At the time, credit risk was assumed to be the number one risk for banks, not surprising given how relatively timid their trading activities were back then and the huge losses incurred on regular commercial loans (mostly to Latin American borrowers) a few years earlier. Basel I introduced the concept of \"risk-weighted assets,\" whereby credit exposures were ranked in buckets based on a predefined set of asset classes and assigned a preset risk weight (so that loans to a developed country, say, would force banks to post less capital than loans to corporate borrowers, say; risk weights were thus a way to declare that not all exposures are the same, and that some should be considered intrinsically less or more risky than others, thus giving rise to different capital charges depending on the asset class in question). A bank's total credit exposure was calculated by multiplying each credit-sensitive position (say, $100,000,000 in U.S. Treasury Bonds, $55,000,000 in loans to IBM, and $20,000,000 in mortgage securities) by its respective risk weight (say, 0 percent, 100 percent, and 20 percent) and adding up the resulting individual amounts (in this example, $100,000,0000 * 0 percent + $55,000,000 * 100 percent + $20,000,000 * 20 percent = $59,000,000). Minimum mandatory capital requirements were set at 8 percent of that final total risk-weighted amount (so, $59,000,000 * 8 percent = $4,720,000), which in many instances meant a lot less than 8 percent of total assets, given how only a few types of exposures received a risk weight of 100 percent (risk weights of just 0 percent, 20 percent, and 50 percent were common). In our example, 8 percent of total assets would have been $175,000,000 * 8 percent = $14,000,000; a decidedly larger sum. The introduction of risk weights was supposed to align regulatory capital more closely with the actual risk of a position, so that a mildly risky asset worthy of only a 20 percent weight would demand only 1.6 percent (8 percent * 20 percent) in capital. The less intrinsically risky the asset was assumed to be by the Basel mandarins, the more leverage banks were permitted on such plays.\n\nBasel I endowed 0 percent risk weights, and thus 0 percent total capital charge, on rich country government debt and cash and gold held. Cash to be received, rich country bank debt, U.S. government-sponsored agency debt, some municipal bonds, and some mortgage-backed securities carried a 20 percent risk weight (1.6 percent total capital charge). Other types of municipal bonds suffered a 50 percent weight (4 percent total charge). The unillustrious 100 percent risk weight (uppermost 8 percent total capital levy) was reserved for corporate bonds, poor country government debt, poor country bank debt, real estate, and mortgage loans. Where did all those numbers come from? The (arbitrary, if you'd like) estimations of the Basel capital gendarmes.\n\nSo however the assemblage of elite policy makers felt about this or that banking exposure could have huge repercussions on the world economy at large. If Basel I failed and the wrong type of asset was assigned low-risk weights, banks could economically gorge on positions that may turn out to be very problematic. On the other hand, if the right type of asset was assigned high-risk weights, certain key economic factors could see the flow of credit being constrained as banks deemed such lending too taxing capital-wise.\n\nHaving the power to dictate global bank capital requirements is thus a responsibility to be handled with the utmost care. The pace of economic growth, the occurrence of financial crises, the size of public deficits, and other essential factors would be at stake. Those people assembling at the Basel Committee literally decide much of the fate of much of the planet. Clearly, the possibility of influencing their decisions can be too tempting for bankers. And some argue that not only have bankers been tempted, but they have succeeded majestically also at the influencing. According to this argument, the years following the implementation of Basel I have been marked by a rule-making process that has been only too eager to enshrine into edicts that which banks favored and to reject that which they did not favor. Of course, the main problem with this is when bad petitions by the banks are accommodated. Taking on board what banks suggest need not per se be unadvisable, and listening to what banks have to say should naturally be part of a bank regulator's mandate. But on occasions, the financial system is better served when financial mandarins turn a deaf ear. When it comes to capital requirements, that was most definitely the case for the past 15 years. Those \u00fcber-powerful Basel mandarins should have been less accommodative.\n\nWhen the Basel Committee welcomed VaR into the regulatory realm by releasing the \"Amendment to the Capital Accord to Incorporate Market Risks\" in January 1996, it made clear that it was doing so at the request of banks. Having years earlier decided to demand capital charges not only on credit risks per Basel I but also on market risks (i.e., exposures derived from changes in market prices), the Committee first believed that the right path along would be to apply a Basel I\u2013type approach to market risks: preset fixed unalterable capital charges based on the particular asset family (interest rates, equity, commodities, foreign exchange). Just like Basel I, this was a building-block approach, meaning that the capital requirements of each component of market risk are calculated and then summed up, thus making no allowance for any diversification benefits to be derived from statistical correlations within or across risk categories.\n\nThis so-called standardized method was proposed in April 1993, and banks instantly hated it. It probably wasn't just a matter of undue inflexibility on the part of the method, but that those inflexible capital charges may have appeared disagreeably high. Commodities, for instance, were generally taxed at 15 percent of the net position in each commodity. Foreign exchange exposures were penalized to the tune of 8 percent of net positions. Interest rate and equity risks carried not just one, but two types of market-related capital charges, one for general market risk and one for so-called specific risk. The latter was designed to protect against an adverse movement in the price of a security owing to factors related to the individual issuer (in a way, so as to make sure that some kind of credit risk charge was imposed on positions that were treated as market risk but carried credit risk nevertheless; things like default and event risk). In the case of interest rate exposures, the size of the specific risk capital charge varied according to the type of debt security involved, with government, public sector entities, multilateral development bank securities, and investment grade-rated securities enjoying very low levies of between 0 percent and 1.6 percent, and with other types of exposures requiring an 8 percent specific capital commitment. The general risk charges for interest rate-sensitive positions were calculated according to a complicated architecture where capital taxes depended on a security's maturity. Equity risk specific capital charge was set at 8 percent, though it could be much lower for liquid and diversified positions. Equity risk general capital charge was set at 8 percent of the net position.\n\nTwo years later, a new proposal was released, this time allowing banks to choose between their own internal models and the standardized method. This version was approved by the supervisory authorities of the world's top 10 economies, committing to domestic implementation by year-end 1997 at the very latest. In the words of the Committee,\n\nThe main feature of the April 1995 proposals was to respond to the industry's request to allow banks to use proprietary in-house models for measuring market risks as an alternative to a standardized measurement framework originally put forward in April 1993.\n\nThe Basel officials proved generously accommodative not just through their pro-models stance, but also by finding a new definition for bank capital. Basel I originally defined capital as, well, capital. While some allowance for debt was made, it seemed justified on account of its longer-term nature (thus in principle being able to count as short-term shock absorber in case of a losses-inducing setback). Banks could comply with regulatory capital requirements through two conduits: so-called Tier 1 capital and Tier 2 capital. The former was the very best quality, comprised entirely of equity and disclosed reserves, while the latter was made up of undisclosed reserves, long-term subordinated debt, perpetual debt securities, and unrealized gains on investments. In order to guarantee soundness, Tier 2 capital was not allowed to be greater than Tier 1 capital (that is, at least 50 percent of overall capital should be hard-hard-core capital). The 1996 Amendment brought with it the surprise of Tier 3 capital, made up of short-term subordinated debt (a much shakier support base; as the 2007 crisis proved, this \"capital\" does not really act as capital is supposed to act come turbulent times). Tier 3 capital could only be used to cover market risks charges, and was limited to 250 percent of the Tier 1 capital required to cover market risks; that is, a minimum of around 28 percent of the market risk charge needed to be composed of best-quality capital. Some could argue that this arrangement made leverage-seeking banks quite pleased: Not only would the use of VaR promise the delivery of humble capital requirements for trading games, but a lot of that capital need not even be real capital. That is, the potential for mouthwatering returns on equity just became insatiably pronounced. Thanks to VaR you may have to commit only tiny amounts of real capital to huge market positions. Thanks to the Tier 3 gift, that grand leverage could in effect become even grander in terms of hard-core (i.e., the one and only one) capital. A VaR-churned capital requirement of, say, just 0.5 percent is fantastic for your gearing aspirations, as you need only $5 to support a $1,000 position (200-to-1 leverage); even better if only 28 percent of that 0.5 percent has to be Tier 1 capital, as now your leverage on hard-core capital is a stupendous 700 to 1.\n\nPer the 1996 Amendment to the Capital Accord, banks were required to maintain on a daily basis a market risk capital charge equal to the higher of the previous day's 10-day 99 percent VaR or the result of multiplying the average 10-day 99 percent VaR for the previous 60 days by a multiplication factor of three (which could be elevated all the way to four, should the performance of the model as risk measure prove unsatisfactory). Ten-day VaR can be obtained from 1-day VaR by scaling the latter number (typically done by multiplying 1-day VaR by the square root of 10; this mathematical trick assumes that asset returns follow a random walk statistical process). At least one year of historical market data should be used, though banks were unconstrained beyond that. Any VaR calculating methodology could be used (most banks seem to have in time been leaning toward the Historical Simulation method). Banks could recognize diversification benefits through the use of correlations within asset categories and between asset categories, a development that was sure to yield more moderate final overall portfolio VaR figures. Banks could use VaR technology to calculate specific risk charges for interest rate and equity exposures, rather than be forced to follow the script laid down by the despised standardized methodology (most banks compute and report only a global VaR combining general and specific risk factors1).\n\nIt's not hard to claim that in permissively going from the standardized method to VaR, regulators did banks a big favor. Rather than being shackled to inflexible, nonnegotiable, apparently taxing preset capital charges, banks could now in effect calculate their own capital requirements, with almost complete discretion. Rather than not being allowed to have a say on the capital cost of their trading activities, banks could now have the final word. If an exposure could be qualified as tradable it could be included in the trading book rather than the banking book and thus have its capital cost be subject to, possibly much cheaper, market risk regulatory treatment rather than, possibly much costlier, credit risk regulatory treatment (foreign exchange and commodity exposures would be subject to a market risk charge whether they come from the trading or banking book). Selective past histories and statistical correlations could now be alchemized into extremely unassuming capital demands. Banks could literally scour the trading assets universe until they came up with a combination that produced the desired level of economical regulatory capital price tag. When you let leverage-loving institutions freely use an easily manipulable leverage-dictating tool you shouldn't be surprised if the final result is a lot of leverage.\n\nThe Basel Committee quickly tired of Basel I. In September 1998, it announced the kick-starting of a thorough review of the 1988 rulebook, with the aim of producing a new enhanced one. These, of course, were the seeds of what came to be known as Basel II, finally released in mid-2004. Basel II rules thus ruled the banking universe all the way to the crisis of 2007\u20132008.\n\nWhat was so wrong with Basel I that it needed a replacement? Well, it appeared too primitively blunt. Too arbitrary. Too rustic. Too much based on flaky personal judgment, too little based on rigorous technology. In sum, too easy to ridicule and put down, and thus too easy to do away with. Few tears were shed at the sight of Basel I's demise. In contrast, Basel II was welcomed as the arrival of the prodigal analytical son, the moment when regulators finally got sophisticated and in tune with an advanced outer world.\n\nIt is true that Basel I's crude risk weights could encourage weird credit decisions. For instance, lending to the corner shop was as costly capital-wise as lending to a blue-chip multinational, perhaps tempting banks to lend more to the (riskier, thus higher-yielding) former. Banks that seemed as well capitalized as before may in fact have loaded up on much more risk. Also, Basel I was accused of not properly dealing with securitization, while encouraging the practice (as banks shifted assets off balance sheet to escape the new credit-related capital charges). By the late 1990s, capital levels across the banking industry, which had risen sharply after Basel I came into effect, were beginning to decline.2 The final result of Basel I may well have been more risk backed up by less capital.\n\nFive years after the first set of proposals were released in June 1999, and following intense negotiations and a myriad of impact studies and industry comments, Basel II became a reality. It founded itself on the three famous pillars (minimum capital requirements, supervisory guidelines, disclosure standards). Everybody seemed happy with the new arrangement. It was widely believed and accepted that Basel II would strengthen the financial system's stability and safety.\n\nWhat changed and what stayed the same with the arrival of the new capital regulatory regime? Simply stated, banking book treatment (i.e., credit risk capital requirements) changed a lot while trading book treatment (i.e., market risk capital requirements) stayed essentially the same. VaR was kept around as king of the trading book, even though this decision had by 2004 become highly suspect, for reasons that will be analyzed shortly. But the Basel Committee was not satisfied with having just the trading book be ruled by metrics; now the banking book, too, ought to be metricized. Through Basel II, models-based credit ratings became the deciding factor when appraising the risk of a credit-related asset. Banks had two choices: the Standardized Approach based on external credit assessments, and the Internal Ratings Approach based on banks' own rating systems. Whether a position received a AAA or a BBB rating (whether externally or internally) was now the key determinant of that position's capital charge. The idea was to link capital requirements more closely with an asset's \"true\" riskiness, built on the notion that the cutting-edge credit analysis systems used by banks and the rating agencies were to be amply trusted as providers of truth. Securitization exposures were thoroughly addressed and idiosyncratically treated, with their own risk weights tables based on the (external) credit ratings assigned to each securitized tranche. Risk weights for the most senior tranches could be as low as 7 percent (equivalent to a 0.56 percent minimum capital charge, 7 percent \u00d7 8 percent), as high as 650 percent (52 percent charge) for BB\u2013 rated tranches, and even higher for below-BB\u2013 and unrated tranches. In other words, under the new system it really paid to have a portfolio considered creditworthy.\n\nIt was easy to argue that a metrics-charged Basel II could deliver lower banking book mandatory capital. If the credit assessments happened to be very generous, capital demands could be very generous. And not just in the case of securitization. For instance, under the Standardized Approach claims on corporates rated AAA to AA\u2013 were blessed with a 20 percent risk weight, significantly below the 100 percent weight assigned by Basel I to corporate debt across the board. Even those rated A+ to A\u2013 got a saving, with a 50 percent risk weight. Only those corporate loans or bonds rated BBB+ or less faced the undignified pre-Basel II 100 percent damnation. Claims secured by residential property obtained a 35 percent risk weight, certainly better than 100 percent. So although it's true that risk weights stayed the same for some assets and could even increase in other cases if the credit rating was really bad, Basel II could represent tasty capital savings on credit exposures (and the savings could be even more drastic when using the Internal Models Approach; this will be discussed shortly).\n\nSome have accused Basel II of favoring the big banking guy over the little banking guy. Since only the former can really invest in the technology and human power needed to keep the advanced models humming, only the former can take full advantage of model-based capital regulation. That is, for those firms without the capacity to employ the kind of analytics able to pass the regulatory veto, there would be no option but to abide by the standardized approaches to calculate their capital taxes, both in the banking and trading books. No chance to be able to determine your own capital requirements via your own models. Rather you are kept a slave to what others have to say about the riskiness of your assets. And, the thinking goes, the assessments of others can be way less friendly than your own assessments. So if you are a relatively smallish and unsophisticated bank you may be condemned to suffering higher capital requirements than your larger and more sophisticated brethren. A potential source of competitive disadvantage, courtesy of the Basel folks. Studies seem to have confirmed this. For instance, in 2003 the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that average capital levels in American banks adopting the most advanced approach would fall by 18 percent to 29 percent. In 2006, a quantitative impacts study conducted by the Basel Committee showed that banks employing the Internal Ratings Approach would experience a capital reduction of 7 percent to 27 percent, while those being reduced to the Standardized Approach would experience a 2 percent increase in capital demands.3 This may sound a tad puzzling, given that one of the Basel Committee's main stated aims is to guarantee a level playing field for all and that one of Basel II's main stated goals was to enhance competitive equality. Also puzzling is the fact that the above figures obviously signal an overall decline of capital levels in the banking industry (given how it is the models-employing largest banks that hold a larger share of the market), in direct contradiction to Basel II's original primary objective.\n\nIf banks had been accommodated in 1996 when it came to market risk capital rules, they were accommodated again in 2004 when it came to credit risk capital rules. It's not so much that reliance on credit ratings would automatically and under all scenarios produce humbler requirements (though as we just saw, the new metric system made leverage a whole lot easier), but that banks (some, at least) were once more given the power to calculate their own capital charges. This outsourcing regulatory process was finally completed with the arrival of Basel II. Models engineered by banks and by those on good terms with banks were now in full command. Both credit-related and trading-related leverage ratios would be almost entirely determined by the banking industry and its rating agencies acolytes. A shiny new era of analytical dominance was fully imposed. But, what if those metrics proved exaggeratedly wrong? Through Basel II, the fate of the world (already exposed since 1996 to whether the statistical market risk forecast was right) was placed on whether AAA really means AAA.\n\nVaR moved swiftly from the market risk amendment of Basel I to Basel II. None of the turbulence that afflicted the banking book was visited on the trading book, where things remained calmly stable. VaR was king and VaR remained king.\n\nThis was quite paradoxical. It is one thing to place trust on a model when the device is full of promise and it hasn't underperformed yet, as was the case in 1995. It is another to continue to rely on the construct after market realities have demonstrably shown it to be gravely malfunctioning and deleteriously problematic, as had been the case since late 1997. We may be charitably willing to give regulators a free pass for not having grasped VaR's conceptual defects (though this forces us to be extra charitable; after all, is it that hard to understand that a model built on historical data and suspect probability assumptions, and that can be conveniently manipulated, will by its very nature tend to behave erroneously and naughtily?), but it seems inexcusable to hold on to VaR once real-life developments openly unveil its voluminous shortcomings. How could VaR have been passed into Basel II unquestionably?\n\nBy the time Basel II began to be assembled, VaR had a negative rap sheet. The 1997 Asian Crisis and the 1998 Russia-LTCM Crisis had outed the model. VaR not only failed at signaling the emergence of severe market tribulations, it may actually have helped cause the tremors. VaR encouraged the group thinking that led to the accumulation of similar portfolios across the industry. For the same reason, VaR later ordered the massive en masse liquidation of positions, leading to snowballing losses. Banks, possibly for the first time ever, registered VaR exceptions, with actual daily trading losses overtaking VaR's predictions. The lessons from those nasty episodes were crystal clear: Markets are not Normal, past evidence may have nothing to say about tomorrow's performance, past statistical correlations and volatilities may be turned on their heads tomorrow, liquidity is not perfect and may dry up completely, and when a lot of players abide by the same mechanical mechanism troublesome copycatting and cross-ownership can arise. If just one of those things were true, VaR would already be highly suspect. Given that they are all true, how could VaR continue to be risk Caesar?\n\nWhile VaR-abiding Wall Street legends suffered during the 1997\u20131998 terror (in defiance of the model's precrisis dictates), perhaps the most illustrative example of VaR's failings came from a nonbanking (though more legendary back then) institution. Illustrative not only due to how the model let its users down, but mostly because of the particular nature of those particular users. \u00dcber-famous hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) was piloted by top finance theoreticians. Of the fund's ten most important people, six or seven were former or current academics endowed with prestigious PhDs, and the other three or four were firm believers in the value that their professorial colleagues could provide. Two of those academics boasted a Nobel in Economics for their theoretical work. That is, this was the best or close to the best that the discipline of mathematical finance could offer. These analytical elite trusted quantitative risk models to guide their trading decisions. The result? A multibillion blowup that almost took the entire banking industry down. The \"best finance faculty in the world\" (as LTCM's honchos were dubbed) could do no better than a complete blowup, a devastating collapse. The models-supported genius-steered fund could do no better than producing returns of \u221245 percent in its last month of existence. The trading strategies that LTCM had nurtured, and that had worked well for a while, were vouched for by VaR. Risk control at LTCM relied on a VaR model.4 And the model said that the fund faced little danger from its market escapades.\n\nIn April 1998, less than six months before the blowup and with the fund's capital at slightly less than $5 billion, LTCM's one-day 99 percent VaR was a tiny $105 million.5 This meant a $480 million monthly 99 percent VaR. That figure seemed comfortable enough: 99 out of 100 months, losses were predicted to be inferior to 10 percent of the fund's capital. Some argue that this complacency-building numbers helped convince LTCM the previous December to cut back its capital base by 40 percent; after all, if your VaR deems you safe, why not get rid of bothersome capital so that your returns look even more fantastic? Of course, that leverage-enhancing decision proved to be fatally fateful as LTCM would eventually die from a lack of capital with which to cover a sudden rampage of losses and margin calls (the fund's positions could eventually have been profitable, had it survived the storm). The following month, LTCM for the first time lost serious money, with returns of \u22126.5 percent (a loss of more than $300 million). June was even worse, at \u221210.15 percent (\u2013$460 million). In August 1998, LTCM lost $1.85 billion, an event deemed absolutely impossible by the mathematics of VaR. Three weeks later, with all but $800 million of the capital pot having been consumed by losses, the fund had to be rescued by a consortium of banks so as to avoid a systemic meltdown. Just five months after VaR had proclaimed LTCM's strategies disaster-proof, the fund had lost $4 billion and said farewell to 80 percent of its capital.\n\nWhat about the banks? How did they become victims of VaR? By late 1997, let alone late 1998, the financial industry had unapologetically converted to the VaR faith. Everybody was using VaR as internal risk beacon, and as we know their trading-related leverage was already too determined by VaR. So being caught off guard by not just one but two megamarket meltdowns would in itself be sufficient indictment against the model. The glorified risk radar missed one huge international crisis and then a year later it missed an even huger one. How's that for statistical accuracy?\n\nAs was said earlier, those historical episodes witnessed what most likely were the first exceptions ever experienced by VaR, in the words of a renowned expert, \"Clear evidence that the models were flawed.\"6 A study of U.S. commercial banks with large trading arms found that during the August to October 1998 period, at least four entities experienced two or more exceptions on their daily 99 percent VaRs, with one firm experiencing as many as five and two firms experiencing three; 99 percent VaR is supposed to be breached only two-and-a-half days a year. Not only that, the breaches were of a sizable magnitude, eight standard deviations (\"sigmas\") in one case, and three in another. Keep in mind that according to the Normal probability distribution a move two sigmas beyond the 99 percentile is essentially assumed to be flat-out impossible (so as to be more precise, the probability of a one-sigma move beyond the 99 percentile is 0.04 percent). A lot of things that were not supposed to happen happened. VaR, in sum, lied. For the first time, the world came to realize what a naughty liar the erstwhile unpolluted model can be.\n\nBut the worst part is that VaR caused VaR to lie. All those numerous and voluptuous violations of the statistical dogma were the result of market tremors fueled by the statistical dogma. When Russia defaulted on its debt and devalued its currency on August 17, 1998, many banks and hedge funds began to bleed losses (Russia had been a darling of the markets just a few months prior and many had accumulated substantial positions in Russian assets). This nastiness filtered through to VaR numbers all over the world. VaRs in New York, London, Paris, and Zurich began to rise rapidly. As the best source on this development put it:\n\nThe effect was to cause many trading desks to breach their VaR limits. According to the Basel Committee rules, once such a breach took place so many times, more capital would have to be allocated or positions have to be cut. Capital is a precious commodity for banks. Cutting positions was the route taken. So risk managers would phone head traders and tell them to cut back, not just in Russia but everywhere. Even when the positions are profitable?, asked the traders. Rules are rules, replied the risk managers.7\n\nRecall that the multiplication factor part of the formula for calculating regulatory capital can go from three all the way to four if VaR misbehaves, so it may make more sense to simply reduce your balance sheet, get rid of the nasty stuff, bring your VaR back under control, and start anew with a clean slate. In any case, in a culture where what the risk model says is taken on faith, a rising VaR would have been seen as an unacceptable increase in risk and thus a call for drastic risk-reducing action in the shape of asset dumping, across the board.\n\nHowever such course of action, while perhaps reasonable for an individual firm, becomes self-defeating when undertaken by a group. Why? Because liquidity can dry up when everybody (or almost everybody) is frenetically cutting down on risk: Buyers may simply disappear, and it's hard to sell something in the absence of buyers. The entire idea behind VaR is that you can de-riskify your portfolio when your limits are breached. Otherwise, what's the point of establishing limits in the first place? But if a lot of big boys are abiding by the same mechanical rule and see their limits violated concurrently, rather than a healthy reduction in exposures what we have is a holocaust of risk that feeds on itself. As liquidating some part of your portfolio becomes challenging, you try liquidating another slice, and so on until everything (or almost everything) is being fire-sold. Meanwhile the volcano of volatility that has been unleashed is keeping VaR at high levels, even if the overall position may now be smaller. You may end up not having achieved your goal of humbling VaR and with a fresh new out-of-nowhere mega-disaster. Much better if portfolio management is not automatically made the slave of a statistical device that is too easily impressionable by the slightest of setbacks. This is how the VaR-spread disease was aptly described.\n\nVaR is a warning system that can be used to control risks. If you breach that limit too often, you cut back in a controlled way until you return to the safety zone again. That is the theory. But during August 1998, everybody tried to do this at once. The result is inevitable. The opportunists who take advantage of short-term price drops disappear. Market makers widen the spread between buy prices and sell prices, and finally there are huge jumps downwards in price. Like the proverbial fire in a movie theatre, everybody rushed for the exits.8\n\nInterestingly, the Basel Committee didn't seem to think that the 1998 episode shamed or scarred VaR forever. In fact, the Committee's analysis of the model's performance during such delicate time emanates a message closer to \"VaR actually did quite well. The crisis solidified VaR's reputation as solid risk estimator\" than to \"The crisis proved that VaR is flawed. The model did quite badly.\" We obviously already suspected that the 1998 meltdown did not transform Basel into VaR agnostics, given how VaR was firmly kept as part of the rules (it would be particularly creepy had regulators become convinced of VaR's dangerous deficiencies yet nonetheless had not relented in their public support for the concoction), but it's illustrative to see what the mandarins had to say. Surveying more than 40 banks in nine countries, the Committee proudly declared that, \"The market risk capital charge provided an adequate buffer against trading losses over this period. None of the institutions surveyed reported trading losses over any ten-day consecutive period that exceeded the capital requirement in force at the start of the period.\"9 Okay, but what if LTCM had not been rescued and its positions had thus been liquidated at once? It's a safe bet that bank losses would have been big enough to surpass regulatory VaR. The president of the New York Fed (the one figure that did most to strong-arm the banks into saving the fund, and themselves) believed that big banks stood to lose $3 to $5 billion apiece if LTCM was liquidated.10 So a VaR-abetted crisis may not have technically resulted in undercapitalized banks, but that's probably only because the game was rigged. The system cheated into not letting market forces work themselves out and led to the kind of banking setbacks that would have rendered the VaR-calculated capital charges degradingly insufficient. Basel did admit that some VaR exceptions took place, though here it too feels that the damage seemed not troublesome enough to ignite a rethinking of the status quo among the status quo-ers. \"Despite the increased volatility of the second half of 1998, almost half of the institutions reported no cases where one-day losses exceeded the daily VaR estimate. For those banks that reported exceptions, the one-day loss generally did not exceed the one-day VaR estimate by more than two times.\" And thus, VaR was accorded the punishment reserved for otherwise delightful children that unexpectedly act slightly naughtily rather than the one deserved by unrepentant malfeasants: a very mild recrimination, followed by an enthusiastic invitation to remain in the premises and continue playing. Sweet risk child.\n\n2004 was a golden year for VaR not just because of its undoubted and untarnished passing into Basel II, but also of course due to its embracement by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the last remaining big regulator that had yet to succumb to the model's seductiveness. Before the SEC became a newborn VaRista, Wall Street broker-dealers were subjected to the Net Capital Rule, a system quite similar to Basel I and quite similar to the way the Basel Committee tried to address market risk capital rules before the banking lobby requested a prominent place for VaR at the table. Just like the dreadful standardized approach proposed by Basel in 1993, the SEC's Net Capital Rule was a building block approach based on preset nonappealable capital requirements (haircuts, in the lingo) that varied according to the security in question. A bank started from a given level of gross capital and then deducted from that the size of each position's haircut, yielding a net capital figure. Regulatory limits on leverage and minimum capital requirements were imposed based on that net capital number (for instance, Wall Streeters could have their indebtedness constrained to 1,500 percent of their net capital, essentially capping their gearing ratios; capital requirements were also set at a dollar figure that net capital should not dive below). So the more onerous the haircuts for a given position the less volume one could do in that position, for a given level of gross capital. Similarly, the more onerous the haircuts the less you can use borrowed funds to finance the position, for a given level of gross capital. In brief, if you want to accumulate a lot of stuff in a leveraged way, a demanding haircut architecture can derail your plans.\n\nSo what where those capital deductions like? Very short-term government securities enjoyed a 0 percent haircut, which progressively became larger as maturities grew older (1 percent to 2 percent for the 1-year to 3-year range, 6 percent for 25 years or more). Municipal securities too started at 0 percent and then went up with the maturity ladder (7 percent deduction for 20 or more years). High-grade debt started at 2 percent for the shortest maturities and ended at 9 percent for maturities of 25 years and above. Equity was priced at 10 percent. Other securities could have a haircut of 15 percent or 40 percent, depending on their liquidity. And, and this is very important, so-called nonmarketable or no ready market securities were penalized with a 100 percent haircut (that is, leverage here was constrained to 1 to 1, making it quite expensive capital-wise to hold on to those babies, and quite impossible to finance them via debt).\n\nIn April 2004, as we know, the SEC gave Wall Street the choice of switching from haircut-land into VaR-land. In exchange for letting the parent holding companies be more closely scrutinized and policed, and provided that a lower-bound limit of $500 million in net capital was respected at all times and that a $5 billion net capital alarm bell was put in place (should such lower barrier be breached, the SEC was to be notified and it then would consider whether remedial actions should be taken), the large U.S. investment banks could from then on have their capital requirements calculated by VaR, along the lines previously set out by Basel (99 percent confidence interval, 10-day holding period, multiplication factor of three that could go up to four if the model misbehaves, minimum of one year of historical data, allowance for correlations within asset families and across asset families). As the SEC itself conceded, such a switch was very likely going to result in much lower capital deductions (i.e., the same gross capital could now finance much more action). Quite possibly this was a big factor behind Wall Street's aggressive pleading for VaR in years prior.\n\nNot content with flooding Wall Street's regulation with the VaR waters, the SEC, perhaps extra eager to please those under its watch, placed additional adornments in the capital gift bag. First, the adopted policy no longer included a planned 18-month phase-in period for the adoption of VaR, at the request of \"commenters\" to the original draft (with almost total certainty, industry representatives impatient to use their VaR models to calculate deductions for market risk capital without further delay). Second, and most crucial, the original SEC plan would have prohibited the use of VaR models to compute deductions for positions with no ready market and any derivative instrument based on them; that is, those positions would have been subject to a 100 percent deduction. Commenters replied that, while positions with no ready market may lack historical data, their models could nonetheless be up to the job. The SEC agreed and, therefore, the final ruling did not limit a broker-dealer's use of VaR models to securities that have a ready market. Now the most weird stuff could be traded in as leveraged a fashion as VaR may allow, rather than with no leverage at all. And third, deductions for specific risk could be calculated through VaR; if the models that a broker-dealer uses incorporate specific risk, there is no additional deduction for that. All these adornments must have pleased many a Wall Streeter.\n\nHow did the SEC's dance with VaR end? Not well, given that only four years later all the Wall Street giants had been destroyed by a torrent of trading-related losses that unveiled them as heavily undercapitalized firms owning a lot of positions with much more market risk than what the models had predicted. Many at the SEC, and elsewhere, would later say that U.S. investment banks were well capitalized going into the crisis, by regulatory standards. By mid-2007, the storyline goes, all the big boys on Wall Street had enough net capital to satisfy the conditions imposed for the adoption of VaR. Thus, they say, capital regulation can't be blamed because capital regulation delivered well-capitalized banks. Well, not really. The main issue is not so much how much minimum capital a bank is mandated to have at any point, but rather what kind of stuff and in what quantities that capital is permitted to buy. Five billion dollars in net capital may be a lot, or it may be nothing if, thanks to statistical measures of risk, it has been possible for a bank to accumulate many billions in toxic securities. Once the value of those plays inevitably tumbles, the $5 billion cushion is reduced to ashes. By switching from prudential commonsensical policies that forced toxic punts to be matched by an equal amount of capital to models that can sanction almost unlimited leverage on the same lethal punts, the SEC effectively made any amount of net capital potentially insufficient. The SEC may have thought that $5 billion was a symbol of prowess, but VaR can render it ridiculously dwarfish (other regulators had to admit postcrisis that being \"well capitalized\" under policy standards may have nothing to do with truly being well capitalized when those policies are based on deeply flawed mechanisms, like VaR and credit ratings-based risk weights, with an inbred tendency to yield unrealistically timid capital requirements; for instance, the Swiss regulators claimed puzzlement at the losses afflicted on wildly leveraged UBS and Credit Suisse, given how obligingly those banks had respected the mandatory Basel capital requirements; an 8 percent charge on risk-weighted assets may have been categorized as prudently robust by the mandarins, but the prudency appears diminished once we realize that those weighted assets may stand for just a tiny fraction of total assets).\n\nAs we've said, VaR appears to have been a bargaining chip to get the holding companies of Wall Street broker-dealers to submit to regulatory policing. The Europeans provided the initial jolt for this. While the brokering-dealing arms of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Stearns had, of course, been under the SEC watch for many decades, the parent company had trotted along essentially unwatched. But in 2002 the European Union demanded the presence of a \"consolidated\" supervisor by 2004, lest the New York giants may be exempted from doing business in the Old World.11 The Federal Reserve did that job for U.S. commercial banks (JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America), now the pure investment banks would have to find their own big regulatory sugar daddy. And they expressed their wish to be looked after by the SEC. The only problem was that the SEC had never done this kind of supervision (concerned mostly with the safety and soundness of a firm), investor protection having been its traditional mandate. In fact, the SEC did not have authority to force investment banks into consolidated supervision, so it had no option but to propose it as a voluntary exercise: Wall Streeters could or could not choose to abide. How to entice the investment banks to comply? Perhaps by dangling a carrot in front of them. What had Wall Street firms loudly clamored for all those years? The adoption of VaR for capital purposes. Okay, let's then dangle the VaR carrot and get those firms to accede to the new era of consolidated supervision.\n\nIt worked. The investment banks were dying to be afforded the same treatment as their commercial banking brethrens. They had missed the 1996 Basel boat, and as noncommercial banks Basel II was not really meant for them. They had been jealously eying how the Citigroups and JP Morgans of this world could decide their market-related capital charges for themselves, through their powerful VaR engines. In contrast, the Wall Street behemoths remained prisoners of the archaic Net Capital Rule. They had very little discretion to determine their leverage levels, and they badly wanted the total discretion that a models-based system could afford (it could indeed be considered paradoxical that Goldman et al. would be subjected to purportedly more retarded risk capital calculations, given how they had and have been considered much more glamorous and advanced entities than the commercial banks). So it's not surprising that the five legendary investment banks trampled over each other to volunteer for the new \"Consolidated Supervised Entity\" (CSE) program, initially put forth by the SEC in November 2003. The dangled VaR carrot proved to be intoxicatingly enticing.\n\nSo in April 2004, perhaps one of the most important meetings in the history of finance took place in Washington, DC. It may be no exaggeration to dub the gathering as \"The Meeting That Changed the World.\" SEC commissioners voted to formally adopt the CSE program and the new capital calculations that went with it. The Wall Street elite had been employing VaR for internal risk management for years, so applying the model to a capital role was a piece of cake; the technology and the know-how were already at hand. All those commissioners knew that the new VaR reign would unleash a new era of enhanced leverage and that positions previously uneconomical (i.e., very high-risk positions) could now be economical for investment banks. Did any of them raise any concerns? Did any of them see any problem with those ramifications? Yes, one did. \"If anything goes wrong it's going to be an awfully big mess. Do we feel secure if these drops in capital and other things occur we really will have investor protection?\" presciently blurted out Harvey Goldschmid (SEC commissioner during 2003\u20132005) at the historic meeting. However, it seems that Goldschmid's concerns were brushed aside by his colleagues, and he was told that everything was going to work out fine.\n\nThe CSE program turned out to be a big failure, and not just because the new capital regime led to Wall Street's destruction (it has been rightly argued that while leverage did go up after the 2004 decision, the investment banks had experienced greater leverage some years back, so the CSE program was not an exclusive conduit toward excessive undercapitalization. But the key point, again, is not so much the level of capital or of leverage, rather the portfolio composition that the new rules allow: The vast amounts of garbage that can be accumulated under VaR's supervision is what eventually caused the crackdown, not so much a lowish amount of overall capital. On that point, the CSE program can be unquestionably declared guilty). Bluntly stated, the enhanced supervision stick that was supposed to compensate for the VaR carrot gift never carried any weight. The supervision never truly happened. For one, unlike traditional bank supervision, the SEC never assigned on-site examiners. The investment banks were simply subject to annual examinations, and these sometimes did not take place at all. Even when problems were detected (like the excessive accumulation of mortgage-related positions), the SEC doesn't seem to have called for corrections. Wall Street was not reined in whatsoever by the new, supposedly stringent, regulatory policies. The supposedly impressive new SEC cop did not clamp down on malfeasant practices. In a poignant episode, as Bear Stearns was terminally sinking in the second week of March 2008, the SEC was on-site conducting its first CSE appraisal since Bear's entrance exam three years earlier.12 It was fitting, though, that regulators could witness firsthand the mess they had helped cause.\n\nIn September 2008, the CSE program was dumped into the dustbin, as Wall Street could no longer boast the presence of large independent investment banks. The remaining firms had been converted to bank holding companies or merged with bank holding companies, and as such would now be supervised by the Fed, the same Fed that they had neglected in favor of the SEC six years earlier. The new super cop was feared as a tougher one, but at least VaR would still be there, dominating the trading book just like Basel II ordered. The program that finally gave them VaR may have been terminated, but Wall Streeters nevertheless ended up comfily wrapped up in the VaR mantle. And that, in the end, is what may truly matter.\n\nIt's May 2011 as I am typing this. It's more than 15 years since international regulators endowed VaR with the power to rule the world. During that period we've witnessed four or five mega\u2013financial crises. Markets have gone through endless spells of crazy turbulence and absent liquidity. Venerated financial firms have sunk and been exterminated. Historical data has been proven unreliable. Correlations have betrayed us over and over. Volatility estimates have fooled us over and over. Mathematical finance in general disappointed mightily and enabled chaos. Prominent voices, including top policy makers, academics, and quants have vociferously lambasted VaR. The evidence against the model as an abetter of the 2007\u20132008 cataclysm is mounting by the day. You would figure that no one would want to touch VaR with a 10-foot pole, nor be seen within a thousand yards of it.\n\nYou would figure wrong. It's May 2011 and VaR is still there. Still powerful, still influential, still commanding. Basel may have of late busied itself piling up add-on on top of add-on to the market risk regulatory capital formula, so as to try to make sure that trading book leverage going forward can't be as insultingly superlative as it had been allowed to be up to mid-2007, but VaR is still the main part of that ever-so-influential formula. In fact, the presence of those Stressed VaR and Incremental Risk Charge add-ons (which, recall, are presumed to help lift capital requirements by three or four times their previous levels) may tempt banks to come up with even lower main VaR numbers, so that the final result (VaR plus the add-ons) is kept as humble as possible. We know that VaR is easily manipulable into being very small. So who can guarantee that banks can't get even better at this after the crisis? Now they have a huge incentive to do so, after all. In any case, three\u2013four times the prior capital charges is three\u2013four times 1 percent or even 0.1 percent, not an insurmountably large number (250-to-1 leverage on trading positions may be less accommodating than 1,000-to-1 leverage, but it's not less lethal). The revised formula that is intended to abort the type of cancerous results that VaR by itself can and did deliver can still deliver cancerous results.\n\nWhat explains VaR's resilience? It'd surely be nice to know.\n\nNotes\n\n1. \"Trading Losses at Financial Institutions Underscore Need for Greater Market Risk Capital,\" Standard & Poor's (April 15, 2008).\n\n2. Ranjit Lall, \"Why Basel II Failed and Why Any Basel III Is Doomed,\" Oxford University's Global Economic Governance Programme Working Paper (October 2009).\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Michel Crouhy et al., The Essentials of Risk Management (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), 359.\n\n5. Nicholas Dunbar, Inventing Money (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), 186.\n\n6. Ibid., 147.\n\n7. Ibid., 203.\n\n8. Ibid., 204.\n\n9. \"Performance of Models-Based Capital Charges for Market Risk: 1 July\u201331 December 1998,\" Basel Committee (September 1999).\n\n10. Nicholas Dunbar, Inventing Money, 220.\n\n11. \"Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report,\" (2011), Chapter 8.\n\n12. Ibid.\nChapter 5\n\nAbetting the CDO Party\n\n  * VaR and Toxicity\n  * The Swiss Connection\n  * Too Much Seniority\n  * The Marvels of the Trading Book\n  * Did VaR Allow CDOs to Exist?\n\nLet's remind ourselves once more why the 2007 crisis took place. Again, the true factor behind the global mayhem and the true reason why the episode earned a top spot in the history books was the existence-threatening (or, in some cases, existence-denying) humongous losses suffered by very large investment banks in New York and London. Those huge, and rather sudden, setbacks are the reason why the world froze in fear and despair. Without those very big bank losses, there would have been no real history-making crisis. A few U.S. mortgage lenders and brokers would have still sunk, many U.S. consumers would have still been hurt, and several pension funds and insurance companies in Norway and Korea would have still posted negative returns, but those developments per se would not have had the fuselage to ignite what has been deemed as \"the worst economic recession since the 1929 Great Depression.\"\n\nAnd why did the big banks lose so much money so fast? Because of their very pronounced leverage, much of it of the toxic kind. By mid-2007, the most influential investment banks had simply accumulated too many assets on the back of too little equity capital; many of those assets were trading-related (i.e., potentially volatile and risky) and many were nasty ones linked to subprime residential mortgages (CDOs and others). Under such circumstances all it takes is for some of those high-stakes assets to tumble in value just a bit for the bank to sink, its tiny capital base wiped out by the losses from the huge asset portfolio.\n\nWe saw in Chapter 1 how VaR enabled the overall pronounced leverage. Banks' balance sheets were dominated by trading positions, and the unrealistically and irresponsibly very low VaR figures recorded before the crisis dictated that very little capital had to be set against those. So there were 100-to-1 and even 1,000-to-1 trading book gearing levels. Such a state of affairs is by itself utterly lethal, even if the asset portfolio was comprised entirely of safe securities. A strategy consisting of owning $100 or more in government bonds backed by just $1 in capital would itself be highly dangerous. Those overall gearing levels would be enough for us to badmouth VaR as an enabler of fragility and chaos, even if we didn't know the portfolio's exact composition. That general leverage would be sufficient for us to accuse VaR of having fueled destruction.\n\nHow about the toxic part of the equation? VaR, as appointed setter of a bank's trading-related leverage, should naturally be fingered for a crisis caused by trading-related leverage. But what was its precise role when it came to the nastiest stuff? Did banks really own so many absurdly nasty assets? And did VaR really help the banks own the absurdly nasty stuff? The losses that truly mattered were those that took place in the poisonous subprime mortgage securities space, did VaR play a key role there, too?\n\nAfter the \"VaR led to a lot of leverage\" allegation was amply proven in the first chapter, we then turn to the \"Banks owned a lot of subprime junk and VaR aided and abetted them in said pursuit\" imputation. In this quest we can do worse than initially borrow from the specific experience of Swiss banking behemoth UBS, one of the biggest losers in the credit crisis, one of the most leveraged firms, and one of the most eager players in the filthy subprime CDOs sphere. In other words, UBS stands as an ideal poster child for the ravenously irresponsible behavior that investment banks felt obliged to abide by in the years prior to mid-2007. A great case to focus on if we want to thoroughly dissect that destructive behavior. A great window into how contaminated banks' trading books (VaR's domain, naturally) became.\n\nUBS was not just overtly generous in the poisoning of its balance sheet with leverage and toxicity, it was also uncommonly generous in its explications as to how and why the poisoning took place. The bank's April 2008 report to shareholders1 on the massive write-downs incurred in the prior nine months ought to be soberly framed and prominently displayed should a mausoleum dedicated to vast financial meltdowns ever be erected in Manhattan or the City of London. Few other sources can be better at describing in painstaking detail the rationale behind the demise of UBS and its investment banking siblings. Few other sources can be better at explaining the role of the toxic stuff. And few other sources can be better at shedding light on VaR's role in the affair.\n\nThe report begins by listing UBS's subprime losses during the fateful May 2007 to March 2008 period, when the crisis started following the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble and consolidated as the value of those securities linked to that real estate market collapsed. We will deal with these setbacks (and with the similar downfalls suffered by other banks) in later paragraphs, but suffice it to say that during that time frame the Swiss giant wrote-down almost $40 billion from its U.S. residential mortgage and related structured credit positions, fueling very substantial and headline-grabbing overall net losses for the Helvetian giant. What's more pressing now is to understand the origin of that bad news.\n\nIt turns out that a number of different people and different business lines were toying with subprime stuff inside UBS. The report names as many as five miscreants, but only three really contributed to the malaise in bulk, and of that trio only one did it in real size. Internal hedge fund Dillon Read Asset Management famously was brought down by its subprime bets just before summer 2007, and contributed 16 percent to UBS's total subprime losses for that year. Something called the Foreign Exchange\/Cash Collateral Trading unit took a 10 percent share of the filthy pie (it is highly telling of the delusional state into which financiers were trapped in those precrisis years that when the FX\/CCT unit had to dispose of some of its holdings of Japanese government bonds it did so by accumulating asset-backed securities, including U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities, assuming that both types of investments were interchangeable given the AAA\u2013AA credit ratings they both then shared). But the truly big hole was caused by the Investment Banking arm's Fixed Income Division's Rates business' CDO desk, by itself responsible for 66 percent of UBS's 2007 subprime mess. And how did the CDO desk manage to pile up so much sadness? By warehousing and retaining huge amounts of subprime CDOs, in particular the \"super senior\" tranches of Subprime CDOs. For the purposes of this book, the CDO desk story is the one that we are more enchanted by, not just because it did the most to kill UBS (and the many other banks whose actions mirrored the Swiss') and thus to awaken a global crisis, but because it is the one most directly related to bank capital requirements and thus to VaR.\n\nAfter an apparently sleepy start, UBS's CDO desk caught subprime CDO fever in 2005. Initially, the bank was a pure securitizer, in the originate-and-distribute mode: It would source the underlying residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS, a securitization of a large pool of mortgage loans) on behalf of a CDO manager, with these positions held (\"warehoused\") in UBS's books prior to their being alchemized into a CDO (a pool of RMBS, in essence a resecuritization of a very large number of mortgage loans); once the warehousing process was complete, the RMBS were transferred to a special purpose vehicle and transformed (resecuritized) into CDO tranches, which were then sold to investors the globe over. Each CDO tranche was akin to a bond, offering a given return on the notional amount invested. UBS made structuring fees for its troubles, determined as a percentage of the deal's volume. As it focused on quite risky CDOs, so-called Mezzanine CDOs (made up of rather shaky, and thus higher-yielding, RMBS), UBS received quite hefty fees, in the neighborhood of 1.25 percent to 1.50 percent. This was better than the paltry 0.0 percent to 0.50 percent one would get from engineering sounder, high-grade CDOs made up of tentatively sounder RMBS but it also meant that UBS was more exposed during the warehousing period when all the smelly low-grade RMBS sat on its books impatiently waiting to be packaged and released onto an unsuspecting outer investment world, adorned this time with much better credit ratings (thanks to the perceived benefits of diversification, a bunch of smelly mortgage-backed securities was able to obtain AAA ratings when in CDO form; this was naturally a big reason for the creation of CDOs and its variants, CDO squared and CDO cubed, themselves further attempts to transform what was BBB into yet more AAA). There was typically a lag of a few months between the time of the initial agreement with the CDO manager to buy the RMBS and the filling up of the warehouse and release of the assets. During that time, UBS ran market risk on those positions, which generally were left unhedged. As such, warehoused RMBS were included in the bank's overall U.S. mortgage VaR limits. By the end of 2007, one quarter of the CDO desk's total losses came from securities stuck in the CDO Warehouse pipeline, unable to be disposed of once the subprime CDO market froze in earlier months following the first significant spates of mortgage defaults in the United States and of massive downgrades on subprime-linked stuff by rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's.\n\nOne big reason why the CDO business came alive in 2005 was the development in June of that year of credit default swaps on RMBS, a feat that gave birth to the synthetic subprime CDO, an invention that made sure that the creation of CDOs could now proceed completely unconstrained by the actual size of the underlying subprime mortgage universe. Before, you needed fresh raw material if you wanted to create a new CDO: each CDO was referenced to a unique set of so-called cash RMBS (i.e., plain RMBS), so if you wanted another CDO you had to come up with another unique set of RMBS (i.e., you needed to find additional mortgage loans with which to build the new cash RBMS). Now, you didn't need new real crappy loans if you wanted to design new crappy CDOs. The credit default swap on any already existing crappy RMBS would do, and could be infinitely replicated and be part of many different CDOs at the same time. All that mattered were the cash flows that fed the CDOs and from which CDO investors received their yields: Before synthetic CDOs, cash flows came from actual loans and obviously any single individual loan can only produce one set of cash flows in the form of the interest and repayment of principal that such a loan is entitled to, so any individual mortgage could only belong to one particular CDO; with synthetic CDOs, a lot of cash flows could be created on the same individual mortgage as long as one could find several market participants willing to take the long side of a credit default swap linked to that loan and agree to make periodic payments to their swap counterparty (in a credit default swap, one party pays a regular premium to another party in exchange for a lump-sum payment later on if a given preselected bond or loan suffers from an adverse credit event; the buyer of the swap is in effect purchasing protection on the bond or loan and is willing to pay for it). While a real loan can only generate a single cash-flow stream, and thus can only be securitized into a single structure, credit default swaps on that loan can generate potentially infinite cash-flow streams, one for each swap linked to that loan that is transacted, each feeding a different new security. In theory, a single pile of RMBS could now sustain an infinite number of synthetic CDOs. There was no longer a need to find actual human beings to whom to lend subprime mortgages. After June 2005, the CDO machine could feed itself, purportedly in perpetuity.\n\nMore troubling, and fate-sealing, than the travails derived from warehousing subprime CDO's raw materials was the decision by UBS's CDO traders to keep part of the finished product. And not just the product they had themselves manufactured, but also similar product manufactured by others. Originally, and once the CDO securitization process was finalized, UBS would sell the different CDO tranches to outside investors. The \"equity\" tranche went to those desiring the highest yield and willing to embrace the corresponding higher risk (as equity investors would be the first to suffer losses as soon as the underlying RMBS tumbled in value; an equity investor could be completely wiped out if just a small percentage of the loan pool goes bad). The \"super senior\" tranche went to those agreeing to enjoy much less return but also exposing themselves to, in principle, much less danger (as super senior investors would be the last to suffer losses if the RMBS turned sour; a much higher percentage of loans had to go bad for the investor to blow up, and that is why these punts were assumed to be so solid as to warrant a \"more than AAA\" credit rating, even if the raw material was made up of very suspect ingredients). The \"mezzanine\" tranche was more problematic, given its Goldilocks feel (sitting in between equity and super senior, it looked neither too attractive yield-wise nor too secure risk-wise); the mezz portion typically was re-re-securitized into new CDOs made up of CDOs, where thanks to the assumed magic of diversification and very generous joint default correlation estimates by the agencies and the quantitative analysts what used to have a low credit rating could be transformed into a lot of AAAs (thus increasing the chances that at least a lot of the new CDO could be placed with investors eager, or forced by their internal rules, to invest in apparently ultrasafe paper).\n\nAfter those initial deals, the CDO desk decided to retain the super senior part of the subprime CDOs it structured (i.e., the CDO desk decided to invest in its own creations; in effect, UBS built a huge long subprime position, exposing itself to a fast blowup should the subprime market melt), for two main reasons: One, it was viewed as a nice source of profit in its own regard; and two, retaining that tranche helped the rolling along of the very profitable CDO structuring business. Those were two very powerful arguments for the strategy. A new money machine could be created, for even as the returns on super senior were modest in gross terms they were seen as a net gain, and a small net gain on billions and billions of dollars, or Swiss Francs, of CDO notional amounts could add up to very attractive monetary windfalls. This was particularly true given UBS's very low internal cost of funding, which allowed certain units to run very profitable businesses by creating portfolios of mildly returning assets; the net margin proved attractive, as the yields from the position were higher than the cost of funding it; in the case of super senior tranches the net positive carry for UBS was about 0.20 percent, at first sight perhaps not excruciatingly enchanting but keep in mind that this was considered to be a risk-free gain as the super senior play was often internally assumed to be fully hedged and as the asset carried beyond-AAA rating. And the already designed fee-generating CDO-structuring money machine could be kept well oiled, as by retaining the super senior tranche, by far the largest share of the CDO, the traders were making sure that the CDO could be completed and transacted in the first place. Per the April 2008 report, \"Within the CDO desk, the ability to retain these tranches was seen as a part of the overall CDO business, providing assistance to the structuring business more generally.\" Without someone hanging on to the super senior slice, the deal could not go through and all those tantalizing structuring fees may fly away. And the truth is that super senior was not easy to sell outside of the bank; it was both too sizable and too timid returns-wise, and it wasn't even the only supposedly risk-lite component of the CDO (tranches immediately below super senior and also carrying very high ratings were also available, with a better yield). So by internally amalgamating a portfolio of super seniors, UBS's CDO traders were seen as wisely helping themselves, in one fell swoop lubricating two highly lucrative endeavors. And not only that. The CDO desk fell in love with super senior so much that it also decided to purchase some of the super senior generated by other banks' CDO structuring efforts. It seems that UBS by itself could not churn out enough CDOs to satisfy its unremitting hunger for subprime seniority. CDO traders were committed to taking a huge bet on the worst segments of the U.S. residential mortgage market not going south and they were not about to let themselves be limited by their own capacity to come up with convoluted securities that bet on the worst segments of the US residential mortgage market not going south.\n\nIt is important to note that UBS did not follow just one type of super senior stratagem. It divided its super senior play into three broad categories: (1) fully hedged positions (through, say, a monoline insurer); (2) very slimly hedged positions (just 2 percent to 4 percent of the notional, based on statistical analysis of the position's riskiness that indicated that such minute cover was sufficient as losses were not expected to be greater than that); and (3) totally unhedged positions (typically, positions not yet hedged waiting to be hedged; there was a certain time lag between the retention of the super senior tranche and its hedging). When markets turned and subprime CDOs headed for the precipice, those three approaches contributed, respectively, to 10 percent, 63 percent, and 27 percent of UBS's 2007 total losses on super senior plays. As is amply known, a lot of monoline insurance turned out to be not insurance as those \"insurers\" went out of business flooded by the sudden massive liabilities triggered by the housing cataclysm. Also retrospectively (and, for many, also prospectively) obvious is that the statistical \"forecasts\" were fraudulently off the mark, irrefutably Lilliputian. And no need to dwell on the inconvenience of having unhedged subprime CDO positions.\n\nSo, the key question beckons. How much toxic stuff did the CDO desk accumulate before it was too late? As the shareholders report neatly states, UBS's super senior inventory grew from low levels in early 2006 to $50 billion by September 2007, with more than half of the latter figure either slimly hedged or totally unhedged. The possibility of synthetic and hybrid deals naturally contributed to such growth, as did the \"no risk\" statistical alibi (if you can get away with considering a CDO bet a fully hedged bet when you are hedging just 2 percent to 4 percent of the deal, more power to ya'). Twenty billion dollars of those $50 billion were purchased from third parties. By that date, with the market deterioration only too obvious, any exit strategy (whether sales or hedging of those long subprime positions) had become pretty much unviable due to a dry-up in liquidity and risk appetite. There was no option but to incur severe write-downs, more than $20 billion of them by mid-2008, making the super senior CDOs retained by UBS the greatest single source of loss for the bank.\n\nIs $50 billion a lot of money to be wagering on the fate of the U.S. subprime housing market? Well, on September 28, 2007, UBS had total equity capital of around $42 billion, so yes $50 billion appears as a tad excessive (and remember that this is just the super senior stuff that was kept on the bank's books; on top of that, UBS had extra exposure to subprime through its CDO Warehouse pipeline, through the other units that punted on subprime one way or another, and through off-balance sheet activities; the Fixed Income Division's CDO desk was responsible for two-thirds of UBS's total losses, and other folks within the bank also lost a ton of dough on subprime). Any reasonably prudent person would tell you that making a \"subprime will survive\" punt for an amount larger than your entire core capital base would not belong to the category of prudent management. If securities entirely made up of sure-to-default loans found their natural value (i.e., zero or very close to it), the bank would be instantly insolvent.\n\nIn sum, UBS did have a lot of subprime junk on its books. The search for profit through the two conduits of CDO structuring and super senior tranche retention had condemned the bank to owning too many billions of CDO and RMBS exposure. What was the cost of this junkyard, regulatory capital-wise? We already suspect that it must have been pretty low, given that UBS's super senior position by itself was larger than its entire equity base (which, on top of the subprime cesspool, had been calculated to sustain the rest of UBS's assets, all $2 trillion of them by September 28, 2007). But, does the April 2008 report provide more detailed guidance? Yes, it does. Inside UBS, on-balance sheet CDO positions were given trading book treatment as opposed to banking book treatment, meaning that their risk and capital charge would be monitored by VaR (the report expressed its puzzlement with such arrangement, complaining that \"Super senior notes were always treated as trading book, i.e. the book for assets intended for resale in the short term, notwithstanding the fact that there does not appear to have been a liquid secondary market\"). And until Q3 2007 those VaR numbers happened to be very low. UBS used a five-year time series to obtain the super senior positions' VaR. Up to Q3 2007, subprime CDOs had experienced very little volatility as the mortgage bubble inflated unabated and, as a consequence and in the report's very words, \"even unhedged super senior positions contributed little to VaR.\" That is, the riskiness of even UBS's naked CDO punts was deemed by VaR to be small. Hedged positions, including those very scantily hedged, were deemed \"VaR neutral\" meaning that they were treated as if their VaR was effectively zero; so for internal risk assessment all those gazillions in super senior positions that were hedged only up to 2 percent to 4 percent of their size were judged to be 100 percent risk-free. Given that that family of the overall subprime portfolio ended up representing 63 percent of UBS's total super senior losses for 2007, it appears at the very least slightly weird to have considered them so magnificently solid. The model, certified by the Investment Banking Division's Quantitative Risk Control group, that said that by hedging just 2 percent to 4 percent of the position you could go to sleep thinking yourself unassailably protected was proven to be as creepily deleterious as the securities that it purported to analyze (CDO traders had a big incentive to believe in the model's dictums, as doing the 2 percent to 4 percent hedge was 50 percent cheaper than doing the 100 percent hedge; recall that fully covered plays contributed only 10 percent of overall 2007 super senior setbacks). The statistical assumptions were demolished by the very impressive losses that those \"zero VaR\" positions ended up suffering. Let's hear it from the report again, \"Investment Banking business planning relied on VaR, the key risk parameter in the process. When the market dislocation unfolded, it became apparent that this methodology had not appropriately captured the risk inherent in the businesses having subprime exposures.\"\n\nUBS's subprime positions (the warehoused RMBS, the super senior CDO tranches) were filtered through the VaR strainer. The VaR of those positions was very low up to the crisis. This allowed the subprime stuff to enjoy very low risk estimates and capital requirements. Why did UBS decide to place its subprime holdings under VaR's tutelage? You already suspect the rationale, but the April 2008 report offers a particularly straightforward summation: \"Treatment under the banking book would have significantly changed the economics of the CDO desk business as this would have increased the required regulatory capital charges.\" In other words, VaR allowed the CDO desk (ultimately responsible for UBS's dance with death and destruction) to churn out a lot of nasty CDOs and to keep a lot of nasty CDO tranches by making it extremely economical to churn out a lot of nasty CDOs and to keep a lot of nasty CDO tranches. By late September 2007, as UBS accumulated all those super seniors and related subprime garbage, its regulatory VaR was a paltry CHF1.19 billion, just 0.35 percent of its total trading assets (or almost 300-to-1 trading book leverage); even if we assumed that that capital was supporting exclusively the CDO stuff, the leverage would still have been a very lax 40 to 1. UBS ended up owning north of $50 billion in securities backed by the most venomously polluted assets ever devised because VaR made it very cheap to do so. Had owning north of $50 billion in securities backed by the most venomously polluted assets ever devised cost the appropriate amount of capital (something like, say, $50 billion), UBS would most probably not have owned north of $50 billion in super senior tranches of subprime CDOs, or perhaps not even $1 billion. And UBS, it follows, would not have bled so dangerously profusely. And the world would have been a better place.\n\nIt is important to remind ourselves that VaR's responsibility for a financial meltdown need not depend on it having had a role in determining the leverage that banks were allowed to enjoy on their trading books. As we know there is another key, though admittedly not as decisive, conduit through which VaR can facilitate trading trouble: namely, its original and seemingly perennial role as internal market risk beacon. VaR is used inside dealing rooms the world over as the mechanism that dictates whether or not a position is put on, how much trading volume a particular desk is allowed to take on, when assets should be liquidated, and in general how comfortable and permissive senior management are with their underlings' trading forays. If VaR gives the internal okay, the asset will be purchased (and if VaR stops giving the okay, an asset will be sold). It is easier to build a case for the accumulation of an asset if VaR is low. And, as the 2008 report indicates, those low VaR numbers inside UBS allowed unfettered complacency when it came to subprime CDO games. VaR told insiders that it was okay to retain a lot of super senior trash because it was, statistically speaking, not a risky business. Any insider skeptical as to the CDO desk's activities would have been subjugated into compliance and submission by the very humble risk estimates. VaR became a powerful ally of those at UBS ready and willing to bet the bank's fate on the subprime market's future. \"In the context of the CDO structuring business and the super senior trades, Investment Banking Market Risk Control relied primarily upon VaR and stress limits and monitoring to provide risk control for the CDO desk,\" offered the report, before later on denigrating VaR by brutally bluntly stating that \"Inappropriate risk metrics had been used in strategic planning and assessment\" and that the model had been dangerously over-relied on. If you have any doubt as to the unquestionably decisive part that a tool like VaR can have in enabling a dance like the subprime CDO cha-cha-cha, recall how the biggest slice of UBS's overall super senior retention strategy got away with labeling itself fully hedged by purchasing protection on just 2 percent to 4 percent of the position's notional value, and revisit the reason why such modest-looking risk management approach was assumed to be iron-clad secure: data-driven analysis of the kind that VaR is built on. In the shareholders' report's own words, \"This level of hedging was based on statistical analyses of historical price movements that indicated that such protection was sufficient to protect UBS from any losses on the position. Much of the protection has now been exhausted, leaving UBS exposed to write-downs on losses to the extent they exceed the protection purchased.\" VaR is, of course, based on statistical dissection of historical evidence. Remember that the \"fully hedged\" alibi permitted those massive positions to be pronounced \"VaR neutral,\" and thus to be accumulated relentlessly (in the process, as we know, making it more comfortable for UBS's CDO desk and for other banks' CDO desks to continue manufacturing CDO garbage). And remember that those positions were in the end behind most of UBS's entire super senior setback.\n\nVaR, together with the credit ratings and other number-crunching tricks, effectively became not just an enabler of the destructive subprime affair, but, quite conveniently, served the purpose of ex post showing \"rigorous\" due diligence when it came to appraising the risk of having ex ante gone subprime. Using VaR and related analytical models is great not only because their irrepressibly ridiculous risk estimates can give carte blanche to the leveraged accumulation of toxic plays, but also because after the fact, and should big loses materialize, you can always claim to have believed yourself fully hedged, according to the most glorified, accepted, and conventional methods. So VaR and similarly admired quanty tools are used not just because it aids your trading forays but also because the world will buy it when you point at the VaR alibi as excuse for your position-taking (which beats the alternative explanation of having knowingly amassed knowingly lethal assets). The \"Look, those bets were riskless according to this age-old model that is embraced by regulators and taught at the world's best universities. I can't be blamed for taking irresponsibly adventurous positions. I was prudently following the model's sophisticated dictates!\" line seems to have worked all too well during the last and previous financial crises. Rather puzzlingly, people keep accepting such excusing, condoning any kind of chaos-generating behavior as long as it had been sanctioned and rubberstamped by deified analytics.\n\nEven the most illustrious of audiences submit. Take the Swiss Federal Banking Commission. In a famous investigation into UBS's subprime mess2 (which, by the way, concurred with all the major points enshrined in UBS's own report to shareholders, including the conclusions that subprime positions were placed in the trading book, that the consequent reliance on VaR resulted in low regulatory capital requirements, that many positions were assumed to be VaR-neutral, and that VaR eventually proved to have severely underestimated danger) It concluded that everyone at UBS honestly thought of themselves as fully hedged from any subprime deterioration, this, according to the SFBC, being particularly true in the case of the practice of retaining the super senior tranches. As far as the SFBC can tell, no one inside UBS thought that they were taking wild reckless risks, even as they accumulated north of $50 billion in assets made up entirely of the worst possible kind of debt. According to the SFBC's script,\n\nThere is no evidence that managers at the investment bank or group level consciously incurred incalculable risks for the sole purpose of obtaining a higher bonus. Nor is there any evidence that the persons responsible for the risk control function recognized the risks UBS had taken on and deliberately turned a blind eye. On the contrary, the persons responsible for building up the problematic positions relied on the presumed robustness of UBS's risk management and risk control and that when the market deterioration commenced they believed UBS was sufficiently protected. The sense of relative security shared by those responsible for these businesses is further demonstrated by the build-up of additional super senior CDOs retained on the bank's books in the second quarter of 2007.3\n\nThe \"presumed robustness\" of UBS's risk management was predicated on VaR numbers. VaR could be employed as an alibi later on because it looked so robust. A low VaR can later act as a get-out-of-jail free card to categorize any financial action as prudent and robust, no matter how devastating the consequences of those acts. The SFBC's testimony is an incredibly powerful testament as to how readily outsiders come to comply and to believe in the \"the model said no risk, thus I wasn't consciously taking any risks\" excuse (such line of thinking is the most potent incentive for the preservation and build-up of models with a natural tendency to underestimate true risk, and thus for the fragilization of the system).\n\nWhat the SFBC is saying is that no one inside UBS saw any problem with gorging on subprime bets until the volume of those bets dwarfed even the bank's entire equity capital support. That everyone at UBS religiously abided by the ridiculously deflated VaRs and by the ridiculously inflated AAAs. That no one inside UBS ever doubted for a moment the wisdom of considering a secure institution betting the farm on the performance of loans given under false pretenses and for unrepayable amounts to jobless, income-less, possessions-less, faceless individuals living an ocean away from Zurich. In other words, what the SFBC is saying is that UBS employees were brain-dead. What is most probable? That the UBS bankers, traders, and risk managers (many of them extremely qualified and IQ-unchallenged professionals educated in the world's finest schools) would categorize as riskless a portfolio of billions of unhedged or extremely slimly hedged or hedged-through-dubious-means subprime stuff, just because certain statistical methodologies said so? Or that at the very least many of those bankers, traders, and risk managers were entirely aware of the unreliability and uselessness of tools that had the cheek to proclaim a subprime RMBS or CDO as nonproblematic, yet found it more in their interest to play along with the \"riskless\" charade?\n\nAs mentioned, UBS's dance with subprime is a very good case study of the investment banking industry's overall dance with subprime, and the lessons from the Alpine giant serve us well to understand why banks failed so abruptly and deeply. They (many of them at least; there were some notable exceptions) had too much subprime securities inventory on their books. They had large warehouses of the nasty stuff waiting to be repackaged into RMBS and CDOs. They kept large quantities of super senior CDO tranches. They placed a lot of that stuff as trading assets, in the land where VaR dictates regulatory capital charges. VaR was the beacon through which the plays' riskiness was assessed. The nasty stuff was considered prudently under control. Risk estimates and capital requirements were very low, breeding untold complacency and allowing banks to play the subprime game unencumbered.\n\nIn early December 2007, a report by JP Morgan estimated that banks held around $216 billion in super senior tranches of subprime CDOs issued in 2006 and 2007. As of June 29, 2007, Merrill Lynch's net super senior retention exposure was more than $32 billion; to this we must add almost $2 billion in CDO warehousing exposure, plus several billion more in whole loans to get a grip on some of Merrill's subprime risks4 (notice that by \"net\" exposure we mean total long subprime exposures minus protection purchased on those long bets, if those hedges end up not working properly then the true net exposure becomes much greater). Barely a few days before the subprime market unraveled for good, Merrill's toxic portfolio was greater than its entire just-above-$30 billion equity capital base. By September 30, 2007, Citigroup had net super senior exposure of $43 billion ($53 billion gross exposure; $25 billion came from the consolidation of off-balance sheet CDO positions), plus $2.7 billion in CDO warehousing risk, plus several billion more of subprime inventory (whole loans, etc.), for a total net subprime exposure of almost $55 billion.5 As of August 31, 2007, Morgan Stanley's net super senior exposure exceeded $11 billion; it had an extra $9 billion gross long subprime play in the form of warehoused assets and whole loans, but a slightly net short position there given large amounts of hedging, taking the bank's overall net on-balance sheet subprime exposure to just above $10 billion.6\n\nThese gargantuan super senior holdings owed their existence to several main factors. Just like in UBS's case, retaining the super senior slice of a subprime CDO made sense, temporarily at least, as a revenue-generating money machine (the smallish gross returns were perceived as very tasty net income on billions of notional size; two-thirds or more of a CDO was super senior, and average size for a CDO could be $1 billion; given how very economical it was to \"hedge\" these very senior positions, banks could boast of generating tons of \"riskless\" income; plus super senior tranches could be better propositions than similarly rated alternatives, as they tended to yield a few basis points more) and as a fee-generating money machine (being willing to park the stuff on your balance sheet aided the completion of CDO transactions). Also, some banks had provided guarantees and \"liquidity puts\" to the off-balance sheet special investment vehicles that issued notes to investors backed by the performance of super senior subprime tranches; as those shadow banking entities got in trouble following the decline in value of subprime assets, the real banks had to made good on their precommitments and swallow the exposures into their books.\n\nBanks got caught in a self-feeding, self-defeating spiral: The greed for upfront CDO structuring fees (especially, recall from UBS, when it came to the CDOs made up of low-grade RMBS) turned several banks into out-of-control CDO underwriters, forcing them in turn to digest ever larger chunks of super senior positions. Recall that it wasn't easy to find outsiders willing to take on the super senior tranche, given its relatively low yield and its abundant size. Sometimes the outsiders that had complied stopped doing so, most famously insurance giant AIG, which had in the market's early days been willing to insure huge amounts of banks' super senior bets at a very paltry cost. When AIG quit the field in 2005 worried about the vast amount of liabilities it had undertaken, banks became in effect the \"dumb money,\" their CDO position now fully mirroring that of Norwegian town councils, German insurance companies, and other typical CDO investors: If the value of subprime assets fell, they would be nakedly facing large losses.\n\nLet's dwell a bit more on why banks felt the need to engage in a steamy, sordid, titillating, scandalous love affair with the super senior tranches of subprime CDOs. After all, that romance was the main source of losses for Wall Street and London, and, therefore, the main culprit behind the maliciously brutal 2007\u20132008 crisis. Plus, more egotistically, the accumulation of super senior bets is a pretty big indictment on VaR, and thus its analysis should place prominently in a book such as this one. This was UBS's literal explanation as to why it chose to embrace super seniority as a profitable investment: \"The funded positions yielded a positive carry (i.e., return) above the internal UBS funding and the unfunded position generated a positive spread.\" Funded positions are those where the investor actually purchases a bond, and unfunded positions are those where the investor can make essentially the same bet but without having to make any principal investment. For example, a fully funded cash CDO uses the proceeds from the sale of its bonds to investors to buy the underlying bonds or loans whose cash flows are the main source of funds for repaying the CDO's own bonds (that is, the yields on the CDO's tranches). On the other hand, a synthetic CDO with an unfunded super senior tranche pays super senior investors from the cash flows collected from those buying protection (and thus paying a regular swap spread) on the CDO's underlying credit default swaps. Those slices of the synthetic CDO that are funded would invest the principal amounts received from tranche investors in risk-free assets, which together with the swap spreads received from protection buyers would form the cash flows pot to which those investors are entitled. Access to cheap financing was essential to make the net return on funded positions reasonably interesting, given how modest the gross yield on the super senior tranche was. UBS wasn't adamant to admit that much,\n\nSeveral of the Super Senior positions (either retained from UBS securitizations or purchased from third parties) had a thin positive carry of approximately 20 basis points, i.e. the costs of funding the positions were lower than the (expected) yield on those positions. More demanding internal transfer pricing requirements could have made several cash positions unattractive due to negative carry, which may have resulted in closer scrutiny of the overall carry strategy.\n\nIn other words, if UBS had not lent money so cheaply to its CDO desk, its CDO desk would have had a much harder time building its fatal super senior portfolio.\n\nThe April 2008 report in fact intones a big mea culpa when it comes to the issue of internal funding, flagellating the bank for having passed through its cheap market borrowing costs to its business units without regard for the riskiness and illiquidity of a particular unit's assets. Why did UBS act that way? The report has an answer in hand, sharing that, \"A more stringent funding model was seen by Investment Banking senior management as potentially impacting their growth plans.\" Such ambitions, coupled with a prolonged period of very cheap financing fueled by a very easy official monetary policy regime (and by the then-fashionable perception that investment banks were unassailably robust and successful), made it certain that the net positive carry CDO cash machine would roll along unperturbed, in the process building up a ticking bomb of hidden risk inside the Swiss confines.\n\nThe economics for other banks appear to have been the same. In a conference on September 2008, Eric Kolchinsky from Moody's showed a slide where the numbers behind the so-called Negative Basis Trade were neatly presented: The super senior tranche would pay Libor plus 20 basis points; the funding cost would be Libor minus 10 basis points; and the cost of hedging the play (through, say, a credit default swap on the CDO) would be 10 basis points. The final result was a sweet 20 basis points net annual return on a fully hedged more-than-AAA asset; or, as almost everyone called it back then, free money. Banks had seemingly found a golden goose from where large profits and huge returns on equity could be milked, requiring not too much effort or ingenuity from them in return. As long as more subprime borrowers and\/or people willing to take the long side of the credit default swaps on RMBS could be found, the alchemy would last.\n\nProfitable as the carry trade was in itself, its full gloriousness lay in its ability to lead banks to yet another CDO field of gold, an ocean of CDO securitization fees. Even if the carry trade had delivered no gains (say, because banks' funding costs went up), it may still have made sense for banks to gorge on it, given the tasty rewards from underwriting and selling CDOs (recall that UBS was making 1.25 percent to 1,50 percent in structuring fees; other banks fared similarly well; for instance Citigroup earned 1 percent of the total deal7). As third party investors shied away from seniority, it was up to the CDO structurers to fill the void. The small gross yield on super seniors that would have sufficed for banks to build a money machine may not have been nearly enough compensation for other financial players. Especially given that a CDO offered other, higher-yielding, opportunities for AAA\u2013AA investing, thus crowding out super seniors (as an illustrative example, a AAA+ super senior tranche that only suffers losses if more than 15 percent of the CDO's underlying assets go underwater could have below it a AAA tranche sheltered from up to 10 percent of portfolio setbacks and a AA tranche with a 7 percent subordination; too much internal top-rated competition for super senior). The super senior's pick up over other super creditworthy external competitors, such as Treasury bonds, would have been too limited to entice investors into a play that, at the end of the day, was linked to the default capabilities of NINJA (no income-no jobs-no assets) mortgage borrowers rather than to those of Uncle Sam. That return premia has been estimated to have been around 10 basis points.8 The JP Morgan study mentioned above openly stated that, \"The banks ended up holding so many super-senior classes of CDOs partly because they were forced to retain about two thirds of the securities when underwriting deals in 2006 and 2007 because of weak demand from other investors.\"\n\nNaturally, one may naively wonder why were banks so happy-go-lucky about retaining massive amounts of securities that other investors were shunning. After concurring that banks agreed to hold on to the super seniors so as to safeguard the great deal of fees generated from selling the more junior tranches, one elite regulator put it like this: \"In an originate and distribute securitization model you are not supposed to hold on to large positions, and if the market forces you to that position perhaps it's sending a signal about risk that very much needs to be heeded.\"9 But this assumes that banks cared at all about the risks of their CDO positions. After all, weren't those AAA+? What's the problem? It's free money, right?\n\nSuper senior tranches may have been condemned to being unattractive to outside investors from the get-go. In their eagerness to create and sell CDOs, banks may have been forced to engineering the things so that the high-risk bottom tranches enjoyed really tasty returns, thus guaranteeing investor demand (after all, the junior slices were competing for investor attention with other similarly rated securities). The entire purpose of the CDO was to endow trashy securities with better credit ratings, so that people who always wanted to buy trashy assets but were pushed back by the fact that the trashy character of the punt was so openly obvious could now get their hands on the trash but under a conveniently deceitful disguise. The BBB-rated tranche of the RMBS that banks engineered was never a hit with outside investors, so banks had no alternative but to create the investor: the CDOs. As a mortgage banker told attendees at a securitization forum in early 2002, \"We told you that these BBB securities were a great deal, and priced at great spreads, but nobody stepped up. So we created the investor.\"10 By 2005, CDOs were buying virtually all BBB RMBS tranches and turning the vast majority of them into AAA paper; in essence, through the CDO machine all the stinky garbage left out in the mortgage market was laundered into lavender-scenting delicacies.\n\nBut just because the trash is no longer deemed so doesn't mean that you have to settle for untrashy-like yields. You still demand very appealing returns. So the lower tranches had to be adorned with decent yields, but in making the riskiest tranches attractive to purchasers they were priced attractively relative to expected cash flows (don't forget that it was essential that the junior tranches were sold for the senior tranches to have very high-credit ratings; the only reason why a pool of lowly rated mortgage securities can produce AAA tranches is that enough investors are willing to purchase the subordinated tranches and thus agree to absorb first losses on the underlying loans, and thus contribute to the illusion that the senior stuff is riskless because losses won't reach that high; so if you want to alchemize trash into a lot of AAA seniority you better find someone ready to take the first hits to the CDO, and chances are you would have to compensate them nicely for that). And since the overall cash flows from the underlying bonds or credit default swaps are fixed, the outcome from skewing their distribution toward the lower tranches was that super seniors would be relatively starved of cash flow and thus yield, and more difficult to sell.11 If you need to concentrate payments on the other tranches you probably can't make those tranches too big, implying that the remaining top tranche will be very big and very slimly yielding. If you or somebody else is going to be stuck with that investment it might as well be categorized as more than super safe (otherwise, what's the point?), and this is where risk measuring tools that assigned negligible danger to that investment helped a lot; the models that assigned very little odds to extreme events and that assumed very small correlation among the underlying subprime loans also helped in another key respect: They helped make the junior CDO tranches smaller and thus easier to place by calculating that only a bit of subordination would be needed for senior tranches to feel safe, in the process naturally helping make the top tranches very large, a boon for banks involved in the super senior carry trade.\n\nAnother rationale for the low returns on super seniors might have been a desire not to charge too much spread to those willing to buy protection and feed the credit default swaps on RMBS sustaining synthetic CDOs: Without those cash flows there's no CDO to arrange and intermediate so you better not ask those protection buyers for prohibitive sums of money, lest they fly away in disgust. A necessarily constrained cash flow pile necessarily means limited cash flow for super seniors, as more junior investors must, again, be properly spoiled.\n\nAs the subprime crisis unfolded many observers were shocked by the sight of so many super senior losses inside so many banks. Up to that point few of the few people aware of the very existence of such a thing as a CDO super senior tranche even mildly suspected that the firms designing the CDOs were also the ones exposed to super senior. It had been assumed that the purportedly super safe, ultraconservative paper had ended up in the hands of those who habitually buy super safe, ultraconservative paper. The stuff just seemed tailor-made for the tastes of staid, boring investors happy to earn low yields on surprise-free solid plays. Super senior just looked too unsexy and unadventurous a punt for high-flying investment banks to be making. Even those nonbankers who had most avidly followed the brave new world of structured finance were baffled. Take Gillian Tett, the Financial Times senior U.S. editor and former capital markets editor who most likely became the first major journalist to start covering subprime CDOs, and who was public in her shock when the real truth behind the super senior story was unveiled in late 2007. Tett was forced to confess once reality hit:\n\nWhen I first heard about this asset class a couple of years ago I initially assumed this stuff might appeal to risk-averse institutions such as pension funds. But nothing could be further from the truth. As banks have pumped out CDOs, they have been selling the other tranches of debt to outside investors\u2014while retaining the super-senior piece on their books. Sometimes they did this simply to keep the CDO machine running. But there was another, far more important, incentive. Banks such as UBS and Merrill have been cramming their books with tens of billions of super-senior debt\u2014and then booking the spread as a seemingly never-ending source of easy profit. So there you have it: in the last resort, a key reason for these record-beating losses is not a failure of ultra-complex financial strategies or esoteric models; instead it arose from a humongous, misplaced bet on a carry trade that was so simple that even a first-year economics student (or Financial Times journalist) could understand it. So the moral, in a sense, is also a simple one: if someone offers you seemingly free money, in seemingly infinite quantities, with a soothing new name, you really ought to smell a rat.12\n\nMany didn't even understand why such an invention as super senior tranches needed to exist in the first place. Too little yield pickup for too much (real) risk. Outsiders didn't bother and couldn't banks have done the famous carry trade on more subordinated tranches of the CDO, thus generating even more income? A big reason why a big slice of something deemed more-than-AAA was a glorious thing to create may have been the urgent need by the financial industry for more-than-AAA assets. You see, really highly rated stuff is hard to come by in finance. Up to the arrival of CDOs, a very limited number of asset families (some government bonds, some corporate bonds) were considered ultrasafe. Ultrasafe assets play a key role as guarantors in financing, trading, and regulatory activities, so if you can't find them in size you might need to manufacture new ones through the alchemy of securitization. Without those sound guarantees you may not be able to borrow, trade, and comply with regulations as much as you'd like. In the words of an academic involved in the CDO business:\n\nA problem with the new banking system is that it depends on collateral to guarantee the safety of the deposits. But, there are many demands for such collateral. Foreign governments and investors have significant demands for U.S. Treasury bonds, U.S. agency bonds, and corporate bonds. Treasury and agency bonds are also needed to collateralize derivatives positions. Further, they are needed to use as collateral for clearing and settlement of financial transactions. There are few AAA corporate bonds. Roughly speaking, the total amount of possible collateral in U.S. bond markets, minus the amount held by foreigners is about $16 trillion. The amount used to collateralize derivatives positions is about $4 trillion. It is not known how much is needed for clearing and settlement. Repo needs, say, $12 trillion. The demand for collateral has been largely met by securitization, a 30-year old innovation that allows for efficient financing of loans.13\n\nIt turns out that on top of earning good fees and returns for banks, CDOs delivered a third miracle: a machine that churned out unlimited amounts of AAA assets to quench the insatiable and unmeetable thirst for the iron-clad collateral that oils financial activity. Between 2003 and 2007, as the U.S. housing sector boomed, banks issued $700 billion in mortgage-linked CDOs;14 if we assume that 80 percent of a CDO was AAA (super senior plus the immediately subordinated tranche) then around $560 billion of new AAA securities were created just like that, through the perceived magic of asset diversification and the humble statistical loss estimates. So there was a very good reason why the \"originate-and-distribute\" model that presumably lied behind the securitization business in fact transformed into something more like \"originate-and-distribute-a-bit-and-retain a lot.\" The triple AAA label must have also been of help internally for CDO traders justifying to their superiors their amalgamation of super senior positions; if a division head or bank board member peppered them with bothersome questioning the CDO folks could always counter that all they were doing was amassing the most highly rated paper and producing outstanding returns in the process; UBS's 2008 shareholders report points in that direction:\n\nWhilst attempts were made by Group Senior Management to understand the risks in the subprime segment before July 2007, Risk Control and business management described substantial notional exposures in AAA-rated securities, limited exposures to lower rated instruments and low stress loss on the portfolio. Group Senior Management relied on those assurances rather than obtaining all the facts and analytically reviewing the situation.\n\nSome argue that this reality flies in the face of one of the most prevalent myths of the 2007\u20132008 crisis: that the creation of subprime securities was fundamentally motivated by insatiable investor demand. The CDOs and RMBS that went so bad and that wreaked so much havoc, the argument would go, had to be created to satisfy the interests of real investors the globe over, all looking for mortgage-related yield in an era of very low official interest rates and rock-solid housing markets (perhaps the biggest boom in financial history). According to this take, the banks behind the bad securities were just doing their jobs, putting their engineering and marketing skills at the service of their clients. There was nothing sinister behind the subprime structured finance business. Yes, banks made good profits out of it, but in the process lots of nonbankers enjoyed innovative products and were able to own a home. Should those who enabled such benefits be demonized?\n\nBut now that we know that up to 70 percent (or more) of a subprime CDO's size was typically held by banks on their balance sheet (or off-balance sheet but with guarantees to claim it back if things went sour), the \"insatiable investor demand\" story may sound less appealingly convincing. Once we look at the numbers, we may forgive ourselves for concluding that the truly insatiable demand came from the inside and not from the outside. Perhaps no one on the outside ever really cared too much for this innovation. The churning of CDOs, then, may be explained not so much as the response by dedicated bankers to their clients' requests, but rather as the oil that greased an internal artificial money machine from which only bankers benefited. Nothing wrong with financiers fabricating ways to make dough, only that this storyline would not sound as commendable and innocent as the other one. Someone who very strongly doubts the investor interest argument shattered the conventional wisdom with very strong words:\n\nBankers continue to insist that they were meeting the insatiable demand of investors when they created more CDOs. Various industry apologists continue to perpetuate the myth of the exuberant buyer of CDOs, mortgage backed securities and sub-prime mortgage loans. In truth, by 2006, there were virtually no natural buyers for CDOs. This \"demand\" was a complete farce and if the demand for the CDOs was a farce, then the demand for risky RMBS and the mortgage loans was a farce too. The entire mortgage related CDO business was a sham. However, it had a tremendously damaging impact on the economy by grossly distorting the mortgage market. In many ways, the CDO business came to resemble a Ponzi scheme\u2014new bonds were made to satisfy the \"demand\" of the CDS short sellers and the CDO salesmen at the banks who had found the ultimate suckers to dump the bonds on\u2014their own bank and, eventually, the taxpayers.15\n\nA bank's \"trading book,\" just like VaR or CDOs, is one of those things that the general public is not supposed to be acquainted with. And just like VaR and CDOs, a bank's trading book is one of those things that one needs to be acquainted with in order to understand the 2007\u20132008 credit crisis. Not only that, without being familiar with the notion of the trading book it is quite hard (if not impossible) to comprehend how the modern banking industry operates.\n\nFor the purposes of regulatory capital, banks divide their assets into two main buckets: the banking book and the trading book. The former is supposed to deal with medium- and long-term portfolios that are relatively hard to liquidate fast and are subject to credit risk capital requirements (the typical example would be a loan given to a corporation; the capital charge cushions the possibility of a default). The latter is supposed to deal with short-termish positions that can be liquidated right away and are subject to market risk capital requirements (typical examples are financial instruments, derivatives; the capital charge mitigates drops in market value). As we know, the original set of bank capital rules concerned itself only with the banking book (i.e., only with credit risk). But soon it became obvious that this was a limited arrangement in the brave new world of massive trading and unlimited product innovation. Market risk began to be not just enormous in itself but in fact quickly overtook credit risk as banks' number one reason to lose sleep at night. Whether the traded value of a bond or a currency swap fluctuated mattered more for the bottom line than whether a corporate or government debtor reneged on their obligations. In other words, for the all-important purposes of regulatory capital, the trading book began not just to matter a lot but to matter most. Thus the mid-1990s amendment to Basel I to include a market risk capital levy, and thus the true beginning of VaR's imperial dominance in financeland (according to sources, prior to VaR trading activities represented just a minor proportion of commercial banks activities at less than 10 percent in terms of assets; by 2007, with VaR having reigned as capital king for a decade, in the most sophisticated universal banks trading accounted for a large part of the balance sheet, in some cases even most of the balance sheet16). Whatever fell under trading book jurisdiction had its capital costs determined by VaR, and this became a strong argument for banks when deciding whether to place an asset in the trading or the banking book.\n\nFor although there is firm policy guidance delimiting the definition of trading or banking asset, banks in practice have a lot of discretion in the matter. It's not too difficult to make the trading book an asset's home. All that's really required is that the bank in question declares that the asset is held either with trading intent or to hedge other elements in the trading book; the asset must either be free of any restrictive covenants on their tradability or be able to be hedged completely; in addition, positions should be frequently and accurately valued, and actively managed.\n\nThe conclusion is that if a bank wants to put something in its trading book, chances are that it may be able to do so, even if the asset had originally been parked in the banking book (while trading book positions are sometimes redesigned as banking book, it is much more usual to see this process in reverse). In fact, if the 2007 crisis shows something it's how true that is. Assets that looked more banking-type than trading-type were secluded in the trading book. The key difference boils down to having the capital cost of your activities be calculated by VaR or by banking book standards (preset fixed risk weights bucketed by asset category, credit ratings). Not a small caveat, as going one route over the other could signify costlier operations, and thus lower returns on equity, perhaps even making certain positions entirely unaffordable. It is a safe bet that if a bank chose the trading book over its banking counterpart as the destination for an asset it's because it believed that a VaR-based system can yield lower capital requirements (strictly speaking, once an asset is inside the trading book there are two possible capital-calculating methodologies available: VaR and the so-called standardized method, which follows a nonmathematical risk bucketing approach; so banks here would have a second choice, and VaR may in the end not be the chosen tool; nonetheless, major banks have traditionally opted for VaR, a model that, let's not forget, they invented and lobbied hard for).\n\nGenerally speaking, the trading book has traditionally been assumed to result in a lower capital number than the banking book, for a given asset portfolio. Recall, for instance, how, on granting Wall Street broker-dealers permission to use VaR for market risk capital purposes, the SEC expressed its belief that the new regime was likely to sanction more leverage than was the case under the old one based on risk bucketing. Of course, this is a tacit admission that VaR is a tool destined to produce meager numbers and a subtle way of saying that a VaR-dominated trading book creates large incentives for banks to park assets in their trading books. Or to engage in what is known as regulatory arbitrage, whereby banks behave like mercenary capital shoppers, shuffling their assets between the two books depending on which one happens to offer the best rate. To many observers, it may sound entirely counterintuitive that the same portfolio could have two entirely differing capital levies contingent on whether a bank uses some strange thing called a trading book. After all, the riskiness of an asset (and thus the prudent amount of capital needed to back it up) should not change simply because it is internally placed by a bank inside one or other parcel. The same bond or the same swap should not be viewed differently risk-and-capital wise. Nothing about the fundamental characteristics of the asset has changed one bit, so it seems only commonsensical that the leverage allowed on the play should stay the same, notwithstanding whether the bank elects to put it in the trading or banking drawer.\n\nFrom the regulators' point of view, banks haven't enjoyed a free lunch by being entitled to park assets where they please. The trading book comes with strings attached, or so it has conventionally seemed. The biggest drawback typically associated with going with the trading book is that the accounting treatment of the assets would be potentially unfriendly, as positions must be marked-to-market on a continuous basis, with sudden drops in value hitting a bank's profit-and-loss statement right away. So the higher the proportion of assets that are parked in its trading book, the more a bank's net income would be affected by the vagaries of market sentiment and human spirits, possibly leading to a very volatile ride. In contrast, banking book positions, that are subjected to old-fashioned staid accrual accounting (at historical cost, less some reserves for potential credit losses; only if sold or impaired would the assets impact earnings), are much less prone to enabling an unwelcomed P&L roller coaster. Of course, the accounting earnings chute-the-chute that mark-to-market may produce would be most desirable to many when asset valuations do nothing but rise, so the perceived main drawback of the trading book may in fact turn out to be a godsend for banks that ride the wave of a market bubble, delivering a glorious duo of benign capital charges plus daily increasing asset values; the end result: lots of reported income on top of a humble capital base (i.e., fabulous returns on equity, for a while at least). Actually, the benefits of mark-to-market accounting for those bankers seeking the fast windfalls derived from leveraged plays can be self-reinforcing when in a bubbly state, as the consolidation of gains in value would translate into a track record of negligible setbacks and thus into the kind of humble VaR figures that excuse very high gearing on trading games.\n\nThere is indeed some evidence of banks openly professing their preference for trading book treatment. For instance, a few years before the 2007 crisis a so-called \"Ad Hoc Working Group of Investment Banks\" comprised by representatives from Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley sent a letter to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in which they essentially lobbied for the continued easement of the practice of placing assets in the trading book. The Wall Street giants noted that there can be substantial divergence between the capital requirements generated for similar asset classes depending on whether a trading or banking book methodology is used (meaning that the banking approach is more expensive), and that it would be very nice if the Fed, as the natural implementer of international capital rules in the United States, didn't make it hard for them to catalog a position as trading book. To back its stance, the group complained that using a banking book approach would require considerable expense in systems and data. The document contains the shocking affirmation that three of the four firms did not even have a banking book at all, solely utilizing trading book approaches. And the lone exception placed stuff in the trading book when it pleased it anyway. It seems clear that there's something about the trading book that the most influential financial firms in the world have traditionally found very appealing. We have seen repeatedly how VaR can make the trading book a marvelous thing to embrace for those eager to lower the capital costs of their market forays (and perhaps hide tons of lethal risk in the process). To that conceptual and intuitional reasoning we can also add the highly revealing literal words of the ad hoc foursome.\n\nOr the unabashed lobbying efforts of the Securities Industry Association, basically the ad hoc party plus the at-the-time other large Wall Street investment bank (Lehman Brothers), which in August 2003 also wrote to the Federal Reserve Board expressing its concerns for what the U.S. adoption of Basel II might do to their fortunes. This missive also emanates an unmistakable declaration of affection towards trading book treatment: Investment banks, the SIA pronounced,\n\n[T]ypically value risky assets, including loans, on a mark-to-market basis, and estimate risk to that market value using various tools, including VaR models, which may be used to measure the risk of activities that are considered under Basel II as part of a banking book (investment banks place virtually all their financial instruments in the trading book). Our analysis suggests that an internal-models approach to calculating risk capital is more effective for many credit sensitive assets than the weightings-based approach for banking book assets under Basel II. To the extent that an institution can produce reliable mark-to-market values and robust VaR-based risk estimates we recommend that a trading book approach is permitted in lieu of a banking book approach.17\n\nAny doubts as to Wall Street's strong preference for the trading treatment?\n\nBanks had a clear incentive to place subprime CDOs and subprime RMBS in the trading book, especially the most senior and loss-proof tranches. VaR could be relied on to categorize them as riskless and unworrisome, given that the very puerile subprime CDOs market had yet to register negative news (especially the most senior slices). And the marked-to-market value of such illiquid esoteric securities may be easily propped up by the minuscule handful of traders active in that sphere. Trading book treatment offered an irresistibly tempting carrot: the possibility to build massive leverage on assets that were proving profitable through several conduits (carry trades, structuring fees, artificial mass-production of AAAs, mark-to-market bubbles). The alternative of parking the stuff in the banking book would have looked much less appealing, even though under the Basel II guideline issued in mid-2004 AAA-rated securitization exposures could carry a capital charge of only 1.6 percent of total assets or even as low as 0.56 percent of total assets; if banks still found such requirements taxing relative to what VaR offered, we can appreciate how little capital the trading book demanded (of course, it is not clear the extent to which banks had been adopting Basel II in the years prior to the crisis or rather were still abiding by Basel I rules, so the banking book treatment of CDOs and RMBS may have been more taxing than the percentages shown above).\n\nFinancial risk \u00fcber-guru and \u00fcber-practitioner Ricardo Rebonato explains the choice that banks made under the inebriating influence of the trading book siren song:\n\nThere is a choice for most securities whether to place it in the banking book or in the trading book and there are plusses and minuses to both. Typically, the trading book attracts less capital but it forces you to be disciplined over daily mark-to-market so perhaps people had been placing into the trading book when the sky was blue, liquidity was high and you could find prices almost for everything. You have choices that you can make and the choices that were made by preference in the years up to 2007 was to place instruments in the trading book partially obviously because it attracted less capital and partly because the liquidity was so abundant that you could find prices for almost anything and therefore it was well justifiable in those blue sky days to put those assets there.18\n\nOne could justify placing securitized mortgage exposures in the trading book because there was a bull market in mortgage securitizations, making it feasible to claim that a CDO was indeed a wonderfully liquid security that could be smoothly disposed of at any point. In fact, securitization in general becomes the bridge that allows an asset class to move from banking to trading status. Securitization transforms hitherto nonsellable stuff (e.g., bank loans, mortgages) into tradable paper (e.g., mortgage-backed securities). Securitization, thus, made VaR ever more influential as the range of products and the volume of notional amounts that fell under its grip grew exponentially.\n\nIn fact, more and more credit-related assets may have been placed in the trading book. For instance, the proportion of credit derivatives activity by large French banks (world leaders in derivatives expertise and transacting, including elite firms like Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale and BNP Paribas) that was parked in the trading book went from around 35 percent in late 2000 to more than 95 percent in late 2004, and this shift coincided with an explosion in credit derivatives usage and credit derivatives innovation. So as they began to deal in ever larger sizes and with ever more complex products, the French chose to park almost all their credit derivatives plays under the trading umbrella.19 Some think that Basel II, which imposed banking book capital requirements above the previous cap of 8 percent of notional value for a wide range of debt instruments, prompted, and may continue to prompt, many banks to transfer many of those instruments to the trading book, in desperate search of less unfriendly treatment (keep in mind that under Basel II those securitization exposures whose credit ratings get downgraded can begin to suffer truly accentuated capital charges; while top-rated tranches benefited from friendly treatment, the friendliness quickly ends if ratings drop toward junk status, a reason some say was behind the decisions by banks to stop retaining CDO equity tranches;20 in contrast to VaR's numbers had no direct link to credit ratings, at least prior to the crisis). A similar effect is expected from moves to align the accounting treatment of trading and banking assets, with both books abiding by fair value (mark-to-market) rules, and thus eliminating the supposed advantage that the banking book held over its trading cousin. The inescapable conclusion is that the trading book's composition has been bastardized almost beyond recognition, welcoming in positions, like subprime CDOs that deviate enormously from the original aim of building a shelter for highly liquid, quickly disposable items. By being willing to accommodate the banks' desires for trading book dominance (with the enhanced leveraged punting that that would entail), regulators betrayed and tarnished the spirit of their very own risk control policies.\n\nThis was blindly obvious following the 2007 catastrophe. Positions that had been labeled as liquid and tradable enough to escape the shackles of the banking book suddenly couldn't find a buyer for them. CDOs proved to be neither transparently priced nor liquid (it has been said that if banks could have sold CDOs within 10 days at the onset of the credit crisis, the fallout would have been much less severe; instead they had to hold on to exposures, or even increase them by buying back assets sold to off-balance sheet conduits to protect investors' money and their own reputation21). In the end, securitization did not alchemize the illiquid into the tradable. A postcrisis report by the Economic Affairs Committee of the British Parliament lamented that:\n\nTrading book assets have lower capital requirements because it is assumed that they can easily be sold by a troubled bank. More recently, the trading book has included instruments such as CDO tranches created by packaging illiquid instruments. CDO tranches trade infrequently and they are often valued using model-derived prices, rather than by reference to an active marketplace; consequently, these instruments are less obviously suited to a regime that was originally designed for liquid, traded instruments. Indeed, during the financial crisis, market participants became unwilling to price CDO tranches, so that trade in them was virtually impossible.22\n\nNick Studer, partner at consultancy Oliver Wyman, believes that many of the assets held in bank trading books were never designed to sit there. \"In this crisis most losses were in the trading books, where there were often no risk charges and a less than desirable understanding of the risks,\" argued the top consultant.23 Some inside the banks themselves never bought that CDOs could belong in the trading universe, and felt that traditional and time-tested risk management practices were being threatened by such incomprehensible travesty. In particular, by not placing CDOs and RMBS firmly under the watchful eye of rigorous credit officers, banks guaranteed that a whole lot of poisonous default risk that otherwise may not have been internally accepted was internally accepted. This is how a real bank risk manager described the world before the advent of CDOs: \"Rigorous credit analysis was important. Loan risks were generally well understood.\"24 But things took a turn for the worse as the newfangled structured finance monsters showed up in force, \"The gap in our risk management only opened up gradually with the growth of CDO tranches. They sat uncomfortably between market and credit risk.\" The price to be paid for such arrangement was too much leverage on assets whose obvious risks were overlooked, \"We needed little capital to support them. Since they were held in the trading book many avoided the rigorous credit process applied to banking book assets which might have identified some of the weaknesses.\"\n\nOnce the malicious consequences of having endowed VaR with the power to watch over subprime CDOs and RMBS became indelibly inescapable, banks repented. What had been previously presented as obvious (CDOs and RMBS should go in the trading book, the risks of CDOs and RMBS should be distilled through the VaR lenses) was postcarnage seen as anathema. In late 2007, UBS and Merrill Lynch announced that subprime securities were no longer part of internal management and regulatory VaR, and were therefore switched from market risk treatment to credit risk treatment. UBS even informed the world how those exposures would be assessed for regulatory capital purposes once they were relocated to the banking book: Following Basel II's Ratings Based Approach the assets' risk weights would depend on the credit ratings assigned by Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch. VaR, the banking behemoths stated rather a tad bit too late, is neither an adequate measure of the risks of such positions nor an appropriate risk control. By excluding the subprime junk from the calculations, VaR dropped like a fly. For example, Merrill's average 2007 daily VaR went from $83 million to $65 million, while 2007 year-end VaR sank from $157 million to $65 million. With enhanced volatility and damaging mark-to-market losses suddenly the norm in the subprime space, VaR was no longer the conduit toward insignificant capital charges that it had hitherto been. The recent past was no longer so accommodative, no longer so placid. Perhaps it would be better to pack and depart for the banking book. Justifying such turning should be easy, given how blatantly the CDOs had shown themselves to be illiquid and unsalable, and thus undeserving of trading book status. The key question, of course, is why they had been allowed to achieve such unseemly consideration in the first place.\n\nBanks were supposed to be under close supervision as to the allocation of items between the banking book and the trading book, with especially intense scrutiny given to the classification of liquidity-challenged assets as trading book assets,25 but supervisors seem to have been asleep at the wheel in the early years of the twenty-first century. An asset is assigned to the banking book unless it can qualify for the trading book, but as the CDO story shows it doesn't look as if the qualification process (essentially, declaring the asset to be tradable, a documented trading strategy for the position approved by senior management, and having in place clearly defined policies and procedures for the active management and monitoring of the position) was too prohibitive. Even top supervisors are willing to admit that supervisors didn't supervise wisely: \"Certain CDOs and other structured finance products are often held in the trading book and fair-valued despite the fact that there is, apparently, little trading in some of these products. The extensive use of the trading book for these illiquid, non-transparent securities is another unintended consequence of current regulatory policy,\" so blurted out Sheila Bair, chairperson of the almighty U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (one of the world's leading financial regulators), to an audience full of VaR-loving risk managers.26 And it seems that even when policy makers mustered the courage to suggest some controls on trading book usage, they were taken aback and neutralized by bankers' no-nos. As was reported in mid-2008,\n\nWhen global regulators started talking to some of the world's largest investment banks a couple of years ago about whether they should tighten the rules governing banks' trading books, they faced a hostile reaction. Back then, credit markets were booming and the banks were recording fat profits. Financiers felt confident enough to fight suggestions that policymakers should impose new controls on their trading activities. \"They were quite angry,\" admits one senior western central banker with a chuckle.27\n\nRegulators seem to have accepted that,\n\nThe recent turmoil has shown that a set of loopholes had developed in the banking system in relation to how banks managed their trading books. This dry and technical issue went almost unnoticed\u2014until it became clear that the loopholes were a main factor in allowing the losses that built up at large investment banks.\n\nInterestingly, the financial mandarins may have assumed all along that trading books were relatively small at many banks (was anybody watching at all!?). It is obvious that,\n\nThe trading books can no longer be regarded as a sideshow. On the contrary, their size had exploded, for the precise reason that the rules were so lax. Accepting that the trading book issues had been regarded as quite technical, one supervisor adds: \"Now it is clear they deserve a lot of attention.\"28\n\nAs we can see, the regulatory failings in the 2007 crisis were severe on several fronts. To the mistake of entrusting VaR with the trading book we can now add the lack of vigilance when it came to policing the trading book and preventing its abuse, which was made irresistibly tempting precisely because of the earlier decision to proclaim VaR as market risk capital emperor.\n\nThe abuse by banks of their ample discretion to place assets in the trading book was so obvious leading up to the crisis that such actions helped prompt regulators to quickly show repentance and a desire for atonement. Not again should such gigantic exercise in blatant regulatory arbitrage be made so gigantically easy and convenient, is the message emanating from the repentant rule makers. How to achieve that end? By making capital requirements for market risk much more prohibitive and thus tentatively diminishing, if not entirely erasing, the comparative capital cost advantages of the trading versus the banking book. To that end, atoning revisions to the rules were introduced by the Basel Committee in early 2009. Add-ons to VaR in the form of Stressed VaR (to better capture extreme market events) and the Incremental Risk Charge (to better capture credit-related phenomena) are intended to raise trading book capital charges three- or fourfold, in an open recognition of VaR's incapacity to deliver prudently sound risk control. And in an even more direct attempt to do away with VaR's nefarious influence, securitized products held in the trading book must suffer the same capital tax as if they were in the banking book, making absolutely certain that no arbitrage can take place in that arena anymore.\n\nBut commendable as those remedial actions aspire to be, the big elephant in the room remains unaddressed. The problem with banks abusing the trading book lies not with the trading book per se. It's the way capital charges are calculated under trading jurisdiction that's the problem, not the presence and use of something called a trading book. If the trading book was commandeered by a mechanism that didn't make toxic leverage easily possible and that wasn't built on irrepressibly faulty foundations, having lots of stuff in the trading book would not be a big issue. The problem is that the trading book has for the past 15 years been commandeered by a mechanism that makes toxic leverage easily possible and that is built on irrepressibly faulty foundations. And that mechanism has not been touched. It's still a ruler in the trading book, if perhaps no longer in a totalitarian way. VaR's saying in the final outcome may have been somewhat diluted by the postcrisis Basel amendments, but it still has a very big say. VaR's word may no longer be the final word, but continues to count a lot. And that, almost inevitably, means that lethal leverage may one day dominate the system once more.\n\nBy placing RMBS and CDOs under the tutelage of VaR, banks earned the right to play the subprime game in a highly leveraged fashion (notice again that using the banking book instead may have also delivered tons of leverage, if not quite as much as VaR sanctioned; Basel II, as we saw earlier, was extremely permissive when it came to assessing the riskiness of highly rated debt securities). How do we know that the fateful mortgage assets were required very little market risk capital? Well, for one the numbers seem to conclude so. Institutions with regulatory VaR of a few hundred million dollars had net super senior and CDO warehousing exposures of tens of billions of dollars. Even if those subprime punts had been the only inhabitants of the trading book, the market risk capital charge would have not been much above 1 percent of net assets (remember that if the hedges on the super senior positions did not perform, the volume of net assets would shoot up; so the true leverage afforded by VaR was actually even greater). In mid-2007, Merrill Lynch's regulatory VaR was around $700 million while its net CDO exposure was around $35 billion. Hypothesizing that all that was parked in Merrill's trading book, the leverage afforded to CDO punting would have been a notorious 50 to 1, implying capital requirements of barely 2 percent of assets (don't trust my horrendously off-the-cuff calculations? Fine, double the capital figure if you want; that still leaves us with 25-to-1 gearing on horrendously venomous assets). But of course Merrill's trading activities included much more that just subprime mortgage securitization stuff. Its total on-balance sheet holdings of trading assets was $260 billion, with a lot of things other than mortgages or mortgage-related. That is, of the roughly $700 million capital cushion that was calculated to support the entire $260 billion only a portion came from the presumed risk of CDOs and RMBS (unless one is willing to suggest that all the other trading assets had zero VaRs, an implacably unreasonable contention). It follows that the subprime contribution to the bank's overall VaR must have been significantly inferior to $700 million, and therefore that the gearing permitted on subprime rendezvous must have been north of 50 to 1, possibly way north of 50 to 1. When one thinks of prudent capital buffers for toxic financial creatures, something beyond (perhaps way beyond) 50-to-1 leverage is not exactly what springs to mind.\n\nWhile the above calculations may help clarify things, we can intuitively understand that the super senior portfolios were in all probability endowed with unimpressive VaR numbers. These young creatures could boast a recent past devoid of bad news and turbulence, precisely the kind of attributes that will entitle you to a Lilliputian VaR. Merrill itself seemed to concur in its Q3 2007 regulatory filing: \"VaR and other risk measures significantly underestimated the magnitude of actual loss from the extreme dislocation that affected the US subprime residential mortgage-related and CDO positions. In the past, these AAA CDO securities had never experienced a significant loss of value.\" In other words, it had been VaR paradise up to that point. So if VaR was indeed the mechanism utilized to appraise the capital needed to back up the CDOs, then the CDOs got away with a lot of leverage. Banks seemed to be aware that the trading book would prove friendlier, capital-wise. Just a few months following the unleashing of the subprime meltdown that would floor the global giant, a humbled Citigroup openly shared with a group of top U.S. financial supervisors:\n\nThe original business model was to distribute all CDO risk. However, management found that it was unable to distribute the super senior tranches at favourable prices. As management felt comfortable with the credit risk of these tranches it began to retain large positions on balance sheet. The exposures were booked as traded assets rather than held-to-maturity assets. Business strategy was to buy and hold these exposures (which implied a more appropriate accrual based accounting); however, the incentive to hold in a trading\/mark-to-market account was to maximize regulatory capital treatment. There were regulatory incentives for the arbitrage creation of the CDOs.29\n\nGillian Tett, that most notable CDO reporter, concurs, too:\n\nAs the markets had been calm until mid-2007, banks' value-at-risk models implied that the chance of losses on assets such as triple A CDO debt was almost negligible\u2014meaning they barely needed to make any reserve provisions for these at all.30\n\nReferring specifically to UBS's malaise, Tett pointed that,\n\nUBS had quietly stockpiled tens of billions of dollars of super-senior tranches on its trading book. The bank made little provision against the chance of these instruments turning sour, because the models implied a negligible risk of losses. When the price of these super-senior tranches collapsed, this created more billions of dollars worth of trading book losses for which the bank had set nothing aside.31\n\nThose tiny capital charges on the huge subprime portfolios contributed mightily to record returns on equity for investment banks of 200 basis points on average higher than the last cycle.32 Although the net gains from the super senior CDO carry trade were, as we saw, modest in absolute terms, the very low capital that the game demanded would have made them extremely attractive since even a modest gain can look wonderful when measured against a negligible capital commitment. As one commentator summarized it,\n\nPre-crisis banks were holding super senior and AAA tranches of securitized assets in the trading book as they showed very little VaR and thus required very little capital allocation there. Notionally these assets were being held for trading\/sale in order to justify their inclusion in the trading book, but in practice large inventories were accumulated and not shifted because even at low spreads, with very low capital requirements the return on capital was large. Leverage on these positions was thus extremely high.33\n\nWith the benefit of hindsight, everyone now understands how lowly VaR's capital recommendations can be. Of course, VaR's potential for smallness was always there, it's an ingrained, in-built, DNA-like aspect of the model. But it was kept more or less hidden from public view, comprehended only by a handful of insiders. However, after a systemic crisis involving trillion-dollar losses emanating from positions that were under VaR's watch, it becomes a tad more difficult to sweep the model's inconveniences under the carpet. Quite the opposite has happened, in fact. Something of a run for the exits has taken place among regulators and policy makers, each one seemingly trying to outmaneuver the others when it comes to publicly badmouthing and even disowning the erstwhile adored tool. None other than Nout Wellink, president of Holland's Central Bank and (more to the point) chairman of the Basel Committee, was one of the first financial mandarins on the VaR-bashing platform:\n\nI want to emphasize the importance of strong capital supporting trading book exposures. For the largest global banks, balance sheet assets have more than doubled between 2000 and 2006. Much of this growth relates to trading assets. Indeed the vast majority of bank losses have been on retained trading exposures, particularly highly rated CDOs and leveraged lending. We need to make sure that the capital underpinning the trading book is commensurate with the risks that firms face. We are therefore supplementing the current VaR-based framework with additional charges in the trading book. To address the shortcomings of VaR, it is critical that banks conduct additional analysis that translates into prudent risk taking and strong capital.34\n\nTranslation: VaR allowed things like CDOs to roam around banks' balance sheets in an undercapitalized fashion and that caused a big mess and we need to make sure that banks have more capital than what dangerously flawed VaR would dictate. This is almost like the Pope saying that God doesn't exist. VaR would have never been very influential without the unfettered support of the Basel Committee. For years, the saintly virtues of VaR were zealously preached by the Basel missionaries, regaling the world with spirit-lifting stories about how VaR would heal the wounded and aid the sick. VaR, we were constantly sermonized, would save the planet from the evils of market risk. But now, the tormented Basel High Clerics appeared engulfed in a storm of religious doubt. We can almost imagine the world's central bankers sheltered in their Switzerland enclave in late 2007 or early 2008, contemplating in horror the financial and economic inferno around them, fixing their eyes on the heavens and tremblingly proclaiming \"Oh VaR Lord, Where Art Thou?\"\n\nSo, in the end, how much did the banks lose on their subprime adventures? Quite a lot, actually. Let's retake things were we left them. On Q3 2007, UBS announced net losses on U.S. residential subprime mortgage positions of $4.4 billion (gross losses of $5.6 billion offset by gains on hedges of $1.2 billion). This was bad, but nothing compared to what was coming as the deterioration in all things subprime fully manifested itself. For Q4 2007, the losses stood at a total of $9.64 billion, sliced in the following manner: $7.78 billion on super senior subprime CDO tranches (plus $.2 billion in monoline hedges that were deemed ineffective and added to exposures), losses of $733 million on subprime RMBS (of which UBS owned more than $17 billion net), losses of $1.12 billion on the subprime CDO warehouse. On top of all that a hit of $683 million on adjustments due to the deteriorating credit quality of those entities that had hedged UBS's subprime exposures. Besides the subprime deleteriousness, UBS incurred losses of $2 billion on U.S. residential Alt-A mortgage RMBS and CDO positions; Alt-A could best be categorized as almost subprime. Things went on in a sour way, and for Q1 2008 total subprime losses reached $7.25 billion (losses of $5.32 billion on super senior subprime CDO tranches, losses of $2.1 billion on subprime RMBS, gains of $180 million on the subprime CDO warehouse). Plus more bad news on the almost-subprime front, with losses of $6 billion on U.S. residential Alt-A mortgage RMBS and CDO positions. Q2 2008 was in the red, too, with $848 million in total subprime setbacks (losses of $756 million on super senior subprime CDO tranches, losses of $13 million on subprime RMBS, losses of $79 million on the subprime CDO warehouse). And losses of $630 million on U.S. residential Alt-A mortgage RMBS and CDO positions.35\n\nWhat about Merrill Lynch? Pretty ugly, too. For Q3 2007, total subprime losses of around $7.5 billion (losses of $5.75 billion on super senior subprime CDO tranches, $1.1 billion on the subprime CDO warehouse, $544 million on subprime RMBS). For Q4 2007, losses of $8.85 billion on super senior subprime CDO tranches, and $1 billion on the subprime CDO warehouse. For the entire 2007 exercise subprime losses (including CDOs, whole loans, residuals, RMBS) stood at around $20 billion. Q1 2008 saw losses of $1.78 billion on super senior subprime CDO tranches, while the corresponding figure for Q2 2008 was a $3.45 billion in the red.\n\nAnd Citigroup? Not rosy either. Q3 2007: Losses of $1.8 billion, net of hedges, on subprime mortgages warehoused for future CDO securitizations, CDO positions, and warehoused leveraged loans. Q4 2007: Losses of $17.4 billion on subprime exposures ($14.5 billion on super seniors, $2.9 on CDO warehouse and lending). Year 2008: Losses of $15 billion on subprime exposures ($13.1 super senior, $1.8 CDO warehouse plus lending), on top of that $5.7 billion hit on credit adjustment on hedge counterparty exposures. Losses of $3.8 billion on Alt-A securities.\n\nMany other banks suffered significant nightmares. As of year-end 2008 the total bill for the subprime mayhem (total write-downs and credit losses since January 2007) stood at $1 trillion. Losses on CDOs alone were several hundred billion dollars. By early 2009 it was reported that half of all subprime CDOs had defaulted36 (it is important to note that initially, when the crisis first caught fire, losses on CDOs were of a mark-to-market nature; as many banks were at pains to point out back then, few if any actual defaults had taken place, so CDO investors kept receiving their coupons even as the CDO market was being destroyed; but eventually, the defaults inevitable appeared, too). As was reported back then:\n\nAlmost half of all the complex credit products built out of slices of other securitized bonds have now defaulted, and the proportion rises to more than two-thirds among deals created at the peak of the cycle. The defaults have affected more than $300bn worth of these collateralised debt obligations. The first three years of the market saw less than 100 deals sold per year and less than 10 per cent of those have defaulted. The number of deals done rose to 133 in 2005, less than 20 per cent of which defaulted, and 89 in just the first half of 2006, about one-third of which have defaulted. However, the real peak of the market saw 147 deals done in the second half of 2006 and 172 done in the first half of 2007\u2014of which 68 per cent and 76.2 per cent, respectively, have now defaulted.37\n\nIn sum, it is clear that what the risk models and the rating agencies tagged as \"unworrisome\" turned out to be very problematic. Needless to say, banks' capital cushions were not even in the vicinity of enough when it came to absorbing the setbacks. New private capital infusions, bank mergers, and public bailouts were needed to prevent the industry from being swallowed whole by the subprime tsunami.\n\nVaR was at the center of it all. The low-loss forecasts internally approved the playing of the CDO game inside the banks. The favorable trading book treatment provided the external okay. In fact, it almost reads like a well-thought-out plan, naughtily devised many years before: You invent a new scientific-looking methodology for gauging market risk, you lobby hard for its adoption within financial circles, once dominance inside dealing rooms is assured you lobby hard for its adoption by regulators, and then you patiently wait for the emergence of the right kind of toxic asset whose riskiness can be deemed negligible by the methodology, which also sanctions untold leverage on the play. VaR helped banks make a fortune on CDOs (and other geared trading activities) while quietly hiding and building up the monstrous exposures that would finally cause the most severe of setbacks. VaR is great for those looking to make a quick buck and to then fly-by-night with the booty. If you want to cause a crisis under the disguise of placidity and moderation, VaR will be there for you.\n\nThe super senior story reflects this subliminally. Something like super senior had never existed in finance before. Super senior was supposed to be less problematic and more wholesome than even Treasury Bonds or World Bank paper. The idea of super senior losses was deemed as improbable as baseball ever becoming England's top sport or cricket crowning itself as America's favorite pastime. Nothing had ever been considered as rock-solid, as iron-clad as super senior. And VaR couldn't wait to concur. Yes, the glorified risk radar nodded, this is super safe stuff indeed. And yet, that which the statistical analysis had enthusiastically lauded as fortress-like, ended up unleashing a trillion-dollar global meltdown. Talk about hiding risk.\n\nBy mid-2007, VaR was at the height of its powers. More regulators than ever had embraced it and were busy proclaiming its virtues. The endless quantification of risk management and financial research lent undisputed preeminence to anything that looked analytical. Prior historical market episodes that had tarnished VaR's name had long been forgotten. The very few public criticisms of the tool had gone conspicuously unheard. For a very prolonged period, VaR had behaved fabulously (forecasting market placidity and seeing nothing but market placidity around it), apparently proving its backers right and its critics wrong. Just like in those years the reputation of top central bankers speaking of a brave new era of moderation and nonvolatile markets was unassailably unquestioned, the standing of the mathematical model which numerical outputs offered staunch support to those complacent claims was equally undoubted.\n\nWho could question the wisdom of entrusting VaR with the system's care? The weapon that would in due course help blow up the banking industry became impossible to argue against. The model said \"no risk\" and the system looked nothing if not risk-proof. The model said \"stability\" and the landscape could not appear more stable. The model said \"go ahead, freely leverage yourself up\" and the need for capital could not seem more redundant. The model said \"gorge on subprime stuff\" and the wisdom of going subprime could not feel mightier. All the prognostications emanating from the model were not only proving themselves correct, but also sustained and reinforced the conclusions and activities favored by many of the globe's leading entities and individuals. VaR was, in essence, flaunting a tale that very influential people wanted to hear.\n\nAnd thus no one saw anything wrong with vastly inflated trading books, where all kind of suspect assets that never belonged there were dumped. After all, isn't that VaR's domain? If so, won't things be properly taken care of by the undisputable theoretical tool? Any internal and external opposition would have been vanquished via the waving of the VaR wand.\n\nBut a seemingly well-functioning VaR can be indicative of a buildup of nastiness, rather than an indicator of robustness. As a bubble is created and sustained, VaR sees no losses or turbulence, granting permission to the further strengthening of the bubble, and so on until the inevitable end result is a lethal mania. So beware low VaR numbers for they may be hiding and enabling a storm of uncontrolled toxic risk. Isn't that exactly what happened up to mid-2007? Weren't the CDOs and RMBS assumed to be unproblematic on account of the lowly statistical risk estimates? VaR is, in effect, the perfect antidote against common sense. Decisions that would have never been sanctioned otherwise, get approvingly sanctioned once VaR is around. And that may be the main reason why VaR was adopted and brought into the fold of finance. With VaR, you can achieve the impossible. With VaR, the sky is the limit. Let's hear it from a renowned academic:\n\nWhy did VAR become so popular? Using VAR brought concrete benefits to specific actors in the banking world by helping them rationalize bad bets. If common sense would lead a risk manager to crack down on a trader taking large, risky bets, then the trader is better off if the risk manager uses VAR instead. Not only that, but imagine the situation of the chief risk manager of a bank in, say, 2004. If he tried to reduce his bank's exposure to CDOs, he would be out of a job; VAR gave him a handy tool to rationalize a situation that defied common sense but that made his bosses only too happy. And at the top levels, chief executives and directors were biased in its favor because it told them a story they wanted to hear. In other words, VAR was just what they needed during the boom.38\n\nBy mid-2007, the financial realm had become entirely dominated by metrics. It is no exaggeration to say that we put our future in the hands of metrics. The metrics didn't merely say that certain financial assets were golden, they said that they were more golden than gold. Reality later showed those things to be not just merely silver, or plain copper, but utter worthless trash. What to make of metrics that hide worthless trash under the guise of more-golden-than-gold? Aren't we allowed to feel conned? Isn't it obvious now that VaR can be the Trojan horse that dupes us into welcoming as a charming gift that which only possible destiny is to murderously ransack our village?\n\nA while after the giant crisis wave had began to recede and everyone who had been swimming naked was revealed, Gillian Tett provided a neat summary of the truly essential point: \"What blew the really big holes in the balance sheet of banks in 2007 and 2008 was the fact that they had all taken huge quantities of so-called super-senior CDOs on to their trading books.\"39 It is a safe bet that this sentence would have never been uttered had VaR not ruled the trading book. VaR made the trading book a paradise of very low capital requirements, notwithstanding the inescapable fundamental nature of the securities. The capacity of VaR to enable destruction can't be denied.\n\nConsider a VaR-less world. A world where undue precision is not sought through hopeless metrics. Would the accumulation of subprime positions in excess of a bank's entire capital base have been condoned, let alone deemed worry-free? Would trading floor rules and regulatory rules have supported and encouraged UBS to own north of $50 billion in subprime garbage? The answer is most likely a resounding no (unless, that is, UBS and its peers were willing and able to post a whole lot more of equity capital, itself a very unlikely scenario). A VaR-less world is a world where the 2007 crisis can't happen.\n\nKeep firmly in mind that the indictment against VaR may go beyond the \"VaR allowed Bank A or Bank B to put vast amounts of subprime stuff on their books in a very geared fashion.\" If the very existence of the CDO business demanded that sponsoring banks retain the super senior tranche (by far the CDO's most voluminous slice), for otherwise the CDO would not be successfully placed and distributed, then VaR (by making it possible for banks to afford retaining those huge super senior slices) would have effectively permitted the entire CDO circus to go on, at least on a grand scale. So a tool that delivers excruciatingly low risk estimates for subprime super seniors may have been an unavoidable prerequisite for CDOs to become sizable enough to pose a threat to global stability. No wonder, then, that many would elect to have their CDO punts appraised by VaR. They must have known that the artifact has an in-bred capacity to underestimate the maliciousness of even the most troublesome of punts. They must have known how easy it is for VaR to tell big lies, and how conveniently it can be used to launder financial detritus into respectable fare. The CDO business (that hurt not just the big financial conglomerates but also a lot of unsuspecting innocent third parties) may have needed the assistance of a big liar before it took off. A laundry machine that could transform the unwashed into financial caviar might have been required. And when it comes to market risk, there's no bigger liar than VaR.\n\nNotes\n\n1. \"Shareholder Report on UBS's Write-Downs,\" UBS (April 18, 2008).\n\n2. \"SFBC\u2013UBS Subprime Report\" (September 30, 2008).\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Merrill Lynch 10\u2013Q Q3 (2007), 76.\n\n5. Citigroup 10\u2013K (2007), 48.\n\n6. Morgan Stanley, Subprime Analysis (October 31, 2007).\n\n7. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report (2011).\n\n8. Gillian Tett, \"Super-Senior Losses Just a Misplaced Bet on Carry Trade,\" Financial Times (April 18, 2008).\n\n9. John C. Dugan, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, before the Global Association of Risk Professionals, New York, February 27, 2008.\n\n10. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report (2011).\n\n11. Erik R. Sirri, \"Remarks Before the AICPA\/FMD National Conference on the Securities Industry\" (November 28, 2007), www.sec.gov\/news\/speech\/2007\/spch112807ers.htm.\n\n12. Gillian Tett, \"Super Senior Losses Just a Misplaced Bet on Carry Trade,\" Financial Times (April 18, 2008).\n\n13. http:\/\/fcic.gov\/hearings\/pdfs\/2010-0227-Gorton.pdf.\n\n14. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report (2011).\n\n15. Tom Adams, \"The Myth of 'Insatiable' Investor Demand for CDOs,\" NakedCapitalism.com (April 14, 2010).\n\n16. www.amttraining.com\/technical-updates\/regulatory-capital-for-banks-trading-activities-set-to-increase-to-eliminate-regulatory-arbitrage-between-trading-book-and-banking-book\u2014january-2009.html.\n\n17. SIA's Risk Management Committee, August 5, 2003.\n\n18. Interview with Russ Roberts, June 8, 2009.\n\n19. Olivier Prato, Banque de France Financial Stability Review (May 2006).\n\n20. Matheson Ormsby, \"Basel II Is Having Minimal Effect So Far in the Securitization Market,\" Prentice Hall, 2007.\n\n21. www.amttraining.com\/technical-updates\/regulatory-capital-for-banks-trading-activities-set-to-increase-to-eliminate-regulatory-arbitrage-between-trading-book-and-banking-book\u2014january-2009.html.\n\n22. www.publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/ld200809\/ldselect\/ldeconaf\/101\/10107.htm#n7.\n\n23. Ren\u00e9e Schultes, \"Basel II Revision Signals the End for Regulatory Arbitrage,\" eFinancialNews (August 18, 2008).\n\n24. \"Confessions of a Risk Manager,\" Economist (August 7, 2008).\n\n25. John Deacon, \"Global Securitization and CDOs,\" (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), 227.\n\n26. Sheila C. Bair, remarks to the Global Association of Risk Professionals, New York, February 25, 2008.\n\n27. Gillian Tett, \"Battered Banks Face Regulators' Harder Line on Trading Books,\" Financial Times (June 3, 2008).\n\n28. Ibid.\n\n29. Notes on Senior Supervisors' Meetings with Firms, Citigroup, New York, November 19, 2007.\n\n30. Gillian Tett, \"Battered Banks Face Regulators' Harder Line on Trading Books,\" Financial Times (June 3, 2008).\n\n31. Ibid.\n\n32. Andrew Scott and Nick Studer, Oliver Wyman Financial Services\u2014Point of View Series, November 13, 2008.\n\n33. James Parsons, \"The Regulatory Response to Bank Capital Adequacy as a Result of the Financial Crisis,\" LTP Trade Research (January 31, 2009).\n\n34. Nout Wellink, Remarks at the GARP 2008 Risk Management Convention, New York, February 27, 2008.\n\n35. Company Quarterly and Annual Reports.\n\n36. Paul J. Davies, \"Half of all CDOs of ABS Failed,\" Financial Times (February 10, 2009).\n\n37. Ibid.\n\n38. Simon Johnson, \"Seduced by a Model,\" Economix Blog New York Times (October 1, 2009).\n\n39. Gillian Tett, \"Why a Ban on Proprietary Trading Could Have a Catch,\" Financial Times (February 19, 2010).\nChapter 6\n\nVaR Goes to Washington\n\n  * Backlash\n  * Media Cover Up\n  * Capitol Hill Truths\n  * Empty Rooms\n  * It's Still There\n\nOn June 30, 2009, top U.S. politicians, for the first (and so far, only) time, took an interest in me. That Tuesday morning, a publicity assistant from my publisher forwarded me the following e-mail:\n\nThe subcommittee I work for is looking into the role of financial risk modeling in the recent economic crisis, and we are extremely interested in speaking with Mr. Triana about his views on Value at Risk and other, related matters. If you could send me his contact information or otherwise put us in touch with him, we would be grateful.\n\nI can be reached by email reply or on my direct office line.\n\nMany thanks, and best wishes, Ken\n\nKen was Ken Jacobson of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. I was certainly intrigued by his message. It wasn't just that after doing some online searching I found that the Committee was chaired by a powerful congressman and that it dealt with funky high-tech issues, or that they had apparently mentioned to Wiley's publicity assistant the possibility of me testifying in Washington, DC (a wonderful excuse to return, even if briefly, to one of my favorite cities). What really piqued my interest was the fact that senior policy makers from the world's leading nation had shown the insight and daring to identify VaR as a key driving force behind the financial cataclysm of 2007\u20132008 and that they wanted to dig deeper into the matter. As far as I could tell, no national parliament had before called a mathematical model to task for economic troubles. In planning to indict VaR, the Committee was not only trying to contribute to the understanding of what had been happening for the past couple of years, but was also doing something quite revolutionary in itself.\n\nI instantly got back to Ken Jacobson and offered him my unlimited assistance. He emphasized the Committee's desire to meet me in person soon (as they were originally planning to have a formal hearing on VaR by the following July), flatteringly telling me that, \"We're not sure we've seen anyone pin the meltdown on VaR as unequivocally as you do.\" We exchanged several e-mails during the rest of the summer, with me providing some of the analysis that I had conducted on VaR's role in the credit crisis, and with Ken showing increasing amounts of shock at what he was reading.\n\nIn trying to shed light on VaR's nefarious performance before and during the crisis, the Committee on Science and Technology was not alone. Others had by June 2009, and many others would continue to do so afterward, pointing fingers at and badmouthing VaR for enabling the destruction. This backlash came from political as well as nonpolitical sources. The barrage of criticisms was truly outstanding and, one presumes, exasperating for VaR-lovers. While the model had been lambasted before, never on such a scale and never from so many different angles and never from regulatory corners. Quite telling, the first to draw attention to VaR's utter failings were the very banks suffering from the VaR-induced market cataclysm, and the very banks that had spent more than 15 years building and promoting the model. You just have to scour regulatory filings from Q3 2007 to be inundated with disclaimers and apologizing, an endless flood of \"VaR failed\" and \"VaR is an inappropriate measure\" arguments (while that looks like the central message buried underneath of that disclaiming, banks have not gone so far as to literally saying \"We screwed up with VaR. Sorry\").\n\nSoon, outsiders eagerly joined the VaR-bashing dance. While, as we shall see, the media has (with some notable exceptions) mostly shied away from reporting on VaR and its role in the unleashing of the crisis, one of the first external sources of VaR denunciation came from a news outlet. In a January 2008 article unapologetically titled \"Death of VaR Evoked,\" Bloomberg reporter Christine Harper went to town on VaR from the very initial sentence:\n\nThe risk-taking model that emboldened Wall Street to trade with impunity is broken and everyone is coming to the realization that no algorithm can substitute for old-fashioned due diligence. VaR failed to detect the scope of the US subprime mortgage market's collapse. The past six months have exposed the flaws of a financial measure based on historical prices.1\n\nThe following April, the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (Switzerland's regulator) engaged in public atonement, intoning a somewhat delayed mea culpa: \"As supervisors we can also not deny that we, like the banks, had a little too much faith in models; otherwise we could not have approved the VaR models to calculate the regulatory capital adequacy requirements for market risks. We were all aware of the limits of such models.\"2 Now, I believe in the power of forgiveness and in the healing benefits of sincere atoning, but the Alpine repentance is more alarming than soothing. Here we have senior policy makers, grown and experienced wise men, the town's elders, sheepishly recognizing how they let themselves be hypnotized by concoctions they knew to be handicapped. What did I tell you about the analytical alibi? If you want to sell something in finance, adorn it with rigorous-looking statistical fanfare. Even the otherwise austere and sober Swiss will buy it. Later that year two top international risk gurus wasted no time expressing their displeasure with VaR. Financial mathematician-turned-skeptic and entrepreneur Paul Wilmott (quite possibly the world's best known and most successful trainer of quantitative finance professionals) minced no words as part of his \"Name and Shame\" postcrisis campaign. On VaR:\n\nVaR is used to justify taking risks. Classic unintended consequences territory here. Yeah, right! Funny how \"unintended consequences\" are always rather obvious, even before the fact, but they are always brushed under the rug. \"Don't rock the boat, dear boy,\" cigar in one hand, Napoleon brandy in the other. Risk managers say there's no risk according to naive VaR so management is free to trade in bigger, and bigger, and bigger amounts. Oops . . . it seems that VaR didn't quite capture all the risks . . . who'd have considered increasing mortgage defaults? Everyone, except those who had a vested interest in hiding the risks.3\n\nOn RiskMetrics:\n\nGuilty of making VaR accessible to the masses. Why not give away handguns while you're at it.4\n\nA couple of weeks later, Steve Allen, former head of risk at a large bank and a leading financial engineering academic, offered that, \"Market risk capital requirements should no longer be based on VaR.\"5\n\nEven the United Nations got involved, leaving itself no alternative but to point out the obvious: The 2007 crisis has outed VaR as less than sublime and as a consequence bank regulators have had no option but to take away some of its influence. Here's how UN folk expressed it in 2009:\n\nFrom the point of view of risk management generally, special interest attaches to the questioning of the effectiveness of VaR that is implicit in the Basel Committee's acknowledgement that the revisions to the market risk capital framework is intended to address VaR's shortcomings. Since the early 1990s, VaR has been one of the principal jewels in the crown of quantitative financial risk management. Its downgrading in the Committee's new guidelines may point towards further reassessment of ways of managing and supervising market risk.6\n\nIn other words, VaR is highly suspect and if even its Basel backers are willing to belittle and doubt it, perhaps we all should.\n\nThe really harsh badmouthing from the regulatory camp began in earnest on March 2009, with the arrival of the highly extroverted Turner Review put together by the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority. The report went hard at VaR and the destructive leverage it allowed. The scent emanating from the British regulators was indelible: VaR messed up big time. And bank capital rules should be seriously overhauled. Lord Turner went for the jugular from the get-go:\n\nFrom about 2003 onwards, there were significant increases in on-balance sheet leverage of many banks, driven by dramatic increases in positions. This was despite the fact that \"risk adjusted\" measures of leverage (i.e., VaR relative to equity) showed no such rise. This divergence reflected the fact the capital requirements against trading books, where asset growth was concentrated, were extremely light compared with those for banking books and that VaR measures suggested that risk relative to gross market positions had declined. It is clear in retrospect that VaR measures of risk were faulty and that trading book capital was inadequate.7\n\nThe very reliance on VaR for rule making should be reconsidered, stated the U.K. rule maker, adding that a fundamental review of how risks are assessed in the trading book should be urgently conducted. Suddenly, VaR's deficiencies are presented ex ante as only too obvious and knowable (why, then, was the tool so rabidly promoted from policy circles for such a long time?). Turner cites the usual suspects: VaR fails to capture low probability high-impact tail events, VaR leads to procyclical behavior, VaR can suggest that banks are facing low risks just as system-level risks are at their most extreme. These concerns, the report argues, mattered lately more than ever because of the way the trading book had been abused, \"Increasingly over the years trading books were swollen by large holdings of illiquid complex structured credit products, which would have attracted higher capital charges if booked in the banking books. When the crisis broke VaR proved highly misleading as market liquidity dried up.\" In other words, VaR was always bad as it is, don't make it worse by mixing it with things that have little to do with market risk. Lord Turner appeared to have no hesitations: The combination of VaR and toxic securities will equal financial apocalypse.\n\nBy late 2010, the market risk capital regime overhaul that the Turner Review demanded and wished for had taken place. This in itself was a serious indictment of VaR. The model that killed us has not been exactly killed by regulators, but, as the United Nations analysts put it, it has nonetheless been savagely downgraded. The revisions to trading book treatment aim at taking minimum required bank capital much higher than where VaR by itself had taken and would take them. The revisions are the regulators' way of saying that VaR leads to very humble risk estimates and can thus enable too much leverage. That VaR is not to be trusted. That VaR abetted the 2007\u20132008 nightmare. More than 18 months after the release of Lord Turner's VaR-bashing, global financial mandarins were still in the mood for publicly crucifying the model. \"Two areas the crisis has revealed as needing enhanced risk coverage are the trading book and securitizations. Here capital charges fell short of risk exposures. The major losses during the 2007\u201309 financial crisis came from the trading book, especially the complex securitization exposures such as CDOs. The capital requirements for trading assets were extremely low,\"8 blurted no less a figure than the Bank for International Settlements' (BIS) second in command. So as to back up his arguments with tangible, in-your-face evidence, the top regulator produced a table numerically disclosing how negligible, in fact, the trading book contributions were to banks' overall capital requirements. At year-end 2006, trading assets represented 21 percent of Citigroup's total assets yet its market risk capital charges-to-total capital charges ratio stood at just 4 percent. The corresponding figures for Credit Agricole were 31 percent and 6 percent. Deutsche Bank's were no better, at 32 percent and 4 percent. Societe Generale's trading book leverage was even more pronounced, contributing only 4 percent when the bank's asset portfolio was 35 percent of a trading nature. Credit Suisse's numbers were very similar, at 36 percent and 5 percent. VaR gave rise to a lot of trading-related leverage, no doubt. Banks' trading games on the way to the crisis were extremely cheap capital-wise. The BIS number two repeated an oft-repeated message:\n\nIt is now clear that quantitative finance and risk modeling techniques based on the Normality assumptions and historical statistical relationships have failed to capture the extreme events which occur in periods of systemic stress. The backward-looking assumptions about correlations, volatility, and market liquidity embedded in banks' risk models did not hold in times of stress. Historical relationships do not necessarily constitute a good basis for forecasting the development of future risks.9\n\nWe get it. VaR is rotten to the core and its ubiquitous and regal presence in financeland led to wild and disproportionate trading book leverage (and not just any type of trading book, but one conquered by very nasty stuff). But, if we may ask again, why did you endorse such a deleterious machination for so long?\n\nIt is fitting that financial mandarins should feel obliged to show contrition and atonement. For the 2007 crisis was, at its core, a regulatory crisis. Either because of enforcing of conceptually flawed rules (the reliance on VaR and credit metrics) or neglectful policing of rules (giving a free pass to the abuse of the trading book), bank regulators made it possible for the big banks to toxify their balance sheets with bad leverage. Some have erroneously blamed the crisis on \"deregulation.\" If only financiers had been more closely controlled, the argument goes, the massacre would not have occurred. While this may rightly apply to some key segments involved in the episode, most notably the underlying mortgage loans industry, it couldn't be further from the mark when it comes to the financial giants whose losses triggered the mayhem. By leveraging themselves according to the VaR and AAA gospels they were doing nothing if not precisely abiding by very precise official capital rules. By parking CDOs and RMBS in their trading books, they were making use of a regulatory allowance to choose where to place an asset and to enjoy a differing capital charge based on that decision; while categorizing those assets as \"tradable\" would have been a stretching of the letter of the law, it seems hard to argue that something unlawful or fraudulent took place (the abuse here doesn't seem exactly comparable to lying about borrowers' incomes as part of a subprime mortgage application or granting a $1 million loan to an illegal immigrant making $15,000 a year). The most impacting actions leading to the crisis were all rooted on strict official policies. The presence of rules, not the lack of them, fueled the inferno.\n\nSome supervisors have argued that without supervision the banks would have taken even greater risks and would have had an even thinner capital base.10 Maybe so. But VaR and other preexisting rulings may have delivered all the risks and undercapitalization that banks could have wished for. And, wonderfully conveniently, under the cover of strict regulation.\n\nIn the end, I did not make it to Washington, DC. The Committee never took the final step of actually treating me to a plane ticket and, as much as I wished to be there for the occasion, I thought that running the expense on my own would be a tad excessive. But, what's much more relevant, the VaR hearing did in fact occur. Eventually postponed from the tentative July date to after the House's August recess, the historic event finally took place on September 10, and with a list of expert witnesses that included several people way more qualified (if perhaps less vocal as to what VaR had just contributed to) than my humble self. Slightly disappointed though I was by not being able to physically share my wisdom with U.S. politicians, I nonetheless woke up that September day very eager to follow the proceedings via the live webcast that Ken Jacobson had instructed me would be available through the Committee's web site. I naively believed that the event was going to become the catalyst that would make everyone realize how dangerous and malfunctioning VaR can be and how urgently financial risk management and bank capital regulation needed a drastic overhaul, away from flawed and deleterious analytical models and back into the arms of equations-free reasoning. I had little doubt that upon the broadcast and completion of the hearings, severe reform would take place and that VaR's powers would be greatly diminished. VaR's shortcomings had been well known by financial insiders and connoisseurs for years, but the general public and most in the political class were not privy to such specialist intelligence. By providing the debate with a very public platform, the Committee's hearings, I assumed, would inevitably spread the message to the masses, thanks in large part to the obvious interest that the financial and general media (now loudly alerted as to the matter) were going to show in VaR and the consequences of having it around. While I would have certainly been doubly enthralled had I finally been able to be there in person, I was sure that the revolutionary happenstance about to occur in Washington had the potential to change the world. So much so that I posted a blog entry on the very popular Huffington Post encouraging President Obama to attend the proceedings. Perhaps unbeknownst to him, the theme under discussion was as relevant to our economic welfare and social stability as almost any other thing.\n\nBut the VaR hearing went puzzlingly largely unnoticed. All my expectations were dashed away. I don't think a single major (or minor) newspaper, magazine, or TV program even mentioned the affair, let alone build on it to launch comprehensive coverage of VaR's role in the crisis. No Financial Times or Wall Street Journal op-ed. No BusinessWeek investigative piece (even though they had just run an article of mine on VaR a few weeks earlier). No CNN or Fox News special report. The silence was truly deafening. A few online comments did surface, but quickly faded, utterly failing at generating any kind of sustained momentum. VaR simply went back to being the greatest story never told. Ken Jacobson and I consoled each other via e-mail, with the Science and Technology Committee's staff apparently describing the lack of coverage as \"maddening.\"\n\nHow could this be? Why the insultingly obscene neglect? I mean, no other theme was more important and more present on anybody's mind by September 2009 than the financial and economic meltdown that had afflicted all the major countries for the past 24 months. How could there be no interest in a hearing by a U.S. Congressional Committee on one of the possible main causes for the meltdown? Especially when the targeted cause had hitherto been essentially uncovered and ignored, in principle generating even more external curiosity for the event? Really, where were all those journalists and pundits who seemed to do nothing but converse and muse about the crisis around the clock? To make matters worse, among the proceedings' expert witnesses was a globally renowned best-selling author that at the time was (just like he continues to be today) a red-hot international guru and thinker, someone whose words and public appearances are and were regularly and hurriedly scrutinized and commented on by dozens of influential traditional media outlets and hundreds of widely followed hip online sources. If such personality simply went to the bathroom, some commentator was bound to mention it. And yet, when it came time to cover what was likely his most important public performance ever, the media blackout could not have been more conspicuous. Why this oddity?\n\nBluntly stated, you can't talk about the 2007\u20132008 crisis without talking about VaR. If you want to be properly informed and, most crucially, properly inform others about this crisis you can't hide when it comes to debating VaR, you can't ignore it. Can you imagine a reporter covering the fraudulent accounting crisis that afflicted the United States a decade ago and not attending the Enron hearings on Capitol Hill? Or a reporter covering the OJ Simpson case and not attending Mark Furhman's testimony? Or a reporter covering WWII and not attending the Nuremberg trials?\n\nI don't need to tell you that the crisis involved financial fraud, murder, and annihilation of the worst kind. Shouldn't media people want to dig in and truly get what happened? Some may say, come on, be fair, journalists should not be expected to be aware of the existence of abstruse models like VaR, let alone comprehend them. Really? VaR has for the past 20 years been the risk radar of choice for Wall Street, religiously detailed under regulatory filings and annual reports. And, certainly, VaR has been for the past 15 years the tool of choice when it came to determining the capital charges to impose on banks' trading activities. You are telling me that those covering the economic and business landscapes should not know this? Should not be aware of VaR? You must be kidding.\n\nMany of the main forces behind the chaos were of a decidedly technical nature. CDOs, CDSs, SIVs, Gaussian Copula, VaR. Even those journalists who understand those things may want to shy away from reporting on them, fearing that their quick fix\u2013seeking audience may hopelessly be at a loss and change the channel, log out of the site, or put down the paper. To the vast majority of folks out there all that continues to matter when it comes to the crisis are lax mortgage lending, Alan Greenspan's too-easy monetary policies, and Wall Street's remuneration structure. All of the above did, of course, contribute to igniting the fuse, and it is only normal that they be talked about in spades. But that should be no excuse to neglect other, perhaps less straightforward, factors that played an even more clearly direct role. By not covering the September 2009 VaR hearing and keeping their audience in the dark as to such an impacting and eye-opening development, the mediatocracy made sure that the truth was not unveiled, going a long way toward contributing to a repeat of the cataclysm down the road.\n\nNassim Taleb (naturally, the above-mentioned widely covered global celebrity who was ignored by the media only during the VaR hearings) was the most famous of the financial risk experts assembled to give testimony on VaR and that's probably why the House Committee on Science and Technology chose to begin the momentous event with the Lebanese-American's deposition. Following a cheeky introduction by the hearing's chairman (which included the assertions that \"economists have not been known in the past for mathematical precision,\" \"the supposedly immutable quant models did not work out, did not prove to be true, and turned out to have hidden risks rather than protect against them; all at a terrible cost,\" \"the risks concealed and even encouraged by the models have led to hundreds of millions of losses to investors and taxpayers,\" \"the decision by regulators to adopt VaR opened the door to banks' overleveraging problems\"), and the mandatory oath-taking to assure the politicians that the truth and nothing but the truth was about to be disclosed, Taleb came out swinging. Wearing a white shirt and a dark suit and tie, a combination that lent him an austere and stern air, the former options trader wasted no time in going hard at his old mathematical nemesis (I was later glad to see that Taleb had in his testimony's written statement gracefully acknowledged his conversations with me regarding VaR and the crisis). He affirmed:\n\nThirteen years ago, I warned that VaR encourages misdirected people to take risks with shareholders', and ultimately taxpayers' money. I have been since begging for the suspension of these measurements of tail risks, which don't understand tail events. A lot of people say \"Let's measure risks.\" My idea is very different: Let's find which risks we can measure and these are the risks that we should be taking instead of doing it the opposite way, we take a lot of risks and then we find some scientist who confirms that those risks can be measured and that the methods are sound. The banking system has lost so far $4.3 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund, directly as a result of faulty risk management. Most of the losses will be directly borne by taxpayers.\n\nMost poignantly, Taleb stated that, \"These problems were obvious all along. These should not have happened. We knew about the defects of VaR when it was first introduced. A lot of traders, a lot of my friends, I am not the only one ranting against VaR, a lot of people did it too. Nobody heard us, regulators did not listen.\n\n\"VaR is ineffective and has side effects,\" continued the best-selling author, \"It is not neutral. If you give someone a number, he will act on that number even if you tell them that the number is random. We humans cannot be trusted with numbers. You don't give someone a map of the Alps if he is on Mount Ararat because he is going to act on that map, if you give him nothing it's better.\" The conclusion of having VaR around was obvious: \"VaR-style quantitative risk management was behind leverage. We increased risks in society as we thought we could measure risks. If the model makes you overconfident you are going to borrow more. And debt bubbles can be vicious.\" What should we do?\n\nRegulators should not encourage model error. Build a society that is resistant to expert mistakes. Regulators (Basel II) increased our dependence on expert mistakes, not just with VaR but also with reliance on credit ratings. The role of regulators should be to lower the impact of model error. This is reminiscent of medicine: The Food and Drug Administration does not let you bring any medicine without showing the side-effects. We should be doing the same in economic life.\n\nAs Nassim Taleb finalized his take-no-prisoners VaR-did-it opening statement, the next expert witness took to the stage. Dressed rather more colorfully (blue shirt plus yellow-and-reddish tie), veteran Wall Street risk manager and fellow author Richard Bookstaber was much less willing to indict VaR, rather toeing the line embraced by many quantitative finance professionals of belittling the model for its amply known structural deficiencies and limitations while at the same time not blaming it for any troubles and advocating for its continued use in financeland. \"VaR's assumptions are often violated, leading VaR estimates to be misleading,\" clarifyingly opened Bookstaber. \"If the future does not resemble the past, VaR will not be a good measure of risk. Which is to say, VaR is a good measure of risk except when it really matters,\" the disclaiming went on. Once the belittling of VaR had been taken care of, Bookstaber proceeded to acquit the model from the charge of having fueled the 2007\u20132008 catastrophe:\n\nWhatever the limitations of VaR models, they were not the key culprits in the billionaire writedowns central to the crisis. One has to look beyond VaR to sheer stupidity and collective management failures. VaR was not central, focus would be better focused on failures in risk governance than failures in risk models, whatever the flaws of VaR.\n\n\"In summary,\" Bookstaber shared, \"VaR does have value. If one was forced to pick a single number for the risk of a portfolio in the future, VaR would be a good choice. Add other risk methods that are better at illuminating the areas VaR does not reach.\" In other words, even though VaR is seriously dysfunctional and even though we need to complement it with other stuff and perennially issue disclaimers as to its shortcomings, we should by no means get rid of the model. While Taleb's unequivocal main message to the Washington mandarins was that we should bid VaR farewell (protecting ourselves in the process), Bookstaber's communiqu\u00e9 essentially pleaded for VaR's preservation.\n\nThe initial introductory statements out of the way, it was then time for the customary Q&A session, with the politicians inquisitively grilling the two financial wizards. After pointing out that VaR supporters propose a do-over, fixing the model so that fat-tails unlikely events can be predicted, the hearing's Chairman asked whether the failure is not just in the particular case of VaR but generally in the idea that economic events can be predicted with precision. \"Do you think that it is inherently flawed to think that we can develop models that will be unfailingly reliable?\" on-pointedly queried the Chairman before giving the floor to Taleb.\n\n\"This is my life story,\" came the prompt reply. \"I've looked at 20 million pieces of data, every economic variable I could find, and I see if there was any regularity in the data so as to be able to predict outside the sample. Unfortunately, it's impossible. The more remote the event, the less we can predict it. We know which variables are more unpredictable than others so it's very easy to protect against that. When we model in complex systems we have nonlinearities, even if I gave you all the data and you missed something by a million dollars your probabilities will change markedly.\"\n\nHow about you, Mr. Bookstaber? \"I don't advocate trying to fix VaR by fattening the tails. VaR is what it is, it does what it does, and the best thing to do is recognize the limitations of VaR and use it for what is good for but not oversell it. Any attempts to make it more sophisticated is going to obfuscate even more. So you take VaR as one tool for risk management and then extend out from there.\" Again, this argument has been amply heard before (in fact, for years before the 2007\u20132008 crisis) and continues to this day being repeated; given how resilient such \"VaR is very limited but don't kill it\" ideology seems to be, it is likely that it will survive any other future VaR-aided cataclysms. To more neutral observers, it may seem odd to stubbornly keep around a tool that has to be disclaimed about and excused for over and over again. It's quite likely that many of the politicians facing Bookstaber that September morning were thinking along those lines as they listened to the risk guru's explications.\n\nPerhaps as a counterweight to the predictable VaR-bashing from Nassim Taleb, the Committee had also invited a bona fide member of the pro-VaR family. Gregg Berman of famed financial risk software analytics firm RiskMetrics was certainly not expected to badmouth VaR too much. As a senior representative of the company that, in fact, invented and then proceeded to fanatically peddle VaR (born in the mid-1990s, RiskMetrics was a spinoff of the original VaR group at VaR-inventing JP Morgan), Berman clearly was there to present the sunny side of VaR, so as to guarantee a two-sided discussion. \"VaR,\" the quantitative risk specialist opened his statement, \"has enjoyed tremendous success, ranging from revealing the hidden risks of complex strategies to communicating with investors in a consistent and transparent fashion.\" The model, Berman offered, had often been used inappropriately by policy makers:\n\nThough current VaR methodologies are designed to estimate short-term market movements under normal conditions, regulators nevertheless tried to recast these models in order to measure the probability of long-term losses under extended market dislocations. We propose that it is not the model that needs to be recast but that regulators need to recast the question itself. VaR is about making dynamic decisions, constructing portfolios, sizing bets, and communicating risks. On the contrary, banking capital is designed to protect against worst-case events and their consequences. Instead of having banks report probabilities of short-term losses, they should estimate the losses they would be expected to shoulder under a set of adverse conditions (a 50 percent default rate, a 40 percent unemployment rate) chosen by regulators.\n\nWhat Berman appears to be saying is that VaR should continue to be in use for in-house risk management and trading decisions, but not for capital regulation purposes. Wait, he actually said it when closing his argument:\n\nIn summary, VaR is an excellent risk framework for banks and other financial institutions and the development of VaR models should continue unabated, but banking capital serves a different purpose and should be driven by policy instead of by probability analysis.\n\nThis sounds like quite sound advice. Yes, Mr. Berman very publicly wants VaR to go on alive and kicking, but at least he doesn't want it where it can do the most harm. As has been stated in this book, adult institutions can manage their internal market risks any way they like (or anyway their shareholders may allow them to get away with, and provided that taxpayers don't foot the bill if things go sour), but hugely influential mandatory public policies should never be founded on deeply flawed, potentially very problematic methods. I, for one, was (positively) surprised by Berman's candor in this respect, while not being able to refrain myself from thinking that the more militant VaRistas out there must have been crying \"Treason!\" as they listened to or read the RiskMetrics representative's assertions.\n\nThe next, and final, three panelists (which included an academic economist) steered the debate back to a decisively anti-VaR path, voicing dictums that would make Nassim Taleb proud. Posited James Rickards (among other things, LTCM's former general counsel):\n\nThe world is two years into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The list of culprits is long including mortgage brokers, investment bankers, and rating agencies. The story sadly is by now well known. What is less well known is that behind these actors were quantitative risk models that said that all was well even as the bus was driving off a cliff. Unfortunately, we've been here before. In 1998 capital markets came to the brink of collapse due to the failure of hedge fund LTCM. What is striking to me is how nothing has changed and no lessons were learned. The lessons should have been obvious: LTCM used fatally flawed VaR models and too much leverage, and the solutions should have been clear. Risk models needed to be changed or abandoned, leverage needed to be reduced. Amazingly, the US government did the opposite.\n\nRickards concluded, \"None of this would have happened without the assurance and comfort provided to regulators and Wall Street bankers by VaR models. The key assumptions behind the model (efficient markets, random walk, Normal distribution) are wrong. Investors are not rational, prices do not move randomly, risk is not Normally distributed. Let's abandon VaR once and for all.\" He then passed the baton to Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a provider of banks risk ratings. Whalen began:\n\nWhen you use assumptions in models, you've already stepped off the deep edge of the pool, and there's no water in the pool. You essentially are in the world of speculation and you've left the world of investing. If we used the same assumptions that go into the design of VaR models to design airplanes and dams all of these physical structures would fail because they violate the basic rules of scientific method. If we trust assumptions rather than hard data then we are in big trouble. My firm has entirely shunned quantitative work. We don't guess, we don't speculate. A big problem is that we allowed the Economics profession to escape from the world of social science and enter into an unholy union with dealers in the securities markets.\n\nAny hard-core financial economist or financial theoretician tuning in to the hearing's webcast might by that point fainted under the weight of such amalgamation of anti-models testimony. Even the RiskMetrics guy (in principle, the theoreticians' kinda guy) wanted to erase the math from bank regulation! But perhaps there was still hope for those rooting for the quant side. After all, the final speaker was a tenured Economics professor. Academic economics having become such an abstract equations-driven discipline, surely the prof could be counted on to enthusiastically fly the theory flag on Capitol Hill, right?\n\nWrong. Middlebury College's David Colander wasted no time in concurring with his panel colleagues.\n\nWe academics live in the world of suppositions because that's where our incentives are. We write articles. VaR is part of a larger problem in terms of how economists operate. A warning label should be placed on models: They should not be relied on heavily. We need a commonsense check on models. Current academic research is based on incestuous mutual reinforcement of researchers' views with no commonsense filter on those views. We must include physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, and even businessmen and government representatives as part of the reviewing process for social sciences research grants. We must fund research on the usefulness of models, going a long way towards placing the appropriate warning labels.\n\nAn academic economist asking for commonsensical checks and model warnings? By this time, any financial quant would have logged out of the Committee's site in utter despair. It is one thing to hear Taleb once more repeat his anti-models rants, it's quite another to have to hear Taleb and then a bunch of people who sound just like Taleb. Perhaps never before had so many badmouthed quantitative financial modeling so much at the same time and in such a public forum.\n\nPossibly animated by that bluntness, the inquiring politicians proceeded to ask the really key question, one that should have been asked much more often, much earlier, much louder by public servants not just in Washington, DC but all across major developed financial centers.\n\n\"Should we use mathematical models at all?\" went the inquiry. RiskMetrics' Berman replied first: \"Models will always be useful.\" James Rickards was slightly more skeptical:\n\nFrom 200 BC to 1500 AD the model of the universe was geocentric, with the sun revolving around the Earth. This was not just a religious belief, it was actually a scientific belief. Many brilliant mathematicians worked for centuries to write the equations, and when people observed data through telescopes that did not conform to the model they said well we just need to tweak the model a little bit, and they kept going down that path. But the paradigm was completely wrong. The understanding of how the world worked was wrong, the sun did not revolve around the Earth, but the other way around. That's my view of VaR today: You can tweak it, you can improve it, but they are all wrong because the paradigm is wrong in the first place. If a non-systematically important hedge fund wants to use these models that's fine, they can use voodoo as far as I am concerned. But if you are talking about a bank or a regulated financial institution they should be prohibited because they don't work.\n\nChristopher Whalen's final testimonial in the eventful gathering neatly summarized the impact of flawed financial models on society:\n\nWe are still paying for the (1980s) S&L crisis, there's still debt out there that we are paying interest on. We are going to be paying for this crisis for 100 years, that's how big the numbers are. So think of that as a load on the economy. That's kind of the cost of modeling run amok. I am serious about this, consumers, investors, and banks we are going to be paying for this for a long time.\n\nIt's a real pity that none of the rest of the hearing really filtered outside of the hallowed walls of 2318 Rayburn House Office Building in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood. The media blackout made sure of that. Few outside that room ever knew what had gone on. For the organizers and the panelists, it must have been disheartening to confront the fact that their extremely important debate was essentially ignored outside those walls. It's not just a matter of personal ego. Just like I naively expected the event to educate perceptions as to what had truly caused the credit crisis and to provoke drastic changes in risk management and capital regulation practices, so too must Nassim Taleb and the others have expected. To have to contemplate how the entire affair came to nothing must have been quite a burden. No one likes to be ignored, especially when you are disclosing a socially relevant message.\n\nIn fact, it is likely that the participants shared a profound sense of abandonment already while the proceedings went on. It was indeed creepy to observe that as some of the truly crucial factors behind the 2007\u20132008 crash were being so openly and boldly analyzed, the rows of chairs behind the large table around which the debating panelists were assembled stood almost completely empty. Barely any individual seemed to have bothered to attend the latter part of the historic VaR hearing. Perhaps the absence of Taleb and Bookstaber, described by the hearing's Chairman as \"rock stars\" when opening the event earlier in the morning, and the relative anonymity of the last four expert witnesses explained the lackluster attendance (not that Taleb and Bookstaber testified to a packed audience either), or perhaps as in the case of the media the role of mathematical models in the crisis was not on people's radar. Whatever the actual reason, it was sad to contemplate how some of the most pressing issues pertaining global financial activity were being dissected amidst a ghostly deserted room. Just as sad as not making the front page (or any other page) of any major newspaper the following day (or any other day). In spite of having made it to Washington, VaR did not become universally famous and the world at large remained ignorant as to the mysterious force that shaped and continues to shape our lives.\n\nGiven the unwillingness of regulators to completely do away with VaR and of journalists to draw attention to the model's responsibility for the 2007 crisis (coupled with bankers reluctance to depart from VaR), it is only logical that the model would continue in our midst, more than $1 trillion in bank losses later. Actually it is almost shocking how the \"Market Risk\" sections of regulatory filings haven't changed one bit. The VaR tables are still prominently displayed (still giving the impression to anyone poking their noses that VaR is in fact the golden risk radar and that those numbers do accurately represent the firm's exposures), and the VaR disclaimers are also to be conspicuously found (\"This is how we measure our risks and our capital requirements but the methodology is quite disappointing . . .\"). Have we not learned anything?\n\nAs I am writing this I am looking at Goldman Sachs 2010 annual report, page 79. The neat table at the bottom tells me that Goldman's average daily VaR for 2010 was $134 million, down from $218 million in 2009. There were only two exceptions to the firm's 95 percent VaR in 2010, and none in 2009. I switch from Wall Street to Old Europe to fixate my eyes on UBS 2010 Annual Report's page 135. The average 2010 daily VaR stood at CHF57 million, essentially unchanged from 2009's CHF55 million. UBS's 99 percent VaR saw just one exception in 2010 (four in 2009). I return to New York City and look at Morgan Stanley's 2010 10-K form, which tells me (page 101) that the American giant's average one-day Trading VaR for 2010 was $139 million, identical to 2009's figure. Morgan Stanley's 99 percent VaR was never breached in 2010.\n\nThis information worries me. It's not so much that VaR is still kept around in a pretty luxurious form, but that VaR is again working \"too well.\" Calmer markets and healthier portfolios have given rise to scarce VaR breaches. Statistically speaking, VaR seems to be behaving well once again. Pro-VaR folks can boast of the model's on-target loss estimates, once more. VaR is back to looking right. The legitimacy of any anti-VaR voices may seem reduced. In sum, it all worryingly feels so pre-mid-2007.\n\nNotes\n\n1. Christine Harper, \"Death of VaR Evoked,\" Bloomberg News (January 2008).\n\n2. \"Global Credit Crisis: Consequences for Banking Supervision,\" Swiss Federal Banking Commission (April 1, 2008).\n\n3. Paul Wilmott, www.wilmott.com, November 12, 2008.\n\n4. Ibid.\n\n5. Steve Allen, \"A Few Immodest Proposals,\" (December 4, 2008), www.garp.org\/media\/417012\/a%20few%20immodest%20proposals_allen.pdf.\n\n6. \"The Basel II Agenda for 2009: Progress So Far,\" United Nations (2009).\n\n7. Turner Review, UK Financial Services Authority (March 2009).\n\n8. Herve Hannoun, \"The Basel III Capital Framework: A Decisive Breakthrough,\" Hong Kong, November 22, 2010.\n\n9. Ibid.\n\n10. \"Global Credit Crisis: Consequences for Banking Supervision,\" Swiss Federal Banking Commission, April 1, 2008.\nChapter 7\n\nThe Common Sense That Should Rule the World\n\n  * A Call for Counterrevolution\n  * Imperfect Basel I Was So Much Better\n  * Let's Ban the Unacceptable\n  * Einhorn versus Brown\n  * But, Will We Suffer?\n\nWould VaR have been enthusiastically adopted by financiers and politicians if it weren't wrapped up in sophisticated-looking mathematical symbols and analytics? I have my doubts. I quite strongly believe that VaR's quantitative cred, which as we know was particularly acute in the early days of the model, decisively contributed to its embracement as the risk guide that would solve all problems. The math helped convince many people that the new methodology was imbued with unlimited rigor, a wise conduit to financial precision, an end to bothersome uncertainty. In some cases, those conclusions would have been reached after thorough examination of the technical documents. In others, I suspect, the conclusions would have been arrived at rather unconditionally, the total acquiescence with the model not demanding an actual investigation of its analytical insides: VaR's high-tech outer appearance would be more than enough credential, no further introspection required. This speaks of the powerful status that quantitative concoctions have reached in financeland in the modern age; not only those who truthfully abide by the symbols are brought on board, but also those (a vast number perhaps) whose mathematical knowledge of the model is limited to the fact that the model is mathematical. If you want a device to infiltrate the markets, it surely helps if it is analytically clothed.\n\nThe reasons for this are probably varied, including a general human infatuation with scientific-seeming accomplishments, a reluctance to challenge apparent sophistication, or a lack of trust in the \"softer\" sapience of personal intuition. Whatever the actual factors behind the imposition of a financial model, it seems clear that on way too many occasions common sense is forced to take a back seat, if at all, when it comes to some of the most consequential financial decisions. The crowning of the model as supreme ruler implicates, almost by definition, the excreting of human intuition, which many proponents of the analytical way consider not just a competitor but the enemy. VaR is the most relevant example of this phenomenon, but certainly not the only one. Complaisance toward equations-adorned gadgets has convinced people to put their arms around plenty of silly notions, such that it is possible to know a priori the future risks and returns of a security, markets are perfectly liquid and continuous, crashes and bubbles don't take place, or it is possible to measure a priori the future correlation between defaults on mortgage loans. None of these assertions, I believe, would have ever become accepted wisdom had the source not been quantitative. Had a, say, innumerate cab driver, not an MIT professor or a JP Morgan quant, uttered such notions we would have immediately dismissed him as a hopeless crank. And yet, once the very same dictums emanate not from a smelly taxi, but from the hallowed ivory tower or the imposing bank we puzzlingly nod in agreement, endow the authors with the genius label, and shower Nobel prizes on them. Whether a financial tenet is dressed up mathematically or not can be the difference between ignominious rejection and getting a medal from the King of Sweden.\n\nThis is not a good state of affairs. Bad theories should be as quickly discarded as bad cabdriver advice. No amount of technical wizardry can justify the embracement of beliefs that would be deemed absurd absent the theorems. If the math becomes the Kool-Aid that makes us accept silly principles, then the math becomes a dangerous thing. If the math forces us to betray our most pure intuitions, then the math must be resisted.\n\nCab drivers would not have entrusted market risk management and bank capital regulation to VaR. But they, on the other hand, would not have found themselves in total disagreement with what was going on before VaR. Basel I would have seemed quite reasonable, quite acceptable, at the very least a decently sound starting point. Measuring risks to the third decimal through the use of suspect statistical trickeries and unreliable past data would appear to our no-nonsense taxi-driving friends much more unreasonable, unacceptable, and unsound than ranking financial assets by their obviously intrinsic nature (even if crudely done). Even a financially ignorant individual can see the wisdom of, first, doing no harm: Make sure that the nasty stuff is treated accordingly. Many financial mathematicians and theoreticians may want to convince us that a subprime CDO should be given the chance to appear less risky than a Treasury Bond, but that does not negate the utter silliness of the idea. The concept would not pass the cabby's test, and thus should be rejected. If the common man thinks it nuts, so should regulators and bankers. Stop flawed models from shoving insultingly unacceptable results down our throats. We can die from it.\n\nIt is paradoxical that an attempt to imbue rigorousness and sophistication into something may end up delivering outcomes that deviate from truthfulness even more dramatically than the supposedly plebeian system that had been replaced by the new high-tech ways. The pioneer Basel I international regulatory standards have been ruthlessly lambasted for their perceived lack of attunement to real-world realities. True risk, the critiques posited, is not captured by such rustic architecture, we need something much more accurate and fancy. Third-generation mathematical models that drink from actual market signals will get risk right, the thinking went (and still goes in many quarters). Such erroneous mode of thinking, it turned out, was founded on the idea that financial risk can be implied in some magic way from past behavior and statistical hypothesis. Rather, financial risk can at best be guessed and ranked. We can't imply the future riskiness of a trade, but we can try to discriminate between different trades, and rank them in buckets. This, the Basel I regime got absolutely correct. Free from the analytical shackles (the no-holds-barred quantification of finance had not yet conquered completely in the mid- to late-1980s), financial mandarins arrived at a commonsensical solution. The real value of a Basel I-type exercise is not so much that the risk buckets will be perfectly designed or organized (in fact, they were far from perfectly designed or organized), but that the discriminatory approach based on asset fundamentals is bound to guarantee that the most naturally risky stuff will be placed in the worst buckets (i.e., those demanding more regulatory capital and careful steering).\n\nRather than trying to measure risk, particularly through very inappropriate means, we should focus on making the worst kinds of risk unacceptable. While VaR and other metrics subliminally fail at that, something like the much derided and denigrated Basel I showed the right path to follow (of course, Basel I dealt with credit, not market, risk but what's being proposed here is that Basel I\u2013style intuitional bucketing of risk categories be applied to both trading book and banking book assets). Thus, we should engage in counterrevolution: restore into power the old quant-less monarchy and, Napol\u00e9on-like, exile the defeated models to a faraway location. The 2007 crisis was VaR's Waterloo; we should find a remote St. Helena where the dethroned emperor can spend the rest of its life, terminally incapacitated to incite any more mayhem.\n\nBut restoring the old ways would not be enough. A healthy dose of reformation would be in order, not just to procure a more robust regime but also to limit the potential for a second quant revolt down the road. The Basel I monarchs must understand that while their system was superior at what truly matters, it can be greatly improved on.\n\nBasel I was accused of three major sins. First, it can easily lead to higher risk by naively dumping together in the same buckets assets of widely different nature, making it for instance as costly capital-wise to lend to IBM or to the corner shop (and thus, in principle, encouraging more lending to the corner shop than to IBM, as a higher interest can be charged on the former; more interest measured against the same capital charge generates better returns on equity). Second, it could result in unnecessarily taxing capital levies by not taking into account the risk-reducing diversification benefits of owning a portfolio of purportedly uncorrelated assets. Finally, it didn't cover market exposures, focusing only on a bank's banking book. Only the third complaint carries real merit. It's not that the other two charges would be completely off-the-mark, because the old rules could indeed favor lending to weaker credits and since diversification can certainly result in offsetting positions. But the remedies to both shortcomings made things much worse, potentially and indeed in practice: VaR and credit ratings can provide much more dysfunctional risk signals than Basel I's less-than-perfect bucketing, encouraging punting on extremely dubious assets if the latter happen, possibly for sheer coincidence or reflecting a bubble, to have enjoyed a recent calm market period (much worse than making it relatively economical to lend to the corner shop is to make it almost free to lend to someone who doesn't have a job or savings or income, let alone own a shop); and allowing more leverage on account of the supposed benefits of diversification can boomerang on you, especially when the diversifying factor is estimated via the statistical concept of correlation (the system can be gamed by scouring the historical data universe for assets that happened to have been uncorrelated of late, yielding very low capital charges for a portfolio of assets that, when things turn sour, can very well tank down in value all together at the same time, rapidly eating away at the diminished equity cushion; that which was assumed to lower risks becomes a dramatic risk enhancer). Relying on correlation, just like relying on volatility, can lead to bigger and bigger portfolios backed by smaller and smaller amounts of capital.\n\nIt turns out that Basel I was a superior architecture precisely because it did not incorporate those things that its critics found inexcusably missing. By not rewarding portfolio \"diversification\" with lower risk estimates and capital charges, and by not drinking from \"market signals\" implied by past data Basel I made itself into a more robust system than its later siblings Basel II and Basel III. By not confusing statistical correlation with true codependence and by not confusing risk with volatility, Basel I won the day. Is the use of correlation and volatility always a bad thing? No, of course not. Shouldn't asset diversification and actual market data be taken into account when appraising a portfolio's risk? Yes, of course they should. So, why are we praising Basel I on account of its neglect of both factors? Because drinking from those sources, while possibly useful at times, can make unacceptable answers possible and embraceable. Denying them center stage, instead ceding it entirely to experience-honed fundamentals-based decision making, makes (or ought to make) unacceptable results impossible. It is feasible that a lot of the time, not giving a starring role to the statistical counsel may reduce the accuracy of our risk analysis. But, I believe, that would be an agreeable price to pay in return for avoiding the emergence of the utterly diabolic. I'd rather settle for the exclusion of some potentially useful bit of information from the risk appraisal than for the possibility of a banking book or a trading book or both leveraged 100 to 1 or even 1,000 to 1 on lethal assets. It's healthier to potentially err on the riskiness of a conservative or semi-conservative portfolio while making it essentially not possible for a big toxic position to be built. While the financial and economic systems could put up with the former scenario, their very survival would be threatened by the latter's.\n\nSo Basel I was more wholesome than its quant successors. The \"improvements\" that were required upon it from analytical corners should not have been taken on board. However, and retaking the key point introducer earlier, a number of other tweaks certainly were and would be required to correct for some obvious imperfections. How should this perfected, superior regulatory structure (let's call it Basel I.5) look like?\n\nOne inescapable flaw of Basel I was that it allowed unlimited leverage on developed country government bonds-loans, by forcing a regulatory capital requirement of 0 percent on such positions (technically, on debt obligations by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, a Paris-based assemblage of rich and quasi-rich nations; 24 members when Basel I was put together in 1988, 34 at the time of writing). Toxic leverage is very bad, but excessive vanilla leverage should be equally avoided. Government-issued securities, even if issued by the most robust of nations, are not riskless, neither from a credit nor from a market point of view. The chance that an OECD country would default on its debt obligations is not zero, and certainly those assets can suffer from the volatile whims of global investors and tumble in value at no notice. Granted, such debacles would almost certainly never mirror those shouldered by more daring securities (while a subprime CDO can go to zero market value, an OECD bond is unlikely to sink nearly as much even under dire government financing circumstances), but they can potentially be significant nonetheless. Thus, for a bank to bet the house on government-issued securities could lead to losses significant enough to drive it out of business and to ignite widespread economic despair. Regulators, therefore, should not enable free gearing on such plays. Accumulating Italian government bonds or U.S. Treasuries should cost a little bit more than nothing.\n\nIt is often said that regulators decided to treat public sector debt so generously capital-wise as a way to guarantee that developed countries would find it easy to raise the funds they needed at any point; clearly, making that debt very economical for banks to hold is a powerful incentive for banks to lend to governments. So the OECD-originated mandarins in charge of Basel I decided to help their countries by helping global banks accumulate OECD debt very cheaply. Basel I may have placed OECD debt in the right risk bucket (in principle, that asset category should be placed among the safest) but got the risk weight wrong. Future regulatory regimes didn't exactly correct the problem, as the humble capital charges afforded by Basel II to securities with the highest credit ratings made sure that large leverage on developed nations' debt (which tend to be endowed with top ratings) continued to be affordable. That, combined with the reign of VaR on the trading side, potentially gave rise to a particularly dangerous combination of very low capital requirements for both esoteric and government assets. Making leverage on the latter very economical is especially worrisome when leverage on the former is too inexpensive, given that the financial, economic, and social mess that would be triggered by the more-than-likely blowup of the toxic plays would normally lead to shocks in public finances deriving from costly banking bailouts and stimulus policies; the end result could very well be greatly enhanced volatility and price declines in the government securities sphere, inflicting severe setbacks on those institutions that had accumulated sizeable amounts of those assets on the back of a very generous capital treatment (the banking industry, in essence, would be exposed to facing a fatal double blow: first, massive write-downs on the exotic stuff, then more massive losses on the vanilla stuff). So the urgency to correct for Basel I's lenient attitude toward OECD debt, highly advisable in itself, would be even more pressing under a system where VaR still roams around.\n\nThe meltdown that began in 2007 attested to all that. As the dust settled on the mortgage market massacre, an additional crisis was unleashed in certain corners of the sovereign securities arena, particularly in the Eurozone. By mid-2009, the headlines were no longer dominated by CDOs, massive losses on subprime loans, or rescue packages for Wall Street, but by the humongous difficulties faced by countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, or Belgium to deal with ever more unbearable fiscal deficits and levels of indebtedness. Of course, those difficulties had been accentuated by the earlier private-sector financial crisis, as governments had to rush in expensive rescue packages for banks and other firms and as tax receipts suffered from the abrupt decrease in economic activity and the abrupt increase in unemployment. The real plus the perceived risks of sovereign defaults collided to condemn those governments' bonds to a sharp decline in price, hurting anyone who had dared accumulate them in bulk. On December 31, 2010, the FTSE Global Government Bond Indices indicated the following miserly 12-month returns for some of the above mentioned sorry cases:\n\nGreece | \u221220 percent  \n---|---  \nIreland | \u221212.5 percent  \nPortugal | \u2212 7.3 percent  \nSpain | \u2212 3.9 percent  \nItaly | \u2212 0.8 percent\n\nDon't tell me that developed country\u2013issued securities aren't risky, or that they should deserve a 0 percent regulatory capital charge.\n\nAnother obvious flaw of Basel I was that the maximum minimum capital requirements were set at a way-too-low level. The max min capital charge was capped at 8 percent of risk-weighted assets, which effectively implied a cap of 8 percent of total assets on those asset families deemed riskiest (and thus deserving of the top 100 percent risk weight). An 8 percent total capital charge, implying leverage above 10 to 1, can be too lenient if the asset is too daring. The top capital charge should be set at 100 percent, limiting gearing to a 1-to-1 ratio. This naturally implies that those assets placed in the most lethal risk bucket would be assumed capable of losing their entire value in a downturn. Such assumption may be seen by some as a tad excessive: Even highly illiquid stuff may be liquidated into something more valuable than nothing. However, slightly unseemly as they might appear, very steep top capital charges would serve us much better in our efforts to ban the unacceptable than an 8 percent max charge ever could. Again, the main goal is not to get risk metrics precisely right, or to design a risk system that is so fair and just that no asset family is ever demanded more capital than it should. Many times, the steep top charge would seem unfair and uncalled for. Too bad. What truly matters is to fence hellish trades so stringently that they can't be accumulated massively, or if they are accumulated massively never without a correspondingly massive equity shield. If a bank wants to lose $100 billion in mayhem-destined positions, it should back that wish up with a $100 billion capital commitment. That way, losses on the bad stuff won't consume equity raised to support the good stuff. Every dollar of lethality should have its own equity cushion. An eye for an eye, as they say.\n\nThe key idea here is discouragement. A 50 percent or a 100 percent capital charge may turn out to be an inappropriately untruthful characterization of some of those assets unsound enough to qualify for the worst risk buckets, but it would always be appropriately discouraging, turning banks away from those, now taxingly expensive, punts. The markets and the economy at large become more resilient, as the possibility that the banking industry may finance a toxic orgy with but a tiny capital slice is made unfeasible. In essence, regulatory capital's main role becomes the de facto banning of the obviously unacceptable; short of legally banning certain plays, the best weapon against the fragility of finance.\n\nQuite prominent people would cast their vote for such initiative. Famed hedge fund manager David Einhorn is a case in point. Following the fall of Bear Stearns in March 2008, but before the crash of Lehman Brothers (which Einhorn famously shorted) the following September, the successful money manager saw it only natural that as a result of the malaise financial authorities would force banks to accumulate much more capital going forward. His most revolutionary recommendation? 50 percent to 100 percent charge for \"no ready market,\" that is, dangerously illiquid plays. Einhorn had no doubt that very low regulatory capital requirements, on the back on very low VaR figures, had sunk Wall Street, and that the unavoidable remedy would be to force banks to delever and to make trading on suspect assets much more costly. Capital should also be only of the highest quality, Einhorn offered.1 Anything other than core equity should not be allowed to call itself capital. The president of Greenlight Capital, in other words, presented himself as an indefatigable defender of down-to-earth, dogmatism-proof, common sense: Too much bad leverage is bad, and should not be condoned. The sad irony is that it took a \"contrarian\" (Einhorn has been portrayed as a quixotic figure, a roguish anti-system maverick recklessly betting on the end of the financial order) to point what should have seemed only natural to anyone all along. When those tagged as rebellious contrarians are the ones lonely carrying the flag of commonsensical decision making, that's when you realize how maddeningly fragile the VaR-dominated financial universe had become.\n\nThere are also prominent individuals on the other side of the debate, financial risk grandees that would find a return to something resembling Basel I impossibly allergic. To them, there's no turning back from metrics-based analysis. Give me historical data and quantitative models or give me nothing, seems to be the chant of those bent on protecting the status quo (notice that those fellows would now be firmly part of the \"traditionalist\" camp, given how entrenched analytical risk management has become; those proposing commonsensical, intuitional risk management would nowadays be the \"revolutionaries,\" inexcusably daring to challenge the supreme authority of the mathematical emperor).\n\nSome of those opposing change would be untameable reactionaries, quantitative Torquemadas for whom law is only what the dogmatic book says. Others would be much more enlightened, much more tolerant, yet still enthusiastically quant-oriented folk. People like successful real-world risk manager and guru Aaron Brown. In an exchange with David Einhorn in mid-2008, Brown defended the supremacy of \"risk-sensitive\" bank capital regulation, toeing the familiar analytical line that data-based statistical identities like standard deviation (volatility) and correlation provide a much better picture of a firm's exposures than fundamentals-based assessments.2 On top of the typical reasons, he defended VaR as a great way to gather information and improve communication within a firm, stating that you could completely disregard the final number (actually, that doesn't sound like an entirely crazy proposition . . .) and still have reaped ample benefits from going through the calculation process. Like many, Brown seems to care much more about the tails (what VaR doesn't cover, the 1 percent or 5 percent) than about the measured perimeter (what VaR does cover, the 99 percent or 95 percent), essentially assuming that while the former is unknownable the latter is trustworthy. I think that's a big problem, especially when it comes to the use of VaR as capital-charge setter. Saying that VaR is right but what lies beyond VaR is a mystery may be passable for risk management purposes (as you complement your VaR with whatever fancy analysis you've built to deal with the extremes), but it's outright dangerous when it comes to capital regulation because here there is no (or at least there wasn't between 1996 and 2008) add-on mechanism that may help yield a sufficiently large figure; here, VaR alone is all that matters (mattered) so if VaR is wrong the capital requirement will be wrong. And the key idea that seems to be ignored by the pro-VaR crowd is that the 99 percent or the 95 percent or whatever percent VaR number is going to be wrong and, much worse, could easily err on the side of smallness. The 1 percent or 5 percent or whatever percent tail will certainly be a problem, but so will the larger probability chunk covered by VaR. It's not okay to say that VaR tells the truth but only up to the 99 percent or 95 percent confidence level. VaR will lie often (what we tag as 99 percent probability may actually be a 70 percent or 60 percent probability event), and some of those lies can result in very bad outcomes. It's not only what VaR doesn't capture that's a problematic issue; VaR itself is a problematic issue and as long as VaR plays an important regulatory role that issue will be highly problematic for all.\n\nBrown compares VaR to a friendly fence protecting the financial village from the monsters lurking outside.3 Those monsters are unknown to us (as in, \"these rare events only happen 1 percent of the time, or twice a year; it's hard to know much about them\"); what lies within the fence is safely certain (as in, \"these normal events happen all the time; they are very familiar to us\"). The only reason the monsters are deemed monsters is because they are infrequent; we have much less historical data for, say, 1 percent events than for, say, 99 percent events. But that doesn't mean that so-called 99 percent events are potentially less dangerous: Just because they behaved a certain way yesterday doesn't imply that they won't act much differently, perhaps much more unfriendly, tomorrow. We think we control and understand what's inside the fence (say, market losses never above $50 million), but in fact we don't: Just because we were able to measure it doesn't mean that the measure will be on target; and an off-target measure may show far less danger than there actually is. We took shelter within the fence only to find that the monsters lay inside, not just outside. We thought we had a 99 percent strong fence, only to realize that it was in fact only 50 percent or 60 percent strong: What was assumed to lurk only outside the fence materialized inside, slaughtering the complacent villagers. The measurers said that the tigers (market losses above $50 million), lay only outside the fence, and thus we could sleep easy. But one day we wake up to find the beasts tearing the village apart, from the inside. What was deemed impossible to happen within the walls happened. We assumed no knowledge of events outside the fence because we couldn't measure them, we assumed total certainty of events inside the fence because we could measure them. As we get eaten by the tigers, we comprehend how naive we were to rely on those measures and to organize our defenses around them. If you use wrong measurement tools, what takes place inside the village can hurt you and surprise you; it's not only in the jungle that cold uncertainty and terrible pain can await.\n\nThose who state that capital should be risk-sensitive choose the wrong way to define risk. Mathematical estimations based on past data, probabilistic assumptions, and computational games are not risk. We shouldn't blame statistics too much: When shaky and unreliable humans shape the action, divining what's next is impossibly hard.\n\nIn his exchange with Einhorn, Aaron Brown declares himself not a big fan of making banks hold a lot of capital in general. Rather, he believes in dynamic capital management: If you get in trouble, recognize it early and humbly seek new equity infusions from outside investors. You may start with a relatively small chunk of capital, which would get augmented dynamically as you suffer setbacks. If this is done properly and if you retain a solid balance sheet, you should do fine attracting extra investors. The real reason why Bear Stearns fell, added Brown, is that it utterly failed at raising more capital once its problems became obviously public. More capital at the beginning would not have helped much plus it would have been a drag on returns and leads to waste, posited Brown. Starting with less equity support and addressing any problem early and aggressively would be a superior course of action. No wonder that Brown would not vote for the 50 percent\u2013100 percent capital charges favored by Einhorn. Not only would they (sin of sins!) be VaR-independent, they would be much too sizeable for his taste.\n\nWhile Brown's dynamic capital strategy is not devoid of seductiveness, I fear its practicality may be found lacking. Just like with the other dynamic strategies sponsored by the quant community (the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model, for instance) one would be making the brave assumption of unlimited liquidity at all times: New outside capital infusions will be at the ready whenever I demand them. That may always be true depending on the circumstances and the firm in question, but then again it may not be true for other circumstances and other firms. Perhaps putting all our trust on ever-perfect dynamic capitalization would be a tad courageous.\n\nAnd dynamic capital replenishment may not add a thing if the original sin of toxic leverage has been previously sanctioned by \"risk-sensitive\" lax and permissive capital requirements. If the small initial $10 million sliver of capital is allowed to finance $1 billion in subprime CDOs, the damage is irreparably done. After I lose the first million I might find a friendly sovereign fund in Singapore or Norway ready and willing to add a few millions more to my equity coffers, but really who cares? Once the toxic stuff was allowed in such quantities, your fate is sealed. The $1 billion will soon be worth much less (maybe $1 billion less), and not even the most accommodating of overseas investors would want to keep that sinking ship afloat.\n\nMuch better to redefine the main role of capital. Neither as guarantor of an orderly liquidation of a firm, nor as dynamic corrector for possible bumps on the financial road. Rather, as a preventer of the chaos-promising unacceptable. In that light, and respectfully contradicting Brown, Bear Stearns (like any of its Wall Street siblings) was not well capitalized going into the crisis because it held too much \"no ready market\" stuff ($29 billion by November 2007) on top of too little equity ($10.5 billion by that same date). Official capitalization ratios may have declared Bear okay capital-wise, but that only means, of course, that the regulation was obsolete. What matters is not the amount of capital you have (whether initially or progressively) but what kind of stuff you can get away with purchasing and at what cost. If the lethal plays are not made impossibly expensive from the get-go, your capital base (irrespective of how many zeros it displays) may be condemned to melting under the abrasive heat of a toxic catastrophe. I agree with Brown that once Bear saw tens of billions of liquidity disappearing in a few days, a billion or two extra capital would not have done much. The real problem is what caused the humongous losses in the first place: too much leverage at Bear and across the Street, and too much toxic leverage at Bear and across the Street, courtesy of a financial universe dominated by VaR and other metrics.\n\nIn the healthy quest to avoid unacceptable outcomes, regulators should rediscover the joy of basing bank capital rules on fundamentals. Financial mandarins should travel back in time and get reacquainted with their younger selves. Dust off the Basel I rulebook, revise it and improve it by correcting its true flaws, and unleash it onto the modern world. Models-based regulations can, did, and will tolerate the unacceptable because they easily can, did, and will deliver unrealistically low estimates of risk and, much more poignantly, because they can be, were, and will be easily manipulated into delivering unrealistically low estimates of risk. Bring back the days when VaR and other mathematical tricks could not dictate the fate of the banking industry, Implement Basel I.5: Both credit and market capital charges would depend on elaborate and modern risk buckets, clearly discriminating against naturally riskier asset families and imposing very hefty equity fees on unacceptably toxic punts. The risk weights on those buckets may be modified through time as the appropriate regulatory committee sees fit, based on economic realities and (why not) how assets have performed. So what carried a weight of 15 percent may be forced to carry one of 20 percent or rewarded with just a 10 percent one a year later. But the core principle should firmly remain: Make use of the risk buckets to guarantee that toxic leverage can't happen. The common sense behind Basel I may have been a tad simplistic, but that's no reason to forgo common sense. Rather, give it another try. Make it better and more attuned to modern-day financial activity. That should be amply superior to the analytical alternative that was allowed to steamroll over Basel I in the name of sophistication and that, inevitably, resulted in a deadly flood of destructive outcomes.\n\nSome would concur. A leading academic expert on bank regulation,4 rather than applauding the marginal changes proposed by the Basel Committee as a result of the 2007 crisis, proposes a radical overhaul of the system, moving away from risk calibration and raising capital requirements very substantially. With mathematically defined risk-based policies, it is very easy for a bank to end up ultraleveraged because the risk-weighted assets over which regulatory capital is determined may turn out to be just a fraction of total assets: \"Many institutions had equity amounting to 1\u20133% of their balance sheets even as they were vaunting themselves as having 10% core capital. The latter quantity is of course useless if the risk weights have not been chosen appropriately.\"5 What's more, regulators may have been privy to that fact all along:\n\nThe regulatory community has been unable to put up stronger resistance against the industry's claims that capital regulation must be finely attuned to the actual risks that banks are taking. Dysfunctional effects of the regulation have by and large been overlooked. The regulatory community knew that risk calibration was mainly a tool to reduce capital requirements. However, they also knew that, in discussions about risk management, they were no match for the industry.6\n\nJust because the financial risk professionals employed by banks may be highly educated, top-level individuals should not automatically imply that the tools that they produce should be automatically deemed infallible and worthy of embracement. Humble policy makers should not allow themselves be subjugated by purported mathematical sophistication. If a model leads to unacceptable results, it should not be condoned, no matter how superiorly smart the model's peddlers may be. Back to our academic expert witness:\n\nWhile accepting that risk modelers and risk managers in banking institutions are highly professional and very competent, we need to appreciate that a bank's private interests in managing its risks is not the same as the public interest in having banks manage their risks so as to avoid systemic damage. Therefore, the professional competence of risk controllers in banks is not a good reason to shape the regulation to the bankers' wishes. Regulators may be less competent in matters of risk management, but this is no reason to eliminate their role in giving voice to the public interest.7\n\nSometimes the (supposedly) smarter guys can be wrong. Let's not make society pay a big price for it.\n\nSome may ask, why the need to call for counterrevolution when policy makers have already shaken things up? Isn't the common sense already introduced by the latest revisions in bank capital rules enough? Why stir the pot, when regulators have been busy doing plenty of stirring themselves? It is undoubted that, as we've amply covered in the book, capital regulations have gone through a cleansing dose of repairing following the 2007\u20132008 cataclysm. We've seen how capital charges on resecuritizations were bumped up. We've seen how trading book charges were inundated with add-ons to VaR. Isn't that sufficient?\n\nNot really, as long as the elephant in the room continues unaddressed, unrevised, and unquestioned. Occasional tweaks to the rules and procedures behind the calculations rather appear as concerns-allaying decoy that allows the underlying main structure to go on unperturbed. Whenever VaR and other regulatory metrics turn naughtily malfunctioning, the mandarins in Basel treat these deficiencies as punctual technical flaws, to be duly corrected by making some modification to the calculation formula. But the overall wisdom of having a models-based approach is not put in question. VaR's influence has been decisively downsized but neither VaR itself nor analytical risk analysis in general were expulsed from the premises. Mathematical models have not been a casualty of the crisis. They have been preserved, allowed to fight another day. Through their nonstructural tweaks regulators have preserved the analytical reign, while giving the appearance of having conducted thorough, remedial surgery. Outsiders may have been assuaged by such patching up, believing the system to be now much more robust to shocks. And yet, the original sin (the fantastical illusion that financial risks can be measured, by suspect concoctions to boot) remains.\n\nMany say that it's okay to have mathematical models around, even if they can obviously fail, because they are complemented with other tools. Such people typically argue that warnings were erected as to the wisdom of not relying exclusively on the model, so those who eventually did so should be the ones to truly blame. With one hand this pro-models crowd tells us how important models are and how crucial it is for your organization to employ them and with the other they tell us how stupid it is to trust the models and how reckless financiers were for listening to the math. This is akin to a salesperson aggressively peddling a device only to berate the customer later on for employing the device.\n\nThese arguments have been heard when it comes to VaR, credit ratings, and other analytical constructs. Don't rely exclusively on the models, we've been repeatedly told. Complement the models with other analysis, we are instructed. But this, of course, does not solve the problem. The problem with flawed, deleterious models is not that they exist in exclusivity but that they exist at all. As long as the models are out there and can be used as alibis for certain trading and dealing actions, the bad models will continue to be abided by and the world will continue to be in danger. Just because you warn that the AAA rating should not be taken in isolation doesn't mean that people won't be able to justify financial decisions based entirely on the fact that the play got the AAA rubber-stamp. Just because you warn that the low VaR number should not be taken in isolation doesn't mean that people won't be able to alibi decisions exclusively on the premise that the risk radar said there was no risk. If you let the bad models loose, someone will pick them up and milk them to their benefit. They know that the reckless build-up of ultraleveraged positions or the irresponsible accumulation of toxic securities will be condoned and even applauded if they happen to be backed by low quantitative measures of market risk or default probability. How many traders will be scrutinized for punts that show negligible VaRs and\/or imperial credit ratings? Notwithstanding how often and how loud the bad models are disclaimed and warned about, the bad models have continued and will continue to be successfully employed as justification for actions that may lead to chaos. This is just how things are. If you doubt it, consider what took place during the 2007 crisis: The globe's most influential banking firms saturated\u2014unopposed\u2014their balance sheets with the worst possible kind of financial crap because and only because of what VaR and the credit ratings had to say in the matter. The zero VaR and the AAA+ flags were waived in front of mesmerized bosses, regulators, and analysts who, hypnotized by the assurance, fell on their knees in total submission and eagerly cheered the traders on their glorious pursuit, refusing to ask for \"complementary analysis\" or for \"additional tools.\"\n\nThe only sure way to make sure that bad models won't affect us is to stop having them around. The impact of having bad models around is not neutral, no matter how many warning labels you place on the container. If they can be used as alibis for certain actions, some smart operators will find them and use them as alibis for those actions, regardless of the mountain of advice urging not to use the models in isolation. The point is not how wrong everyone knows the models to be (and openly say so), the point is whether it is possible to nevertheless continue to get away with using the knowingly wrong constructs to back terminally harmful behavior.\n\nDoing away completely with VaR, credit ratings, and similarly manipulable and flawed metrics-based approaches to bank regulation would go a long way toward helping prevent the emergence of unchecked leverage, in particular that of the most toxic kind. That would naturally be a good thing in itself. However, there is another side to that coin. Intuition and fundamentals-based alternatives may result in much too higher capital requirements, constraining banks so much that the economy at large suffers. Regulators have amply recognized (witness Basel III) that the analytical regime is bound to lead to intolerably undercapitalized banks, but will their reaction prove excessive? Commonsensical attitudes towards financial risk may prevent one type of cataclysm, but might give raise to a new source of bad news. Very little bank capital is obviously dangerous, but perhaps too much of it won't be healthy either Blaming one regulatory structure for the past crisis while replacing it with another that contains the seeds of future discontent may not be a good move on the part of politicians. Does that mean that perhaps we shouldn't rush too blindly into the arms of common sense? Should we maybe think twice before completely dismantling the analytical setup? Would the price of getting rid of VaR be too high?\n\nMany financial institutions, let alone die-hard VaRistas throughout the academic and risk consultancy universes, seem to think so. It has been forcefully argued that Basel III (with its demands for more bank capital, and for far more \"real\" capital at that) could seriously dampen worldwide economic activity. In June 2010, for instance, the Institute for International Finance (IIF), an organization set up by a large number of global banks, concluded that Basel III would result in lower economic growth for the United States, the Euro Area, and Japan by an average of 0.6 percent annually during the 2011 to 2015 period, and by an average of 0.3 percent annually for the 2011 to 2020 period.8 In other words, for each of the world's three biggest economic zones (the analysis was done before China's economic might overtook Japan's in early 2011), the IIF expected on average a sharp 3 percent growth decline in the decade following the formal announcement of Basel III regulatory measures. It seems logical that the impact would be more concentrated in the initial years because that's when banks would suffer the sudden hit of more taxing capital requirements.\n\nThe IIF's study found that the tougher financial policing should result in higher lending rates (by an average of above 1 percent annually in each of the G3 zones, for 2011 to 2020) as well as higher unemployment (by about 10 million people in the G3 combined). Credit to nonfinancial corporations is projected to be constrained: For any given price level (spread over government debt), less financing would be available, with small- and medium-size enterprises bearing the brunt of the cuts.\n\nObviously, not all countries would be affected equally. The most important differentiating factor is most likely an economy's dependence on banks. The less bank financing matters for economic activity, the less new bank regulation that (potentially) hampers such financing may matter. Also, the smaller the banking sector's slice of a national economy the less significant a (potential) shrinkage of the banking sector's size may be. As of end 2009, the Euro Area was the most bank-dependent of the G3 with banks assets equal to 350 percent of GDP, in contrast to Japan's 170 percent figure; in the United States, banks only accounted for 83 percent of GDP. America was the most diversified in terms of financial intermediation, with bank lending making up just less than 25 percent of total credit intermediation, in sharp contrast to the Euro Area's 74 percent and Japan's 53 percent. So in principle the United States appeared to be less vulnerable to the Basel III tsunami, with the Euro folks being the most exposed.\n\nWhy should Basel III have negative effects? Why should it lead to lower bank lending, lower growth, and higher unemployment? Well, \"should\" is perhaps a strong word, but it is not exactly impossible or unreasonable to argue that the new policies \"could\" indeed yield said negativity (though the exact dimension of the bad outcomes is hard to prospectively get right). The essence of Basel III is higher capital requirements, more real capital, and somewhat less permissive risk weights. That triad could result in greater demands for equity capital or reductions in asset holdings (for the same asset portfolio as before, more capital will certainly be required; for the same capital as before, the asset portfolio will have to shrink or change). When higher capital ratios are being demanded, either the ratio's numerator, that is, capital, or the ratio's denominator, that is, risk-weighted assets, must be modified so as to arrive at the required figure. So either equity capital is increased or asset positions are decreased. The need for more equity can translate to more earnings being internally retained, rather than externally distributed. The need to reduce the balance sheet can translate to less loans (i.e., less debt-related assets). At the same time, the capital structure of banks gets tentatively more costly, as equity capital is typically seen as more expensive than borrowed funds; banks may in turn pass this extra cost on to their own borrowers, in the form of higher lending spreads. These effects can generate the kind of ugly consequences that the IIF warns about. So even if some might cynically argue that the IIF (as the public megaphone of banking institutions populated by people who may be allergic to Basel III's impositions) has a vested interest in being abruptly alarmist, there are in fact conduits through which the new rules may prompt at least some unpleasing economic (and thus social) outcomes.\n\nPrudently preemptive, the IIF asks itself the kind of queries that would be raised by those in disagreement with its less-than-rosy findings. For instance, why can't banks just absorb internally the new costs supposedly imposed by the new regulations, rather than alchemize them into higher lending rates for the rest of the populace? Or more to the point, do we really need banks in order to grow? Can't we grow even in the face of a supposedly weakened and diminished banking sector? In a commendable display of honesty, the IIF concedes that given their control over noninterest costs (such as employee compensation), banks could in principle swallow any Basel III\u2013induced pain without having to make it harder for everyone else to finance their activities or lifestyles, and, yes, an economy could do better even if confronted with more restrictive bank lending activity (among other things because mature and semi-mature economies tend to enjoy other financing alternatives, like those creatures called bonds). Nevertheless, the IIF clarifies, it is unlikely that higher costs won't be passed on externally or that the link between banks' health and economic activity won't remain powerful.\n\nNot everyone agrees with the IIF's rather somber assessment of the impact of Basel III. Who? Well, the Basel Committee for starters. In a December 2010 report, the international financial mandarins projected a much sunnier future. Economic growth, the conclusion went, will be affected only very modestly by the new capital regulations. Assuming that banks begin to increment their capital ratios from 2011 (rather than 2013, the official launch date for Basel III), the study assumes an eight-year transition period (as the full set of new requirements must be met by early 2019). It is estimated that during said timeframe the median (most frequent) expected macroeconomic outcome of a 1 percent point increase in required equity capital would be a reduction in total growth of 0.17 percent per country (implying a median reduction in annual growth of around 0.02 percent points per country), followed by a gradual recovery of growth afterward. Recall that per Basel III required minimum equity capital is slated to progressively go up by about 5 percent points (from 2 percent to 7 percent9) during 2013 to 2019, so even if banks started with the smallest amount of hard-core equity demanded by the prior rules (i.e., 2 percent of risk-weighted assets) we can appreciate how little policy makers thought their new policies will subjugate prosperity. But in truth banks embarked on the new world of Basel III with more than just that paltry 2 percent. The Basel report set the figure at, on average, 5.7 percent, based on a survey of large international banks. Thus, to achieve the 7 percent target from such starting point banks would need to raise their capital ratios by 1.3 percent points, therefore yielding an overall decline in GDP of 0.22 percent (1.3 percent * 0.17 percent), or some 0.03 percent per year up to 2019. Certainly not something capable by itself of sinking a nation, especially when compared with the benefits of making it harder for a taxing and costly bank crisis to occur.\n\nSeveral others concur with the Basel Committee's Basel III-won't-kill-us analysis. In one of the earlier papers to analyze the possible impact of the new post-crisis rules,10 Douglas Elliott of the prestigious Washington DC\u2013based Brookings Institution matter-of-factly concluded that there would likely be only relatively small changes in loan volumes by U.S. banks as a response to higher capital requirements, and that the cost of such loans would rise only modestly (by around 0.20 percent points on average, not much to worry about if we consider for instance how modest the economic effects from a 0.25 percent point increase in official interest rates tend to be). In another contribution to the debate, top-notch academics from Harvard University not only argue that the new higher capital requirements ought to be enthusiastically embraced, but go further by opining against the long phasing-in of the new requirements. The long transition all the way to 2019 is unnecessary and potentially harmful, posited the professors.11 Much better to demand substantial infusions of fresh new capital right away. Contrary to many bankers' assertions, more capital should not automatically lead to reduced or dearer bank lending, given that more capital makes banks safer institutions and thus their financing costs should not rise up too much (as shareholders and creditors demand lower returns than would be the case in a capital-lite environment).\n\nAnother ivory-tower study, the result of the combined brainpower of brainiacs from Harvard and the University of Chicago,12 highlights a key drawback of insufficient bank capital: namely, the possibility of crisis-igniting asset fire-sales. If just one lightly capitalized bank gets into trouble and decides to shrink its asset holdings as a response rather than try to raise fresh capital out there, such dumping may not lead to overall troubles. That is, the problem remains at a \"micro\" rather than a \"macro\" level. But what if multiple financial firms get hit at once? What if the asset dump is generalized, rather than isolated? This could lead to a credit crunch, when the asset sale takes the form of reduced lending, or to a sudden market meltdown if the liquidation focuses on trading-related positions (which may be illiquid and thus drop even more in value). Obviously the worst scenario in this respect would be one where all banks hold little capital and own the same type of toxic assets, a scenario that as we know VaR is uniquely equipped to deliver.\n\nNaturally, a pretty effective way to avoid the dreadful effects from such balance-sheet shrinkage would be to prevent the balance-sheet shrinkage from taking place by making banks hold lots more capital so that the desired capital ratio is maintained even if banks are hit by a decently sized shock: the capital buffer should be, in principle, sufficient to withstand the losses without having to engage in asset dumping in order to retain a given capital-to-assets ratio (say your desired, or mandatory, target ratio is 8 percent and you want to be able to withstand a loss in the value of your assets of 4 percent; then you should keep a 12 percent ratio just in case). Also, the more capitalized you are the easier it should be for you to raise extra capital should the need arise, particularly if your capital base is prominently made up of true (truly loss-absorbing, or more junior) common equity capital. Finally, banks could be required by policy makers to post up specific amounts of capital rather than abide by a mandated minimum capital-to-assets ratio; this is the approach actually favored by the Harvard-Chicago economists, forcing banks to raise capital in a tangible manner and up to the limits deemed prudent while avoiding the shortcomings associated with the capital ratio approach, such as the reliance on the fluffy concept of \"risk-weighted\" assets and the often fluffy criteria behind the determination of such weights (as we know, total capital could not rise or even go down as a higher capital ratio is mandated if banks decide to switch their positions into assets that happen to be endowed with lower risk weights; a badly designed system that showers negligible risk weights on certain asset families can lead to infinitesimal total capital, no matter how tough the capital rules may appear to be).\n\nFine, but at what cost sufficient capital? Better put, at what cost sufficient real equity capital? The answer from the Harvard-Chicago alliance is blunt: While increased capital requirements might be expected to have some long-run impact on the cost of loans, this impact is likely to be quite small. This, of course, flies in the face of conventional wisdom, that invariably states that equity should be quite costlier than debt for the well-rehearsed reasons (equity investment is riskier and thus should command a premium, interests on debt unlike dividends on equity are tax deductable, very cheap short-term borrowings may be amply available, the supply of equity capital may be limited). But the academic contrarians nonetheless stand their ground and stubbornly hold on to their main assertion, on two main conceptual grounds: First, the riskiness of equity investing should go down as a bank's leverage goes down (in a self-feeding process, the less debt in your capital structure the cheaper equity financing should be and thus the more equity you can afford to issue); second, the tax costs from substituting debt with equity should not be that taxing (borrowing from their example, if we assume a debt coupon of 7 percent and a 35 percent corporate tax rate, each percentage point of increased equity raises the weighted average cost of capital by 7 percent * 35 percent = 0.0245 percent; thus, even a 10 percent points increase in equity would increment capital costs by less than 25 basis points, a decidedly modest impact).\n\nOn top of the conceptual claims against the hypothesis that enhanced equity capital requirements will mechanically lead to more expensive credit for the average Joes that fuel a nation's consumption and for the average companies that produce real goods and employ real people, the Harvard-Chicago team also points at historical evidence. Banks, you see, used to be way more capitalized in the past. In the 1850s, book equity stood at 40 percent to 50 percent assets for U.S. commercial banks. By 1900 the ratio was still at almost 20 percent. The descent into below-10 percent figures only happened in the 1940s. Surely, if the conventional storyline is to be adhered to, this phenomenon must have translated into much cheaper bank credit, right? And yet, the academics find no detectable correlation, in spite of such pronounced historical developments.\n\nBut if more equity capital should not, by itself, equate with vastly enhanced financing costs, why do banks (the larger ones in particular) have at least in more modern times shown an insatiable thirst for leverage? \"If significant increases in capital ratios have only small consequences for the rates that banks charge their customers,\" ask the researchers, \"why do banks generally feel compelled to operate in such a high-leveraged fashion, in spite of the risks it poses? And why do they deploy armies of lobbyists to fight increases in their capital requirements? After all, non-financial firms tend to operate with much less leverage and appear willing to forgo the tax (or other) benefits of debt finance altogether.\"13 In a word, Harvard-Chicago states, competition. Due to banking's intrinsic nature, cost of funding becomes a powerful source of competitive advantage. The most important edge for a bank over its competitors may be its ability to obtain cheaper funding. This is in sharp contrast with other industries (think computer manufacturers) where relative funding costs are unlikely to be the deciding factor when determining which entities come on top and are more profitable. Although this argument seems to make sense, it is also obvious that all banks benefit from more accommodative capital regulation (i.e., they can all at the same time enjoy higher leverage) so the competition angle may not be the main reason why the aggressive lobbying has taken place. Rather, competing entities would yearn for lower capital requirements not so much as a selfish pathway toward the attainment of individual, sink-your-enemy comparative advantages but as a colluding way to collectively achieve an identical individual benefit, namely rosier returns on equity. This may not give any particular bank any extra edge over the rest, but it does guarantee that the entire group enjoys something golden: the turbo-charged reputational and monetary rewards that come with disclosing outstandingly high return-on-equity (ROE).\n\nFurther academic evidence against the \"enhanced bank capital requirements will sink the world\" verdict comes from yet another notorious academic institution, Stanford University. In a truly contrarian analysis, three scholars from Stanford's Graduate School of Business (together with a fourth contributor from Germany's highly-regarded Max Planck Institute)14 ruthlessly refuse to embrace the pervasive notion that equity financing is more expensive, labeling the arguments typically made to support such sacrosanct view as \"fallacious, irrelevant, or very weak.\" Therefore, enhanced capital demands on banks should not impact the availability and cost of credit, and should not have a deleterious social effect. Given, on the other hand, how deleterious excessive bank leverage can be, the Stanford-Max Planck foursome concludes that raising equity requirements higher (particularly significantly higher) should entail a huge net social benefit.\n\nThe U.S.-Germanic professorial alliance ruthlessly decapitates, one by one, the most commonly heard bromides against the wisdom of asking banks for more equity. For example, it is often argued that capital held for regulatory purposes would be wasted capital, as it sits idle in the bank's balance sheet without playing any useful role. But this confuses bank capital with bank reserves. Bank capital refers to how banks fund themselves (the debt-equity mix) and thus their activities. It is not uselessly and idly \"set aside,\" but rather forms the funding foundation that enables banks to do, hopefully useful, stuff (like lending or accumulating trading assets). Far from being relegated to an irrelevant role, capital allows banks to actually be active.\n\nWhat about the also-familiar claim that banks' funding costs would go up because equity requires a higher rate of return than debt? Nonsense, blurt out the professors. Just like their Harvard-Chicago colleagues, the Stanford-Max Planck tag team counterpunch that equity's risk premium must decline as equity gains share in the bank's capital structure, given that the bank is now in principle a more solid, less vulnerable entity (possibly also resulting in a cheaper cost of debt as a result). In their own words, \"Any argument or analysis that holds fixed the required return on equity when evaluating changes in equity capital requirements is fundamentally flawed.\"15 The overall funding costs of a bank should remain constant even as the more expensive equity component goes up relative to the cheaper debt component, because as more equity is accumulated the cost of equity should go down.\n\nOkay, but won't banks' ROE drop like a stone thus erasing value for shareholders? In good times ROE would go down with less leverage (ROE would raise in bad times though; any given negative return would now be measured against a larger capital pile, meaning less bad news per unit of equity), but shareholders would be compensated by the solidity brought about by that reduction in indebtedness, so overall they shouldn't feel worse off. Also, whoever said that ROE is a good proxy of bank performance, especially in relative terms? We should rather focus more on return on assets (ROA). A highly leveraged bank with a superior ROE than a better-capitalized competitor may in fact present a much inferior ROA than its more prudent counterpart: Bank A with ROA of 6.5 percent and 10 percent capital would enjoy a better ROE than Bank B with 7 percent ROA and 20 percent capital, but would that allow us to categorize A as more productive than and superior to B?\n\nAnd, won't bank lending be cut back as a result of more stringent equity demands? Not necessarily. Banks could still go on doing exactly the same things, only now those activities would be financed less via debt and more via equity. As long as a bank can raise the extra required capital, it can keep in place all the assets, including loans, it previously had. If more equity than the minimum regulatory requirement is raised, the new funding structure could actually lead to an asset expansion, including perhaps an expansion in lending. So let's not automatically assume that increasing the size of the equity cushion per se limits a bank's activity. In fact, an equity-challenged banking industry is what can really, truly lead to a crippling credit crunch: Undercapitalized banks that get in trouble because of their undue leverage are in no good position to satisfy the demand for loans from industrial companies or from individuals (witness the 2007\u20132008 crisis, when the mother of all leverages led, predictably, to the mother of all credit crunches). Anyway, quality may be more important than quantity. The Stanford-Max Planck professors argue that more leveraged banks make less appropriate lending decisions and are incentivized to take on more risky positions, possibly because the gains afforded by leverage make high-yielding daring plays extra enticing. It follows that better capitalized banks will engage in more appropriate lending; this may lead to reductions in the overall amounts of lending (as \"bad\" loans are discarded), but could still well be beneficial to the economy. In their own words:\n\nEquity holders in a leveraged bank, and managers working on their behalf or compensated on the basis of ROE, have incentives to make excessively risky investments, especially when the debt has government guarantees. Under significantly higher capital requirements, banks would be more likely to make better, more economically appropriate, lending decisions and engage less in either too much or too little lending from a social perspective. To the extent that banks can quickly get to the point of being better capitalized, there should be no concern with any negative impact on the economy of increased equity capital requirements.16\n\nIf all those contrarians (the Basel Committee, the Harvard-Chicago-Stanford-Max Planck academics, the Brookings Institution) unafraid to counter conventional wisdom by bombarding the \"higher bank capital demands will lead to an economic downfall\" dogma are to be believed, then a regulatory system based less on mathematical gimmicks and more on commonsensical appraisements (one that, again, should in principle result in better capitalized banks) would help avoid the unpleasantness derived from excessive leverage with negligible collateral damage. Although the minus side (reduced lending, more expensive lending, asset dumping) would be expected to be of a limited dimension, the plus side would be exceedingly beneficial. Can we actually calculate the size of said benefits? Just like we earlier showed various numerical estimates of the potential negative impact of higher capital, is it possible to estimate the potential positive impact of more prudent capital rules? In other words, can we measure the gains to be had from not endowing VaR with regulatory powers?\n\nNaturally, we intuitively fully perceive the boon to be had from a not-wildly-leveraged banking industry. Mountainous gearing can quickly and suddenly sink a bank. Distress in one institution can quickly spread to others. All this leads in turn to recession-depression and to taxing government rescues. If the 2007\u20132008 crisis showed something it's how creepily true the above statements are. Let's now try to back those intuitive conclusions with some numerical support.\n\nWe draw once more on the Basel Committee itself. In an August 2010 report, the Committee reached the conclusion that a significant positive net economic benefit would result from the enforcing of its new capital rules. Such net gain derives mainly from a reduced probability of banking crises (and the associated loss in output) thanks to higher capital standards. And this even while assuming that the potential costs from the new policies would be close to its upper bound (for instance, banks in the study are expected to pass all costs on to borrowers in their entirety and to maintain their pre-reform ROE figures). What's more, the report concluded that such large net benefits would still take place under truly stringent capital demands, such as requiring banks to hold equity capital in excess of 10 percent or even 15 percent of risk-weighted assets.\n\nThe August 2010 study makes two main calculations: one, the probability of a banking crisis; and two, the discounted economic cost of a banking crisis. The output saved by preventing a banking crisis can thus be obtained by multiplying the reduction in the probability of a meltdown times the projected cost from the meltdown. Borrowing from a bunch of academic exercises, including those that do and do not allow for the possibility of permanent effects from a crisis, it is concluded that the median cumulative economic loss from a banking catastrophe would be 63 percent of the precrisis GDP level (the figure becomes around 20 percent when working under the hypothesis that economic activity is affected only temporarily). That is, for every 1 percent point reduction in the annual probability of a crisis we would obtain an expected benefit of 0.63 percent (or 0.2 percent) of GDP per year. That is economic production that would otherwise be lost, probabilistically speaking.\n\nSo how far can more conservative capital requirements diminish the chance of a banking disaster? Although the econometric wizardry behind the analysis should be taken with a pinch of salt (like with any such analytical games in the social sciences), a consistent result across the different models relied on is a significant reduction in the likelihood of a banking crisis at higher levels of capitalization. A ratio of equity capital to risk-weighted assets of 7 percent is equated with a 4.5 percent probability of crisis, roughly what historical evidence would dictate (a nasty episode happens to take place every 20 years give or take). Going from a 7 percent to an 8 percent ratio would lower the chances of mayhem to just 3 percent. If the capital ratio reaches 11 percent, we \"should\" expect a systemic bank failure only once every 100 years. Want to set that probability at essentially zero? Force banks to suffer a 15 percent capital target. After that, the marginal benefits from yet higher requirements kind of plateau.\n\nIf the Basel August 2010 report's estimations are to be trusted, it seems clear from the above numbers that the gross economic benefits from less accommodating capital regulations would be tantalizing (and not just in terms of prevention of output losses; the volatility of output would also be limited by stronger capital bases that absorb losses better during bad times and that restrains lending during good times, thus smoothing the credit cycle and consumption and investments). What about the net benefits? Assuming, as was said before, that any higher funding costs for banks would be passed on by raising loan rates (100 percent pass-through), that the cost of equity capital should mirror its rather generous precrisis average, and that the relative costs of equity and debt financing are not affected by banks being more prudently capitalized, each percentage point increase in the capital ratio is determined to result in a median increase in lending spreads of 13 basis points; if those putative assumptions don't hold (for instance if rather than engage in 100 percent pass-through to borrowers banks retain internally some of the new regulatory capital costs) that increase would naturally be lower than 13 bps. How would such rise in the cost of financial intermediation translate in terms of economic activity? The report states that a 1 percent point increase in the capital ratio translates through that conduit into a median 0.09 percent output reduction per year. Based on this, we can now approximate the net expected long-run annual economic windfall from adopting a tougher policy stance \u00e0 la Basel III: If the capital ratio goes from 7 percent to 8 percent the net expected benefit would be 0.90 percent of GDP; if we jump to a 10 percent ratio then the gains would net 1.70 percent output growth; if we dare to go to a 15 percent ratio then we get an economic improvement equal to 1.90 percent of GDP.\n\nThose are quite impressive estimates. That's a lot of output that may have otherwise been lost in the face of banking setbacks caused by too much leverage. Notwithstanding the fact that those estimations are bound to be inexact, they let us put a numerical face to the economic torment that a leverage-enabling tool like VaR can fuel. And it's not a pretty picture.\n\nIt is obvious from our earlier analysis that many elite finance academics don't like bank leverage and consider a financial regulator's primary role to make sure that such gearing doesn't go too far. Contrarians even among contrarians, they don't even feel that the Basel III efforts to increase equity capital are in the vicinity of enough. \"While moving in the right direction,\" they say of the new rules, \"Basel III still allows banks to remain very highly leveraged. We consider this very troubling.\"\n\nI have been positively surprised by the professors' candor and their brave contrarianism when it comes to the capital debate. And not just the academics cited above. In late 2010, for instance, a much larger group of distinguished financial economists (including some of the field's most sacred cows, and even a Nobel winner) wrote a public letter to the Financial Times17 staunchly defending the position that much-needed higher equity requirements won't lead to social and economic malaise, nor will they place an insufferable cost burden on banks.\n\nBut I wonder if the finance theorists realize the implications that their arguments have in terms of the use of theoretical models in finance. Naturally, for the past 15 years capital requirements have been based on models. These models, not surprisingly given their flaws, have enabled unlimited leverage and have allowed banks to trot along equity-free. So an argument for equity should automatically imply an argument against said models. And an argument against said models should imply at the very least a very serious rethinking of the overall role of models in finance. Among other things, the models used for regulatory capital include some of the ideologies and tools held most sacrosanct by theoreticians. If those models fail (because they inexcusably sanction too little equity) then those ideologies and tools fail. If those fail, what does that say about the discipline of finance theory?\n\nShouldn't these valiant profs take the leap from \"more equity is good net net, leverage is bad net net\" into \"theoretical finance has failed us much too much, let's rethink how we teach and what we publish\"? I understand that for many that may be a contrarian bridge too far, but it would nonetheless be a positive development not just in the aid for truth but also from a social point of view (it is obvious to these academics that bank leverage is a horrible thing that causes untold mayhem, so fighting those tools that abet the monster should be a good deed, right?).\n\nSome outside of hard-core academicism have made that leap several times. Nassim Taleb, that very notable and veteran critic of the mathematics behind regulatory capital models and that early predictor of the havoc that such analytics would wreak, is an obvious example. I, much more humbly, am another. Wouldn't it be nice if \u00fcber-prestigious tenured ivory-towerists too chose to leap forward?\n\nNotes\n\n1. \"Private Profits and Socialized Risks,\" GARP Risk Review (June 2008).\n\n2. Ibid.\n\n3. Ibid.\n\n4. Martin Hellwig, \"Capital Regulation After the Crisis,\" Preprints of the Max Plank Institute (July 2010).\n\n5. Ibid.\n\n6. Ibid.\n\n7. Ibid.\n\n8. \"Interim Report on the Cumulative Impact on the Global Economy of Proposed Changes in the Banking Regulatory Framework.\"\n\n9. At the time of writing, the Basel Committee was considering asking for additional equity capital from large, systematically important banks, so the 7 percent figure may end up being something like 8 percent or 9 percent.\n\n10. Douglas J. Elliott, \"Quantifying the Effects on Lending of Increased Capital Requirements,\" (Brookings Institution paper, September 21, 2009).\n\n11. David Scharfstein and Jeremy Stein, \"Basel Needs a Firm Hand and Fewer Delays,\" Financial Times (September 13, 2010).\n\n12. Samuel Hanson, Anil Kashyap, and Jeremy Stein, \"A Macroprudential Approach to Financial Regulation\" (2010), www.economics.harvard.edu\/faculty\/stein\/files\/JEP-macroprudential-July22-2010.pdf.\n\n13. Ibid.\n\n14. Anad Admati, Peter DeMarzo, Martin Hellwig, and Paul Pfleiderer, \"Fallacies, Irrelevant Facts, and Myths in the Discussion of Capital Regulation: Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive,\" (March 16, 2011), https:\/\/gsbapps.stanford.edu\/researchpapers\/library\/RP2065R1&86.pdf.\n\n15. Ibid.\n\n16. Ibid.\n\n17. Bill Sharpe, Eugene Fama, Stephen Ross, Hayne Leland et al., \"Much More Bank Equity Is Needed and Is Not Socially Costly,\" Financial Times (November 9, 2010).\nFinale\n\nThe Perils of Making the Simple Too Complex\n\nWhen you think about it, financial risk is a simple discipline. Or rather, a discipline that ought to be based on fairly simple tenets: Financial risk is not measurable or forecastable, the past is not prologue, battle-scarred experience-honed intuitive wisdom should be accorded utmost notoriety, certain assets are intrinsically riskier than others, too much leverage should be avoided, and too much toxic leverage should be banned. When one examines old-age risk rulebooks, like the Net Capital Rule or Basel I, it is easy to detect all those uncomplicated principles. Imperfect as they surely were, the ancient guides did not betray the simplicity of risk. They treated risk as something fairly simple that deserved aptly simplistic treatment. Not too many complications, not too many weird assumptions. Nothing too fancy, nothing too out of the ordinary. Stuff that anyone could understand.\n\nImperfect as simple risk rules can be, they help avoid very bad outcomes. Just by abiding by them you should do all right, keep yourself alive. It is when the simple gets improperly complicated that very bad things can happen. It can make you forget the sacred lessons detailed above. Worse, it can make you embrace their opposites as gospel. The main problem with complicating a simple field is the amount of noise that is introduced into the decision-making process, contaminating and polluting what was a purer environment. The picture gets irremediably blurred, people lose focus lost in the ocean of equations and soon no one is thinking straight. Consider the enormous amounts of papers and books on quantitative risk models circulating out there. What if all of those technical gymnastics amounted to nothing? What if (as some posit) no single sensible insight, accurate metric, or on-the-mark prediction could be distilled out of the ocean of mathematical and statistical symbols? Then the pollution of the risk process would be unacceptably exaggerated, prohibitively dangerous. Financial risk is too important to allow ourselves to be distracted by misguiding complexity that confuses us and leads to weird actions.\n\nIt shouldn't be surprising that those who most fervently abide by the complex tools may have a tendency to take bad risks and to blow up. By focusing on guidelines that are destined to prove misguiding (trying to find quantifiable precision where quantifiable precision doesn't dare to tread would be a hopeless task), those folks take their eye off the ball, their reasoning gets clouded, focusing on fantastical depictions of financial reality rather than on financial reality itself. Instead of abiding by the simple, true, disaster-proof risk principles described earlier, complex operators may well end up embracing the complete opposite: false, chaos-enabling dictums. Through complexity, a parallel universe is created, far distant from the real one where stocks and derivatives are traded. In essence, complex operators fly the markets blind (worse than that, under false pretenses; like venturing into Nepal with a map of the Sahara). That's why so many times what was seen as risk-lite via the complex lenses was risk-loaded in truth.\n\nBy respecting the simplicity of risk, you can avoid lots of trouble. If you humbly accept that numerical precision is not feasible, you won't base your decisions on models that promise numerical precision. If you humbly accept that the past is not prologue, you won't base your decisions on models that use the past as prologue. If you humbly accept that some assets are intrinsically more daring than others, you won't trust models that deem those assets trouble-free. Simplistic people would not have bought into VaR's or the credit agencies' generous assessments of subprime CDOs. Why not then humbly abide by the conservative and reality-grounded simple principles of financial risk, instead of being distracted by complex inventions that can't work? Those distractions take you away from the righteous path, prevent you from doing the proper thing, make you dazed and confused.\n\nThe final outcome is bad: dominance of tools that are condemned to fail combined with the excreting of prudent simple approaches. Never had financial risk been more formally studied, quantified, and discussed as in the three decades before the subprime meltdown. Thousands of former scientists switched careers and became risk analysts, scores of academic courses on the subject flourished, global risk professional associations sprung up, conferences and debates took place every week, the chief risk officer figure was born and accorded ever more stardom. And yet, the final result was the worst market cataclysm ever. The impact of the complexification was not neutral; rather it shaped the outcome. All those courses, all those conferences, all that scientification mercilessly eroded the idea that risk is simple and ruthlessly redefined it as a complex endeavor. Soon, the complexity version permeated it all. An entire financial system was predicated on voodoo.\n\nOne could say that complexity had a bigger constituency, or at least a more active one. Many had much to gain from the unsimplifying of finance. For some, the glorification of complexity was an aid in the battle to have VaR crowned capital king. For others, it could justify entire professions and support entire careers. On the other hand, the benefits to be derived from a simpler path were not obvious (who exactly gains personally from a nonleveraged banking industry?). Those most negatively affected by the complexification of financial activity (pension funds that invest in toxic waste deemed riskless by the models, innocent taxpayers that shoulder the bailout and the government spending cuts) are not an organized lot and are not in the know as to the forces that shape the markets; they can't oppose and prevent complexity because they never knew it was happening in the first place.\n\nMary Kate Stimmler, a PhD candidate at the Hass School of Business at the University of California Berkeley, has conducted extensive research on the impact of complexification in financial decision making.1 She concludes that the adoption of risk-based metrics by banks led to greater risk taking. Borrowing from data on all publicly traded U.S. banks from 1994 to 2008, she demonstrates that when banks employed new ways of measuring uncertainty, they became increasingly risk tolerant. Using software specifically designed for extracting risk-based metrics and other risk terminology from annual financial statements, Stimmler counts every use of risk-based metrics (such as VaR), qualitative description of risk, and discussion of risk management within annual reports. Using her bespoke model, she finds that the more a bank measures risk, the more risk-seeking it becomes and the more it increases its leverage. The conclusion is a familiar one: The organizational adoption of models alters the framing of firm-level decision making. The mere presence of VaR inside trading floors shapes the types of actions taken by traders and their executives. The same individual will act differently based on whether VaR is around or not. Complexity changes minds. Complexity determines outcomes.\n\nOf course, we know that there is a very good explanation for Mary Kate Stimmler's findings: The metrics adopted in the period under study led to greater risks and leverage because those particular metrics happen to have an in-bred structural capacity to hide and to underestimate risk and to produce untold gearing levels. VaR was the leading risk metric in 1994\u20132008 and VaR leads to a lot of risk and a lot of leverage, so any such analysis would inevitably conclude that the use of risk models by banks unleashes risk and leverage. VaR yielded tons of risk and tons of leverage because that was precisely the point.\n\nBut we can go beyond the coincidental to the generalized. Having concrete numerical precision around can encourage recklessness, independent of the actual intrinsic characteristics of the models. People become more confident, more complacent, more sure of themselves. Risk models fool people into convincing themselves that they have conquered and subjugated the wild beast of risk. People feel invincible\u2014of a superior intelligence. They are not at the mercy of events for they can visualize the future through their quantitative magic goggles. Timidity is rejected and frowned on, daringness is applauded and rewarded. Prudence is for the weak, the antiquated, the innumerate. With mathematical certainty comes bravery. Grab the modeling sword, jump onto the quantification horse and gallantly charge the market fields. Risk models incite and intoxicate those looking for glory. When you believe a game to be statistically and mathematically tamable, rather than something in which output is impossibly uncertain and unforeseeable, you naturally will tend to commit more money to it. You con yourself into believing that you can understand, that you can calculate odds, that you know the probabilities. This sounds better than resigning yourself to the fact that it's all a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. Interestingly, Stimmler points out that training in financial economics steers people into embracing alternatives that are clothed in the complexity veil. Those whose education has been more complex may have an innate tendency to choose that which looks complex, over what looks simplistic. Using laboratory experiments, she finds that finance-educated individuals take greater risks when these are explained with complex mathematical models than when they are explained with simplified models that are identical in meaning. On the other hand, individuals without an educational background in finance take the same amount of risk regardless of how the choices are framed. These studies show that the bias is unique to the culture of finance: It affects only individuals with a finance education and only when the decisions in question are related to financial investments. If it's complex it must be truer and more commendable, the indoctrinated would inevitably believe. This psychological trait is dangerous for the obvious reason: It makes it easier for bad models to filter through into practice, unopposed and unquestioned. As I've said before, a lot of the popularity of VaR is explained by its mathematical decor, especially in the key early days: many people have been taught to unquestionably kneel at the sight of elaborated quantitative finance machines.\n\nThe appearance of complexity in the form of convoluted theoretical models expanded the boundaries of what was considered predictable in finance, posits Stimmler. This had institutional ramifications. Institutional logic went from risk mitigation, where the goal is to avoid and minimize risk, to risk management, where the goal is to measure risk. Through a study of finance textbooks from 1961 to 2008, she charts the effects that this development had on the ways risk and uncertainty were taught within finance. She finds that standardized recommendations that firms set aside prescribed amounts of capital to cover risk were incrementally replaced with equations that assumed that the future likelihood of events could be accurately calculated. The quantification of finance education was a key driver in the diffusion of the new risk management logic, until it became indelibly embedded within practice.\n\nStimmler's psychological explanation for the embracement of complex paths in finance is perhaps even more worrying than the alternative cynical explanation. Many see naked self-interest behind the adoption and promotion of constructs like VaR: Those who embraced the models did so under no mathematical illusions (they knew the models were unsound), but had too much to gain from widespread acceptance of the models, so they kept their reservations to themselves.\n\nBut what Stimmler seems to say goes beyond that: Complexity per se can be an addiction that blinds people and contaminates decision-making processes. Folks may actually believe in the model simply because of the model being a model. The theoretical and quantitative dogmatism of the finance education schools may have produced deluded indoctrinees, not calculating cynics with an agenda. Those educated in advanced analytical finance methods may find it impossible to act in disagreement with the dogma. Even contact with the real world may prevent them from realizing how unworldly the complex tenets can be. Nassim Taleb and Gorge Martin found in 1998 that all the finance and quantitative economics professors from major universities whom they tracked down and who got involved in hedge fund trading ended up making bets against extreme market events, those deemed impossibly improbable by the standard Nobel-endowed finance theory that has ruled supreme around campus since the 1950s, and yet so obviously recurrent in reality. This wasn't random, as less than half of nonacademics took similar bets. These professors, by religiously obeying the complex theories that they had been taught before they taught them to others, exposed themselves to highly likely blowups. Taking the simple path (opening their eyes to the inescapable true behavior of real markets) may have been anathema to them. Abiding by the simple rules of risk may appear intolerably rustic. Lemmas-devoid simplistic reasoning may have been exorcised out of them a long time ago, upon solving one too many stochastic differential equations. It's as if not following the path dictated by theory would amount to unforgiveable treason, even after you've stepped out of the classroom and into the dirty real world. A misguided sense of loyalty to sacred academic lecturing may prevent you from exercising free will, from reasoning your way out of a condemned course of action. You force yourself to trek to Nepal with a mathematically designed map of the Sahara as only guide, because that's what you learned at school. If someone tried to talk you out of your confused ways and hand you a map of Nepal, you would dismiss them as backward luddites who don't believe in technological progress. While the map of Nepal has no equations on it, the map for the Sahara is full of them. And that, you'd say, is what makes it subliminally superior and that's why you are going to rely exclusively on it.\n\nFanatical believers in flawed financial models present more of a threat than cynical defenders of flawed financial models. For while the latter may be reined in, the former may be beyond salvation. And if too many of them spread around, the markets and the economy at large may become terminally infected.\n\nBefore VaR showed up, financial risk management was a simple affair. The rules respected the simplicity of it all, were unpretentious. They saw reality for what it was, not for what it should be. They made no claims to have been able to discover the deeper truths of finance through numerical wizardry. They were humble, not hubristic. They were robustly rigid, not fluffy and malleable. Risk was sometimes badly captured and underestimated, but not in a structural way. Some things were wrong, but the foundations were right. They didn't overtly facilitate trouble. They were like a stern, circumspect, penny-conscious parent: unexciting perhaps, but the family was unlikely to be ruined.\n\nIn contrast, VaR was more like the charming, flashy, spendthrift uncle: irresistibly glamorous, but prone to drowning under the weight of debts taken on to finance an overextended lifestyle. The ostentatious complexity, the flamboyant analytics seduced the world into abandoning the old prudent ways. The extravagant relative, not the responsible parent, was put in charge of the household. Rules were turned upside down. Lots of expensive trading toys were purchased on credit. Champagne flowed, no one saved a dime. VaR erased the simple rules, went against them, and that is why the losses eventually and inevitably experienced by the banking family weren't understated at all.\n\nAlmost 30 years since Kenneth Garbade at Bankers Trust began building VaR-type models, more than 20 years since Ray May and Michael Eindhoven had the meeting that gave birth to JP Morgan's VaR, and more than 15 years since Till Guldiman released his version of the JP Morgan VaR to the world and bewitched global regulators, what is the verdict on the model? If you have followed this book attentively, you already know my take: VaR overall has been a very negative influence, and we would be better off without it. It may have some use for risk control issues, but it can't have a predominant role and certainly not a policymaking role.\n\nLet's weigh the evidence. VaR, its defenders typically posit, was a beneficial discovery for several key reasons: Its calculation enhances internal knowledge as to a bank's risk taking and portfolio composition; it can be applied to any asset class; it is very easy to understand; it can make comparing positions and institutions very convenient; it creates a single unified risk language for the industry; it can help detect market trends; it drinks from actual market intelligence. Even those quantitative risk managers who are willing to concede that VaR won't get risk right and that statistical analysis of market activity is bound to be hopelessly inexact (thus essentially admitting that the informational content of the VaR number won't be worth much), would point at those above side benefits as proof that the model should be kept around.\n\nWould those positives compensate for the negatives? I don't think so, by far. A tool that can lead to 100-to-1 or even 1,000-to-1 trading book leverage, that can proclaim as worry-free the most lethal financial assets ever devised by humankind, and that can underperform so savagely as risk estimator as to experience 10 or more times mis-predictions of losses (the bad news happened 10 or more times more often than the model foresaw) shouldn't dominate any risk control toolkit, let alone any regulatory playbook. VaR not only totally missed the worst market crisis ever, it decisively helped create it. How can we keep such an instrument in our midst, in a powerful position no less? Are we for crises or against crises? Are we for robustness or for fragility? Are we for safety or for disaster? Are we for prosperity or for mass unemployment? Are we for secure banks or for imperiled banks? Are we for capitalism or for chaos? A tool born to hide and misrepresent risk and born to aid those who wake up every morning with a desire to take on the most reckless exposures no matter the social cost of such actions cannot be given credence and cannot be relied on. Placing the fate of the world in VaR's hands is among the most irresponsible decisions to have ever been taken. If our worst enemy wanted to do us harm and destabilize our lives, they would begin by installing VaR as risk radar and as capital king. When did we become our own worst enemies?\n\nI am willing to admit that VaR may have made some sense at the beginning. Even more than that: The original creation of VaR would have been amply justified, and those who took part in it were performing work that needed to be performed. Market risk was growing massively in size and complexity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, why not try to design a universal risk model? The hours spent at that chore would have been hours well spent. Risk is so important that it should be attacked from several angles, even if you intuitively distrust the power of analytics in finance. However, that same process should at the same time have awakened people as to the potential damages to be wrought by VaR. It should have been clear from early on that the promising mathematical baby could very easily transform into a destructive out-of-control Frankenstein. The VaR effort, while initially necessary, should have been short-lived. Rather than derive into the global imperial dominance of a flawed mechanism with in-bred appetite for destruction, the original VaR adventure should have led to the conviction that modeling market risk in that fashion was bound to be wildly inaccurate and possibly wildly troublesome. The manufacturing of VaR should have led to the conclusion that VaR should be scrapped. Ray May and Sir Dennis Weatherstone tried to tackle very serious issues and embarked on a worthy cause, but the conclusions were all wrong: If VaR has shown something it is not so much that its invention was a criminal mistake, but that its ongoing adoption has been a crime. VaR needed to be invented and then it needed to be promptly discarded, once the really important questions had been asked and answered (\"Can this go bad? How? Can risk be underestimated? How and by how much?\"). The obscenity was not to have VaR around in 1990. The obscenity was to still have it around in 1995. The latest mega-crisis should be the catalyst that forces financiers, academics, and policymakers to ask themselves a very simple question prior to considering the adoption and embracement of a theoretical concoction: Can this model lead to financial, economic, and social harm? Any quantitative construct should be put to that test, and mercilessly vetoed if the answer is unsatisfactory. If there's any positive outcome from the latest disaster, let that be the one.\n\nNotes\n\n1. faculty.haas.berkeley.edu\/mkstimmler.\nGuest Contributions\n\nWhy Was VaR Embraced?\n\nA Q&A with Nassim Taleb\n\nIt's July 2011. The waters from the VaR-enabled flood have receded, if only a bit. The time for alarm and shock has, somewhat, subsided. The time for reflection can thus begin. Which is why I asked veteran option trader and best-selling author Nassim Taleb to participate in a brief Q&A on the crisis and the malfunctioning risk tool he so loudly warned about so many years ago. In so doing, I wanted to close the chronological circle: In 1995 he publicly alerted the world, in vain. What is there to say 16 years later, his prescience now so obvious? How could all this destruction happen? Taleb was the loudest and most prominent VaR skeptic. His warnings, in fact, make him the true predictor of the 2007 cataclysm (he even foresaw the necessity of a public bailout). He is thus most suited to tackle this perplexing issue.\n\nQ: Why was VaR adopted for so long, and why is VaR still in use?\n\nNT: Principally, there is a moral hazard\/agency problem. An academic is never penalized for selling you something, unlike a pharmaceutical company. Nor is a risk vendor. A software vendor can thus replace heuristics accumulated over years. When things work, it is their idea, and they sell more of the stuff, when it fails they have no downside. We need to remove people's free option at the expense of society by making them liable.\n\nThe problem we had is not just VaR, but the rise of quants in replacement of more heuristically oriented, more realistic practitioners. It is the wedge between declarative knowledge (simplistic) and more complicated class of know-how you can't transmit without experience because it is too rich.\n\nA professor of finance can teach VaR, not experience. Hence the charlatanism.\n\nBut there is the \"it gets jobs\" problem. What I witnessed teaching in various programs was depressing; students in math finance wanted math, not finance, and certainly not knowledge. They were interested in learning what would get them jobs, not truth. And the faculty sold them what they needed to get jobs hence helped blow up the economy.\n\nQ: You saw this crisis coming many years ago, by warning about VaR. Why weren't your warnings heeded?\n\nNT: First, people individually accepted my ideas\u2014but collectively they could not. There is the mechanism of diffusion of responsibility that you and I have discussed in the past. There is the \"other people use it\" effect.\n\nSecondly, there is the problem of professional associations such as the very dangerous CFA (Certified Financial Analysts) institute or the smaller but toxic IAFA International Association of Financial Engineers. They never suspended teaching or promoting modern finance techniques such as portfolio theory and giving them the stamp of \"professional toolkit\"\u2014their argument seems to be that there are no other techniques (heuristics are teachable by experience and apprenticeship, not through such method of certification). These associations do not realize that they are making people take risks they would not otherwise take.\n\nQ: Where do you see the solution?\n\nNT: I learned from reading the heuristics research that, in effect, complex problems require simple solutions\u2014in a complex world complicated solutions bring more problems, hence swelling bureaucratic Soviet-style nightmares. My solution is to apply an old principle to eliminate the agency problem:\n\nCaptain goes down with the ship, all captains all ships.\n\nYou should be able to sue\u2014just as (American political activist) Ralph Nader did\u2014any institution that caused harm. This would eliminate the \"other people are doing it\" argument.\n\nA bit of background. When I finished The Black Swan,a I heard all kind of insults, such as \"give me something better, I will keep using what I have.\" But people don't use such fallacious argument when their own life is in danger. They would never accept to be on a plane to the Himalayas if the pilot announces that he has no map on hand, but that he will use the map of Saudi Arabia because \"this is the best he has.\" They would prefer canceling the trip, or even walking to the destination than be on that plane. But in finance they do make such elementary mistakes. What is the reason?\n\nWell, the reason is that when you fly, the pilot is on the plane, something we don't have in finance. Simply the idea is to put all the pilots on the plane and make them share the downside.\n\naRandom House, 2007\nA Pioneer Wall Street Rocket Scientist's View\n\nAn Essay by Aaron Brown\n\nAaron Brown is risk manager at AQR, one of the world\u00b4s leading hedge funds\/asset managers, and the author of The Poker Face of Wall Street (2006) and Red-Blooded Risk (2012), both published by John Wiley & Sons, and coauthor of A World of Chance (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Brown is one of the top quantitative risk experts on the planet, having made outstanding practical and intellectual contributions. While he has voiced some concerns about VaR in the past, if we had to choose, we'd have to place him firmly in the pro-VaR rather than the anti-VaR camp. Some may then ask, why invite him to contribute to a book that blames VaR for mayhem and misery? Well, I thought readers would benefit mightily. The book is, rightly so, full of \"blame VaR\" testimonies and evidence (both by me and by a lot of very prominent people), so why not further enrich the experience for readers by offering a differing view? Besides, Aaron Brown was there when the whole VaR thing started and has remained there ever since. And, unlike many diehard VaRistas, he articulates his points seriously, rigorously, respectfully, and with very fine prose. Even if Brown and I seem to disagree on VaR\u00b4s responsibility and capacity for financial terror, I simply couldn't refuse the reader (and myself) the chance to hear the take of this elite risk pioneer.\n\nThe key discovery that gave birth to Value at Risk (VaR) was not a flash of enlightenment but a slow dawning realization, which is why it is hard to credit it to any specific individual or time. The impetus for the discovery, however, can be located precisely. It was the stock market crash of October 19, 1987. To explain why that was pivotal we have to go back another quarter century to a group of disaffected quants in the 1970s. To understand their disaffection, we have to start more than three centuries farther back, to 1654.\n\n1654 is the year that two great French mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre Fermat exchanged letters concerning a long-standing problem in mathematics: how to divide a stake in an interrupted dice contest. For example, two players each put up half a stake to be awarded to the first of them to win seven games. The contest is interrupted after one player has won six games and the other player has won five.\n\nFermat noted that two more games must settle the outcome. Letting W represent a win for the first player, the one with six wins, and L represent a loss, the two games could result in WW, WL, LW, or LL. In practice, in the first two cases the second game would not be played, because the contest would be over. But Fermat argued this did not matter, the stake division would be the same if the players were compelled to play both games. The first player wins in three of the four cases (all but LL), and therefore should get three-fourths of the stake.\n\nAlthough Fermat was the lawyer, it was Pascal who took a legalistic approach instead. He reasoned from the principle that if the contest is tied, the stake should be split equally. If the first player wins the next game, he is entitled to the entire stake. If the first player loses the next game, the series is tied, so he is entitled to half the stake. You can consider the situation as the first player owns half the stake, because he is entitled to that whether he wins or loses the next game, and the next game is then a contest for the other half of the stake. Thus the first player is entitled to half the stake, plus half of the remaining half, for three-fourths in all.\n\nThe emotional high point of the letters is when Pascal realizes the two approaches always give the same answer. This ignited a radical change in thought. I say \"ignited\" because the change was too rapid to be attributed credibly to the letters themselves. A lot of people must have been thinking along these lines for some time; Fermat and Pascal provided the seed around which these ideas crystalized. Within a decade of 1654, people are poring over lists of raw data like parish birth and death records to gain insight into demographics and policy, explicitly probabilistic analysis becomes common in legal disputes and philosophic writings, statistical methods such as averaging are applied to scientific measurements, the study of probability becomes a recognized subfield of mathematics, actuarial concepts are introduced to annuity pricing and men of affairs adopt conditional reasoning\u2014what we call today \"Bayesian\" logic\u2014to practical questions.\n\nConfusion\n\nThis change in thinking was a major part of the Enlightenment. It was not a discovery, however, it was a confusion of two concepts. Fermat made a mathematical statement about long-term frequency that would be made rigorous by Jakob Bernoulli in Ars Conjectandi (The Art of Conjecturing, written between 1684 and 1689, but not published until 1713). Pascal made an assertion about what the gamblers should accept as a fair outcome. It's easy to confuse these two things when discussing dice rolls because rational belief has to correspond to long-term frequency. But what about things that cannot be repeated, like who will win the next U.S. Presidential election? Why do we use the same word, \"probability\" for the long-term frequency of outcomes of repeatable experiments and our degree of belief in an uncertain one-time proposition?\n\nThe illogic of confusing these two concepts has been pointed out many times over the centuries, often by people who think they are the first to notice. The most familiar to modern readers is Frank Knight, who said we should use \"risk\" for the frequency concept and \"uncertainty\" for degree of belief. John Maynard Keynes made similar points around the same time. A century earlier, the mathematician Sim\u00e9on Poisson suggested \"probability\" and \"chance\" instead. Fifty years before that, the Marquis de Condorcet wanted \"facilit\u00e9\" (facility) and \"motif de croire\" (reason to believe). Rudolph Carnap came up with the \u00fcber-geeky \"probability1\" and \"probability2\" and also \"statistical\" and \"inductive\" probability. In the early twentieth century \"propensity\" and \"proclivity\" were used, and in the early twenty-first Donald Rumsfeld highlighted the distinction again with \"known unknowns\" versus \"unknown unknowns.\" Not all of these authors distinguished frequency and degree of belief in the same way, but all agreed there were two types of probability.\n\nMathematicians struggled to resolve this issue by pushing deeper and deeper into the theory of probability. Unfortunately, by the mid-twentieth century, we had two completely rigorous theories, one based on repeatable experiments and one based on subjective degree of belief. There was no mathematical way to reconcile the two, and no avenues for future research. The interesting work in statistics was being done in nonparametric methods and exploratory data analysis, fields that were weak in consistent theory.\n\nI was one of a group of students with quantitative training who came of age in the 1970s and became known as \"rocket scientists.\" The name is stupid and inaccurate, but it had a different connotation at the time than it does today. The glory of the 1969 Apollo moon landings was still fresh. We admired scientists who actually did things, and participated in adventures, and contributed to all human knowledge, not just their narrow technical field. That's what we all wanted to do.\n\nRocket scientists were disaffected for many reasons. We felt that most quantitative investigators used bad data and worse logic to come up with conclusions on which they wouldn't bet a nickel. Mathematics was invoked to justify all kinds of dangerous nonsense, and you could get statisticians to testify on both sides of every issue from whether cigarette smoking caused cancer to whether racial discrimination was real. Too many quants regarded their expertise as a fortress to defend rather than a tool for honest inquiry. The world seemed to be going to Hell, and quants were part of the problem, not the solution. No doubt this attitude was exaggerated by youth and inexperience, but I still consider that it was basically correct.\n\nTypes of Statisticians\n\n\"Frequentist\" statisticians who base their methods on long-term probability arguments can't tell you the probability of anything happening. Instead, they can make a statement and (if their assumptions are correct) can tell you the maximum long-run frequency that the statement will be incorrect. For example, a frequentist might tell you he can reject at the 1 percent level that a certain levee will be breached in the next year. That might mean he's done an extensive, careful study. Or it might mean that he put 99 true statements into a hat plus one piece of paper saying, \"The levee will not be breached next year.\" If he drew out the levee statement, he is entirely correct in making his statement. After all, the probability of drawing a false statement out of a hat that contains 100 statements, at least 99 of which are true, is less than or equal to 1 percent. There is nothing in frequentist statistics that requires the statistician to actually know anything about what he's talking. The reliability of a frequentist statistical claim is not determined by the significance level, but by the vigor and sincerity of the falsification effort. Yet the former is required for every academic paper while the latter is often omitted, or is pathetically weak.\n\nThe other major camp of theoretical statistics is Bayesianism. It is based on subjective belief. The brilliant Italian mathematician Bruno de Finetti codified it in the 1930s. His favorite example was the probability that there was life on Mars a billion years ago. It might seem that this probability is impossible to define, much less estimate. De Finetti claimed not only that there was a meaningful probability, but that you know what it is. Suppose an expedition will determine the answer tomorrow. There is a security that pays $10 if life indeed existed on Mars one billion years ago. You can pay the price and receive $10 if the answer is yes, or receive the price and pay $10 if the answer is yes. You have to set the price (with a gun to your head if necessary) at which you are indifferent between buying or selling. If that price is $0.10, then you believe the probability is 1 percent.\n\nWhat rocket scientists realized is that the answer depends on the currency in which you are betting. For example, suppose the expedition to Mars financed itself by issuing bonds in Mars Expeditionary Currency (mecs), which will be used by the colonists. Today, one mec sells for $1. But if life is found to have existed on Mars, the value will shoot up to $10 due to the possibility of useful artifacts or discoveries plus an increased chance that Mars can be made habitable. If you would buy or sell the $10 security for $0.10, logically you have to be willing to pay 10 centimecs (worth $0.10 today) for a security that pays one mec (worth $10 if you get it) if there was life on Mars. So your subjective probability that there was life on Mars one billion years ago is 10 percent measured in mecs and 1 percent measured in dollars. Probability depends on what is at stake. This inconvenient fact is obscured by most statistics texts, which either assume a perfect numeraire that has the same value in all future states of the world, or have only a single thing at stake. Neither assumption is useful for real problems.\n\nRocket scientists also worried about whom you're betting against; you might quote a different price to an idiot in a bar versus a professional exobiologist versus a little green man who just landed his flying saucer in your backyard. The price you set depends not only on what you believe, but on what you think the person on the other side believes. Even who \"you\" are matters as your price depends on how you feel about possible future states of the world. Loosely speaking, we decided that the probability that mattered was the one that would clear the market in an open-betting forum of voluntary participants (no guns to anyone's head), set via a mechanism that did not lose money long-term. There could be multiple probabilities for the same event, set by different markets or denominated in different currencies, but the differences among them were constrained by arbitrage considerations. Probabilities always had a bid\/ask spread range large enough to prevent market makers from losing money. That doesn't mean just that there is noise in estimating probabilities, there is inherent uncertainty in defining probabilities. And if you couldn't create or credibly hypothesize an active betting market for a question, its probability was undefined.\n\nIt turns out similar considerations apply to frequentist statistics as well. If a frequentist tells you 1,000 things at the 5 percent significance level, it's unlikely that many more than 50 of them are false. But what if the 950 true things are trivial or things you knew already and the 50 false things were crucial unknowns? The frequentist statement is meaningful to someone who cares only about the number of correct statements, such as someone making equal-size bets on each one. A frequentist doesn't have to specify currency and betting participants in order to define a probability, but she needs precisely those things to translate a statement about long-term frequency into a degree of belief useful for a practical decision.\n\nThe Rocket Scientist View\n\nI won't go through all the logical twists and turns, but rocket scientists decided there was no such thing as a fully defined probability distribution. Any probability statement, whether frequentist or Bayesian, depended on what was at stake. For practical problems, multiple things will be at stake, so you need some kind of numeraire to relate them all. In simpler words, you need to price everything in some kind of currency. But money cannot buy everything, and there are circumstances in which money becomes worthless. Moreover, relative prices of the things at stake could change in different outcomes. And aside from the theoretical issue, you never really know all possible outcomes, nor exactly how you will feel about them, and you will not have enough data to make meaningful probability estimates of rare events. These are not minor technicalities that affect probability calculations on the margin, these are essential points that go to the heart of statistical theory and practice.\n\nThis may seem like an inadequate theory of probability, but it's at least as sensible as the alternatives. To a Bayesian, there's a different probability for each person and in practical applications Bayesians often have to resort to improper priors (probability distributions that do not add up to one) and distributions chosen for mathematical convenience rather than subjective belief. To a frequentist, there's one probability for every experiment and no reason to expect that the significance levels of a set of exhaustive and mutually exclusive statements will add up to one. Frequentist distributions add up to one in theory, but in practice statisticians of all camps exclude outliers from analysis. Sometimes these aberrant observations are data errors or exceptional cases of little interest to the question at hand, sometimes they evidence crucial factors more salient than the variation among normal data points, but either way it rarely makes sense to combine outliers with the rest of the data in the same statistical analysis. In effect there is a probability distribution that only covers the nonoutlying data, and therefore that does not add up to one.\n\nRocket scientists believed in probability distributions that were consistent with both rational subjective belief and long-term frequency, but that couldn't cover all possible outcomes. Moreover, even within the domain of the probability distribution, probability could not be defined with complete precision. There could be multiple probabilities for the same event, but differences between them were constrained. We believed in precise mathematical optimization wherever probabilities could be defined and estimated, constrained by the requirement to survive the outcomes outside that region.\n\nThis view of the world, plus other issues, sent rocket scientists away from academia, government, and business, out in search of quants who would bet on their conclusions, and, crucially, had long-term success taking on all comers. Those among us with frequentist leanings gravitated toward \"advantage gambling,\" playing casino games with the odds in your favor\u2014the best-known example of this is blackjack card counting. These people wanted to earn money from superior predictions of long-term frequency. People said you couldn't beat the house, but quants found we could beat the house.\n\nRocket scientists who felt more at home with Bayesians moved into sports betting. Quant sports bettors spend little effort worrying about the probability of one team or another winning a game. The easy money is in predicting the subjective beliefs of other bettors. For example, predicting the score in a National Basketball Association game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Seattle Sonics from first principles is a daunting task. But if you know the game is being played in Los Angeles, a much higher betting town than Seattle, and that the Lakers are a glamorous team with a national following, unlike the Sonics, you don't need to be a genius to figure there will be extra betting pressure on the Lakers. That means the point spread will be adjusted so that it will be favorable to bet on the Sonics. This rule by itself is too simple to work (although bet against the Lakers at home was pretty good in the 1970s) but it illustrates the flavor of the analysis. Quants completely revolutionized the sports betting business.\n\nAn advantage gambler, if discovered, is ejected from the casino, or worse. A sports bettor, on the other hand, is the organization's friend. She helps it set more accurate point spreads and she supplies capital to help the organization's books balance so it takes no risk. Advantage gamblers tended to be antisocial loners. They counted on predicting long-term frequency, and feared the actions of people. Sports bettors got along with people, and often joined or started betting businesses. They counted on predicting the actions of people, and feared events like fixes that would skew the frequencies.\n\nI did a little of both of those, but mainly thought of myself as a poker player. In those days that required some social skills. You had to get invited to good games, collect from losers and avoid getting cheated or arrested. You can't be as indifferent to other people as an advantage gambler, but you don't need the skills required to work in a successful organization. A professional poker player had to accept challenges in all kinds of games: backgammon, gin rummy, golf; or sports or proposition bets. If you won someone's money playing poker, you were expected to give him a chance to win it back in some other activity. If you refused you got treated like a hustler, someone only playing for the money, and only at games in which he had an advantage. That happened to be true in my case, but I understood pretending to be a sportsman was one of the conditions for getting invited back. For reasons I feel but cannot explain, pretending to be an unskilled poker player would have been dishonest, but acting like a sportsman was just part of the game. The first would be deliberately misleading people about a fact for profit\u2014fraud\u2014the second was pretending to want to do something I actually did because other people wanted me to\u2014civility. At the table, poker requires both computations of long-term frequency and predictions of what other people will do.\n\nBeat the Street\n\nIn the early 1980s, the rocket scientists moved to Wall Street, where there were few quants at the time. We remade finance as thoroughly as we remade gambling. I compare it to the difference between a 1980-era point-and-shoot film camera and a modern digital camera. They look similar. Both have lenses and shutter buttons and flashes. They run on batteries, in some cases the same batteries. People use them to take pictures of vacations and parties and kids. They cost about the same. But to someone building a camera, there is no similarity at all. They work on entirely different principles. Wall Street did not evolve on its own in a manner that induced it to go out and hire quants; quants showed up on Wall Street and changed it on their own.\n\nThe frequentist advantage gamblers thought of what they were doing as exploiting market inefficiencies. They thought they could find bets in which they had the edge, and if they made enough of them, long-term frequency virtually guaranteed them a profit. They studied securities, not people. They didn't care who was on the other side of a trade, only what the odds were. The only way they could lose would be if the market got even more irrational and they were forced out of their positions by investors or counterparties. Thus the market was their friend, and people were their potential enemies. As antisocial loners, they tended to form small hedge funds that did not solicit outside money.\n\nThe Bayesian sports bettors looked instead for market disequilibria. They thought they could find transactions that should take place but weren't, and that they could earn a profit intermediating them. They concentrated on the people on the other side of trades, not the securities themselves. They wanted to make money predicting the actions of people, and could lose only if the market turned against them. Bayesians went into securitization and found homes in large organizations.\n\nAs before, I did a little of both, but preferred a middle way that considered both inefficiencies and disequilibria. People like me ended up at trading desks or running businesses.\n\nFor a few years, everything went great. All of us were making lots of money and reengineering finance rapidly. Then came October 19, 1987, which wiped out most of the quants. The surprise was not that the stock market could fall more than twice as much in one day than it ever had before. We knew all about fat tails. None of us were long the stock market. The problem was a complete realignment of prices in all markets, a realignment that seemed fiendishly calculated to destroy quant strategies. Most of us held positions that would have been profitable had we been able to hold on to them, but we couldn't.\n\nPeople who are not in finance often think of trading opportunities declining smoothly. If an asset is underpriced, for example, smart traders will buy it, forcing the price up to its fair value. In fact, things are messier than that. The price may not move at first, or it might even go down. Then at some point it may jump up far above fair value. It's even more complicated with hundreds of thousands of prices moving all at once. Things tend to realign suddenly and simultaneously, often in entirely unexpected ways. The one generally reliable prediction is that the realignment will hurt the smart money\u2014or the money that is smart in between realignments anyway. The smart money is what's pushing the market, and the market pushes back.\n\nThe example I like to use is the earth. Academic studies demonstrate that the market is very efficient, but they necessarily deal with averages of large portfolios over long periods of time. Inefficiencies or disequlibria on the order of 0.1 percent would be too small to measure, yet could amount to $100 billion in a $100 trillion global economy. Similarly, if you shrank the earth to the size of a basketball it would be smoother than a billiard ball, but at a human scale roughness like mountains and oceans make a difference.\n\nOne way to exploit a disequilibrium would be to roll rocks down a mountain into the ocean in order to generate energy. As you did this, both the mountain and the ocean would shrink. You would smoothly erode the disequilibrium away. But that's not what people do. They're more likely to harness the water flowing down the mountain to drive water wheels or hydroelectric plants. This does not bring things closer to equilibrium; the water would have flowed down anyway. If anything, it slows the process because you dam up some of the water. Therefore, there's no physical law that says the exploitation cannot go on forever. Similarly, there's no reason to assume that people exploiting market inefficiencies and disequilibria are helping to make the economy more efficient, or that exploiting a market opportunity causes it to go away. Those things do happen, but their opposites can occur as well, at least on some time scale.\n\nImagine many people exploiting the same river, without coordination. Just as people and institutions in the market do not all have the same numeraire, or the same goal of short-term risk-adjusted profit maximization, people using the river may be generating energy, irrigating crops, protecting against floods, or other things. It's safe to predict that something will upset the best-laid plans of mice and men, but it will not be a smooth process of getting to equilibrium; it will be a disaster like a dam bursting, or river flows higher or lower than anticipated in plans, or pollution from the hydroelectric plant killing enough trees that the river becomes a swamp, or any of a million other possibilities. The disaster will likely wipe out everything built to exploit the river, not just the thing that caused the disaster or gave into it first. Similarly a financial crisis can threaten everyone exploiting inefficiencies, not just the ones that bet against the specific disaster. It's not enough to account for local conditions and plan for specific extreme events, you need to structure things with the knowledge that there will be disasters and that you need to have a strategy that involves surviving them, assessing the changed conditions and rebuilding your business.\n\nThis is the kind of fun challenge that delighted rocket scientists. The hunt was on to find quantitative methods that made a lot of money in normal markets and could survive the periodic crises. As usual, we divided into three camps.\n\nExploring Risk\n\nFrom the perspective of a frequentist running a small hedge fund, the main issue was capital. You needed enough to get through the realignments. On the other hand, you didn't want too much, as that might require outside investors. This led to a definition of risk as the maximum drawdown you could expect with some defined probability over a period of time, usually a year. It didn't depend on your current positions so much as on your strategy. For example, you might hold a risky portfolio, but have stop losses that you were confident would keep your drawdown below some level. Frequentists compared their drawdown probabilities to bond defaults. For example, if you thought there was only one chance in 200 that your worst drawdown would be $1 million over the next year, and you felt one BBB bond in 200 defaulted every year, you said you needed $1 million of BBB capital to run the strategy. You could see the cost of BBB capital in the market, so you knew your cost of capital as well.\n\nTo poker players running trading desks and business, daily profit and loss (P&L) was the focus. We defined risk as the standard deviation, or usually some more robust statistic, of P&L. That came to be known as the \"value\" camp because we marked everything to market value every day. For technical reasons we actually measured the change in the value of the positions we had held at the beginning of the day and (remember we didn't believe in fully defined probability distributions) specified normal markets. The Bayesians in structured products had a deal cycle longer than daily trading but shorter than hedge fund strategies. They liked measuring risk to earnings. Earnings are designed to be a more accurate assessment of actual economic gains and losses than P&L, and can be more objective when liquid markets do not exist for all relevant assets. But earnings require many assumptions and can be manipulated.\n\nA couple of years after the crash, memories faded and concerns shifted from extreme price movements to aggregation of risk. Institutions had gotten larger and more complicated. Even if risk was managed correctly in each business, there could be a firm-wide disaster if each business was making the same bet in different ways. Some of this was actually a misunderstanding of what happened in 1987\u2014unrelated businesses failed not because they were all making the same bet, but because market realignments tend to destroy any system optimized for prior conditions.\n\nAs usual with top-down requests, the pressure was on for quick and simple answers. Quants looked around for the available tools. Value was the only measure that could be defined consistently across business units. Everyone computed a daily P&L, but capital and earnings meant different things in different businesses. However, no one knew how to aggregate the probability distributions from each business unit into a joint distribution for the firm. There were no useful data or models for that purpose. What we could do, however, is measure how often firm-wide trading P&L exceeded some threshold. So we grafted the capital metric, drawdown at a specified probability and horizon, to the value measure. Value at Risk was born. The name makes no sense. Value is not at risk. But the capital folks called their measure capital at risk, which does make sense, so when you replaced capital with value, VaR was inevitable.\n\nTwo Surprises\n\nNow comes the bad surprise. VaR was very hard to compute. You have to produce a number for every strategy, trader, desk, and business plus the firm as a whole, every day, before trading begins. VaR is never restated afterward; all that matters is the number in use when decisions were made. Usually at least some data were missing, and there were always lots of errors. It took the accountants several days after trading finished to get the P&L measured right; VaR demanded a prediction before trading started. Moreover, even with the right data value proved very difficult to predict.\n\nThere are three main tests of a VaR. First, you have to have the right number of breaks (days when losses exceed the VaR) within statistical error. Second, the breaks have to be independent in time. You want the same frequency of breaks the day after a break as when there hasn't been a break for months. Third, the breaks have to be independent of the level of VaR. It's easy to pass two of these three tests, difficult to pass all three at once. More generally, no one should be able to make money betting for or against VaR breaks.\n\nNobody but the quants cared about this; for everyone else's benefit we could have given them any plausible number at all. But we worked hard to get things right out of pride or stubbornness rather than a belief that it was a useful exercise. We learned that the data everyone relied on were hopelessly inaccurate, and that we knew very little about our risk in the center of the distribution. Everyone worried about tail risk, but they hadn't mastered center risk yet. We pulled out techniques from advantage gambling, poker, and sports betting; and made up new stuff. We partnered with the back office and learned a lot from controllers and auditors. We adopted \"trigger\" algorithms that inflated risk instantly if any data were inconsistent with prior predictions, but relaxed moderately quickly when things got consistent again. It took a few years of concerted effort, but finally we learned how to produce VaRs for all businesses, on time, every day, that passed backtest.\n\nNow comes the good surprise. When you finally get a good VaR, it turns out to be incredibly useful. Changes in the VaR and VaR breaks are far more valuable signals for risk management than anything anyone ever designed for the purpose. Before this insight hedge funds had been around for 40 years. Successful managers were moderately wealthy. Suddenly the number of hedge fund billionaires exploded and these tiny (compared to the overall economy) pools of capital became dominant forces in finance, more powerful than the largest institutions and governments. The financial sector quadrupled in profitability and went from only-noticed-when-it-screwed up to popular obsession. VaR was the lightning that ignited the quant revolution on Wall Street.\n\nThe Decline and Fall of VaR\n\nNo sooner was the value of VaR discovered when people started tearing it down. VaR was too hard for nonquants to compute, so many of them didn't bother. They put out some number based on a bad model and worse data. It might be late or revised later, no one cared, because no one used it. It never passed backtest.\n\nWe also saw an influx of quants without risk-taking backgrounds, often without any experience of living under capitalists. They called themselves \"financial engineers,\" and many sneered at the disreputable resumes of rocket scientists. Although some of the new generation understood risk and contributed greatly to the advance of finance, too many others were wedded to the coin-flip model of probability and gave little thought to theoretical or data issues. They wanted to solve equations for big salaries, not make bets, and they'd rather have been doing physics, except that the funding for blowing up the world had disappeared.\n\nReal VaRs caused problems for rigid institutions because they would change unexpectedly. You couldn't reverse engineer the complex algorithms that computed VaR, so you couldn't point to a specific event or position that caused the change. To a risk-taking quant, any good risk measure has to surprise you. Your only choice is to be surprised by your risk measure before trading begins, or be surprised by the market afterward. But to nonquants and risk avoiders, hard-to-explain numbers were inconvenient. Stable, reassuring, rational fiction was preferred to messy and inconvenient truth.\n\nA related problem was that regulators and auditors like numbers produced in controlled systems through validated processes. VaRs require layered algorithms that compensate for missing or erroneous data, and they have to be maintained constantly. They must evolve to remain relevant. That conflicts with control and validation. Another related problem is that there is no easy way to control VaR. If the CEO orders VaR taken down, it can be tricky to figure out how to do that.\n\nNext, some people decided to use VaR as a risk measure. It's not. It cannot be. For one thing, it measures only the center of the probability distribution. Risk is mainly in the tails. For another, it's not the most you can lose, it's the least you will lose on your worst days. And most important, a low VaR portfolio or business is not safer than a high VaR one; it just has a smaller range over which you can make reliable predictions. Reducing VaR is squeezing your center risk, which is like gripping something more tightly. In some cases that's good, but in other cases you might break what you're holding, or cause it to squirt out of your hand, or your hand might tire and cramp. Similarly reducing VaR might reduce tail risk or might increase it.\n\nBasel II\n\nRemember that VaR was a fusion between ideas from advantage gamblers and poker players. What about the sports-betting quants? They were Bayesians, people people. Not for them the grim frequentist hanging on to losing positions knowing that long-term frequency would eventually triumph. Sports bettors not only embraced VaR, they largely took it over. Hedge funds and trading desks have continued to use VaR and gain dramatic improvements in risk management. But in big institutions, VaR effectively has been redefined.\n\nThe sports bettors thought that risk should be measured by threats to earnings, not changes in mark-to-market valuations. So they put in rules allowing VaR to be backtested not against objective arms-length market transactions but against models and valuations done according to accounting rules (which contain a large measure of management opinion among other defects). They still called it value at risk, but it became more and more like opinion at risk.\n\nSports bettors also worked at a longer time scale than poker players; earnings were measured quarterly and annually, traders think about daily and intraday price movements. VaR was invented at a 95 percent confidence interval over one day. A good statistical rule of thumb is that it takes 30 observations to estimate one parameter reliably; 95 percent one day VaR should have 30 breaks in 600 trading days, about two and a half years, a reasonable interval over which to estimate. Sports bettors preferred 99 percent 10-day VaR, which takes 30,000 trading days or 115 years to validate (some even went as far as 99.97 percent one-year VaR, which requires data going back to the Trojan War). This removed VaR from an objective number to a matter of faith. Advantage gamblers had also used long time periods and high confidence, but they never based capital at risk on a backtest; they thought they had good models.\n\nThe Bayesian sports bettors were not stupid. They knew their VaR was a matter of opinion, but opinion was their stock in trade. Reality didn't matter. If you had good earnings on small amounts of capital, you got good return on equity. That pushed up your stock price, which kept your bonds yields low. As long as you were in investors' good graces, you could raise plenty of capital to replenish any losses. You could also reward your revenue-producing employees handsomely, meaning you retained and attracted people who contributed to more earnings. It was all a virtuous cycle. This may sound like a Ponzi scheme and it's not my preferred way to run a business, but with the right people managing the risk, it can work. Earnings may be a matter of opinion in the short run, but honest people will eventually detect divergences between earnings and tangible cash flows and will adjust their models accordingly.\n\nThis is the form of VaR that was incorporated into the Basel II capital accord, which was based almost entirely on VaR-like concepts. Using VaR as a risk measure makes no sense in theory, but in practice there was nothing better available. Moreover, computing VaR, even with undemanding backtesting, forced improvements in information systems. The effort improved risk in many ways. People began mitigating counterparty risk through netting and collateral agreements. Clearing was improved. For all the problems we had in 2008, things would have been far, far worse without the changes implemented in the prior two decades.\n\nThere was one unfortunate aspect of this effort. VaR was very expensive to compute. In order to incent banks to make the effort, they had to be promised capital relief. This made sense; if you improve your risk systems, you should be allowed to hold less capital. However, as people began analyzing risk systematically, it became obvious that there was far more risk than anyone had imagined. The 8 percent capital levels for banks without VaR was far too low. The sensible thing would have been to raise overall capital requirements, then the VaR banks could get a discount from that. But that was a political nonstarter. So the devil's bargain was made to dilute the rules so the VaR banks would come in under 8 percent. This was done in many ways. Backtesting requirements were watered down, then all but scrapped. Stress testing, a key component in early drafts, was downplayed. Optimistic assumptions were baked into the requirements.\n\nThis effort was aided by the extraordinary decline in market volatility from 2002 to 2006, the years leading up to the planned Basel II implementation. Every time people discovered more risk, market volatility dropped so computed capital requirements could remain constant. Of course, everyone knew that volatility would increase again, sending Basel II advanced approach capital requirements far above 8 percent. The hope was that wouldn't happen until the new rules were in place. In that scenario, it just might have been politically possible to force higher capital requirements on the banks that did not compute VaR.\n\nI have sympathy for the people who did this. Risk management was greatly improved by the Basel II effort, and capital levels were not being reduced, they just weren't being raised to the extent new information warranted. Basel II did not cause the recent financial crisis, it made it much milder than it would have been otherwise. On the other hand, I understand why most people believe the opposite and why people like the author of this book blame VaR for the problems.\n\nThe VaR discovery is causing changes beyond finance. For any problem in probability, you begin by defining a numeraire with which you will measure success (VaR uses daily mark to market P&L). You carefully delineate the circumstances in which the numeraire is meaningful (\"normal markets\" in the case of VaR) and also the range of outcomes for which you have meaningful data. The crucial step is that you then estimate the probability that your observation will be in the normal, meaningful range. Until you can do this accurately, so accurately that you could publish your estimate and let anyone take either side of a bet at the implied odds and not lose money, you do not have a reliable system. Once you have a reliable system, you will have plenty of data to make predictions inside your range. These will be far more solid than conventional probability analysis that neglects the VaR step. More important, changes in the level of your VaR and VaR breaks will prove to be as informative, or more informative, than your predictions within the VaR boundary.\n\nOf course, this is much harder than just running some unexamined data through a cookbook statistical analysis program. But I know of no other way to get statistical conclusions you can safely bet on. And I have no use for statistical conclusions you cannot bet on.\nAcknowledgments\n\nThis book owes its existence to many individuals. Pamela van Giessen at John Wiley & Sons generously said yes when I proposed this project. She quickly realized that such a book was needed. Pam has provided decisive help in my growing up as a writer, offering highly useful advice and support. Her team at John Wiley & Sons has proven as cooperative as before, and I thank Emilie Herman, Stacey Fischkelta, and Simone Black for their invaluable backing.\n\nI thank Nassim Taleb and Aaron Brown for their collaborations. These members of the financial A-team share an intriguing make-up: They are both successful market players and successful intellectuals. For most of us it is impossibly hard to achieve just one of those two goals, but they have mastered both gloriously for decades.\n\nI thank my parents for their never-ending support. They enjoy seeing me write because they know I like it, but they also appreciate the relevance of having one's views distributed worldwide from a prestigious platform.\n\nI thank Professor Eloy Garcia, who at American University taught me VaR for the first time. His 1996 course changed my life by forcing me to focus on derivatives, risk management, and financial models. One of the world's most voracious readers and buyers of financial books (first thing he does when he moves to a new city is locate the top technical bookstore, where he duly becomes the number one regular customer), Professor Garcia too values the effort and importance of producing a book such as this.\n\nFinally, I thank those bankers and those regulators bent on preserving the system that can give us so much and on protecting it from those who would rather destroy it in the search for fast easy fly-by-night profits.\nAbout the Author\n\nPablo Triana is a professor at ESADE Business School. He is the author of Lecturing Birds on Flying (John Wiley & Sons, 2009) and Corporate Derivatives (Risk Books, 2006). Triana has published widely on risk management, derivatives, and banking regulation in many of the world's leading financial and business imprints. He has held various roles in the financial industry as well as at top international business schools. He is contributing editor to Corporate Finance Review and holds graduate degrees from NYU and American University.\nIndex\n\nAd Hoc Working Group of Investment Banks\n\nAdvantage gamblers\n\nfrequentist approach\n\ntime periods\/confidence\n\nAdvantage gambling\n\nAllen, Steve\n\nAnalytical risk management\n\nArt of Conjecturing, The (Bernoulli)\n\nAsian crisis\n\nimpact\n\nAssets\n\nbank division\n\nbank financing\n\nclasses, co-movement\n\ncorrelation, absence\n\ndumping\n\nfamilies, VaR (discrimination problems)\n\npast behavior\n\nprices, decline\n\ntrading, capital requirements\n\nturbulence, sigma measurement\n\nvaluations, increase\n\nAssets-risk factors, volatility\n\nAsymmetric remuneration structures\n\nBack assets, purchase\n\nBair, Sheila\n\nBalance sheets\n\nMerrill Lynch assets\n\nshrinkage, impact\n\ntoxic assets load\n\nBamberger, Gerry\n\nBank assets\n\ndivision\n\nEuro Area bank dependence\n\nfinancing\n\nBank capital\n\nadequacy\n\ndanger\n\ninsufficiency, problem\n\nrules, regulator basis\n\nBank capital regulation\n\nimpact\n\nreform\n\nrisk sensitivity\n\nBankers Trust, VaR creation\n\nBank for International Settlements (BIS), trading-specific capitalization\n\nBanking\n\nasset, defining\n\ndisaster, capital requirements\n\nleverage\n\nproblems, VaR\/metrics (impact)\n\nsetbacks, leverage (impact)\n\nBanking book\n\nleverage\n\npositions\n\nredesign\n\nBanks\n\nbalance sheets\n\nproblem assets, saturation\n\nproblems\n\nVaR, impact\n\nCDO creation\n\nCDO structuring fees\n\ndeposit safety guarantee, collateral (usage)\n\nfunding costs, increase\n\nimportance\n\nlending\n\nactivity, restrictions\n\nreduction\n\nleverage\n\ndefining\n\ntoxicity\n\nmarked-to-market position\n\nmoney, loss (reasons)\n\non-balance sheet leverage\n\nreturn on equity (ROE), decrease\n\nriskless income, generation\n\nself-interest\n\nsubprime losses\n\nsuper-senior holdings\n\nsuper senior losses\n\nsupervision, supposition\n\ntotal credit exposure, calculation\n\ntrading book\n\ntrading positions, accumulation\n\ntranches, holding\n\nVaR calculation\n\nVaR exceptions\n\nVaR victimization\n\nBarclays, trading decision\n\nBasel Capital Accord (1988)\n\nAmendment (1996)\n\nBasel capital formula, add-ons\n\nBasel Committee on Banking Supervision\n\nmarket risk addition\n\nproposals\n\nreport (August 2010)\n\nrevisions, addition\n\nBasel I\n\ncommittee review\n\ndysfunctional risk signals\n\nflaw\n\nimplementation, impact\n\nproblems\n\nrisk weights, endowment\n\nsuperiority\n\nVaR, absence\n\nBasel II\n\ngoals\n\nintroduction\n\nproposals, impact\n\nRatings Based Approach\n\nStandardized Approach\n\nU.S. adoption\n\nVaR, usage\n\nBasel III\n\nanalysis\n\nimpositions\n\nnegative impact\n\nBayesianism\n\nBayesian sports bettors\n\nintelligence\n\nBear Stearns\n\nbalance sheet\n\ncollapse\n\nBenardete, Steve\n\nBerman, Gregg\n\nmodels, usefulness (skepticism)\n\nBernoulli, Jakob\n\nBlackbird, launch (problem)\n\nBlack Swan, The (Taleb)\n\nBook capital, trading\n\nBookstaber, Richard\n\nBorrowed funds, usage\n\nBreaks, tests\n\nBroker-dealers (regulatory policing agreement), VaR (impact)\n\nBrown, Aaron\n\ncapital strategy\n\nCapital\n\nBasel I definition\n\ncalculation, methodologies\n\ncharges\n\nassignation\n\ndetermination\n\nVaR, impact\n\ncommitment\n\ndeductions\n\ndeposit, financing\n\nmarkets, collapse\n\nratio, increase\n\nregulation, impact\n\nrole, defining\n\nstructure, insolvency\n\nCapital Accord, Amendment (1996)\n\nCapitalism, failure\n\nCapitalization, levels\n\nCapital requirement\n\nchange\n\nincrease\n\nregulatory limits\n\nsize, impact\n\nCapital-to-assets ratio, retention\n\nCarnap, Rudolph\n\nCarry trade, profitability\n\nCash RBMS, usage\n\nCitigroup\n\none-day VaR level\n\nVaR measurement\n\nVaR-total assets ratio\n\nColander, David\n\nCollateral, usage\n\nCollateralized debt obligations (CDOs)\n\narrival\n\nbank creation\n\nbusiness, increase (reasons)\n\nequity tranches, retention (bank cessation)\n\nilliquidity\/unsalability\n\nimpact\n\nlow-loss forecasts\n\nmark-to-market losses\n\nplacement, VaR (impact)\n\nreference, cash RBMS (usage)\n\nrisk, distribution\n\nSEC ruling, impact\n\nstructuring, conduits\n\nsuper-senior classes, bank holdings\n\ntoxicity level\n\nwarehousing exposures\n\nComplementary analysis\n\nConsolidated Supervised Entity (CSE) program\n\nfailure\n\nSEC adoption\n\nConsolidated supervisor, EU demand\n\nCorporate bonds\n\ncharge\n\nfluctuation\n\nCountry government bonds-loans, leverage (impact)\n\nCovariance\n\nmatrix, usage\n\nVaR, collection\n\nCredit crisis (2007)\n\nanalysis\n\nmaterialization\n\noccurrence, reasons\n\nregulatory crisis, perspective\n\nVaR, impact\n\nCredit ratings, cessation (impact)\n\nCredit-related assets, trading book placement\n\nCredit risk, broker-dealer deduction\n\nCredit risk-related bank capital requirements, measurement system\n\nCredit Suisse\n\nleverage\n\nVaR exceptions\n\nDaily price movements, consideration\n\nDanielsson, Jon\n\nVaR problems\n\nData-based risk models, problems\n\nDebt-related assets\n\nde Condorcet, Marquis\n\nde Finetti, Bruno\n\nDeregulation, crisis\n\nDerivatives Strategy, Taleb interview\n\nDeutsche Bank\n\ntrading decisions\n\nVaR violations\n\nDisequilibrium, exploitation\n\nDistributions\n\nfrequentist type\n\nstatistician approach\n\nDomingo, Gustavo\n\nDynamic capital\n\nreplenishment, impact\n\nstrategy (Brown)\n\nDynamic Hedging (Taleb)\n\nEconometric models, considerations\n\nEconomic growth, corporate bond fluctuation\n\nEindhoven, Michael\n\nEinhorn, David\n\nElliott, Douglas\n\nEnhanced bank capital requirements, impact (academic evidence)\n\nEquity capital\n\ncost\n\nenhanced financing costs, comparison\n\nincrease\n\nrequirements, enhancement\n\nEquity exposures (interest rate charge calculation), VaR technology (usage)\n\nEquity financing, cost (Stanford University analysis)\n\nEquity investment, riskiness\n\nEquity risk specific capital charge\n\nEuro Area, G3 bank dependence\n\nExoteric securities, marked-to-market value\n\nFermat, Pierre\n\nFinance\n\npath complexity\n\nreengineering\n\nFinancial activity, complexity\n\nFinancial assets\n\ncharges, SEC knowledge\n\nrisk\n\nFinancial crisis, threat\n\nFinancial engineers\n\nFinancial estimations, basis\n\nFinancial intermediation, cost (increase)\n\nFinancial meltdown, VaR (impact)\n\nFinancial risk\n\nanalysis, execution\n\nattitudes\n\nimplication\n\nmanagement\n\nreform\n\nmeasurement, precision (problem)\n\nstudy\/quantification\n\nFinancial Services Authority (UK)\n\nForeign Exchange\/Cash Collateral Trading (FX\/CCT)\n\nFrequentists\n\nadvantage gamblers\n\ndistributions\n\nstatistician\n\nFTSE Global Government Bond Indices, indication\n\nFunding costs\n\nimpact\n\nincrease\n\nGarbade, Kenneth\n\nGates, Bill\n\nGladwell, Malcolm\n\nGlobal bank capital requirements, impact\n\nGlobal financial regulatory system, deficiencies\n\nGoldman Sachs\n\ncapital charges computation\n\nequity base\n\none-day VaR level\n\ntrading decisions\n\nVaR-total assets ratio\n\nGoldschmid, Harvey\n\nGreat Depression (1929)\n\nGroup of Thirty (G30), lobbying\n\nGuldimann, Till\n\nJPMorgan departure\n\nHaircut, penalty\n\nHancock, Peter\n\nHarper, Christine\n\nHedged positions\n\nHedge fund trading\n\nHistorical Simulation\n\nfunction, explanation\n\nmethod, usage\n\nusage\n\nIceland, problems\n\nIlliquid complex assets, leverage ratios\n\nIncremental Risk Charge (IRC)\n\nadd-ons\n\nintention\n\nIn-house risk management, VaR usage\n\nInstitute for International Finance (IIF), Basel III study\n\nBasel Committee, disagreement\n\nInterest rate exposures\n\nrisk charges (calculation), VaR technology (usage)\n\nInterest rate risk, example\n\nInternal Models Approach, usage\n\nInternational Association of Financial Engineers (IAFA)\n\nIntraday price movements, consideration\n\nIntuitional risk management\n\nJacobson, Ken\n\nJorion, Philippe\n\nJP Morgan\n\nderivatives business, risk number\n\nMay, impact\n\none-day VaR level\n\ntrading decisions\n\nVaR-total assets ratio\n\nWeatherstone\/Guldimann departure\n\nJP Morgan VaR\n\napproach\n\ncreation\n\nRiskMetrics VaR, contrast\n\nstress testing\n\nJunior tranches, sale\n\nKeynes, John Maynard\n\nKolchinsky, Eric\n\nLehman Brothers\n\nassets support\n\naverage daily VaR\n\nVaR, amount\n\nLemmas\n\nLeverage\n\ncreation, VaR (impact)\n\ndefining\n\nexcess\n\nimpact\n\nimplication\n\nquantity\n\nratio\n\nprudence\n\nregulatory limits\n\ntoxicity\n\nVaR impact\n\nVaR invention\n\nLiquidity\n\ndisappearance\n\nputs\n\nVaR, impact\n\nLong-term borrowings\n\nLong Term Capital Management (LTCM)\n\ndisaster\n\nliquidation\n\nVaR-calculated capital charges, insufficiency\n\nLong-term frequency, mathematical statement\n\nMarket crises, data-based risk models (problems)\n\nMarket-related capital charges, decisions\n\nMarket risk\n\nBasel proposal\n\nbroker-dealer deductions\n\ncapital levy, Basel I amendment (impact)\n\ncapital requirements, impact\n\ncomponents, calculation (standardized method)\n\ngrowth\n\nmanagement, VaR (impact)\n\nmeasure, VaR role (prominence)\n\nregulatory treatment\n\ntransparency, increase\n\nMarket Risk Amendment (Basel Capital Accord)\n\nMarket risk-based measures, impact\n\nMarket risk capital\n\nchange\n\ncharges\n\nreduction\n\ndeductions, calculation\n\nrules\n\nMarket risk estimation, VaR problems\n\nMarket signals, implication\n\nMarket volatility, absence\n\nMarkowitz, Harry\n\nMark-to-market accounting, benefits\n\nMartin, Gorge\n\nMathematical models\n\nmarket signals, impact\n\nusage, inquiry\n\nMatrices, usage\n\nMay, Raymond\n\nRay May spreadsheet\n\nRay May VaR\n\nRiskMetrics understanding\n\nVaR creation\n\nWall Street competitor\n\nMerrill Lynch\n\nbalance sheet\n\nmarket risk treatment, credit risk treatment conversion\n\nmeltdown\n\nnet super senior retention exposure\n\nportfolio, toxicity\n\nregulatory VaR level\n\nsubprime losses\n\nVaR, amount\n\nlosses, projection\n\nMetrics-based approaches, cessation (impact)\n\nMezzanine CDOs, purchases\n\nMezzanine tranches, impact\n\nModels-based credit ratings, impact\n\nModels-based regulations, impact\n\nModern Portfolio Theory, usage\n\nMonte Carlo Simulation, usage\n\nMorgan Stanley\n\nequity capital\n\nnet super senior exposure\n\ntrading decisions\n\nMortgage crisis, accuracy (problem)\n\nMunicipal bonds, percent weight problems\n\nNader, Ralph\n\nNet capital\n\ndollar amount\n\nSEC limit\n\nNet Capital Rule (SEC)\n\namendment\n\nNet super senior exposures\n\nNormality, usage\n\nNorthern Rock, debacle\n\nOff-balance sheet conduits, back asset sale\n\nOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)\n\ndebt, global bank accumulation\n\nOriginate-and-distribute model\n\nOutliers\n\nexclusion\n\nPascal, Blaise\n\nPersaud, Avinash\n\nimpact\n\nPoisson, Sim\u00e9on\n\nPoker Face of Wall Street (Brown)\n\nPortfolios\n\nassets\n\nexamples\n\nnegative correlation\n\nrelative riskiness\n\nuncorrelated assets, risk-reducing diversification benefits\n\nPrice movements, shift\n\nProbability\n\ndistributions\n\nconsiderations\n\nrocket scientist approach\n\nestimation, noise (presence)\n\nexample\n\ntheory\n\ninadequacy\n\nProfit and loss (P&L), focus\/computation\n\nQuantitative Risk Control (Investment Banking Division)\n\nQuantitative risk models\n\nQuAnts\n\nimpact\n\nrepentance\n\nQuants\n\nrisk-taking backgrounds, absence\n\nsports bettors, probability perspective\n\nRay May spreadsheet\n\nRay May VaR\n\nReal VaRs, problems\n\nRebonato, Ricardo\n\nRed-Blooded Risk (Brown)\n\nRegulatory arbitrage\n\nRegulatory capital\n\nmeasure, calculation\n\nrequirements, bank demand\n\nRegulatory cushion, impact\n\nRegulatory metrics, malfunction\n\nRe-securitizations, impact\n\nResidential Alt-A mortgage RBMSs\/CDO positions\n\nResidential mortgage-backed securities (RBMSs)\n\ndemand\n\nplacement, VaR (impact)\n\ntransfer\n\ntranches, bank engineering\n\nVaR power, problems\n\nReturn on assets (ROA)\n\nReturn on equity (ROE), decrease\n\nRickards, James\n\nRisk\n\naggregation\n\nassessment\n\nbenchmark\n\nbuckets, impact\n\ncalculation\/management, VaR in-house method\n\ncalibration\n\ncapital, trading\n\ncharges (calculation), VaR technology (usage)\n\nconcentration, feasibility\n\ncontrol\n\nVaR, usage\n\ndefinition, problem\n\nestimates\n\nestimation, VaR role\n\nexploration\n\nguidance, problem\n\nmeasurement\n\nalternative\n\nperspective\n\nmodels, usage\n\nrules, simplicity\n\nsimplicity\n\nVaR control, assumption\n\nVaR measurement\n\nVaR overestimation\n\nVaR underestimation\n\nRisk-based metrics, bank adoption\n\nRisk-free assets, principal (investment)\n\nRiskless income, generation\n\nRisk management\n\nfault\n\ngoal\n\npractices\n\nusage\n\ntypes\n\nRiskMetrics\n\npopularity\n\nsystem\n\nunderstanding\n\nVaR, JPMorgan VaR (contrast)\n\nVaR methodology, publication\n\nRiskmetrics\n\nRisk-taking, debt financing\n\nRisk-weighted assets\n\ncharges\n\nconcept (Basel I introduction)\n\nmodification\n\nRisky investments, equity holder incentive\n\nRoyal Bank of Scotland, debacle\n\nRussia, meltdown\/crisis\n\nSecurities\n\nrisks\/returns\n\ntoxicity, accumulation\n\nSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC)\n\nNet Capital Rule\n\nCommission amendment\n\npolicy (2004), impact\n\nSecurities Industry Association (SIA), lobbying\n\nSecuritized mortgage exposures, placement\n\nShort-term borrowings\n\nShort-term market movements (estimation), VaR methodologies (usage)\n\nSigma (standard deviation)\n\ntwo-tailed statistical confidence interval, example\n\nVaR, occurrence\n\nSociete Generale, trading book leverage\n\nSpecific risk\n\nStandard deviation (sigma)\n\nStandardized Approach\n\nStandardized method\n\nStandard model\n\nStatistical arbitrage\n\nStatisticians, types\n\nStimmler, Mary Kay\n\nStock market crash (1987)\n\nStressed VaR add-ons\n\nStuder, Nick\n\nSubcommittee on Investigation and Oversight, U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology\n\nSubordinated tranches, investor purchase\n\nSubprime CDOs\n\nassessments\n\nbank usage\n\nbalance sheet location\n\ncrisis\n\nrisk, understanding\n\nSEC ruling, impact\n\nspeculation\n\nsuper senior component, retention\n\ntrading book placement, bank incentive\n\ntranches, amount\n\nUBS involvement\n\nVaR power, problems\n\nwarehousing, problems\n\nSubprime crisis\n\naccuracy, problem\n\nVaR crisis, impact\n\nSubprime loans, losses\n\nSubprime market, problems\n\nSubprime mortgages\n\nimpact\n\nwarehousing\n\nSubprime RMBSs, trading book placement (bank incentive)\n\nSuper senior categories\n\nSuper senior CDOs, consideration\n\nSuper senior holdings\n\nbank holdings\n\nexistence, reasons\n\nSuper senior tranches\n\nbank holding, JP Morgan estimate\n\nimpact\n\nretention, problems\n\nunattractiveness\n\nSwaps\n\nBackOffice System, JP Morgan construction\n\nrisk, calculation\n\nSwiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC)\n\natonement\n\ninvestigation\n\nSynthetic CDO, super senior investor payments\n\nTail events\n\nTaleb, Nassim\n\nDerivatives Strategy interview\n\nimpact\n\ninterview\n\nVaR explanation\/understanding\n\nTartaglia, Nunzio\n\nTett, Gillian\n\nTheoretical models, usage\n\nTier 1 capital\n\nTier 2 capital\n\nTier 3 capital\n\nintroduction\n\nToxic assets\n\nacquisition\n\nbalance sheet appearance\n\nSEC treatment\n\nToxic leverage\n\nguarantee\n\nproblems\n\nrisk mechanism delivery\n\nToxic risks, VaR underestimation\n\nToxic securities, accumulation\n\nTraders, risk-lite approach\n\nTrading\n\naffordability\/leverage, costliness (VaR calculation)\n\nasset, defining\n\nbets, financing\n\ndesks\/business, usage\n\nopportunities\n\nportfolio, leverage\n\nTrading book\n\nasset placement, easement\n\nbank abuse\n\nbank usage\n\ncapital result, assumption\n\nCDO\/RMBS placement\n\ncredit-related assets, placement\n\nexposures, capital support\n\nimpact\n\nleverage\n\npresence\n\nsecuritized mortgage exposures, placement\n\ntreatment, bank preference\n\nusage\n\nVaR, impact\n\nTrading-related capital requirements\n\nTrading-related leverage\n\nTranches, enhancement\n\nTrigger algorithms, adoption\n\nTurner Report (2009)\n\nTurner Review (UK Financial Services Authority)\n\nUBS\n\nassets\n\ncarry trade, profitability\n\nCDO purchase\n\nCDO toxicity level\n\ncomplacency\n\nconfidence level\n\ncredit crisis\n\nForeign Exchange\/Cash Collateral Trading (FX\/CCT)\n\ninternal funding, problems\n\nleverage\n\nmarket risk treatment, credit risk treatment conversion\n\noff-balance sheet activities\n\non-balance sheet CDO positions, trading book treatment\n\nrisk management, robustness (assumption)\n\nstructuring fees\n\nsubprime losses\n\nsubprime positions, filtration\n\nsubprime risk, Group Senior Management comprehension\n\nsuper seniority, selection\n\nsuper senior positions, positive carry\n\nsuper senior tranches\n\naccumulation\n\nnet positive carry\n\nsuper-senior tranches, addition\n\nsuper senior trouble\n\nSwiss Federal Banking Commission investigation\n\ntotal equity capital, amount\n\nVaR measurement\n\nwarehousing exposure\n\nUnited States, housing bubble (collapse)\n\nU.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight\n\nU.S. mortgage market, disruptions\n\nValue at Risk (VaR)\n\nacademics, impact\n\nadd-ons\n\nadoption\n\nphase-in period, absence\n\nappearance\n\nascension, reasons\n\nassumptions, violation\n\nbank calculation\n\nbanker usage\n\nbank limits, problems\n\nBenardete perspective\n\nbenefits\n\ncalculations\n\nexample\n\nmethodology\n\ncapital calculation methodology\n\ncessation, impact\n\ncomparison, Brown perspective\n\ncomprehensive approach\n\ncomputation\n\ncost\n\ndifficulty\n\nconstructs, adoption\/promotion\n\ncontrarians\n\ncounterrevolution\n\ncoverage\n\ncredibility\n\ncredit ratings reliance\n\ncrisis\n\nimpact\n\ncriticisms\n\ndanger\n\nDanielsson perspective\n\npresence\n\ndecline\n\ndeficiencies\n\ndestruction capacity\n\ndue diligence\n\nexceptions, bank registration\n\nexposure\/fragility\n\nfailure\n\nguidelines, reliance\n\nhistorical data\n\nhistorical evidence, statistical dissection\n\nimpact\n\nproblems\n\nreduction\n\nimposition, regulatory measure\n\nindictment\n\ninternal competition\n\ninternational regulators usage\n\ninvention, reason\n\nknowledge, absence\n\nlimit\n\nbreach\n\nimposition\n\nliquidations, impact\n\nlogic\n\nLord Turner perspective\n\nlow level\n\nmalfunction\n\nmarket risk measurement tool, acceptance\n\nmathematical engineering\n\nMay creation\n\nmeasure, problems\n\nMerrill Lynch statement\n\nmethodology\n\ndesign\n\npublication\n\nmodels\n\nimpact\n\nregulatory adoption\n\nnormal markets\n\nNo-VaR, improvement\n\nperformance, problem\n\npersonal advantages\n\npopularity\n\nreasons\n\npower\n\nendowment, problems\n\nheight\n\npredictability\n\npredictions\n\nfailure\n\ninaccuracies\n\npresence, impact\n\nprobabilistic foundations\n\nproblems\n\npromotion\n\nQuAnt usage\n\nrelevance\n\nreliance\n\nrigor\n\nrisk management\n\ndevice\n\nusage\n\nrisk measure, usage\n\nrisk metric\n\nRiskMetrics, impact\n\nrole\n\nSEC policy, interaction\n\nside effect\n\nsolutions\n\nspreadsheet, development\n\nstandard model\n\nTaleb explanation\n\nTaleb understanding\n\nterm, appearance\n\ntests, types\n\ntoxic leverage\n\ntrading desk limit breaches\n\ntrading-related leverage\n\nvalue, Bookstaber perspective\n\nVaR neutral\n\nVaR-total assets ratios\n\nVaR-type models, creation\n\nviolations\n\nWall Street lobby\n\nWall Street perspective\n\nzero VaR\n\nValue at Risk (VaR) risk\n\nabsence, assumption\n\nblindness\n\nestimator role\n\nVariance-Covariance method\n\ndominance\n\nexplanation\n\npower\n\nusage\n\nVolatility estimates, unreliability\n\nWall Street, rules (application)\n\nWeatherstone, Dennis\n\nJPMorgan departure\n\nWellink, Nout\n\nWhalen, Christopher\n\nWilmott, Paul\n\nWorld of Chance, A (Brown)\n\nZero VaR\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n## Dedication\n\nTo Suzanne Daghlian, Maggie Herold, Esilda Kerr, Andrea Pappenheimer, Cara Petrus, Robin Pinto, Patti Rosati, Caroline Sun, Kimberly VandeWater, and all the folks who work behind the scenes\n\n## Epigraph\n\n\"A grave is a grave.\"\n\n_\u2014Nobody said this. But somebody should have._\n\n## To the Reader...\n\nAll the places mentioned in this book are real.\n\nYou can visit them. You _should_ visit them!\n\n## Contents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nDedication\n\nEpigraph\n\nTo the Reader...\n\nThanks\n\n**1** Stuff You Missed\n\n**2** Uncle Herman\n\n**3** Now It's Personal\n\n**4** What Would Lincoln Do?\n\n**5** A Message in the Sky\n\n**6** The Battle of Cedar Mountain\n\n**7** The Coast Is Clear\n\n**8** A Difference of Opinion\n\n**9** A Passion for Spelunking\n\n**10** An Amazing Coincidence\n\n**11** Dreaming Happy Dreams\n\n**12** Esse Quam Videri!\n\n**13** No-Brainer\n\n**14** The Kinston Trio\n\n**15** Pepsi World\n\n**16** It's Now or Never\n\n**17** The Calling Card\n\n**18** A Senseless Attack\n\n**19** South of the Border\n\n**20** Bang for Your Buck\n\n**21** A Gift\n\n**22** Accidents Happen\n\n**23** More Lame Museums\n\n**24** The Secret Formula\n\n**25** Things Go Better with Coke\n\n**26** Nature Lovers\n\n**27** Let's Turn It Up a Little\n\n**28** Follow Your Nose\n\n**29** Graceland\n\n**30** Evil Elvis Unmasked\n\nEpilogue\n\nAbout the Author\n\nCredits\n\nCopyright\n\nBack Ad\n\nAbout the Publisher\n\n## Thanks\n\nThanks to Mona Banton of the National Jousting Association, Gail Bell, Jason Blau, Peter Blau, Diana Carr, Lisa Chapman, Joyce Allen-Crawford, Robert W. Dye, Esther Goldenberg, Ralph Hammelbacher, Andrew Harwell, Alan Kors, Samantha Kors, Beth Lucas, Brandon Lucas, Lee Ann Lucas, Megan Lucas, Zack Medlin, Jonathan Murdoch, Marcus Murdoch, Mike O'Connell, Andrew Paden, Lynne Paden, Andrea Reid, Sarah Saladini, John Shaffer of Luray Caverns, Angela Smith, Jon Van Hoozer, Jr., and Nina Wallace. A special thank-you to Google Maps and Roadside America.com, without which this book could not have been written.\n\n## Chapter 1\n\n## STUFF YOU MISSED\n\nThere were ten items on Coke McDonald's to-do list for the month of July. But getting thrown into a giant shredder was not one of them.\n\nCLEAN THE TOILET IN THE RV was on the list.\n\nSEND POSTCARDS HOME was on the list.\n\nBUY SOUVENIRS was on the list.\n\nWORK ON SUMMER READING was on the list.\n\nBut nothing about getting thrown into a giant shredder.\n\nAnd yet, oddly enough, getting thrown into a giant shredder was the _one_ thing that Coke McDonald was actually going To Do during the month of July.\n\nWait a sec. Before I tell you how Coke McDonald was thrown into a giant shredder, it's really important for you to read a book called _The Genius Files: Never Say Genius_. Because if you didn't read _that_ book, this one will make no sense at all. So ask your librarian for a copy _,_ and read it. Then come back and start this one again. Fair enough?\n\nGo ahead, I'll wait.\n\nHmmmm. Hmmmmmm. No rush or anything. I've got all day.\n\nOkay, did you read it?\n\nYou did not!\n\nLook, it's really important that you and I have an honest relationship during the time we're spending together between these covers. And if you can't be honest with me _here_ , on page 2, what's it going to be like when we get to the big surprise ending on page 284?\n\nDON'T YOU _DARE_ TURN TO PAGE 284 TO SEE THE SURPRISE ENDING! How could you even _think_ of doing such a terrible thing?\n\nLook, just read the book, okay? What do you have to do that's more important? Watch some dumb reality TV show about people baking cakes? Watch videos of cats playing the piano on YouTube?\n\nOkay, fine, don't read _The Genius Files: Never Say Genius_. See if I care.\n\nLook, I'll make a deal with you. If you read _this_ book, I'll tell you what happened in the last one in just eight breaths.\n\nDeal?\n\nOkay. This is what you missed....\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nThe story started on Coke and Pepsi McDonald's thirteenth birthday\u2014June 25. The twins were still in shock after having pushed the evil and insane Dr. Herman Warsaw out of The Infinity Room to his death at The House on the Rock in Wisconsin. They were happy with the lame birthday presents their clueless parents gave them\u2014a bag of genuine Wisconsin cheese curds and two yellow foam cheeseheads.\n\nThe family continued on their cross-country journey that had started in California, heading for their aunt Judy's wedding in Washington, D.C., on July 4.\n\nMrs. McDonald runs a popular website called _Amazing but True_. So along the way, she insisted on stopping at oddball tourist attractions, such as the National Mustard Museum (where she purchased a POUPON U toilet seat) and the National Dairy Hall of Fame (where the family learned about pioneers such as Harvey D. Thatcher, the inventor of the glass milk bottle).\n\nWow, too bad you didn't read the book. You actually might have _learned_ something!\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nAnyway, when they arrived at the first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, Coke and Pep encountered Archie Clone, a fellow teenage genius filer who was in fact an evil madman who aspired to follow in Dr. Warsaw's footsteps. He invited them into what appeared to be an interactive exhibit called \"The Multimedia World of French Fries,\" but was in fact a death trap. Seconds before Coke and his sister were dipped into boiling oil, Coke jammed his cheesehead into the gears to stop the ridiculously slow-moving wire basket and save their lives.\n\nSome birthday, huh?\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nThe next stop was a Cubs game in Chicago's famed Wrigley Field, where Coke and Pep were reunited with the germ-phobic Mrs. Higgins, a hired assassin who worked for Dr. Warsaw when she wasn't teaching health at Coke and Pep's school back in California. She had given up killing innocent children, she said, and taken a job in the Cubs' public relations department (she has excellent people skills, apparently). Mrs. Higgins told the twins there was a bomb in the Cubs' dugout that would go off when they sang the last line to \"Take Me Out to the Ballgame.\" It was a lie, of course, but the result was that the entire ballpark had to be evacuated and the game forfeited to the hated St. Louis Cardinals. The twins were forced to run for their lives out of Wrigley, chased by an angry mob of frustrated Cubs fans, whose team usually finds a way to lose without any outside help.\n\nMrs. Higgins, by the way, also revealed that she was madly in love with Dr. Warsaw. So she was doubly furious with the twins because they killed her \"boyfriend,\" and now it is highly unlikely that he will ever marry her.\n\nStill with me? Good.\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nContinuing east from Chicago, the McDonald family stopped off to see Michael Jackson's boyhood home in Gary, Indiana; the largest egg in the world in Mentone, Indiana; and a pair of pants worn by the tallest man in the world.\n\nYou would think that Cedar Point, one of the greatest amusement parks in the _world_ , would be nothing but fun. But it was there, in Sandusky, Ohio, where the twins were kidnapped off a roller coaster by two dudes in bowler hats and tied up in a Mister Softee truck, where Archie Clone (who has a thing about food) poured soft-serve ice cream over their heads in an attempt to freeze them to death. Fortunately, Coke was able to cut the ropes with the sharp edge of the Pez dispenser he had hidden in his back pocket.\n\nWhew, you sure missed a lot of stuff! You might want to seriously go back and read the book. I'm barely scratching the surface here.\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nAfter a quick stop in Avon, Ohio (the duct tape capital of the world), the McDonalds spent a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where they were trapped in a recording studio and forced to listen to Megadeath at a volume meant to cause one's head to literally _explode_. Lucky they had picked up some duct tape in Avon! They were able to wrap it over their ears, punch a hole in the glass roof, and slide down the side of the pyramid-shaped building.\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nTheir dad, Dr. McDonald, who is a history professor, decided to write his next scholarly book about President Herbert Hoover. He was thrilled to learn that the Hoover Historical Center was right down the road in North Canton, Ohio. But when they got there, they discovered that the Hoover Historical Center is devoted to _William_ Hoover, the guy who started the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company! And like a vacuum cleaner, that really sucked.\n\nGot all that?\n\nOh, I forgot to mention, the twins also visited a hot dog bun museum, the Spy Museum, and the largest collection of outhouses in the world. Plus, Coke got sprayed with poison gas in a highway rest stop bathroom by a guy wearing cowboy boots and whistling \"The Yellow Rose of Texas.\" You'll have to read the book to get the details on all that stuff. No time for it here.\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nFinally, after deciphering a series of increasingly complicated secret messages, the twins were led to the Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. There they met up again with their nemesis, Archie Clone, along with his henchmen, a SWAT team in ski masks. Archie's plan was to steal the museum's prize artifact\u2014the top hat Abraham Lincoln wore on the night he was assassinated.\n\nArchie Clone dragged Coke and Pep up to the roof of the museum, where his helicopter was waiting. His plan was to kill the twins by dropping them on the tip of the Washington Monument. But at the last possible moment, they jumped out of the chopper and Pep threw a Frisbee grenade to blow up Archie Clone's helicopter, killing him in a giant fireball.\n\nOuch! That's gotta hurt.\n\n_(Deep breath)_\n\nDid I mention that _The Genius Files: Never Say Genius_ is totally inappropriate for children? Really, now that I've had the chance to think things over, it's _good_ that you didn't read the book. It would have corrupted your innocent mind.\n\nAnyway, the story ended the next day, with Aunt Judy's big wedding in Washington. And guess who she married?\n\nSpoiler alert! It was Dr. Warsaw, the lunatic who was trying to kill Coke and Pep the whole time!\n\nHa! Betcha didn't see _that_ coming! Yeah, it turns out that Dr. Warsaw survived the fall at The House on the Rock. Life, and death, can be funny that way.\n\nSo that's what happened. Whew! Let's see _you_ try to sum up a 288-page book in eight breaths.\n\nIn any case, now you're up to speed. You're probably anxious to read _this_ book to find out what happens to the McDonald twins next. Now that we got all that preliminary nonsense out of the way, let's get to the cool part\u2014the part where Coke gets thrown into a giant shredder.\n\nSo turn the page and get started. Because if you don't read this book, _The Genius Files #4_ is going to make _no_ sense at all.\n\n## Chapter 2\n\n## UNCLE HERMAN\n\nOur story begins in Washington, D.C., where _The Genius Files: Never Say Genius_ left off. By the way, if you'd like to follow the McDonalds on their journey, it's easy. Get on the internet and go to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/), Mapquest (www.mapquest.com), Rand McNally (www.randmcnally.com), or whatever navigation website you like best.\n\nGo ahead, I'll wait.\n\nOkay, now type in Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., and click SEARCH MAPS. Click the little + or \u2013 sign on the screen to zoom in or out until you get a sense of where the twins are. See it? That's our starting point.\n\nIt was July 4th, a beautiful sun-drenched afternoon in the nation's capital. The temperature outside was almost ninety, but you couldn't ask for a better day to have a wedding. The sad eyes of Abraham Lincoln looked down over the one hundred or so guests.\n\n\"Do you, Judy McAllister, take this man to be your husband in the holy state of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, as long as you both shall live?\"\n\n\"I will,\" Aunt Judy said quietly.\n\nCoke turned to look at his mother, who was beaming. She and Judy, her little sister, had not always gotten along while they were growing up. But all was forgiven now.\n\nThe minister turned to face the groom, who was sitting in a wheelchair.\n\n\"And do you, Herman Warsaw, take this woman to be your wife in the holy state of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, as long as you both shall live?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"By the power vested in me by the District of Columbia, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.\"\n\nFor a moment or two, Coke and Pep didn't quite grasp what they had just heard. Did that minister really say \"Herman Warsaw\"?\n\nIt couldn't be! Dr. Warsaw was dead. Coke had personally karate kicked him out of The Infinity Room back in Wisconsin a week earlier. It had been hundreds of feet up in the air. There was no way he could have survived the fall. And besides, they had seen Dr. Warsaw's obituary in the newspaper. Maybe this guy was a different Herman Warsaw.\n\nBut no, there he was, sitting in a wheelchair.\n\nAll decked out in a tuxedo.\n\nAnd getting married.\n\nKissing.\n\nAunt Judy.\n\nAs smart as they were, it took another moment or two for Coke and Pep to fully process the information. Dr. Warsaw was the reason they had been forced to jump off a cliff near their home in California. He was the reason they were locked in a burning school, pushed into a sand pit, and nearly drowned in a vat of bubbling Spam. It was because of him that they were zapped with electric shocks, lowered into boiling oil, and chased through the streets of Chicago. If Aunt Judy was their mother's sister, and she was marrying Dr. Warsaw, then that meant that Dr. Warsaw was now...\n\nUncle Herman!\n\nThey were related! Dr. Warsaw would be part of their family! How do you sit around the table on Thanksgiving with the man who tried to kill you?\n\nPep's jaw dropped open, and the blood drained from her face.\n\n\"Are you okay, sweetie?\" asked her father. \"You're white as a ghost.\"\n\nThat's when Pep's eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed.\n\n## Chapter 3\n\n## NOW IT'S PERSONAL\n\n\"We need a doctor over here!\"\n\nPeople were hollering for help before Pep had even hit the ground.\n\nShe was unconscious, lying on the grass, for about thirty seconds. When she opened her eyes, a doctor was leaning over her\u2014Dr. Herman Warsaw.\n\nWomen, for unexplained reasons, found him irresistible. He was an odd-looking man. Extremely thin and squinty eyed, Dr. Warsaw was a chain smoker who dressed in baggy suits that made it look like he belonged in an old gangster movie. Years before, he had been a brilliant inventor who made a fortune with a GPS for people to track down their lost pets. A millionaire many times over, he got bored with making money and turned his attention to solving society's problems by enlisting the young people of the world. Then, of course, came 9\/11, when the seeds of his insanity were germinated.\n\n\"She'll be okay,\" Dr. Warsaw proclaimed. \"The heat must have gotten to her. She just needs a little air.\"\n\nHe had actually climbed down from his wheelchair to sit on the grass next to Pep. Somebody handed him a water bottle, and he put it to her lips, cradling her head in his arms like she was an injured puppy.\n\n\"What an adorable young lady,\" he said.\n\nPep, too petrified to move or speak, just stared at him, eyes wide-open. Coke watched from a few feet away, dumbfounded, as his sister was being nursed back to health by the man who had repeatedly tried to murder them.\n\nDr. Warsaw seemed to have matters well in hand, so the other grown-ups drifted away into small groups to do what grown-ups love to do\u2014make small talk. Catch up. Introduce each other. Discuss the weather, as if it mattered. Mrs. McDonald ran over to hug Aunt Judy and congratulate her.\n\nWhen the other grown-ups had become sufficiently distracted, Dr. Warsaw lowered his voice so only the twins could hear.\n\n\"So we meet again,\" he whispered, his voice dripping with hatred. \"I should just choke your sister to death right now, Coke.\"\n\n\"And I should just throw you on that wheelchair and push it down the steps,\" Coke said, \"but that wouldn't look very good in front of all the relatives.\"\n\n\"I never expected you two to make it this far,\" Dr. Warsaw said quietly. \"I thought I had gotten rid of you back in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'll say one thing about you brats. You are quite resourceful.\"\n\n\"And I thought _you_ were dead at The House on the Rock after we pushed you out of The Infinity Room,\" Pep croaked.\n\n\"I almost was, thanks to you little punks!\" Dr. Warsaw whispered. \"Just about every bone in my body broke when I hit the ground. The doctors say I may never walk again.\"\n\n\"Boo-hoo,\" Coke said sarcastically.\n\n\"We were just defending ourselves!\" Pep protested. \"You were trying to kill _us_.\"\n\n\"Yes, and after that you killed my prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Archie. I spent years training that fine young man to carry on with my work. He was the son I never had.\"\n\nTears welled up in Dr. Warsaw's eyes as he talked about Archie Clone.\n\n\"He was trying to kill us too!\" Pep pointed out. \"He was going to drop us on the tip of the Washington Monument!\"\n\n\"Oh, it's always about _you_ , isn't it?\" Dr. Warsaw sputtered, his face clenched. \"Well, listen to me, you spoiled brats, and listen good. The differences between us have nothing to do with The Genius Files program anymore. Now it's personal.\"\n\n\"Wh-what are you gonna do to us?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Right now, sadly, I am in no condition to do anything to you,\" Dr. Warsaw told them. \"But these broken bones will heal soon enough. And when they do, I'm going to track you down like dogs and make you pay for what you did to me and my young friend Archie. Believe me, you're going to wish you never tangled with me.\"\n\n\"We _already_ wish we never tangled with you,\" Pep said. \"You started it!\"\n\n\"Don't argue with him,\" Coke told his sister, \"He's insane!\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Dr. Warsaw said. \"Insanity and genius often go hand in hand.\"\n\n\"Let's blow this pop stand,\" Pep said as she stood up and brushed the grass off her dress.\n\nDr. Warsaw grabbed her wrist roughly before she could get away.\n\n\"Oh, and by the way,\" he said, \"if you say one word about any of this to your parents, I will kill them both. I don't care if we're all related now. Mark my words. You know I do not make idle threats.\"\n\nThe other grown-ups, having run out of small talk, straggled back to get their belongings and say their good-byes. Mrs. McDonald and Aunt Judy were arm in arm, reminiscing about their childhoods.\n\n\"I'm so glad the whole family was able to be here for our special day!\" said Aunt Judy.\n\n\"We wouldn't have missed it for the world,\" replied Mrs. McDonald. \"You two seem so happy together.\"\n\n\"It was love at first sight,\" Aunt Judy gushed. \"The second I set eyes on Hermy, I knew I had met the kindest, sweetest, most wonderful man in the world.\"\n\n\"You are _too_ kind, my love,\" said Dr. Warsaw as he pulled himself back onto the wheelchair.\n\n\"Hermy?\" asked Coke.\n\nPep looked like she might pass out again.\n\n\"You okay, Pep?\" asked her father.\n\n\"I'll survive,\" she said.\n\nDr. Warsaw let out a nervous laugh.\n\n\"I'm glad you had the chance to meet our children,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Now that you and I are family and everything.\"\n\n\"Yeah, family,\" muttered Coke. \"One big, happy family.\"\n\n\"You have two lovely children,\" Dr. Warsaw said, pinching Pep's cheek just a little harder than necessary. \"We had a nice chat just now. I look forward to getting together again very soon.\"\n\n\"Maybe after our honeymoon is over,\" added Aunt Judy. \"We're going to California.\"\n\n\"Well, that's perfect!\" said Dr. McDonald. \"So are we!\"\n\nAfter lots of hugs and kisses all around, Aunt Judy wheeled Dr. Warsaw over to a van that had been specially outfitted with a wheelchair lift. She helped him inside. A dozen cans had been tied with string to the rear bumper and the words JUST MARRIED were written on the back window. All the guests gathered around to wave their good-byes and good wishes to the happy couple while the strains of Elvis Presley's \"Love Me Tender\" played in the background.\n\nAs Aunt Judy was starting up the van, Dr. Warsaw turned his head to make eye contact one last time with Coke and Pep. And as the van was pulling away, he glared at them with the evil eye.\n\n## Chapter 4\n\n## WHAT WOULD LINCOLN DO?\n\n\"What are we gonna do _now_?\" Pep asked her brother as the happy newlyweds drove away.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Coke said glumly.\n\n\"Why do you think Aunt Judy would marry a monster like Dr. Warsaw?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Why did Eva Braun marry Hitler?\" Coke replied. \"Why did Osama Bin Laden have three wives? Why do murderers get marriage proposals in prison? Some women like bad guys.\"\n\nStanding just ten feet away, their mother could no longer hold back her tears\u2014of happiness.\n\n\"Didn't Aunt Judy look beautiful?\" Mrs. McDonald gushed, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. \"I can't believe my little sister is married. She was radiant. And what a great guy! She and Hermy look so happy together.\"\n\n_Hermy._ To Coke and Pep, his nickname sounded like a disease.\n\n\"He seems like a nice fella,\" agreed Dr. McDonald. \"I like the way he got down off that wheelchair and helped Pep after she fainted. Not many people would do that. He must have had a lot of experience taking care of kids.\"\n\nCoke and Pep looked at each other in disbelief.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke said, \"I bet he's taken care of a lot of kids.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald blew her nose into a handkerchief and seemed to be regaining her composure.\n\n\"I feel so sorry for Hermy,\" she said. \"Judy told me he had an accident recently. He broke just about every bone in his body. That's why he was in a wheelchair.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" asked Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"He took a bad fall.\"\n\nCoke leaned over to whisper in Pep's ear. \"Not bad enough.\"\n\nAfter several more minutes, the grown-ups had finished chit-chatting, performing air kisses, and making false promises to stay in touch with each other. The wedding guests started to go their separate ways. Dr. McDonald led the family up the steps for a closer look at the Lincoln Memorial.\n\nWhen they reached the top, the twins stared up in wonder, like every other tourist visiting the shrine for the first time. It isn't until you get close to the statue of our sixteenth president that you realize how imposing it is.\n\n\"It's nineteen feet high,\" Coke told the family, \"and it weighs 175 tons. The sculptor's name was Daniel Chester French.\"\n\n\"Get a life, Mr. Know-It-All,\" said Pep.\n\n\"Be nice to your brother,\" warned Mrs. McDonald.\n\nIt's not easy growing up with a twin who knows _everything_. From a very young age, Coke had been blessed with an eidetic\u2014or photographic\u2014memory. Whether he wanted to or not, he could remember virtually everything he ever read, saw, or heard. To some people, that made Coke an interesting and informed young man. To others, he was an obnoxious blowhard. Sometimes it seemed like his mouth was an endless fountain of useless information, a human search engine with no delete button.\n\nDr. McDonald smiled quietly. As a professor of American history at San Francisco State University, he took a secret delight in Coke's mental prowess.\n\n\"French's original plan called for the statue to be ten feet tall,\" he informed the others, \"but he made it bigger so Lincoln wouldn't be dwarfed by his own monument.\"\n\nThe parents went to read the inscriptions that were carved in the north and south chambers of the memorial. The twins continued staring at Lincoln, who looked down at them with sad eyes.\n\n\"Did you know that five weeks after he became president, the Civil War began?\" Coke told his sister. \"And then, five days after the war was over, he was assassinated.\"\n\n\"It kinda makes our little everyday problems seem trivial,\" Pep said.\n\n\"People have been trying to assassinate us too,\" Coke reminded her. \"That doesn't seem trivial to me.\"\n\nHe was right, and Pep knew it. She couldn't stop looking at the statue. It was like she was trying to make eye contact with a block of marble.\n\n\"What do you think Lincoln would do?\" Pep finally asked her brother, \"I mean, if he was in our shoes?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew,\" he muttered.\n\nThey walked around the memorial to read the inscriptions on the walls. Coke and Pep were both familiar with the Gettysburg Address (\"Four score and seven years ago...\"), but neither of them had ever heard Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. They read it all the way through to the end....\n\n_With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan\u2014to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations._\n\n\"We should keep on going,\" Coke told his sister. \" _That's_ what Lincoln would do. We've got to stick together and strive to finish the work we're in.\"\n\nPep agreed, and the twins hugged each other.\n\nA bunch of tourists were milling around, and a tour guide holding a little American flag was reading from her guidebook to a group of senior citizens gathered around her.\n\n\"As an enduring symbol of freedom,\" she told them, \"the Lincoln Memorial attracts anyone who seeks inspiration and hope.\"\n\n\"That's what _we_ need,\" Pep whispered to her brother. \"Inspiration and hope.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke replied, \"inspiration, hope... and a couple of those Frisbee grenades might come in handy too.\"\n\n## Chapter 5\n\n## A MESSAGE IN THE SKY\n\nAt this point, you're probably wondering when Coke McDonald is going to be thrown into a giant shredder. You may, in fact, be angry that he hasn't been thrown into a giant shredder _yet_. Patience, dear reader! Our story is just beginning. Good things come to those who wait. A promise is a promise, and my promise to you is that before this story is over, Coke will most certainly be thrown into a giant shredder.\n\nThe McDonald family walked north from the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to pay their respects at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Then they crossed Constitution Avenue and wandered around the side streets for a few minutes until they found a little Italian restaurant for an early dinner.\n\nPep was still a bit nervous and on edge about everything that had happened to her up to this point. But oddly enough Coke, who remembered _everything_ , had a way of putting the bad experiences out of his mind and looking toward the future. He was starting to relax.\n\nAnd why shouldn't he? Dr. Warsaw was away on his honeymoon with Aunt Judy. He couldn't do anything to harm anybody. Even if that lunatic wanted to, he was severely injured and in a wheelchair. It would be a long time before he'd be able to walk, much less hurt innocent children.\n\nBy the time Dr. Warsaw's broken bones healed, Coke figured, they'd be back home in California and could deal with him then. In the meantime, they might as well enjoy themselves while they could. That was Coke's attitude.\n\n\"Are you kids excited about the fireworks tonight?\" Dr. McDonald asked as he bit into his second slice of pizza.\n\n\"You know it!\" Coke shouted, giving his dad a high five. He had nearly forgotten that it was the Fourth of July and that there was a big fireworks display on the National Mall.\n\nIt's a fact that making stuff is interesting. Taking stuff apart is also interesting. But destroying stuff and blowing stuff up is _cool_. It doesn't matter what it is\u2014firecrackers, cherry bombs, M-80s, bottle rockets, Roman candles, mortar shells. Anything you can light up that will explode with noise, light, smoke, flames, and flying debris is cool. Coke and his dad had a gleam in their eyes just thinking about the fireworks.\n\nIt's a guy thing.\n\nThat's sexist, I know. And there are exceptions, of course. But in general, it could be said that girls like fuzzy bunnies, puppies, and kittens, while guys like throwing water balloons at each other and setting Ping-Pong balls on fire. Girls get pleasure from shopping and trying on new clothes. Guys prefer watching cars crash into each other at high speed.\n\nI could go on, but you get the idea. We're different. Nothin' wrong with that.\n\nDr. McDonald paid for dinner, and the family walked back to the National Mall. It was already getting crowded on the grass. Some people had camped out for hours so they would get the best view of the fireworks, next to the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial.\n\nMrs. McDonald found an open spot and spread a blanket on the grass. A few kids were throwing footballs around, so Coke pulled his Frisbee out of his backpack and flipped it to his sister. They moved off to the side to have a catch.\n\n\"Fireworks were invented in seventh-century China to frighten evil spirits, y'know,\" Coke informed his sister. \"They would roast bamboo to create a loud bang that would scare away imaginary one-footed monsters.\"\n\n\"Do tell more, O wise one,\" Pep said, rolling her eyes as she purposely flung the Frisbee over her brother's head to make him go chase it.\n\nEver since they left California, she had been getting better and better. Now Pep could effortlessly whip a Frisbee long distances with nearly pinpoint accuracy. She was better than her brother, not that he would ever admit that.\n\n\"Did you know,\" Coke told her, \"that a simple sparkler can get as hot as one thousand degrees Fahrenheit? You can actually melt gold at that temperature.\"\n\n\"I was being sarcastic,\" Pep replied. \"I didn't _really_ want to hear any more about fireworks.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" he replied. \"They're gonna shoot up thirty-three tons of explosives out here tonight! Can you imagine? Thirty-three tons of potassium, zinc, titanium, sulfur, and phosphorus, igniting and exploding before our eyes! How awesome is that gonna be?\"\n\n\"Awesomely awesome,\" Pep said with zero enthusiasm.\n\n\"Y'know,\" Coke continued, \"I heard about some guy who was shooting off rockets in his backyard on the Fourth of July last year. One of them didn't fire right away, so he looked into the tube to see what was wrong. Then the thing fired and it blew his head off! It blew it clean off! He was still standing there five seconds later with no head!\"\n\n\"Will you _shut up_ already?\" Pep shouted. She stopped tossing the Frisbee.\n\n\"Okay, okay!\" Coke said. \"What's your problem?\"\n\n\"It's just that I have a bad feeling\u2014\"\n\nUh-oh. _Feelings._ Those things that girls have. Coke couldn't relate.\n\n\"\u2014I have a feeling something's going to happen during the fireworks show,\" Pep admitted. \"Something bad.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" Coke asked. \"Dr. Warsaw is on his honeymoon. He's not going to bother us here.\"\n\n\"What about those bowler dudes?\" Pep asked. \"They got away in the helicopters. Who knows where they are? And what about Mrs. Higgins? That nutcase is still running around. She could be watching us through binoculars right _now_ for all we know.\"\n\nCoke scanned the perimeter of the Mall, looking for snipers on the rooftops.\n\n\"What are any of them gonna do?\" he asked, satisfied that they were safe.\n\n\"Oh, gee, I don't know,\" Pep said, her voice drenched in sarcasm. \"Let me think. There will be thirty-three tons of chemicals exploding in close proximity to thousands of people. What could a crazy person possibly do? Blow up the Lincoln Memorial? Knock down the Washington Monument? Lob a bomb in the middle of all these people? There are plenty of things they could do!\"\n\n\"I doubt that\u2014\" Coke began.\n\n\"Don't you see?\" Pep continued. \"The Fourth of July is the perfect time for a crazy person to attack us, or _all_ these people. The sky will be lit up with explosions. Nobody would know if there was a _real_ bomb going off at the same time. They'd think it was part of the show.\"\n\n\"Hmmm, I never thought of that,\" Coke admitted.\n\nPep could see the tide was turning. She was winning the argument.\n\n\"Look,\" she said, \"we blew up Archie Clone's helicopter at the Museum of American History. Wasn't that enough fireworks for you?\"\n\n\"That _was_ cool,\" Coke admitted. \"Okay, I see your point. Maybe we should get out of here, just to be on the safe side. Let's go talk it over with Mom and Dad.\"\n\nThe twins went back to the blanket, where their parents were cuddling.\n\n\"Ugh, gross!\" Coke exclaimed, \"Will you two knock it off before I get sick? We don't need to see that.\"\n\n\"What's up, offspring?\" asked Dr. McDonald as he untangled himself from Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"We're tired,\" Pep explained. \"Maybe we should call it a night.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we don't want to stick around for the fireworks,\" Coke said. \"Let's blow this pop stand.\"\n\n\"What?!\" both parents exclaimed.\n\n\"Call it a night? Are you crazy?\" Dr. McDonald roared. \"We're in Washington. It's the Fourth of July. Of _course_ we're going to watch the fireworks. It's a tradition. It's patriotic. It's American.\"\n\n\"Can't we just watch them on TV?\" Pep suggested.\n\n\"Are you kids coming down with something?\" Mrs. McDonald asked as she reached over to touch their foreheads. \"You always loved fireworks back home.\"\n\n\"We've seen them a million times,\" Coke told his parents. \"It's always the same. Bang. Boom. Flash. Big finale. The end.\"\n\n\"We're staying right here, and that's the last\u2014\"\n\nAt that moment, there was a huge explosion in the sky above. While the McDonalds had been arguing about whether or not to stick around and watch the fireworks, darkness had fallen on the Mall. The show had begun.\n\n\"Ooooooooooooh!\" moaned the crowd as the first rocket reached its apogee and exploded in fiery tentacles of red, white, and blue. All eyes turned upward. The National Symphony Orchestra struck up a John Philip Sousa march to accompany the visual display as another rocket was launched. It exploded with a _BOOM_ and lit up the sky with white light. Nobody was going to leave now.\n\n\"Be ready,\" Coke whispered to his sister.\n\nHe pulled a baseball cap over his face and scanned the crowd, looking for guys in bowler hats, evil health teachers, wheelchair-bound lunatics, or anything suspicious. The Mall was jammed with thousands of people now, and any of them could be up to no good.\n\n_\"Ooooooooooooh!\"_ moaned the crowd as ten rockets went up at once. The resulting flash illuminated the Washington Monument in a multicolor display that was as pretty as a postcard. Hundreds of cell phones were pointed at the sky. You couldn't help but feel like you were Francis Scott Key watching the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.\n\n\"You kids don't have to sit with us if you don't want to,\" Mrs. McDonald told the twins. \"We know what a drag it is at your age to hang out with parents.\"\n\n\"Yeah, go have a good time,\" Dr. McDonald said.\n\n\"We don't want to have a good time,\" Pep replied nervously. \"We want to be with you.\"\n\nOver the next half hour, the crowd _ooooh_ ed and _ahhhh_ ed, mesmerized by multicolored pinwheels, twirling circles, bursting stars, smiley faces, hearts, clovers, and American flags lighting up the night. Rockets shot upward and painted the sky with glittery trails of sparks in the shape of waterfalls or weeping willow trees, only to fizzle out and vanish before their embers reached the ground. Little children covered their ears with their hands. The boomers, hummers, crackles, and high-pitched screaming whistles that echoed off the monuments were just too much stimulation for their fragile eardrums.\n\nIf you closed your eyes, it sounded like a war was going on and you were in the middle of the battlefield. The pyrotechnic display was awe inspiring, if you weren't thinking the whole time that you were about to have a bomb drop on your head. Pep went into the fetal position on the ground. She was shaking with fear.\n\nWhen the orchestra kicked into Tchaikovsky's \"1812 Overture,\" everyone knew it was time for the finale. The U.S. Army Herald Trumpets joined in, as did cannon fire from the United States Army Presidential Salute Battery.\n\nWith the final crescendo, dozens of rockets shot up and exploded into the night, leaving only these letters hanging in the sky...\n\nAnd then all was quiet.\n\n\"Huh?\" the crowd seemed to ask as one.\n\n\"What's that mean?\" somebody asked.\n\n\"They must have spelled something wrong,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\nThe meaningless letters hung in the air for a few seconds until they gradually faded away in a twinkling of white sparks.\n\nThe show was over. There was a moment of silence, followed by wild applause and cheering. People started to pick up their lawn chairs, blankets, coolers, and trash.\n\nCoke and Pep didn't clap or cheer. They just felt relief. There had been no _real_ bombs. Nobody had died.\n\n\"Did you just see what I just saw?\" Pep whispered to her brother as they followed the crowd to the exit.\n\n\"That depends on what you just saw,\" he replied.\n\n\"I just saw some letters that didn't make any sense.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" replied Coke, who had already memorized the message in the sky. \"Do you think it was just a mistake?\"\n\n\"No,\" Pep told him. \"I think it was a cipher.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Washington D.C.\n\nIn the B box, type Culpeper VA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 6\n\n## THE BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN\n\nA cipher is a secret message, usually one that can be decoded by substituting or changing the order of the letters. Ever since Coke and Pep left California, they had been receiving a new cipher every few days.\n\nAt first the ciphers were coming from Dr. Warsaw. After his \"accident,\" they were sent by his young madman-in-training, Archie Clone. But Dr. Warsaw was on his honeymoon, and Archie Clone was dead. Who could be sending the twins ciphers _now_? And what could LEVEL VIS I possibly mean?\n\nPep wasn't very good at remembering vast quantities of information like her brother. But she was excellent at analyzing data, and she made a study of it. She had an uncanny ability to take a series of seemingly random letters, numbers, or symbols and rearrange them to reveal their secret meaning.\n\n\"What does LEVEL VIS I mean?\" Coke whispered impatiently as they followed their parents to the Metro station.\n\n\"I don't know yet!\" Pep replied. \"Give me a break, will you? I need to work on it.\"\n\nBy the time they took the train back to the campground, checked out, and made it through the traffic jam getting out of Washington, it was past midnight. The kids had nearly fallen asleep. But they both woke up when the RV crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge and a sign appeared at the side of the road.\n\n\"Woo hoo!\" Coke hooted. \"The Old Dominion State! Did you guys know that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War _both_ ended in Virginia?\"\n\n\"I actually _did_ know that,\" said Dr. McDonald from the driver's seat. \"The Revolution ended with the surrender of Cornwallis in Yorktown. The Civil War ended at Appomattox.\"\n\n\"But I'll bet you didn't know that _eight_ presidents were born in Virginia, Dad,\" Coke continued. \"Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, and Wilson.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Boring,\" Pep told her brother.\n\n\"And the state beverage of Virginia is milk,\" Coke added, just to annoy her.\n\n\"Nobody cares, doofus.\"\n\n\"Don't call your brother a doofus,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\nWith Coke's help, Pep wrote LEVEL VIS I down in her notebook. She began to work on it, juggling the letters around in her head. This was a hard one. It was very late, and Pep was too tired. Soon the notebook and pen had dropped from her hand.\n\nCoke was just about asleep too when Dr. McDonald pulled the RV onto Route 66 heading west. He drove silently for nearly an hour and a half, passing very close to the battlefield of Bull Run and Manassas, splitting off south on Route 15 and 29.\n\nCan you find it on the map? Go ahead, I'll wait.\n\nIt was close to two o'clock in the morning when the RV turned onto the gravel road at Cedar Mountain Campground in Culpeper, Virginia. Coke and Pep didn't wake up. Dr. McDonald parked the RV and checked in at the office. Then he climbed back in and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.\n\n\"Rise and shine!\" Mrs. McDonald hollered cheerfully the next morning, July 5.\n\n\"C'mon, kids,\" Dr. McDonald said, clapping his hands. \"We've got three thousand miles to drive before we get back home again!\"\n\nCoke and Pep groaned and stumbled out of the RV, plopping themselves down at a picnic table for breakfast. Mrs. McDonald had prepared instant oatmeal. There is a fishing pond and other amenities at Cedar Mountain Campground, but it didn't look like they would get the chance to use them.\n\nDr. McDonald had spread out a road map of the United States that covered half the table. He leaned over it, stabbing his finger at the state of Virginia. He looked like a general planning out his next battle.\n\n\"Okay, we took a northern route from California to get to Washington,\" he reminded the twins. \"So we're going to take a southern route going back home. That way we can see a lot more cool stuff.\"\n\nHe traced a potential route with his finger down through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and across Texas through the west.\n\n\"Are we going to visit any more giant balls of twine?\" Pep asked wearily.\n\n\"Of course not!\" her mother replied. \"Been there, done that. I just want to make sure we get to Paris, Texas, where they have a replica of the Eiffel Tower with a giant cowboy hat on top.\"\n\nThe twins rolled their eyes. Mrs. McDonald owned and operated a popular website called _Amazing but True_ that focused on unusual and often ridiculous tourist destinations across the United States. On the trip east, she had insisted that they stop at museums devoted to yo-yos, mustard, Spam, and Pez dispensers. The family also had to visit _two_ giant balls of twine\u2014one in Cawker City, Kansas, and the other in Darwin, Minnesota.\n\nYes, all of these places actually exist. Go ahead and look them up if you don't believe me.\n\nDr. McDonald carefully folded up his map.\n\n\"I chose this campground because the Battle of Cedar Mountain took place just a few miles from here,\" he said. \"The first thing we're going to do today is visit the battlefield.\"\n\n\"Why _this_ one, Dad?\" Coke asked. \"There were over a hundred Civil War battles fought in Virginia.\"\n\n\"Well, you know what they say,\" Dr. McDonald told him, smiling. \"You've got to choose your battles.\"\n\nAfter cleaning up from breakfast and checking out of the campground, they drove a few miles south of Culpeper until they found the site of the Battle of Cedar Mountain. There isn't much there today. Just a large field and a few historical markers.\n\n\"During the Civil War,\" Dr. McDonald told the family, \"the capitals of the Union and the Confederacy were only about a hundred miles away from each other. This is just about the midpoint, so it made sense for them to have a battle here.\"\n\nCoke spotted something at the other end of the field.\n\n\"Look!\" he shouted. \"Some guys are fighting! Cool!\"\n\nDr. McDonald parked the RV and the family ran over to find out what was going on. As they got closer, they could see soldiers in blue and gray uniforms running around, shooting, shouting, loading muskets, falling, and sometimes dying. Or so it seemed, anyway.\n\n\"It's a reenactment,\" Dr. McDonald yelled over the boom of a cannon. \"These guys dress up in Union and Confederate uniforms, and they act out the battle just as it happened back in 1862.\"\n\nIt was a hot day. Pep felt sorry for the \"soldiers,\" who had to wear those heavy uniforms and run around carrying big muskets. Coke was entranced. If there's one thing more interesting than watching stuff explode, it's watching people pretending to shoot at each other.\n\nThe soldiers on both sides would advance and then form a wide line to aim and fire their muskets. It took about a minute for them to reload after each shot and fire again. Some of them fell to the ground. It was exciting and loud.\n\n\"It seems like a dumb way to fight,\" Coke commented.\n\n\"Remember, they didn't have airplanes and bombs and unmanned drones in those days,\" Dr. McDonald told him. \"They fought the way they were told to fight, using the technology that was available at the time.\"\n\nIt was hard to tell who was winning. Soldiers on both sides were getting \"hit\" and dropping in their tracks. When the battle was over, the \"dead\" soldiers got up, brushed themselves off, and got a nice round of applause from the tourists who were milling around. The McDonalds and a few other families gathered around to chat with the reenactors. One of the Confederates explained that he participated in battle reenactments every few weekends to honor the soldiers who fought so hard during the Civil War and to keep their memory alive.\n\n\"Stonewall Jackson led our troops,\" he said. \"Nine months later, the Battle of Chancellorsville took place not far from here. One of our guys mistook Stonewall for a Union officer and fired a volley at him. A bullet shattered his arm, and it had to be amputated just below the shoulder. Then they buried the arm in its own grave.\"\n\n\"Wow,\" Coke said, fascinated.\n\nThe reenactor told the twins that when Robert E. Lee heard what happened to Stonewall, he said, \"He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.\"\n\n\"That's so sad,\" said Pep.\n\n\"Yeah, it was even sadder when Stonewall died eight days later,\" said the reenactor. \"War ain't pretty, young lady. In fact, it's pretty ugly.\"\n\nThe show was over. It was odd to watch the Civil War reenactors pack up their gear and load it into minivans in the parking lot. The twins were hot and thirsty, and Dr. McDonald gave them a few dollars to buy cold drinks at a little snack truck. Coke and Pep got in line behind two people dressed as Union soldiers.\n\n\"What can I get you?\" asked the lady in the truck.\n\n\"I'll have a Coke,\" said Coke.\n\n\"I'd like a Pepsi,\" said Pep.\n\nThey paid for their drinks and moved off to the side. But no sooner had they taken their first sips when two hands clapped over their faces.\n\n\"Keep your mouths shut!\" a gruff voice muttered.\n\n\"But we didn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nCoke felt a pillowcase being pulled down over his head. His arms were pinned to his sides. He struggled to free himself, but there was nothing he could do. He felt himself being dragged into the woods.\n\n\"We're gonna die!\" Pep tried to yell. \"I knew it! We're gonna die!\"\n\n## Chapter 7\n\n## THE COAST IS CLEAR\n\nCoke and Pep were lowered to the ground more gently than they expected. When they ripped the pillowcases off their heads, their kidnappers had familiar faces.\n\n\"Bones!\" shouted Coke.\n\n\"Mya!\" shouted Pep.\n\nNow, if you had read the first two Genius Files books, you would know that Bones and Mya are on the side of goodness and niceness. They once worked for Dr. Warsaw to start The Genius Files project but quit when he lost his mind and became determined to kill off all the children. At that point, they made it their mission to help Coke, Pep, and any other Genius Filers who were being pursued by Dr. Warsaw or his henchman.\n\nThat's okay, you know it now. The important thing is that Bones and Mya are friends and had already saved the twins' lives several times.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" Pep asked as she hugged them.\n\n\"We came to see you two,\" Mya told her. \"We have good news.\"\n\n\"It's about time,\" Coke said.\n\n\"We've intercepted several text messages over the last few days,\" Bones reported, looking around to make sure they were alone. \"Dr. Warsaw, it seems, is genuinely head over heels in love with your aunt Judy and is no longer interested in hurting children. Love will do that to a man. He's as harmless as a puppy dog now.\"\n\n\"And we've also heard that Mrs. Higgins and those bowler dudes are out of the assassination business,\" Mya said. \"So you can rest easy.\"\n\nPep, for one, wasn't buying it.\n\n\"Can you trust those text messages you intercepted?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke added, \"how do we know there aren't any _new_ enemies out to get us? Like that Archie Clone jerk. He came out of the woodwork.\"\n\n\"I can't offer any guarantees,\" Bones told them, \"but I'm pretty confident the coast is clear. You can live your lives. You don't need us anymore.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, just in case, how about giving us something to defend ourselves?\" asked Coke. \"Like a few of those cool Frisbee grenades, like the one we used to blow up Archie Clone's helicopter?\"\n\n\"We can't do that,\" Mya said, reaching into her handbag. \"The Frisbee grenades cost fifty thousand dollars each. But we did bring you a little good-bye present.\"\n\nShe pulled out a small plastic jar with some kind of liquid inside.\n\n\"What is it?\" Pep asked.\n\nMya unscrewed the top of the jar and pulled out a little black wand with a circle at the end. She dipped it into the liquid and blew on it. Bubbles floated through the air.\n\n\"You got us... _bubbles_?\" Pep was incredulous.\n\n\"I know,\" Coke said. \"They're probably _exploding_ bubbles, right? You blow them into some bad guy's face and... boom... his _head_ is blown off! That is ingenious! Thanks. I can't wait to try this out.\"\n\n\"Uh, they're not exploding bubbles,\" Bones said. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"No? Oh, I get it,\" said Coke. \"The bubbles are filled with poison gas, right? You blow one and when it pops, your enemy inhales the gas and drops dead instantly, right? Cool! What will you people think of next?\"\n\n\"There's no poison gas in the bubbles, Coke,\" Mya told him.\n\n\"Maybe the poison gas just puts you to sleep?\" Coke suggested. \"Or into a coma. That is _awesome_!\"\n\n\"No, the only gas in the bubbles is oxygen,\" Mya explained. \"They're just plain old _bubbles_. We picked them up in a gift shop. You blow them. They float around. They're pretty. We thought you'd like them. Just be careful not to get them in your eyes. The soap stings like the dickens.\"\n\n\"Gee, thanks a _lot_ ,\" Coke said, taking the jar. \"Now that I have bubbles, I can defend the free world. I feel a lot safer.\"\n\n\"We already told you,\" Mya said, \"the coast is clear. You don't have to worry anymore.\"\n\n\"What about the cipher we received?\" Pep asked. \"LEVEL VIS I. It was part of the Fourth of July fireworks show we saw in Washington.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's a cipher,\" Mya said. \"It sounds more like a typo or something.\"\n\n\"Even if it was a cipher,\" Bones told them, \"how do you know it was meant for _you_? There were thousands of people there yesterday. The message, if there was one, could have been intended for _anybody_ in that crowd.\"\n\n\"I guess you're right,\" Pep said.\n\n\"Well, I just wanted to say that it has been a pleasure working with you two,\" Bones said. \"Our job is done now. We wish you the best of luck in your future, wherever it may lead you.\"\n\nAfter a group hug, the twins ran back to the RV, where their parents were waiting.\n\n\"Where were you two?\" Mrs. McDonald said sternly. \"You were just supposed to go get sodas. We were looking all over.\"\n\nThere was a time when the twins would tell a lie to get out of trouble, but that never worked. They would forget the lie they had told, or it would be proven not to be true. At some point, Coke decided it was simply easier to tell the truth.\n\n\"We were kidnapped by a couple of Union soldiers at the snack truck,\" he explained. \"They put pillowcases over our heads and dragged us in the woods. Then they gave us this jar of soap bubbles.\"\n\n\"Ha ha! That's a good one,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"You kids crack me up.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Culpeper VA.\n\nIn the B box, type Luray VA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 8\n\n## A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION\n\n\"That Civil War reenactment was cool,\" Pep said as Dr. McDonald pulled the RV onto Route 522 out of Culpeper.\n\nMrs. McDonald smiled to herself as she leafed through her Virginia guidebook. She loved it when an activity she had chosen was enjoyable to the whole family. It's usually hard to please everybody, and especially the kids. They usually hated everything, or _said_ they did, anyway.\n\nIt was close to noon, and the temperature had climbed past ninety. Dr. McDonald always tried to avoid running the air conditioner because it robbed the RV\u2014which already guzzled gas\u2014of mileage. But on this day, he shut the windows and turned up the AC. Coke and Pep munched on trail mix Mrs. McDonald had prepared earlier.\n\n\"Y'know, we should go to George Washington's home, Mount Vernon,\" suggested Dr. McDonald, \"and Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. I don't think they're too far from here.\"\n\n\" _Everybody_ goes to those places, Ben,\" Mrs. McDonald said dismissively.\n\n\"Everybody goes to those places because they're places worth _going_ to,\" Dr. McDonald replied. \"Do you know why the Pez museum and the Spam museum were so empty? Because nobody wants to go there. Nobody _cares_ about Pez or Spam.\"\n\nCoke and Pep sat in the back, pretending not to be drinking in every word. As you know, it's always interesting to listen to your parents fighting.\n\nIn any case, Mount Vernon and Monticello were not exactly on the route Mrs. McDonald had plotted out. They were heading west through Virginia now, on Route 522.\n\n\"Hey, guess what they have near Fredericksburg?\" Mrs. McDonald suddenly asked.\n\n\"A lot of guys named Frederick?\" Coke guessed.\n\n\"No,\" his mother said, \"a tomb with Stonewall Jackson's arm in it!\"\n\n\"His _arm_?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"Yes! Remember they told us that his arm had to be amputated after he got shot in the Civil War? The soldier wasn't joking. The arm has its own grave near Fredericksburg.\"\n\n\"I guess they disarmed him,\" cracked Coke.\n\n\"Very funny,\" Dr. McDonald said.\n\n\"That would be great for _Amazing but True_ , Mom,\" Pep said. \"The burial site of an arm.\"\n\n\"Hey, do you think Stonewall Jackson read _A Farewell to Arms_ before he died?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"That book hadn't even been written when he died,\" Mrs. McDonald told him.\n\n\"It was a _joke_ , Mom.\" Coke rolled his eyes. He made a mental note to work on his theory that after the age of thirty, the part of the brain that controls sense of humor withers away and dies.\n\n\"We should totally go there,\" Pep said. \"I want to see it.\"\n\n\"We're heading _west_ ,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Fredericksburg is an hour east of here. I'm not driving an hour out of my way to see an arm.\"\n\n\"You can't see the arm itself, dear,\" Mrs. McDonald told him. \"You would just see the gravesite where the arm is buried.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not driving an hour out of my way to see the _gravesite_ of an arm.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald sighed. Her website received over a million hits a week, which made her the main breadwinner of the family (that means she makes more money). Dr. McDonald was a history professor at San Francisco State University who wrote scholarly books like _The Impact of Coal on the Industrial Revolution_. Sadly, the average person is more interested in Spam and Pez than they are in coal. It was the advertising revenue from _Amazing but True_ that paid for the trip. So when it came to deciding what places they would visit, Mrs. McDonald usually called the shots.\n\nBut not this time. Dr. McDonald didn't put his foot down often, but when he did, there was no more argument. And he was doing all the driving, which counted for something.\n\n\"It's a _historic_ arm, honey,\" Mrs. McDonald said, giving it one last try. \"It's Stonewall Jackson's arm.\"\n\n\"I don't care if it's Vincent Van Gogh's ear!\" Dr. McDonald said, raising his voice. \"I'm not driving an hour out of my way to see the gravesite of a body part. If it was his _whole_ body, maybe I'd think about it.\"\n\nAnd that was the end of that.\n\nBut it was okay, because there are a lot of other amazing but true places in the state of Virginia. You probably don't know this, dear reader, but in Arlington, Virginia, there's an eighteen-foot-tall mermaid carved into a tree. In Bealeton, there's a giant roller skate outside a roller rink. There's a house built out of old tombstones in Petersburg. There's a big watering can outside a garden center in Alexandria. And the birthplace of George Washington's mother is in Alfonso.\n\n\"You have to set your priorities,\" Dr. McDonald kept repeating. \"We can't see everything.\"\n\nWhile his parents argued back and forth in the front seat, Coke blew some bubbles with the jar Bones and Mya had given him. Pep pulled out her notebook. She had been thinking about the cipher they received at the end of the Fourth of July fireworks, but so far had not been able to solve it. She stared at the letters again.\n\n**LEVEL VIS I**\n\nWhat could _that_ mean? She tried all the usual code-breaking strategies\u2014reverse letters, every other letter, every second letter. Nothing worked.\n\nShe sighed and put the notebook away. If Bones and Mya were right, it didn't matter anyway. Nobody was chasing them now. They could relax.\n\n\"Hit the brakes, Ben!\" Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted.\n\n\"What?\" Dr. McDonald shouted, stomping his foot on the pedal. \"Did we run over an animal?\"\n\n\"No! Look!\"\n\nThere was a large sign at the side of the road.\n\n\"Caves are cool,\" Coke said, \"in more ways than one. Fifty-four degrees, twenty-four hours a day.\"\n\n\"Let's go!\" Pep shouted.\n\nThey pulled into the parking lot. Dr. McDonald paid the admission and got four sets of audio guides, two for the kids and two for the grown-ups.\n\n\"Meet you in the gift shop at the end of the tour,\" Mrs. McDonald told the kids.\n\n\"How do you know there's going to be a gift shop, Mom?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"There's _always_ a gift shop.\"\n\nCoke and Pep put on their headphones and walked down a long series of stairs, ramps, and brick paths until they had reached the entrance to the caverns, deep within the earth. It was pitch-dark except for some tiny lights on the floor to help people find their way. The twins held on to the handrail for safety.\n\n\"This place is creepy,\" Pep said. But Coke was listening to the lady's voice on the audio guide....\n\n_You are about to enter Luray Caverns. Welcome. On the morning of August 13, 1878, a tinsmith named Andrew Campbell was walking with a candle on a hill west of Luray, Virginia. Suddenly, cold air rushing out of a limestone sinkhole blew out the candle. That was the day Luray Caverns was discovered._\n\n\"Does that voice sound familiar to you?\" Pep asked her brother. But with his own headset on, he couldn't hear her.\n\nThe path turned a corner and opened up to a spellbinding sight\u2014a gigantic \"room\" filled with majestic stalactites and stalagmites of all sizes. Multicolored lights had been strategically hidden to illuminate the rock formations and throw off spooky shadows. Some of the stalactites slowly dripped water into a \"dream lake\" that formed a mirror image of the formations above it. Coke and Pep stood there openmouthed. It was like a magical world.\n\n_The formations you see are calcite, a crystalline form of limestone. Caves result from a simple formula\u2014a layer of limestone, a mildly acidic mixture of water and carbon dioxide, and time\u2014millions of years._\n\n\"I could _swear_ I've heard that voice before,\" Pep muttered.\n\nThey walked through several other chambers until they reached one that was called the Cathedral. In this room they found the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the world's largest musical instrument. The lady on the audio guide explained that it took thirty-six years to connect rubber-tipped mallets to hundreds of stalactites in this cave. When the mallets are struck, it creates a sound unlike anything else in the world.\n\nThe voice on the audio guide paused, and eerie, haunting music began to play all around them. The hairs on Pep's arm stood up. She was beginning to get one of those feelings she gets\u2014the feeling that something was terribly wrong.\n\nThe twins were alone in the Cathedral Room. Or so they thought.\n\nCoke felt a tap on his shoulder.\n\nHe turned around.\n\nIt was Mrs. Higgins.\n\n## Chapter 9\n\n## A PASSION FOR SPELUNKING\n\nYes, Mrs. Higgins\u2014the germ-phobic and psychotic health teacher who had set the twins' school on fire, chased them through The House on the Rock, forced them to cause a riot at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and tried to blow their eardrums out at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland! She still had a scar across her neck from when they had clotheslined her with a ball of twine in Wisconsin.\n\nCoke and Pep involuntarily recoiled in horror at the sight of the tall woman, backing up against the clammy cave wall.\n\n(I know what you're thinking, dear reader. You're thinking that Mrs. Higgins is going to throw Coke into a giant shredder. But that's not what happened at all.)\n\n\"Well, if it isn't the McDonald twins!\" Mrs. Higgins said, smiling sweetly. \"Fancy meeting you two here.\"\n\n\"It was _you_!\" Pep said, pointing at her. \"You're the voice on the audio tour!\"\n\n\"Guilty as charged,\" she replied. \"How did I sound?\"\n\n\"Don't touch us!\" Coke warned. \"I'm warning you. I have a brown belt in karate.\"\n\n\"Congratulations,\" Mrs. Higgins said. \"Don't worry. I never touch the visitors. That is strictly forbidden by company rules.\"\n\nShe took a step back and held up both hands to prove that she had no weapon.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" Pep demanded. \"Why do you keep showing up wherever we go?\"\n\n\"I work here, dear,\" Mrs. Higgins said. \"I'm just trying to make a living. I got laid off when the school burned down, you know.\"\n\n\"You burned the school down _yourself_!\" Coke shouted at her.\n\n\"Believe me, it's not easy getting a job these days,\" said Mrs. Higgins. \"The economy is terrible.\"\n\n\"You can't fool us,\" Pep said. \"You work for Dr. Warsaw. You're in love with him, and you'll do _anything_ he says to make him happy, including killing innocent kids. You're a paid assassin!\"\n\nMrs. Higgins put her hand over her heart, as if taken aback by the accusation. She appeared to get misty-eyed at the mention of Dr. Warsaw's name.\n\n\"Okay, I did do a little, shall we say, _freelancing_ , for Dr. Warsaw,\" she admitted. \"But those days are over. He's married now, and I finally had to admit that he never really loved me in the first place. In the end, he had me stealing hats for that kid who looked like Archie from the comics. It was pathetic what I did for that man's approval, to be honest with you.\"\n\nShe wiped a tear from her eye, and Pep found herself feeling a small degree of sympathy for Mrs. Higgins. She almost wanted to give her a hug.\n\n\"She's lying,\" Coke told his sister. \"Don't fall for that crap, Pep.\"\n\n\"I was going through a phase back then,\" Mrs. Higgins said, her eyes brightening. \"But those days are in the past. Now I have a new passion\u2014spelunking!\"\n\n\"Spelunking?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Exploring caves.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you for a _second_ ,\" Coke said. \"We trusted you the last time. And now we're supposed to believe that you just _happened_ to get a job at Luray Caverns when we're here, just like you _happened_ to get the job at Wrigley Field when we were in Chicago? Give me a break.\"\n\n\"You can believe whatever you want, Coke,\" said Mrs. Higgins. \"But look, if I wanted to harm you two, I could do it right now, couldn't I?\"\n\nShe turned around and made a sweeping gesture across the Cathedral Room with her arm.\n\n\"You see these stalagmites?\" she continued. \"Some of them are sharper than a razor. How easy it would be for me to grab one of you and push you down on top of one.\"\n\nMrs. Higgins had a glassy look in her eye. Coke and Pep took a step backward.\n\n\"That's all it would take,\" Mrs. Higgins went on, \"a little shove. One of these stalagmites could pierce through human flesh like a knife through butter. All I would have to tell my boss would be, 'Oops! It was an accident. These crazy kids were roughhousing with each other. I tried to stop them, but you know how kids are.'\"\n\nShe seemed to get excited thinking about pushing somebody onto a stalagmite.\n\n\"Or maybe I could do it over in the back corner there, where it's dark,\" she said. \"You'd get impaled on two stalagmites, and I'd just leave you there to rot. They wouldn't find you for _years_. Eventually your bodies would calcify and you would become part of the caverns.\"\n\nShe had a wistful look on her face, like she was recalling a fond memory. Then she shook her head to clear it.\n\n\"But of course, I don't do that anymore,\" Mrs. Higgins said. \"I'm turning over a new leaf, as they say.\"\n\nPep grabbed Coke by the elbow.\n\n\"Let's blow this pop stand,\" she whispered, dragging her brother toward the exit.\n\n\"Hey, did you send us a cipher at the Fourth of July fireworks?\" Coke asked as they were leaving.\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Liar!\"\n\n\"Bye now!\" Mrs. Higgins called after them sweetly. \"It was so nice to see you! Do come again! Watch your step on your way out. I don't want anyone to get _hurt_.\"\n\nThen she broke into a cackling laugh.\n\nCoke and Pep ran out of there two steps at a time.\n\n## Chapter 10\n\n## AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE\n\nCoke and Pep came running through the Luray Caverns gift shop like they were in the Olympics, almost knocking over a rotating rack of miniature license plates with people's first names on them.\n\n(Does anybody ever _buy_ those things? Oh, never mind.)\n\n\"Don't you want to get souvenirs?\" their mother asked as they dashed through. \"That way you'll have something to remember this place.\"\n\n\"Oh, we'll remember it,\" Pep said. \"Can we please get out of here now?\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Luray VA.\n\nIn the B box, type Mount Solon VA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nDr. McDonald pulled out of the parking lot and found his way to Route 211 heading west. Mrs. McDonald got out of her seat and busied herself in the little RV kitchen, making sandwiches for everyone's lunch.\n\nIt was pretty country outside, but Coke and Pep didn't pay much attention to the scenery rushing by the window. Both of the twins had been freaked out by the encounter with Mrs. Higgins in the underground cave.\n\nMaybe she was harmless now, they thought. After all, she didn't threaten them or make any move to hurt them. But still, it was hard to trust someone with her track record.\n\nCoke turned on his iPod and bobbed his head to the music. Pep settled her mind down by pulling out her notebook and working on the message she had seen in the sky at the Fourth of July fireworks.\n\n**LEVEL VIS I**\n\nShe wrote each letter on a smaller scrap of paper and juggled the scraps around, as if they were on a Scrabble rack....\n\n**I SELL VIVE**\n\n**LISLE VIVE**\n\n**ILL VIS EVE**\n\n**VEILS VEIL**\n\n**LIVE LIVES**\n\nNo luck. Pep was getting frustrated. It didn't usually take her this long to crack a cipher.\n\nAfter about twelve miles on Route 211, Dr. McDonald merged onto a big interstate highway, I-81 heading south. Mrs. McDonald passed around her sandwiches.\n\n\"Hey kids!\" she said, \"guess what we're going to see this afternoon?\"\n\n\"Another giant ball of twine?\" guessed Coke.\n\n\"No. The National Jousting Hall of Fame!\"\n\n\"Jousting?\" asked Pep. \"You mean, like, with horses?\"\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\n\"That's stupid,\" Pep said. \"Who wants to watch two idiots charge at each other on horseback with long pointy poles?\"\n\nCoke and Dr. McDonald raised their hands. Again, it's a guy thing.\n\nThey pulled off the highway at exit 240 and drove by some rolling hills and lovely Virginia farmland until they reached the little town of Mount Solon, where the National Jousting Hall of Fame is located.\n\nWell, to be honest, the Hall of Fame is really just one dusty room in the Natural Chimneys Regional Park visitor center. But it is for real. Go ahead and look it up if you don't believe me.\n\n\"What could they possibly have in a jousting hall of fame?\" Pep asked as she opened the door.\n\nNot much, really. Inside, there was a suit of armor, a mannequin dressed like a medieval page, and some lances. Though disappointed, Mrs. McDonald dutifully took notes and photos for _Amazing but True_.\n\nA little sign said that jousting demonstrations were given in the park behind the visitors' center. The McDonalds went out back and were fortunate that the demonstration was just about to begin. Two men were on horseback, covered head to toe in armor. You couldn't even see their faces. A small group of families had gathered around them.\n\n\"Jousting is one of the world's oldest sports,\" one of the jousters said. \"Do any of you kids know anything about jousting?\"\n\n\"Medieval knights would charge toward each other and try to knock the other guy off his horse,\" Coke said. \"They were usually trying to win a fair maiden's hand.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" the second jouster said. \"But today, jousting is a regular sport.\"\n\nHe explained that they use a series of small rings, which are suspended vertically from a metal rod. A jouster on horseback will charge eighty feet down a straight track and try to \"catch\" the rings at the end of his wooden lance. As jousters get better at it, the rings become smaller and harder to spear.\n\n\"Do those guys sound familiar to you?\" Pep whispered to her brother while one of the jousters showed people his lance.\n\n\"No, why?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"I think I've heard their voices before.\"\n\n\"You're nuts.\"\n\n\"Jousters come from all over the world for our annual tournament,\" the first jouster continued. \"It's getting more and more popular each year. In fact, jousting is the official sport of Maryland. Would any of you like to learn how to do it?\"\n\n\"No thanks,\" Coke said. \"We just had lunch, and my mother told me never to joust on a full stomach.\"\n\nPeople laughed, but nobody volunteered.\n\n\"Then we'll show you how it's done,\" said the second jouster.\n\nHe gave the reins a snap, and his horse galloped down the road, then turned around and charged back. He was holding his lance out in front of him, and at the last second he aimed it for the ring that was suspended over the road. He speared it cleanly and got a nice round of applause.\n\nAfter the jousters had repeated that a few times, they jumped off their horses and took a bow. The crowd dispersed, and the two jousters led their horses toward the stables at the far end of the field.\n\n\"Mom, can we get their autographs?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"What do you want their autographs for?\" she replied. \"They're not famous or anything.\"\n\n\"Who cares?\" Coke said. \"They're cool. They _should_ be famous.\"\n\n\"An autograph would make a great souvenir,\" Pep said. \"It would give us something to remember this by.\"\n\n\"Okay, go ahead, if you want,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Dad and I will be in the RV.\"\n\nBy the time the twins made it out to the stables, the two jousters had already peeled off their suits of armor. They hadn't taken off their helmets yet.\n\n\"Can we have your autographs?\" Pep asked, holding out her notebook and a pen.\n\n\"Sure!\"\n\nThe jousters signed Pep's notebook and handed it back to her. Then they pulled off their heavy steel helmets and replaced them with... bowler hats!\n\nCoke and Pep freaked.\n\n\"It's you!\" Coke shouted. \"The bowler dudes!\"\n\n\"At your service,\" said the bowler dude with a mustache.\n\n\"Run, Pep!\"\n\nI know what you're thinking, dear reader. You're thinking that the bowler dudes are going to kidnap Coke and throw him into a giant shredder they have stored in the stables. But you're wrong. Totally wrong. In fact, the twins didn't even run away. There was something about the genuine, twinkling smiles on the bowler dudes' faces that kept Coke and Pep from bolting.\n\n\"You're killers!\" Coke shouted, pointing an accusing finger at both of the bowler dudes. \"You tried to kill us at the singing sand dunes in Nevada! You grabbed us at The House on the Rock in Wisconsin!\"\n\n\"Relax!\" said the clean-shaven bowler dude. \"My brother and I are out of that business.\"\n\n\"He's lying!\" Coke told his sister. \"Don't believe a word of it, Pep!\"\n\n\"My brother is telling the truth,\" said the mustachioed bowler dude. \"After Archie died and Dr. Warsaw got married, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Mrs. Higgins became a spelunker. Then we heard about this place. It's a great way for us to blow off steam and practice our art\u2014the art of jousting.\"\n\n\"That's a lotta bull,\" said Pep. \"We're not falling for that.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it's true, sweetheart,\" said the mustachioed bowler dude. \"We're all about the rings now.\"\n\nCoke peered into his eyes, as if that would enable him to see into the man's soul. The guy looked so sincere.\n\n\"You expect us to believe that it's just a _coincidence_ that you're here at the same time that we're here?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"The coincidence is that _you're_ here at the same time that _we're_ here, sweetheart,\" said the clean-shaven bowler dude. \"Are you sure you're not following us around?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Pep exclaimed.\n\n\"People _are_ capable of changing, you know,\" said his mustachioed brother.\n\n\"Why should we trust you?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Well, look at it this way,\" the mustachioed bowler dude said, picking up his lance. \"See this? It's seven feet long. The end is quite sharp, as you can see. Nobody's around. If I wanted to, right now I could take this lance and thrust it into your heart. You would be dead almost instantly. But I'm not doing that, am I?\"\n\nHe put down the lance and straightened his tie. The twins were still not convinced.\n\n\"Did you send us a cipher at the Fourth of July fireworks?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"A cipher?\" both of the bowler dudes replied. \"What's a cipher?\"\n\n\"C'mon, Pep, let's blow this pop stand.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Mount Solon VA.\n\nIn the B box, type Lexington VA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 11\n\n## DREAMING HAPPY DREAMS\n\nCoke and Pep didn't know what to think anymore. After his marriage to Aunt Judy in Washington, Dr. Warsaw had vowed that he was going to get them, but there had been no attempt on their lives since then. Mrs. Higgins could have easily harmed them at Luray Caverns, but she didn't. The bowler dudes could have finished them off at the Jousting Hall of Fame but didn't lay a hand on them. Maybe Bones and Mya had been right. Maybe nobody was trying to kill them anymore.\n\nBy this time, it was late afternoon. Dr. McDonald was determined to make it through the state of Virginia and stop for the night at a campground somewhere near the state line. He stayed on rural roads heading south out of Mount Solon until he was able to merge on I-81 and push the RV to seventy miles per hour. They were making good time. Soon they passed the exit for Lexington, Virginia.\n\n\"Hey, you'll never believe what they have in Lexington!\" Mrs. McDonald said, paging through her guidebook.\n\n\"What?\" everyone asked.\n\n\"Stonewall Jackson's grave!\" she replied. \"Not just his arm. His real gravesite!\"\n\n\"You're kidding me!\" Coke exclaimed. \"For real?\"\n\n\"Yes, and his stuffed horse, Little Sorrel, is in Lexington too,\" Mrs. McDonald said.\n\n\"We should go!\" Pep exclaimed.\n\nIn the driver's seat, Dr. McDonald rolled his eyes. Soon it would be dark out, and the thought of driving to the next exit and finding his way back to Lexington didn't appeal to him.\n\nBesides, a grave is a grave. To him, the location of a person's remains was not as important as the location where they lived their life, where they achieved their accomplishments.\n\n\"I wish somebody had mentioned that before we passed the Lexington exit,\" he announced. \"There might not be another exit for miles. I don't want to go back now.\"\n\n\"That's not fair, Ben!\" protested Mrs. McDonald. \"When we were near the gravesite of Stonewall Jackson's _arm_ , you said you didn't want to go because it was just his arm. You said you'd go if it was the gravesite of his whole body! And now we get to the gravesite of his whole body and you don't want to go there either.\"\n\n\"But it's _not_ the gravesite of his whole body,\" Dr. McDonald replied. \"It's missing an arm.\"\n\n\"Ben, that's not fair!\"\n\nCoke laughed, but Pep just listened in silence, worried. Her parents had certainly been arguing a lot lately. Usually they got along pretty well. Maybe they had just been pretending all that time. Maybe being cooped up together in this RV for so long had brought out the problems in their relationship. Maybe they really didn't love each other. Maybe they were going to get a _divorce_.\n\nA foul mood settled over the family as they drove south on I-81. Mrs. McDonald had been planning to stop off in a town called Natural Bridge to visit the Virginia Safari Park. But now she was afraid to even bring it up. She turned on the radio to break up the awkward silence.\n\n\"Next month is Elvis Month,\" boomed the DJ, \"as we celebrate the life and remember the tragic passing of The King. But I just can't wait, so here's a little taste of Elvis right now....\"\n\n\"Blue Suede Shoes\" blasted out of the speakers.\n\nPep was only half listening to the radio, but suddenly her eyebrows went up and her eyes opened wide. She reached for her pad and rifled through the pages until she found her notes on the cipher that she had been trying so hard to solve.\n\n**LEVEL VIS I**\n\nOf _course_! She fiddled with the letters for just a few moments, then wrote something down. Then she punched Coke in the shoulder and whispered in his ear, \"I got it!\"\n\n\"You got what?\"\n\nShe showed him what she had written.\n\n**ELVIS LIVE**\n\n\"LEVEL VIS I is ELVIS LIVE,\" she whispered excitedly. \"It's so simple! I don't know why I didn't see it before.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but what does ELVIS LIVE mean?\"\n\n\"It wasn't any secret message directed at us,\" Pep told him. \"It was probably just an ad for some Elvis impersonator show! They must have mixed up the letters.\"\n\n\"But why would they put an ad for an Elvis impersonator show at the end of the fireworks?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Who knows? Who cares?\" said Pep. \"What matters is that Bones and Mya were right. Nobody is trying to kill us anymore. Not Dr. Warsaw. Not the bowler dudes. Not Mrs. Higgins. And certainly not Archie Clone. It's all over. We're in the clear!\"\n\nIt was nighttime when the McDonalds finally pulled into Paradise Lake and Campground just north of Danville, Virginia. They had a quick bite to eat, and then the twins got ready for bed.\n\nThey had made it almost all the way through the state of Virginia. There had been no attempts on their lives since Archie Clone had tried to drop them on the Washington Monument. For the first time in a long time, Coke and Pep felt totally secure. They slept soundly, dreaming happy dreams and looking forward to the rest of the summer and the rest of their carefree lives.\n\nThey had no idea that terrible, horrible, violent things were about to start happening to them. And one of them, of course, was going to involve a shredder.\n\n## Chapter 12\n\n##  ESSE QUAM VIDERI!\n\nCoke and Pep woke up on the morning of July 6 to the smell of waffles. Mrs. McDonald was attempting to make them on the barbecue grill outside the RV, which was a complete disaster. But the rest of the family had to give her an A for effort. Even bad waffles taste pretty good.\n\n\"I wonder how Aunt Judy and her new husband are doing,\" Mrs. McDonald said as they ate. \"Maybe I should give her a call.\"\n\n\"They're on their honeymoon,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Leave them alone.\"\n\nThe twins didn't want to think about Dr. Warsaw. They ran off to explore the campground, which had its own lake, with swimming, fishing, and paddleboats. They chose badminton instead and played just long enough to remind themselves how boring badminton was. Then it was back on the road\u2014Route 29 heading south out of Danville. Life was good. It was going to be a jam-packed day.\n\n\"What fascinating tourist attraction will we be visiting today, parental units?\" Coke asked cheerfully. \"I'm up for anything.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we don't care,\" his sister said. \"I would even go to another museum.\"\n\n\"Isn't this the best vacation we ever had?\" Coke added. \"I'm having such a good time.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" Pep added. \"Driving cross-country is way better than going to Disney World or some lame theme park.\"\n\nTheir parents looked at each other suspiciously. Neither could remember the last time the twins had been so cheery and full of enthusiasm about _anything_. Maybe when they were in second grade. Something _had_ to be up.\n\n\"You kids seem awfully chipper today,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Did Mom put happy pills in your Corn Flakes?\"\n\n\"We didn't even _eat_ Corn Flakes today, Dad,\" Pep told him, rolling her eyes. \"We had waffles. You know that.\"\n\n\"It was just an expression.\"\n\n\"Corn Flakes are an expression?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"We're just in a good mood,\" Pep said, the cheerfulness already gone from her voice. \"Aren't we allowed to be in a good mood once in a while? Now you're bumming me out.\"\n\nAnd... it was over. The moment had passed. Back to normal.\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Danville VA.\n\nIn the B box, type High Point NC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n\"That's the teenagers I know,\" Mrs. McDonald muttered.\n\nThe family had only been on the road for a few minutes when a sign came into view.\n\n\"Woo-hoo!\" yelled Coke. _\"Esse quam videri!\"_\n\n\"What does that mean?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"How should I know?\" her brother replied. \"I don't understand Latin. But it's the North Carolina state motto.\"\n\n\"You memorized the state motto in Latin even though you don't understand the language?\" Pep asked. \"That's demented.\"\n\n\"Don't call your brother demented,\" yelled Dr. McDonald from the driver's seat.\n\n\"I can't help knowing stuff,\" Coke explained. \"I memorize _everything_.\"\n\n\"I wonder why states need to have a motto anyway,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"And why do they have them in Latin? Hardly anybody speaks Latin.\"\n\n\"Even Latinos don't speak Latin,\" Pep mused. \"I wonder why they're called Latinos.\"\n\n\"Because they come from Latin America,\" Coke said.\n\n\"But why is it called Latin America if they don't speak Latin?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Coke told his sister. \"But I do know that North Carolina is the largest producer of sweet potatoes in the country.\"\n\n\"Yeah, and the reason why you're such a moron is because your brain is clogged up with all that random information,\" offered Pep.\n\n\"Don't call your brother a moron,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"That's okay, Mom,\" Coke said. \"I can take it. She's just jealous because I'm smarter than she is.\"\n\n\"You are not.\"\n\n\"Are too.\"\n\n\"R2D2!\"\n\n\"C3PO!\"\n\n\"Hey, knock it off back there!\" Dr. McDonald hollered. \"I'm getting a headache.\"\n\n\"So where are we going today?\" Coke asked. \"What do they have in North Carolina?\"\n\nMom took out her laptop and started poking keys.\n\n\"Oh, it's a wonderful state,\" she said. \"There's so much to see. But it's very wide, and some of the places are just too far away from each other, I'm afraid. We'll have to choose a few.\"\n\n\"I'd love to go to search for the lost colony on Roanoke Island,\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"What's that, Dad?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"It was the first English colony in America,\" he replied. \"This was before Plymouth. Before Jamestown. It was in the 1580s. Sir Walter Raleigh sent an expedition over, and the whole colony just vanished. Nobody knew what happened to them. When the next ship came over, the only thing left was the word _Croatoan_ scratched into a tree.\"\n\n\"Cool,\" said the twins.\n\n\"So in other words, there's nothing to see there,\" Mrs. McDonald said dismissively. \"Hmm, there's a fifteen-foot tall statue of a moose, in Mooresville, North Carolina, but that's all the way on the coast. The world's largest hammock is in Point Harbor....\"\n\nDr. McDonald gripped the steering wheel tightly.\n\n\"I'm not driving hundreds of miles to see a statue of a moose,\" he said.\n\nMrs. McDonald never looked up from her computer screen.\n\n\"You kids should find this to be quite interesting,\" she said. \"North Carolina is famous for twins. It says here that Chang and Eng Bunker were the original Siamese twins. They were joined at the sternum and lived in Surry County. And get this\u2014they both got married and fathered twenty-one children between them!\"\n\n\"Gross!\" said Pep.\n\n\"Chang and Eng died on the same day in 1874,\" Mrs. McDonald read, \"and they're buried in White Plains, North Carolina.\"\n\n\"Let's go there!\" Coke exclaimed.\n\n\"Then there's Billy and Benny McCrary,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"They were the world's _heaviest_ twins\u2014720 and 750 pounds.\"\n\n\"Whoa!\" Coke exclaimed.\n\n\"Which would you rather be,\" asked Dr. McDonald, \"a conjoined twin, or a seven-hundred-pound twin?\"\n\n\"I'd rather be me,\" Coke replied.\n\n\"Anyway, their tombstone is in Hendersonville,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"Gravesites are actually pretty boring,\" Pep said. \"You don't really see anything.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you feel that way,\" Mrs. McDonald told her, \"because Dad and I already decided we're going to a _birth_ site today instead.\"\n\n\"Birth site?\" asked Coke. \"Birth site of who?\"\n\n\"Whom,\" she corrected. \"We're going to Pepsi's birth site.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Pep said. \"Coke and I were born in the same place, of course, and you always said we were born in California.\"\n\n\"Oh, we're not going to _your_ birth site, honey,\" her father said. \"Pepsi the _drink_ was invented in New Bern, North Carolina. So that's where we're going today.\"\n\nNew Bern is more than two hundred miles to the east, and the kids would go stir crazy if they had to sit in the car that long. So Mrs. McDonald decided to break up the trip into a few \"bite-sized portions.\"\n\nThey continued south on Route 29 for almost an hour. The highway bends to the right after Greensboro, North Carolina, and soon after they rolled into the town of High Point. Dr. McDonald stopped the RV at the intersection of Westwood and Hamilton Streets, pulling into the largest parking spot he could find.\n\n\"Why are we stopping here?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Look across the street,\" said his mother.\n\nThe twins looked out the window and saw one of the most unusual buildings they had ever seen.\n\n\"Whoa!\" Pep marveled. \"It's a chest of drawers.\"\n\n\"Not only is it a chest of drawers,\" said her mother. \"It's the world's _largest_ chest of drawers!\"\n\nSure enough, it was. Everybody piled out of the RV and crossed the street to have a closer look. It was a spectacular building, eighty feet tall.\n\n\"Why is it here?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"This is High Point, North Carolina,\" Mrs. McDonald told them, \"and it's the furniture capital of the world.\"\n\n\"You gotta be kidding me,\" Coke said. \"Furniture needs a capital? They might as well have a capital of carpeting and wall coverings.\"\n\n\"It does look just like a chest of drawers,\" Dr. McDonald admitted. \"And it is rather large.\"\n\n\"This will be great for _Amazing but True_ ,\" Mrs. McDonald said. She backed up into the street and started snapping pictures and taking notes.\n\nAnd then, quite suddenly, somebody screamed, \"Watch out!\"\n\nCoke looked up at the last millisecond. A very large object had fallen out of a window above. Coke did an instant mental calculation to determine that the thing was on a trajectory to land directly on his sister's head.\n\n\"Pep!\" he shouted.\n\nBut she wasn't reacting quickly enough. So Coke took a running dive, wrapped his arms around his sister, and tackled her. The two tumbled to the concrete, landing with a thud.\n\n\"What the\u2014\"\n\nInches from Pep's head, the large object hit the sidewalk. _BOOM._ Splintered wood flew everywhere.\n\nFor a second, nobody spoke. Then, their parents rushed over.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" Dr. McDonald asked Pep.\n\n\"I think so,\" she said.\n\nPep's heart was racing as she imagined what would have happened if she had been standing a few inches to the right. A crowd was starting to gather. People were taking pictures of the scene with their cell-phone cameras. The police had been called.\n\n\"You saved my life!\" Pep told her brother.\n\n\"I just... reacted,\" Coke said, helping Pep up off the sidewalk. \"I saw something falling. What was it?\"\n\n\"I think it was a chest of drawers,\" Mrs. McDonald said, examining a piece of wood with a knob on it at her feet.\n\n\"A chest of drawers fell out of the largest chest of drawers in the world?\" asked Dr. McDonald. \"That's kind of strange.\"\n\n\"It fell, or maybe it was _pushed_ ,\" Coke said.\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"Are you suggesting that somebody did that on _purpose_? Why would anyone want to hurt Pep?\"\n\nCoke and Pep looked at each other. Their parents, of course, were completely unaware of what the twins had been through on this trip so far. Since the day Coke and Pep were recruited to join The Genius Files program back in California, they had been forced to jump off a cliff, locked in a burning school, pushed into a sand pit and left to die, thrown into a vat of Spam, zapped with electric shocks, lowered into boiling oil, drowned in ice cream, almost deafened by heavy metal rock music, and chased through the streets of Chicago by enraged Cub fans.\n\nCoke helped his sister, still trembling, back into the RV. Their parents gave a statement to the police, who had just arrived on the scene.\n\n\"It was probably just a freak accident,\" Coke told his sister. \"It was a coincidence that you happened to be standing on that spot at the same moment the thing fell.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type High Point NC.\n\nIn the B box, type Raleigh NC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n\"But why would a chest of drawers suddenly fall out of a building?\" Pep asked. \"Much less a building that's an enormous chest of drawers itself?\"\n\n\"Who knows?\"\n\n\"I have a bad feeling about this,\" Pep said.\n\n## Chapter 13\n\n## NO-BRAINER\n\nIt took less than two hours on I-85 and I-40 to make it to the eastern edge of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. Coke whiled away the time listening to music and gazing out the window. Pep wrote postcards to her friends back in California. As the miles rolled by, the freak accident in High Point began to recede from their minds.\n\nDr. McDonald took exit 13A off the Raleigh Beltline toward downtown and made a left on Sunnybrook Road. From there it was a short distance to a parking lot outside a brick building with a sign out front.\n\n### POE CENTER FOR HEALTH EDUCATION\n\n\"Health education?\" Coke groaned, taking out his earbuds. \"You gotta be kidding me! If you look in the dictionary for the word _boring_ , I bet there's a picture of this place.\"\n\n\"Oh, be quiet,\" Mrs. McDonald told him. \"You're going to love this.\"\n\nConstruction work was being done in the small parking lot, but finally Dr. McDonald found a spot big enough for the RV. The family had to dodge a backhoe and cherry picker to get to the front door of the Poe Center.\n\n\"Would you like to see our walk-in brain?\" asked the lady behind the front desk.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"That's why we're here.\" She pulled out her camera and notepad.\n\n\"Walk-in brains _are_ cool,\" Coke admitted.\n\n\"Way cooler than brains you can't walk in,\" added Pep.\n\nBehind them was an enormous floor-to-ceiling gray human-shaped head that looked like it had poked its way up through the floor from below.\n\n\"You can enter behind the ears,\" said the lady at the front desk.\n\nIt was almost completely dark inside the big head. Then the brain started talking.\n\n\"I'm sleeping,\" a voice said. \"I'll be with you in a second.\"\n\nSuddenly two video screens flashed on where the back of the eyes would be. The McDonalds sat on benches and looked around to see sculpted red and blue blood vessels and veins running up and down the walls. They were pulsing, dimming, strobing, and changing colors. The faint sound of a heartbeat could be heard throbbing in the distance.\n\n\"Welcome to my brain,\" boomed a voice coming out of a hidden speaker system.\n\nUsing 3-D rendered images, the brain explained how it works, grows, learns, and needs to be protected from injury. It was educational, but not in a way that made you want to get out of there as soon as possible.\n\n\"Some reflexes are voluntary,\" the brain said, \"while other reflexes\u2014\"\n\nAt that moment, a bunch of colored Nerf balls came shooting out of holes in the walls and flying all over the inside of the brain. The McDonald family screamed as one.\n\n\"\u2014are involuntary.\"\n\nWhen the short video was over, the lights came up and the McDonalds were directed to exit through the ear on the other side of the head. Mrs. McDonald jotted down some notes for _Amazing but True_.\n\nSigns pointed to a room adjacent to the walk-in brain, where visitors could find TAM, which stands for Transparent Anatomical Mannequin.\n\nTAM is a life-size, slowly rotating statue of a woman, one foot slightly in front of the other and her arms out as if she was taking a bow.\n\nOh, and you could see right through her skin. Half of TAM was muscles and blood, and the other half was bones. You could see her heart behind her ribs.\n\n\"That face is creepy,\" Pep said, staring. \"Look at the way her eyes bulge out.\"\n\n\"My kidneys serve as a natural filter of my blood,\" TAM said through a video monitor a few feet away. \"They remove wastes, which are diverted to my bladder.\"\n\nTAM's kidneys lit up so the twins could see where they were located on her body. Pep touched SMALL INTESTINE on the video screen, and it lit up while TAM talked about her small intestine. In all, TAM explained fifteen of her body parts. After each one, she would smile and wink.\n\n\"That was cool,\" Coke said as they left the Poe Center.\n\nMrs. McDonald allowed herself a secret smile. She had just been paid the ultimate compliment by her teenage son, and she knew that if she reacted in any way, the moment would be ruined.\n\nNext to the parking lot was a playground with a giant ear, a sliding board in the shape of a human tongue, and other apparatus involving the human body. Coke and Pep considered themselves a little too old to play in playgrounds, but there was also a rock-climbing wall, a zip line, and a heart-rate monitor to hold their attention. Kids could run around and then place their hand on a piece of metal for ten seconds to see a digital readout of their beating heart. The twins spent about half an hour in the playground before Dr. McDonald started hinting that it was time to get back on the road.\n\n\"This place will be great for _Amazing but True_ ,\" Mrs. McDonald said as she opened the playground gate. \"That walk-in brain was\u2014\"\n\n\"Watch out, Pep!\" Coke suddenly shouted.\n\nFrom the edge of his peripheral vision, he had spotted something falling from the cherry picker that was doing construction work in the parking lot. He gave a hard shove, sending his sister sprawling to the dirt.\n\n\"Hey! What's the big idea?\" Pep shouted.\n\nBut as she turned around, she saw an irregularly shaped pink object about the size of a car smash into the blacktop at the exact spot where she had been walking. The thing must have been made of solid concrete, because when it hit the ground it cracked open and burst into thousands of pieces, which went flying all over. Everyone shielded their faces. If Coke hadn't pushed her out of the way, Pep would have been crushed.\n\n\"What was _that_?\" Pep said as her parents rushed to her side.\n\nCoke bent down and picked up a piece of the pink concrete.\n\n\"I believe that was a giant brain,\" he said. \"I guess it was going to be part of the playground.\"\n\n\"Are you okay?\" Dr. McDonald asked.\n\n\"I... think so,\" Pep said, still shaken up. \"Coke saved my life again!\"\n\n\"What are brothers for?\" Coke said modestly.\n\n\"I'm going to go talk to the man operating that machine,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Somebody might get killed out here.\"\n\n\"Can we just go?\" Pep said. \"I don't want to talk to anybody.\"\n\n\"Okay, honey,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Anything you say.\"\n\nAfter they piled back into the RV and were on the road, it was hard not to talk about what had just happened.\n\n\"What an odd coincidence, Pep,\" Mrs. McDonald noted. \"When we were in High Point, you were almost crushed by a chest of drawers that fell out of a chest of drawers. And here, you were almost crushed by a giant brain right outside a building that has a giant brain.\"\n\n\"I'm just glad Coke saw both of them in time to push her out of the way,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Great work, Son!\"\n\nAs they got on I-40 East out of Raleigh, Pep kept trying to convince herself that the two accidents were simply random events that could have happened to anybody. Just because two freakishly coincidental things happen one after the other doesn't necessarily mean there's any connection between them.\n\nBut what if there _was_?\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Raleigh NC.\n\nIn the B box, type Kinston NC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 14\n\n## THE KINSTON TRIO\n\nDr. McDonald was pushing the speed limit. It was still a long way to the Birthplace of Pepsi in New Bern. He liked driving fast, but an RV is not exactly built for speed. The dishes were rattling in the cabinets.\n\n\"Do you ever wonder where your food goes after you eat it?\" Mrs. McDonald asked the twins as she passed out the tuna sandwiches she had made for lunch.\n\n\"I don't want to know,\" Pep said. \"I'm sure it's gross.\"\n\n\"Well, you're going to find out,\" her mother told her, \"because we're going to continue on our theme of the human body. We're going to stop off and visit a giant digestive system at a hospital in Kinston.\"\n\n\"Yuck,\" Pep moaned.\n\n\"Well, it's good that we're going to a hospital,\" Coke remarked, \"just in case something _else_ falls on Pep's head.\"\n\n\"Very funny, jerk,\" said Pep as she punched him. Pep had quickly recovered from the gratitude she had been feeling for her brother after he had saved her life twice.\n\n\"Don't call your brother a jerk,\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\nKinston is a natural stopping point along Route 70 between Raleigh and New Bern. It's a small town, originally named Kingston after England's King George III. After the Revolution, the _G_ was dropped in hopes that people would forget about the king. Go ahead and look it up if you don't believe me.\n\nDr. McDonald pulled off the highway, and it was only a few blocks to the Lenoir Memorial Hospital Health & Science Museum. The McDonalds piled out of the RV. Or I should say, _most of_ the McDonalds piled out of the RV.\n\n\"Let's go, Pep,\" called Mrs. McDonald. \"I think you're really going to like this.\"\n\n\"You guys go ahead,\" Pep replied. \"I'll stay here.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" said her father. \"We do things as a family.\"\n\nSlowly, reluctantly, Pep emerged from the safety of the RV. She looked up in the air and around her nervously, convinced that an enormous intestine was going to fall out of the sky and on her head at any moment. There was nothing dangling above that could do her harm.\n\nAs advertised, the hospital had a room with a replica of a digestive system that visitors could go through. The whole family entered through the mouth\u2014naturally\u2014and had to get down on their hands and knees to crawl through the throat, esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Along the way, they activated sensors that triggered audio descriptions of the functions of various parts of the digestive system. At the end, well, they crawled out the exit.\n\nThey didn't spend a lot of time at the hospital, which also featured a crawl-through model of a blood vessel, a planetarium, and other exhibits. Pep was on her guard the whole time, still convinced that something else would fall on her head.\n\nAs they walked back to the RV, Pep was cautiously looking up in the sky when\u2014\n\n\"Watch out!\" Coke yelled.\n\nPep hadn't noticed, but directly in front of her was a pit, camouflaged by a thin layer of leaves. She tumbled into it with a shriek, landing on her face.\n\n_\"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!\"_\n\nThe pit was about six feet deep and appeared to have been constructed like a trap that would be used by a survivalist to catch animals. Fortunately there were no pointed sticks poking up from the bottom.\n\n\"Get me outta here!\" Pep yelled.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" Dr. McDonald asked as he helped Pep climb out of the hole.\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"Why is there a hole in the ground here?\" Mrs. McDonald complained. \"It serves no purpose.\"\n\n\"They should at least put a sheet of plywood over this,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"Somebody could get hurt, and the hospital would have a big lawsuit on their hands. Maybe we should go back and issue a formal complaint.\"\n\n\"Forget about it, Dad,\" Pep said. \"Let's just blow this pop stand.\"\n\nShe seemed to be okay, except for the humiliation that comes from falling into a hole. Coke stifled a laugh, and Pep slapped him.\n\n\"This isn't funny!\" she whispered to him. \"Somebody's out to get me. It's probably Mrs. Higgins or those bowler dudes.\"\n\n\"You're just paranoid,\" Coke said. \"All you did was fall into a hole.\"\n\n\"I fell into a hole after a chest of drawers and a giant brain fell on me,\" Pep told him. \"Three things like that don't just happen to _anybody_. Those weren't coincidences.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Kinston NC.\n\nIn the B box, type New Bern NC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 15\n\n## PEPSI WORLD\n\nThe McDonalds only had to drive about forty minutes on Route 70 heading west to reach New Bern, the second-oldest city in North Carolina. At the mouth of the Neuse River, it's just miles from the Atlantic Ocean.\n\n\"Hey, y'know what else is in New Bern?\" asked Mrs. McDonald as she leafed through her guidebook. \"The stuffed head of the horse that used to pull the town fire truck. His name was Firehouse Fred. We could go see him afterward.\"\n\n\"Do we have to?\" Pep asked. \"I don't want to look at some dead stuffed horse's head.\"\n\nDr. McDonald pulled off the highway at the New Bern exit, made a right on Pollock Street, and drove less than a mile, taking a right on Middle Street.\n\nAnd there it was\u2014an unassuming little corner store with a blue awning. Just down the street, there was an open parking spot big enough for the RV.\n\n\"So _this_ is where Pepsi was invented?\" Pep asked. There was a plaque on the wall. As she got closer, she could read the words...\n\n### This building marks the site of Bradham's Pharmacy where Caleb D. Bradham created Pepsi-Cola in 1898.\n\n\"Pharmacy?\" Pep said.\n\n\"Back in those days,\" her brother told her, \"pharmacies had soda fountains in them, and the pharmacist would mix up his own drinks. So this guy named Caleb Bradham began experimenting, and he hit on a formula of carbonated water, sugar, kola nut extract, vanilla, pepsin, and rare oils. In the beginning, he called the stuff 'Brad's Drink.'\"\n\n\"How can you possibly know all that?\" Pep asked her brother.\n\n\"I just _do_ , okay?\" he replied. \"Bradham renamed the stuff Pepsi-Cola in 1903 after the two main ingredients, pepsin and kola nuts.\"\n\n\"Who cares?\" Pep said, refusing to be impressed by her brother's encyclopedic knowledge of useless information.\n\nThe McDonalds went inside. The Birthplace of Pepsi was empty, or at least it was empty when it came to people. It was filled, however, with just about every Pepsi product in existence. There were Pepsi teddy bears, baseball caps, clocks, cookie jars, and earrings. Pepsi salt and pepper shakers, key chains, umbrellas, coffee mugs, and mouse pads. Pepsi zipper pulls, belt buckles, and T-shirts that read FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS DRINK COKE.\n\n\"This place is just a store that sells Pepsi stuff,\" said Coke. \"It's not like it's a museum or anything.\"\n\n\"It's just a big commercial for Pepsi.\" Dr. McDonald scoffed. \"It's like all these tourist traps.\"\n\n\"Well, what did you expect?\" Mrs. McDonald asked. \"The Louvre? You're not going to find the Mona Lisa at a place like this.\"\n\n\"I don't even _like_ Pepsi,\" said Coke, who always insisted that Coca-Cola tasted better than Pepsi-Cola. \"I say we blow this pop stand.\"\n\n\"I want to look around a little,\" said Pep. \"We came so far to get here.\"\n\n\"I'll be in the RV,\" muttered Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Coke.\n\nMrs. McDonald snapped a few photos and picked up a brochure.\n\n\"Come on out when you're finished, honey,\" she told Pep. \"Don't listen to those boys. You take your time in here.\"\n\nNow Pep was alone. She didn't even see anybody behind the cash register. She wandered around the aisles, looking at the Pepsi hooded sweatshirts, the Pepsi bottle Christmas tree ornaments, the earrings made out of Pepsi bottle caps. It was a Pepsi _world_!\n\nGrowing up, Pep had always felt a little left out when she'd go into stores with her friends. Girls with names like Melissa and Ashley and Rachel could always find personalized souvenirs with their names on them. There was never anything for kids who had an unusual name. But here, everything in the store had Pep's name on it. It was almost like the whole place was devoted to her. She was mesmerized.\n\n\"Don't be sad, little lady.\"\n\nThe husky voice came from behind her. Pep, taken by surprise, wheeled around to see... Elvis Presley.\n\nWell, an Elvis Presley _impersonator_ , anyway.\n\nThere he was, in all his Elvis glory, decked out in a white spandex jumpsuit, a ridiculously wide macram\u00e9 belt with metal studs, a white scarf, and a red velvet cape with elaborate embroidered designs all over it. This guy wasn't just some casual fake Elvis. He was a _real_ fake Elvis. He even wore an Elvis mask, which completely covered his face.\n\n\"Do you work here?\" Pep asked innocently.\n\n\"You might say that, darlin'.\"\n\nHe was even putting on a fake Elvis voice.\n\n\"Why are you dressed up like Elvis Presley?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Today is Elvis Day at the Birthplace of Pepsi,\" Elvis replied. \"The King loved Pepsi. Say, are you here all by yourself, young lady?\"\n\n\"The rest of my family got bored,\" Pep told him, \"so they're waiting in the RV. But my name is Pepsi, so this place is pretty cool to me.\"\n\n\"You look like you've had a tough day,\" Elvis said in his obviously fake Elvis voice.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Pep said, \"a chest of drawers and a giant brain nearly fell on me. And then, while I was looking up in the air for the next thing to fall on me, I fell into a hole.\"\n\n\"Too bad,\" Elvis said. \"Maybe Elvis can make it... EVEN WORSE!\"\n\n\"But...\"\n\nElvis grabbed Pep roughly by the elbow, then picked her up and carried her to the back room of the store.\n\n\"Help! Let me go! Get your hands off me!\"\n\nThere was a set of creaky wooden steps. Elvis dragged her down them, into a dingy basement with nothing in it but a chair, a metal tub, an old refrigerator, and one lightbulb hanging from a wire.\n\n\"Let me out!\" Pep screamed. \"Help! Anybody!\"\n\n\"Scream all you want,\" Elvis said as he got a rope and began to tie Pep to the chair. \"Get it out of your system. You'll feel better.\"\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Pep begged. \"Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? Are you the one who dropped the chest of drawers and the giant brain on my head?\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" Elvis said. \"The King would never do something like that. I _pay_ people to do those things for me.\"\n\n\"Why? What did I ever do to _you_?\" Pep yelled, struggling against the ropes.\n\n\"You ask too many questions, for one thing,\" Elvis told her. \"You're starting to get on my nerves. Things will be a lot better once you're _dead_.\"\n\n\"Dead?\" Pep gulped. \"Why me? Stop! Let me go! Who are you? Are you working with Dr. Warsaw?\"\n\nThe ropes were tight. Pep wasn't going anywhere. Elvis pulled the metal tub over and jammed Pep's feet into it.\n\n\"I guess you didn't get the message I sent you,\" he said.\n\n\"What message?\"\n\n\"Remember the fireworks on the Fourth of July in Washington?\" Elvis said. \"Remember the message at the end?\"\n\n\"The cipher?\" Pep asked. \"I saw it. LEVEL VIS I. I figured it out. ELVIS LIVE.\"\n\n\"No, you dope!\" Elvis said with a laugh. \"I thought you were such a smart cookie. You got it _completely_ wrong.\"\n\n\"Well, if the message didn't say ELVIS LIVE, what did it say?\"\n\nElvis looked at her and laughed again.\n\n\"EVIL ELVIS,\" he said.\n\n## Chapter 16\n\n## IT'S NOW OR NEVER\n\nEvil Elvis?\n\nOf _course_! The letters didn't spell LIVE. They spelled EVIL! EVIL is LIVE backward! Pep would have kicked herself, if she had been able to get her legs free. How could she have been so dumb?\n\nShe tried to peer under the Elvis mask while he leaned over to take her sneakers off. He was humming the Elvis song \"Don't Be Cruel.\" Pep tried to kick him, but her feet were tied tightly against the chair.\n\n\"What are you going to do to me?\"\n\n\"What does it _look_ like I'm going to do to you?\" Elvis said. \"I'm going to kill you.\"\n\n\"What about my brother?\"\n\n\"I'll take care of him after I finish _you_ off,\" Elvis told her. \"Killing two kids at once isn't nearly as much fun. I want to do it one at a time so I can really savor each murder. You only die twice, ha-ha-ha-ha!\"\n\nEvil Elvis was insane, clearly. The voice sounded familiar, but Pep couldn't place it.\n\nSatisfied that his victim was secure, Elvis pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and flicked it on. He waved it around Pep's face, letting the flame linger near her nose for just an instant so Pep would feel the heat.\n\nHere he was, taunting her with fire, and he had sent that message at the fireworks show. Pep made a mental note that Evil Elvis was a pyromaniac. If she was ever able to get out of this, she would at least be able to tell the police something about him.\n\n\"You're going to _burn_ me?\" Pep asked, sobbing. \"Is that how you're going to do it?\"\n\n\"Oh no, that would be cruel,\" Elvis said. \"I have a better idea.\"\n\nHe went to the refrigerator and pulled open the door. Pep could see that it was filled with two-liter bottles of Pepsi. Elvis twisted off the cap from one of them and began to pour the contents into the metal tub that held Pep's feet. When that bottle was empty, he opened another one and poured that in. Then he poured a third bottle in. Pep's feet were covered in soda.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Pep shouted.\n\n\"Do you know what Pepsi is made of, Pepsi?\" he asked.\n\n\"High fructose corn syrup?\" she replied.\n\n\"Yes, and phosphoric acid,\" said Evil Elvis gleefully. \"It's right on the label. And do you know what phosphoric acid does to the human body?\"\n\n\"Quenches our thirst?\" Pep said, still squirming to try and get free.\n\n\"Cute,\" Elvis said. \"Soda and sweets rot your teeth, right? Well, did you ever put a tooth into a glass full of soda and let it sit there overnight? In the morning, there's nothing left! The tooth dissolved. The acid will eat away at your feet until there's nothing left but bone.\"\n\n\"You're crazy!\" shouted Pep.\n\n\"If the phosphoric acid in Pepsi will do that much damage to a little tooth,\" Elvis continued, \"just imagine what it will do to human flesh. How ironic. Pepsi will be killed by Pepsi!\"\n\nAs if to confirm his insanity, Elvis let out a cackling laugh.\n\n\"You monster!\" Pep shouted at him. \"Help! Help! _Somebody!_ \"\n\nElvis took the white scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around Pep's mouth.\n\n\"Quiet,\" he instructed her. \"Your pathetic cries for somebody to rescue you are annoying, do you know that?\"\n\n\"Mmphf!\" Pep shouted.\n\n\"It won't be long,\" Elvis said cheerfully. \"Can you feel the acid starting to eat away at your toes?\"\n\nPep did feel a burning sensation. She tried to call to her mother and father, but the sound was muffled by the gag in her mouth.\n\n\"Oh, don't worry,\" Elvis assured her. \"This won't be a burden to your family. After the phosphoric acid eats away at your flesh for twenty-four hours, the blood will drain out and there won't be much left. I'll make an anonymous call to the morgue in the morning so they can send somebody over to dispose of your bones.\"\n\n\"Help!\"\n\n_\"Tomorrow... will be too late,\"_ Elvis began to sing. _\"It's now or never. My love won't wait.\"_\n\n\"Let me go!\"\n\n\"Sorry, can't help you there, darlin'. Elvis has left the building.\"\n\nAnd with that, he ran up the stairs and out the door, cackling the whole time.\n\n## Chapter 17\n\n## THE CALLING CARD\n\nBack in the RV, Coke and his parents were starting to get impatient. Dr. McDonald looked at his watch.\n\n\"What's taking her so long?\" he said. \"I thought she was just going to buy herself a souvenir and that would be it.\"\n\n\"Women and shopping, Dad,\" Coke said. \"You know.\"\n\n\"That's a sexist comment!\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"How about a little patience? I had to sit and wait for _you_ while you were watching that ball game in Chicago.\"\n\n\"She's probably buying up the whole store and wasting money,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"I read an article about this somewhere. People with unusual names love to buy things that have their name on it. It validates them. I _told_ you we should have named her Ashley.\"\n\n\"You wanted to name her Sprite,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"One of us should go check on her.\"\n\n\"I'll do it,\" sighed Coke.\n\nCoke hopped out of the RV and jogged down the street to the Birthplace of Pepsi. It was empty, just as it had been the first time he went in.\n\n\"Pep! You in here?\"\n\nNo answer. Coke looked all around and, seeing no sign of his sister, pushed open the door leading to the back room. It was a small office, also empty. He stopped. Was that a muffled sound coming from below the floor? He found the steps and rushed downstairs.\n\nThat's where he found his sister, bound and gagged, her feet submerged in a tub of some dark liquid, desperately trying to yell for help.\n\n\"Pep!\" he shouted, taking the scarf off her mouth. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Oh, I came down here and tied myself to this chair for the _fun_ of it!\" she yelled at him. \"You dope! I was kidnapped!\"\n\n\"Hey, don't yell at _me_ ,\" he replied. \"I'm rescuing you.\"\n\n\"Get me outta here!\" she shouted. \"Quick, before the acid eats through my flesh!\"\n\n\"I'm working as fast as I can,\" he said, trying to untangle the ropes around her feet. \"Who did this to you?\"\n\n\"Evil Elvis,\" she told him. \"That's what the cipher meant. I was wrong. It wasn't ELVIS LIVE. It was EVIL ELVIS. He's an Elvis impersonator. He's the one who dropped the chest of drawers and the giant brain on me.\"\n\n\"What was an Elvis impersonator doing in the Birthplace of Pepsi?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Trying to kill me!\" Pep shouted. \"He stuck my feet in the tub of Pepsi so it will eat at my flesh. Hurry up! I think the bone in my leg is about to come through the skin!\"\n\nCoke stopped. Then he started laughing.\n\n\"What's so funny?\" Pep asked. \"Stop laughing at me!\"\n\n\"You think dipping your feet in soda is going to make your flesh dissolve?\" Coke asked, doing his best to avoid doubling over.\n\n\"It won't?\" Pep said meekly.\n\n\"That's one of those urban legends, you dope!\" Coke told her. \"Soda can't do that.\"\n\n\"It can't?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Coke said as he removed the last of the rope that was binding her. \"That's one of those stories that gets passed around on the internet so much that people think it's true. It's a hoax. There's more acid in orange juice than in Pepsi. See for yourself. Your feet are fine.\"\n\nPep pulled her feet out of the tub and counted her toes. Satisfied that all ten were still there, she wiped them on Coke's shirt and put her sneakers back on.\n\n\"Why would Evil Elvis do this?\" she asked her brother. \"He could have killed me easily enough if he wanted to.\"\n\n\"This is his calling card,\" Coke guessed. \"He wants us to know he's out there, watching us. He's trying to get into our heads. Mind games, you know. And he's probably nuts, like those other people who have been chasing us.\"\n\n\"He told me he's going to get _you_ after he takes care of me,\" Pep told her brother.\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" Coke said. \"Not if I get him first. And he's gonna have to do more than stick my feet in a tub of soda pop.\"\n\nThey ran out of the Birthplace of Pepsi and back down the street to the RV.\n\n\"So what did you buy?\" Dr. McDonald asked Pep as he started up the engine.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"All that time and you didn't buy _anything_?\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"What were you doing in there? We were starting to get nervous.\"\n\n\"Not to worry, Mom,\" Coke explained. \"Pep got kidnapped by an evil Elvis impersonator who tied her to a chair and said he was going to soak her feet in Pepsi until it ate away at her flesh.\"\n\n\"Kids...,\" muttered Dr. McDonald, shaking his head.\n\n## Chapter 18\n\n## A SENSELESS ATTACK\n\nIt was getting late, and everybody was hungry. Just down the block from the Birthplace of Pepsi was Captain Ratty's Seafood and Steakhouse. The McDonalds decided to splurge on a rare sit-down dinner. The grown-ups took their time eating and really enjoyed the meal.\n\nBy the time the family was finished, it was close to nine o'clock and nobody wanted to start out on another long drive. Fortunately, the Moonlight Lake RV Park was also in New Bern, right across the bridge. Mrs. McDonald checked in at the office while the twins gathered some sticks to start a campfire.\n\nPep hadn't done much talking during dinner, and her brother could see that she was still visibly nervous and upset about what had happened in the basement of the Birthplace of Pepsi. The twins had just been getting used to the idea that they were safe from danger, and now they realized how wrong they were. Somebody was out to get them, again. It wasn't Archie Clone. He was dead. Mrs. Higgins was working at Luray Caverns. The bowler dudes were into jousting. Dr. Warsaw was away on his honeymoon with Aunt Judy. Now they had another nemesis.\n\nEvil Elvis.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Coke told his sister. \"I'll protect you. Remember, I'm Ace Fist.\"\n\nHe did his spinning karate kick. Pep appreciated the support, but it didn't give her much comfort. What would her brother be able to do to protect her? With crazy people like Evil Elvis running around loose, a thirteen-year-old brown belt is only so much help.\n\nThe twins gathered a load of wood, and their father used it to build a nice little fire. Mrs. McDonald had come back from the campground office with some marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey bars. It wasn't long before the whole family was sitting around the fire making s'mores.\n\n\"So how do you kids like North Carolina so far?\" asked Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"It's great, Dad,\" Coke said.\n\n\"We love it,\" said Pep.\n\nIn fact, the drive through North Carolina had been a _horrible_ experience, at least for Pep. A chest of drawers had been dropped on her in High Point. A giant brain had almost brained her in Raleigh. She had fallen into a hidden hole in the ground in Kinston. And then, of course, there was the encounter with Evil Elvis at the Birthplace of Pepsi.\n\nShe couldn't _wait_ to get out of North Carolina.\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type New Bern NC.\n\nIn the B box, type Rose Hill NC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nIt was July 7. In the morning, Pep did a little fishing in the pond near the RV, but her heart wasn't in it and she didn't catch anything. She couldn't shake the sense of impending doom that had taken over her. It was a relief when they got on the road again, heading west on Route 70. It would be a three-hour drive to the South Carolina border.\n\nCoke thought it would be a good time to take inventory of what he and Pep had in their backpacks. They emptied them out on the seat between them. A jar of bubbles. A can of Spam. A couple of yo-yos. A can of Silly String. A Frisbee. Some other miscellaneous stuff they had picked up at gift shops along the way.\n\n\"How are we supposed to defend ourselves against Evil Elvis with _this_ junk?\" Coke whispered to his sister. \"We need to get some _real_ weapons, and we need to get them soon.\"\n\n\"How are we going to get real weapons?\" Pep asked. \"Don't you have to be eighteen or twenty-one or something?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"You know every other stupid thing in the world,\" Pep told her brother. \"It would be nice if you actually knew something that mattered.\"\n\n\"Shut up.\"\n\n\" _You_ shut up.\"\n\n\"Knock it off back there!\"\n\nDr. McDonald turned onto Route 11 South, and then onto an even smaller road, Highway 117, which eventually becomes North Sycamore Street in Rose Hill, North Carolina. The first thing you see when you enter the town is this sign....\n\n\"You gotta be kidding me,\" Coke said.\n\nDr. McDonald pulled over and parked the RV.\n\n\"This seems like a good place to stretch our legs,\" said Mrs. McDonald, grabbing her camera.\n\n\"It is _not_!\" Coke complained. \"You know we're only stopping here because you want to see that frying pan.\"\n\n\"Frying pan?\" asked Mrs. McDonald. \"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\nThey walked across Sycamore and turned left on Main Street. That's where Mrs. McDonald stopped.\n\n\"Wow! Drink it in, you guys!\" she announced. \"You don't see something like _this_ every day.\"\n\nAnd there it was, inside a large red pavilion.\n\n\"It's... a big frying pan,\" Pep said, unimpressed.\n\n\"Amazing!\" gushed Mrs. McDonald. \"Simply amazing.\"\n\n\"What do they cook in this thing?\" Coke asked. \"Giant eggs?\"\n\nMrs. McDonald started taking notes and snapping photos for _Amazing but True_. Dr. McDonald sighed, then sat down on a bench to read the newspaper.\n\nThe frying pan, Coke had to admit, was pretty awesome. It even smelled like a frying pan, or at least one that hadn't been washed very well. But then, how would you wash a frying pan the size of a small swimming pool?\n\nCoke and Pep were walking around the perimeter of the frying pan when Coke noticed a figure standing at the far corner of the pavilion. He was wearing a sparkling white jumpsuit and a ridiculously wide belt.\n\n\"It's him!\" Coke said. \"Evil Elvis! I'm gonna kill him!\"\n\nCoke took off like he'd been shot from a gun. It only took five steps until he was full speed, and then he took a running leap to jump on Elvis's back from behind. Taken completely by surprise, Elvis fell forward, landing in a pile of dirt next to the enormous frying pan. Coke was still on the guy's back, and he began furiously punching him from behind.\n\n\"Don't you _ever_ bother my sister again!\" he shouted. \"You hear me?\"\n\n\"What?!\" the Elvis impersonator protested, his face full of dirt as he tried to cover his head and fend off the blows coming at him. \"What are you talking about? Who _are_ you?\"\n\nCoke was still flailing at the man with both fists. He knocked off the Elvis wig and kept right on punching the man's bald head.\n\n\"If you so much as touch my sister or any member of my family\u2014\"\n\nPep came running over, followed by her parents and a few curious onlookers. Dr. McDonald grabbed Coke around his waist and just about _tore_ him off the man's back. Pep shook her head sadly and mouthed the words \"That's not him\" to her brother.\n\n\"Are you crazy?\" Dr. McDonald said as he flung Coke to the ground. \"Leave that man alone!\"\n\nThe Elvis impersonator was still on the ground, stunned. There was dirt all over his white jumpsuit and a trickle of blood dripping from his upper lip.\n\n\"What were you thinking?\" Mrs. McDonald asked Coke.\n\n\"He's... Elvis...,\" Coke stammered, not really knowing how else to explain his actions.\n\n\"You are grounded, young man!\" Dr. McDonald shouted. \"I don't want to hear another word from you.\"\n\nPep pulled her brother aside while their parents went to help the Elvis impersonator.\n\n\"Are you crazy?\" Pep asked. \"What did you do _that_ for?\"\n\n\"I was trying to defend you!\" Coke said. \"I thought he was Evil Elvis.\"\n\n\"There are _lots_ of Elvis impersonators,\" Pep told him. \"They're not all evil!\"\n\n\"It was an impulse,\" Coke admitted. \"I saw him, and I went nuts.\"\n\n\"Just calm down, okay?\" his sister advised him. \"And apologize to that man.\"\n\nCoke and Pep came back to the \"scene of the crime.\" Their mother was holding a tissue up to the man's face and helping him adjust his wig.\n\n\"I'm really sorry, sir,\" Coke said. \"I just went a little crazy for a minute.\"\n\n\"You _should_ be sorry!\" his mother said.\n\n\"Hey, it's all good,\" the Elvis impersonator said. \"Stuff happens.\"\n\n\"Here,\" Dr. McDonald said, handing the man a twenty-dollar bill. \"I want you to have this, with our apologies. It should cover your cleaning bill, at least.\"\n\n\"So what brings you here?\" Mrs. McDonald asked the man as she brushed the dirt off his jumpsuit.\n\n\"I'm on my way to a convention of Elvis impersonators in Memphis,\" he replied. \"But this is sort of a hobby of mine. I'm into big frying pans.\"\n\n\"That's an odd thing to have as a hobby,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"So you came here just to see the largest frying pan in the world?\"\n\n\"Don't judge the man, dear,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"Different strokes for different folks, right?\"\n\n\"Actually, there are _six_ frying pans that people claim are the largest,\" Elvis said. \"I'm proud to say I have visited them all.\"\n\n\"This guy has _way_ too much time on his hands,\" Coke whispered to his sister.\n\nMrs. McDonald was fascinated, taking a notepad out of her pocket to write down some quotes.\n\n\"You may find it interesting to know that this frying pan holds two hundred gallons of oil and uses forty gas burners,\" Elvis explained. \"It can cook three hundred sixty-five chickens at a time. That would be one for each day of the year.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald was writing down every word.\n\n\"Why would anyone cook a chicken and not eat it for a year?\" Coke asked.\n\nElvis looked at Coke for a moment, not sure if he was joking or not. Then he decided just to ignore the remark and avoid another confrontation with the boy.\n\n\"One could argue that the oversized frying pan in Brandon, Iowa, is actually the biggest,\" Elvis said, \"because it's fourteen feet in diameter and weighs over a thousand pounds. That's significantly larger than the frying pan they have in Long Beach, Washington, which is less than ten feet, and the one in Wilmington, Delaware, which only weighs six hundred fifty pounds. It all depends on your definition of the word _largest_ , of course.\"\n\n\"This guy is nuttier than Mom,\" Coke whispered.\n\n\"And of course, there's a big frying pan in Pittsfield, Maine,\" Elvis continued. \"That one is only five feet in diameter, but it's coated with Teflon, so it's definitely the largest _nonstick_ frying pan in the world. And then there's the one in London, Kentucky\u2014\"\n\n\"We really have to go,\" Dr. McDonald said, \"but it was really nice chatting with you, and again, I'm sorry about my son.\"\n\nThe McDonalds hightailed it out of there before Elvis could tell them any more about the frying pan in Kentucky.\n\n\"I feel like going back there and beating that guy up _again_ ,\" Coke said as they got in the RV. \"Nobody should know that much about oversized frying pans.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Rose Hill NC.\n\nIn the B box, type Dillon SC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 19\n\n## SOUTH OF THE BORDER\n\nRegular-sized things aren't all that interesting, if the truth be known. There's nothing particularly captivating about a _normal_ frying pan, or a plain old chest of drawers. But a _gigantic_ frying pan, or an _enormous_ chest of drawers, or a twelve-foot-tall ball of twine is inherently fascinating.\n\nA teeny-tiny frying pan or a miniature chest of drawers would also be interesting, if such things actually existed. But they don't, outside of dollhouses. It's extremely _big_ things that command our attention. There's something fascinating about them. Towns actually compete with each other and argue over which one has the largest _whatever_ in the world.\n\nWhy is that?\n\nWhile you ponder the question, dear reader, the McDonald family is not waiting around for the answer. They're on the move, chugging along at sixty miles per hour on Highway 117 South before exiting onto Route 41.\n\n\"Listen to this,\" Mrs. McDonald said as she read from her guidebook. \"North Carolina not only has the largest frying pan and chest of drawers in the world. It also has the largest tire, the largest lighthouse, the largest hammock, the largest Ten Commandments, the largest sea hawk, and the largest strawberry!\"\n\n\"That's really interesting, Mom,\" Coke lied.\n\n\"Who cares what's the biggest _anything_ in the world?\" Dr. McDonald asked, just looking for trouble. \"It's not important.\"\n\n\"I care, Ben!\" Mrs. McDonald replied, giving him one of those looks. \"And my readers care.\"\n\nThat was the end of the discussion.\n\nCoke took out his cell phone so he could send a message to his sister without his parents listening in.\n\n**U THINK MOM IS INSANE?** he texted.\n\n**Just OCD** Pep texted back.\n\nIt was beautiful country in southern North Carolina. They passed by Bay Tree Lake and Bladen Lakes State Forest. When they reached the town of Lumberton, Dr. McDonald merged onto I-95, the superhighway that extends all the way from Maine down to Florida. That's when they started seeing these billboards at the side of the road.\n\n**You Never Sausage A Place\u2014**\n\n20 MILES TO SOUTH OF THE BORDER\n\n**Everybody Needs A Little Stuff** \u2014\n\n15 MILES TO SOUTH OF THE BORDER\n\n**World's #1 Miniature Golf** \u2014\n\n10 MILES TO SOUTH OF THE BORDER\n\nIt was one after the other. The signs were unrelenting. The farther south they drove, the more frequently these billboards popped up.\n\n\"What does South of the Border mean?\" Pep finally asked.\n\n\"Oh, you'll see,\" her mother replied.\n\nSoon another sign appeared in the distance.\n\n\"Woo-hoo!\" Coke hollered. \"The Palmetto State!\"\n\n\"Oh, and I suppose _you_ know what a palmetto is?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"Of course I do,\" Coke replied. \"A palmetto is a type of palm tree. During the Revolutionary War, the British attacked a fort here that was made of palmetto trees. The fort didn't fall, so South Carolina became known as the Palmetto State.\"\n\n\"I hate you,\" Pep said disgustedly. One of these days, she decided, she would find some obscure fact her brother didn't know.\n\n\"Don't say you hate your brother,\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"Did you know,\" Coke informed the family, \"that in South Carolina it's illegal to keep a horse in a bathtub? That's a fact.\"\n\n\"Oh, just shut up already,\" said Pep.\n\nThe terrain was very flat, so even before the McDonalds had crossed the state line, they were able to see something very curious several miles in front of them. It was a tower, maybe two hundred feet high. As they got closer, they could see that perched on the top of it was, for some reason, a gigantic sombrero.\n\n\"It looks like the Eiffel Tower,\" Pep marveled after they had pulled off the exit, \"with a Mexican theme.\"\n\n\"What _is_ this place?\" Coke asked, craning his neck to look all around.\n\n\"It's the cheesiest, schlockiest, tackiest tourist trap in the world,\" replied Dr. McDonald as he pulled into the immortal roadside attraction called South of the Border.\n\n\"Let's go!\" shouted the twins.\n\nDr. McDonald thought of all the years he had spent in school, studying to become a respected historian. And now _this_. He sighed as he drove the RV between the legs of a huge figure of a mustachioed man named Pedro, who was also wearing a sombrero and holding a big South of the Border sign.\n\nThe McDonalds drove a big loop around SOB, as it's called, and the whole family was wide-eyed. None of them had ever seen _anything_ like this place. In addition to the usual hotels, souvenir stores, and gas stations, South of the Border has six restaurants (including Pedro's Ice Cream Fiesta). It has its own amusement park (Pedroland), a wedding chapel, and a golf course (The Golf of Mexico). The whole thing is like a small, fake Mexican town, spread out over a square mile. It even has its own police and fire department. Scattered around are giant pink flamingos and silly statues of monkeys wearing T-shirts.\n\n\"Is this heaven?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"No,\" his mother replied, \"it's South Carolina.\"\n\nEverything, it seemed, was neon yellow or pink. It was almost as if South of the Border wasn't sure if it wanted to be a theme park or a truck stop, and it compromised somewhere in the middle.\n\nDr. McDonald found the on-site RV campground (Camp Pedro, of course) and pulled in. Mrs. McDonald was excited and eager to explore the whole place. It was just perfect for _Amazing but True_.\n\n\"You kids go have fun,\" she instructed as she checked her cell phone for the time. \"Let's meet back here at six o'clock for dinner.\"\n\nPep looked at her brother nervously. Whenever they were separated from their parents, it seemed, something bad would happen. She wanted to stick close to her mom and dad, but at the same time she didn't want to look like a baby.\n\n\"I'll take care of her,\" Coke said as he put on his backpack.\n\n\"What do you need that for?\" Dr. McDonald asked.\n\n\"It's my security blanket,\" Coke replied.\n\n\"Fill it with souvenirs,\" suggested his mother as she reached into her purse and gave them some money.\n\n\"You kids be careful,\" Dr. McDonald said before they parted company. \"There are always a few creeps running around a place like this.\"\n\n\"We're always careful, Dad,\" said Coke.\n\nOne thing you can say about South of the Border\u2014there's no shortage of souvenirs for sale. The twins didn't have to look more than five minutes before they found a store that was stuffed to the rafters with them.\n\nThis place had everything: coffee mugs, snow globes, buttons, postcards, glow-in-the-dark knick-knacks, hundreds of T-shirts, and bumper stickers. There were _eight_ different kinds of back scratchers! They had serving trays, salt and pepper shakers, and bobblehead Pedro statues. Every cheesy gewgaw and doodad ever invented, it seemed, was right there.\n\n\"Hey, check it out,\" Pep shouted. \"They have alligator repellent! You never know when _this_ might come in handy.\"\n\n\"Look,\" Coke said. He was holding up a pair of underwear with the words WORLD'S LARGEST SOURCE OF NATURAL GAS on the back. \"I gotta buy this.\"\n\nAfter making their purchases, the twins strolled around until they came to the observation tower with the sombrero on top that they had seen from the highway. They went over to get a closer look, and when they got about ten feet from the bottom of the tower, Pep stopped. These letters were written in yellow chalk on the ground...\n\n**OLLP FK**\n\nCoke stopped too. There were no other letters written anywhere on the ground.\n\n\"What's that?\" he asked. \"Do you think it's\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014a cipher,\" Pep said, finishing his sentence for him. \"It's definitely a cipher.\"\n\n\"What does it mean?\" Coke asked, not even bothering to try to figure it out himself. He just wasn't good at the stuff.\n\n\"Give me a minute.\"\n\nPep stared at the letters intently. The cipher was shorter than others she had seen, so she figured it shouldn't be very hard to crack. She jumbled the letters around in her mind, but that didn't yield many words. It had to be some kind of a substitution cipher, in which one letter substitutes for another. But what were the substitutes?\n\nShe imagined the alphabet in her mind, as if it was written across the whiteboard at school. What if everything was moved one letter to the right? So A was really B, and B was really C, and\u2014\n\nNo, that wouldn't work. And it also wouldn't work if everything was moved _two_ letters to the right.\n\n\"It might be a reverse alphabet cipher,\" Pep said. \"In that case, A becomes Z, B becomes Y, C becomes X, and so on.\"\n\nCoke took a sheet of paper out of his backpack and wrote out the alphabet. Then he wrote out a reverse alphabet below it...\n\n**ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ**\n\n**ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA**\n\nThey looked at the letters on the ground again: OLLP FK.\n\n\"If this is right, the letter O is an L,\" Pep said.\n\n\"Then the two Ls would be Os,\" said Coke.\n\n\"The P has to be a K,\" Pep said, \"which means the first word is L-O-O-K.\"\n\n\"And the second word is\u2014\"\n\nBefore Coke could finish deciphering FK, Pep looked up and saw something falling from the top of the sombrero tower. It was coming down right over their heads!\n\n\"Coke, watch out!\" she screamed, slamming her body against his with enough force to knock him over.\n\nThe falling object was a large black garbage bag. It hit the spot where Coke had been standing with so much force that it burst apart, littering the ground with hundreds of what appeared to be small gold trophies. A lot of them were broken on impact. The distant sound of an evil, cackling laugh could be heard.\n\n\"You saved my life!\" Coke said, still in a daze. \"If you hadn't figured out the cipher so fast, that stuff would have landed on my head.\"\n\n\"What are sisters for?\"\n\nPep bent down and picked up one of the trophies. In fact, they were statues\u2014souvenir replicas of the observation tower they had fallen from, and made from razor-sharp plastic. If one of these things landed on your head, you wouldn't be getting back up anytime soon. Pep looked at her brother.\n\n\"It's Evil Elvis, or one of his flunkies,\" she said. \"He dropped the chest of drawers on me from that giant chest of drawers in North Carolina, and he dropped that brain on me when we were at the walk-in brain. Now he's dropping little observation towers out of the observation tower, and he's aiming for _you_.\"\n\n\"I'm gonna kill him!\" Coke said, jumping to his feet. \"Let's go!\"\n\nHe ran over to the observation tower and started charging up the steps.\n\n\"Wait! Stop!\" Pep yelled after her brother. \"What if you're wrong, like you were when you attacked that guy at the frying pan?\"\n\n\"I'm gonna kill him!\" Coke repeated. There was no stopping him.\n\nPep ran and followed her brother up the steps. The tower was higher than either of them realized, and by the time they got up to the top, they were both gasping for breath.\n\n\"Where is he?\" Coke asked, looking around with a wild look in his eyes. \"I'm gonna kill him!\"\n\nBut for better or worse, the observation deck at the top of the tower was completely empty. Evil Elvis, or _whoever_ had been up there, was gone. Maybe he had parachuted off while the twins were climbing the steps. Maybe a helicopter had come and scooped him off the top of the tower. There was no way of knowing.\n\nThe giant sombrero covered the top of the tower and served as a great scenic lookout. After their breathing returned to normal, Coke and Pep walked all the way around the brim, looking down to see if they could spot Evil Elvis. There were hundreds of people below walking around South of the Border, but none of them was wearing a white jumpsuit.\n\nAfter five minutes, they gave up and just looked at the scenery. From this high vantage point, they could see all of South of the Border. That's when Coke spotted this sign...\n\n### BOOM POW!  \nTHE FIREWORKS SUPERSTORE\n\nHe looked at it for a moment, and slowly a smile spread over his face.\n\n\"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?\" he asked.\n\n\"That depends on what you're thinking.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking we buy some fireworks,\" Coke said.\n\n\"Are you crazy?\"\n\n\"Look,\" Coke said to his sister, \"you know as well as I do that Evil Elvis is trying to kill us. We both agreed that we need some weapons to defend ourselves. Mya and Bones said they won't give us any, so we have to get them on our own. And there they are, waiting for us to take them away!\"\n\n\"Fireworks are _dangerous_!\" Pep protested. \"Every year I see stories on the news about kids getting hurt because some fireworks blew their finger off or took their eye out.\"\n\n\"Well, of _course_ fireworks are dangerous!\" Coke said. \"That's why we need 'em! If they weren't dangerous, they wouldn't do us any good, right? We need to show this Evil Elvis creep who he's dealing with. Come on!\"\n\nCoke started charging down the stairs of the observation tower, almost as quickly as he had charged up them a few minutes earlier. Pep, lacking any better plan, followed him.\n\n\"I don't feel good about this,\" she said.\n\n## Chapter 20\n\n## BANG FOR YOUR BUCK\n\n\"Let me do the talking, okay?\" Coke told his sister as they approached the front of Boom Pow! The Fireworks Superstore.\n\n\"Okay, okay.\"\n\nBefore they opened the door, Coke took out his wallet to see how much money he had. Minus the five dollars he had spent on gag underwear at the souvenir store, there were fifty dollars he had saved from raking leaves back home, plus the money his mother had given him.\n\n\"Do you have any money?\" he asked Pep.\n\n\"I have forty dollars,\" she replied. \"But that's the money Mom gave me plus all my babysitting money. I don't want to spend it all on fireworks.\"\n\n\"Look,\" Coke said, \"Evil Elvis is trying to kill us. Do you grasp the magnitude of that? He's trying to _kill_ us. _He's_ got weapons. You know what they say. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We need all the firepower we can afford.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" Pep said, handing over the money she had worked so hard to earn.\n\nThere were big signs plastered all over the window of the store.\n\n**Call us before your next party or special event!**\n\n**Get more bang for your buck!**\n\n**Come here for all your pyro needs!**\n\nCoke pulled open the door. The place was huge. It looked a little bit like a supermarket, but instead of aisles marked SOUP, DAIRY, and FROZEN FOOD, they were marked MISSILES, ROCKETS, AERIAL REPEATERS, and ROMAN CANDLES. The twins picked an aisle randomly to walk down. It was jammed with all kinds of explosives in scary-looking packages, with names like Midnight Dynamite, Purple Powerhouse, Nuclear Warhead, Sky Slammer, Freaky Tiki, and Hairy Eyeball.\n\n\"This isn't a store,\" Pep marveled. \"It's an arsenal.\"\n\n\"If this place ever catches on fire,\" Coke said, \"I just hope I'm here to watch it blow.\"\n\nA tall, skinny, and extremely well-pimpled employee wearing a Boom Pow! T-shirt came toward them. He looked like a high school kid. His name tag said Trey.\n\n\"I'm sorry, but you gotta be eighteen years old to buy fireworks, y'know,\" Trey told them. \"You two don't look eighteen.\"\n\n\"Let me handle this,\" Coke whispered to his sister. \"This redneck looks pretty dumb. He's probably the result of some serious inbreeding.\"\n\nCoke straightened his posture to address the kid.\n\n\"You're right, technically,\" he said, \"but we're dizygotic twins. So two fertilized eggs were implanted in our mother's uterus wall at the same time. In other words, together we're twenty-six years old.\"\n\nCoke glanced at Pep to make sure she wasn't going to open her big fat mouth. Trey stared at the two of them for a moment, looking back and forth from one to the other.\n\n\"Okay,\" he finally said. \"What do you need?\"\n\n\"We figured we'd buy some firecrackers,\" Pep said.\n\n\"Firecrackers?!\" Trey spit on the floor, then hollered, \"Hey, guys, get this! These kids want to buy _firecrackers_!\"\n\nA few men standing around the cash register started falling all over themselves like it was the funniest thing they had ever heard.\n\n\"I thought we agreed that _I_ would do the talking?\" Coke whispered to his sister angrily. Then he put one arm on Trey's shoulder and said, \"She's just kidding. We want the _real_ stuff.\"\n\n\"Well, now you're talkin',\" Trey said. \"We got megabangers, herbies, California candles, Texas rockets, Killer Comets, triple-whistler bottle rockets, anything you want. The X-18 Mega Blast is on sale this week. How much money are you thinkin' to spend?\"\n\n\"We have a hundred bucks and change,\" Coke said. \"Maybe you can make some recommendations?\"\n\n\"Hmmmm,\" Trey said, picking up a large box from a shelf. \"Lemme see. We just got in these American Beauties. They're five-hundred-gram cakes that explode in red, white, and blue with white strobes. Or maybe you'd rather go with a Barrel Buster. The blast opens up like a round of machine-gun fire. It's _awesome_.\"\n\n\"Which one makes the biggest explosion?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Well,\" Trey said, \"both of 'em are pretty intense. I mean, you get too close to either of these babies, and you'll have a headache that'll last you a lifetime. But if you're looking for flat-out, blow-out-the-ears power, I'm thinking the best thing for you might be our Classic Repeater Four Pack. Four repeaters in one package\u2014Green Bamboo, Big Snow, Yellow Bees, and Cloud Dragon.\"\n\n\"Wow, you sure know a lot about fireworks,\" Coke said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Trey replied. \"I'm sorta into blowing stuff up.\"\n\n\"Who isn't?\" said Coke.\n\n\"I'm not,\" said Pep.\n\n\"Well, you're a girl,\" Trey said with a laugh. Then he and Coke high-fived each other.\n\n\"You can do some serious damage with this stuff,\" Coke said.\n\n\"You ain't kiddin', buster,\" Trey agreed. \"It's like having a missile silo in your own backyard. Listen, you look like good kids. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. For a hundred bucks, you can have the Classic Repeater Four Pack, and I'll throw in an Exploding Mosquito for free. It has the maximum powder content allowed for helicopters.\"\n\n\"Cool!\" said Coke. \"Thanks!\"\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" Trey said. \"And because the Fourth of July is over and we're trying to get rid of inventory, you can also have a Silver Stunner. It includes a free fiberglass launching tube.\"\n\n\"Wow!\"\n\n\"And just so you know,\" Trey continued, \"everything we sell comes with a one hundred percent no-dud guarantee. We stand behind our products. But _you_ shouldn't stand behind our products. Ha-ha-ha! That's a little fireworks joke there. You see, if you stand behind our products, you might get your head blown off.\"\n\n\"We get it,\" Pep said, unamused.\n\nTrey walked the twins to the cash register and rang up their purchases.\n\n\"Do you need any racks or tubes?\" he asked. \"Artillery shells?\"\n\n\"No thanks, we're good,\" Coke said, stuffing the explosives into his backpack. \"It was a pleasure doing business with you.\"\n\n\"Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping at Boom Pow!\"\n\nAfter they left the fireworks store, Coke and Pep stopped off at a place called Reptile Lagoon that had all kinds of snakes, crocodiles, alligators, and turtles. They spent about an hour there looking at all the reptiles. By the time they were finished, it was close to six o'clock. When they got back to the RV, their parents were cooking hot dogs and hamburgers on the outdoor grill. Coke ditched the backpack full of fireworks discreetly behind his seat.\n\n\"Isn't this place great?\" asked Mrs. McDonald excitedly. \"Did you kids buy any good souvenirs? What did you get?\"\n\n\"I bought a can of alligator repellent,\" Pep said.\n\n\"I got a pair of underwear that says WORLD'S LARGEST SOURCE OF NATURAL GAS,\" said Coke.\n\n\"That's not funny,\" his mother said disapprovingly.\n\n\"Hey, _you're_ the one who bought the POUPON U toilet seat!\" Coke said.\n\nThe gag toilet seat Mrs. McDonald had bought at the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin was still sitting in the back of the RV.\n\n\"He's got you there, dear,\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\nThe burgers and dogs were excellent, and after dinner the whole family took a walk to the other end of South of the Border for ice cream and a round of miniature golf. By the ninth hole, Coke had nearly forgotten that just a few hours earlier, someone at the top of the observation deck had dropped a bag full of observation-deck statues on top of him.\n\nWhen they got back to the RV, it was dark outside. Mrs. McDonald went to update _Amazing but True_ while Dr. McDonald checked on the barbecue pit. There were still a few red-hot embers in there, so he carefully placed some sticks on top and blew on them to make the fire come to life again.\n\n\"Hey, kids, c'mere,\" he said. \"I want to tell you a story. Like in the old days.\"\n\nCoke rolled his eyes. When they were little, their father would come in their room at night, sit down on the floor, put an arm around each twin, and tell them stories. Sometimes it was a fable he remembered from his own childhood. Other times he would just make something up as he went along. It was nice.\n\nBut the twins were thirteen now. It seemed a little babyish to still be listening to your dad tell you a bedtime story. But the twins sat on the wooden bench next to the fire and cuddled with their father anyway, for old times' sake.\n\n\"Did I ever tell you the story of Blackbeard the pirate?\" he asked them.\n\n\"We saw the movie, Dad,\" Pep said. \"Johnny Depp was in it.\"\n\n\"Not _that_ story,\" Dr. McDonald said softly. \"It happened not far from here, off the Carolina coast. He was born in 1680, and his real name was Edward Teach. But everyone called him Blackbeard.\"\n\n\"I guess he had a black beard, huh, Dad?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Yeah, I guess so. And he tied colored ribbons to it. He wore a big black hat and a big black coat.\"\n\n\"Even during the summer?\" Pep asked. \"It must have been really hot\u2014\"\n\n\"Shhhh,\" her father said. \"This is a true story. Under the coat, Blackbeard would hide a sword, some knives, and two pistols. He would look for trading vessels along the coast that were transporting valuable cargo. Then he'd board them and rob them. If somebody put up a fight, he'd kill them.\"\n\n\"What a jerk,\" said Pep.\n\n\"Oh, Blackbeard was a _bad_ guy,\" her father continued. \"He attacked and pillaged ships along the Carolina coast starting around 1717. And then one day they got him. The governor of Virginia sighted Blackbeard's ship, and the governor ordered his crew to hide belowdecks. When Blackbeard boarded the ship, the crew attacked him. For all the heartache he had caused so many people, they stabbed him twenty times and they shot him five times. After all of that, he _still_ wasn't dead, so they hanged him.\"\n\n\"That's the story?\" asked Coke. He seemed to remember that the stories his dad used to tell had _happy_ endings, and there were usually furry animals and candy involved.\n\n\"No, that's only part of the story,\" Dr. McDonald said, almost whispering now. \"Here's the thing. After they stabbed, shot, and hanged Blackbeard, they chopped off his head and put it on a stick for everyone to see. Then they threw his body into the ocean.\"\n\n\"This story is getting gross, Dad,\" said Pep.\n\n\"What happened next?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Well, according to local legend,\" Dr. McDonald told the twins, \"the body didn't sink into the water like everybody expected. Instead, Blackbeard's head on a stick started shrieking, and his headless body swam around the ship.\"\n\n\"Without a _head_?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"Yup. And it swam around the ship _seven_ times!\"\n\nPep felt the hairs on her arm go up.\n\n\"Not only that,\" Dr. McDonald continued, \"but to this day, a lot of locals around here claim to have seen Blackbeard's headless body floating on the waves and giving off a mysterious phosphorescent glow. Some people say they've seen it rise out of the water with a lantern and walk ashore to search for its head. His ghost leaves no footprints, so we don't know where it is. He could be out here right now. That's the story of Blackbeard the pirate.\"\n\n\"Oh, great,\" Pep said, \"and you expect me to go to _sleep_ after hearing that?\"\n\n\"I'll protect you,\" Coke said as they went inside the RV to brush their teeth and get ready for bed.\n\nPep had a hard time falling asleep that night. She was lying on her back thinking about Blackbeard when suddenly she bolted upright.\n\n\"Do you hear something?\" she asked Coke, shaking him to wake him up.\n\n\"Huh? It's just Blackbeard's headless body looking for its head,\" Coke told her. \"Go back to bed.\"\n\n\"I hear music,\" Pep said.\n\n\"You're hallucinating.\"\n\nBut it wasn't Blackbeard's body walking around in the middle of the night looking for its head. It was Evil Elvis, standing right outside their RV with a little CD boom box. He held it against the metal exterior of the RV and pushed the play button.\n\n\"Don't Be Cruel\" came out of the speakers. For the rest of the night, Coke and Pep would not be able to get those words out of their heads.\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Dillon SC.\n\nIn the B box, type Columbia SC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 21\n\n##  A GIFT\n\nWhen Pep woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was to go outside and look for signs of anything suspicious. Sure enough, taped to the exterior of the RV right near her window was an envelope. Pep ripped it open and found a slip of paper with this written on it...\n\n**OGO THT LEV INI RGO OM**\n\n\"I knew it!\" she said as she ran inside to show it to her brother.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Pep replied, \"yet.\"\n\nThe family got a late start that day because Mrs. McDonald did a load of laundry in the campground washing machine and Coke did a dump to clear out the RV holding tank. Finally, around ten o'clock, they left South of the Border and were on I-95 South again. A billboard said PEDRO SAD THAT YOU ARE LEAVING.\n\nDr. McDonald hoped to make it halfway across South Carolina, to Columbia, before lunchtime. It would be a little more than a hundred miles.\n\nAs usual, Mrs. McDonald had her head in a guidebook.\n\n\"We could stop off at the Rice Museum in Georgetown,\" she mused out loud.\n\n\" _Please_ tell me the Rice Museum is named after somebody named Rice,\" said Coke. \"Jerry Rice, the football player? Condoleezza Rice?\"\n\n\"Actually, no, it's a museum _about_ rice,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"No!\" the kids shouted.\n\n\"They _can't_ have a museum about rice!\" Coke whined. \"It can't be true!\"\n\nIt _was_ true, but much to the relief of Coke and Pep, their mother did not insist on visiting the Rice Museum.\n\nPep took out her notebook and examined the cipher that had been taped to the RV in the middle of the night: OGO THT LEV INI RGO OM. Coke opened his backpack and read over the instructions that came with the fireworks he had bought.\n\nWhen I-95 intersected with Route 20 near Florence, South Carolina, Dr. McDonald pulled off the road and into a service station. It was one of those big ones, with a dozen pumps and a convenience store.\n\n\"We need to gas up,\" he announced.\n\n\"Why didn't you gas up when we were at South of the Border?\" Mrs. McDonald asked him. \"There was a gas station there.\"\n\n\"I forgot, okay?\" he replied. \"I'm not perfect.\"\n\n\"Are you and Mom fighting?\" Pep asked from the backseat.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nDr. McDonald inserted his credit card into the slot on the pump to pay for the gas.\n\nCARD DENIED flashed on the little screen as the credit card popped back out.\n\n\"What?!\"\n\n\"Is there a problem, dear?\" asked Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"The stupid machine won't take my credit card,\" he replied.\n\nHe tried again, and again the card was denied. Mrs. McDonald hopped out and went to see if she could help. An attendant saw that they were having trouble and came over.\n\n\"There must be some mistake,\" Mrs. McDonald told the guy. \"We used this credit card just this morning, and it was fine.\"\n\n\"Take it into the office,\" said the attendant. \"They'll take care of you.\"\n\nDr. and Mrs. McDonald walked purposefully to the office, around the back of the gas station. Most people don't carry around a lot of cash in their wallets. To a grown-up, a credit card is sort of like a life preserver. If they lose it, or can't use it, they're sunk\u2014especially if they're far from home.\n\nCoke and Pep went back to what they were doing. But suddenly, the front doors opened and two grown-ups got in. It wasn't their parents. It was Bones and Mya.\n\n\"Bones!\" shouted Pep.\n\n\"Mya!\" shouted Coke. \"What are _you_ doing here?\"\n\n\"We realized we were wrong,\" Bones said. \"We told you that you were safe, that you didn't have to worry anymore.\"\n\n\"Your lives are in serious danger,\" said Mya. \"Someone is trying to kill you.\"\n\n\"Gee, ya think?\" Pep said sarcastically.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke said, \"we kinda figured it out when my sister had a chest of drawers dropped on her head and she was kidnapped by an Elvis impersonator.\"\n\n\"Where were _you_?\" Pep said, her voice rising in anger. \"I thought you were going to help us. You never do _anything_ for us!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Bones said sincerely. \"We've let you down. But we came here today to make it up to you.\"\n\n\"We brought a present,\" Mya said, reaching into her bag.\n\n\"What is it?\" Coke asked. \"Another bottle of bubbles? Some more bars of hotel soap? Thanks for _nothing_.\"\n\n\"You've been asking us to give you a weapon,\" Mya said, \"and we didn't want to because you're so young. But we thought it over. And now that we've seen the way you've handled yourselves, we think you're ready.\"\n\nCoke threw a look at Pep, shaking his head to tell her not to let Bones and Mya know about the arsenal of weapons they had purchased at the fireworks store.\n\nMya pulled a blue Frisbee out of her bag and handed it to Pep.\n\n\"You're giving us a Frisbee?\" Coke asked. \"Oh, gee, _thanks_!\"\n\n\"It's not just _any_ Frisbee,\" Bones told him. \"It's a Frisbee _grenade_.\"\n\n\"For _real_?\"\n\n\"This is just like the one you used in Washington to blow up Archie Clone's helicopter,\" Mya explained. \"It's only a little heavier than a regular Frisbee, but it's packed with sophisticated electronics and plastic explosives. This is the on\/off switch here, on the inside of the lip.\"\n\n\"Wow,\" Pep said, cradling the Frisbee grenade in her arms like a baby.\n\n\"You've earned it,\" Bones said.\n\n\"There are just two things I need to tell you about the Frisbee grenade,\" Mya told Pep. \"First of all, it can't get wet. If it hits any water, it won't work. Got that?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Pep said.\n\n\"The second thing is, it detonates upon the _second_ impact. So if you want to blow something up, you have to skip the Frisbee off the ground first, or have it ricochet off something. Do you know how to skip it?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Pep said, making a mental note.\n\n\"One more thing,\" Bones said. \"This thing cost fifty thousand dollars. So be _very_ careful with it. It's not for playing catch. It's not for target practice, and it's not for fun. It's for defending yourselves if your lives are being threatened. You get just one shot with this thing. So make it count.\"\n\n\"I will,\" Pep vowed.\n\n\"Thanks, you guys,\" Coke said. \"This really means a lot to us. But you better get out of here. Our parents will be back any second.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about them,\" Mya said. \"There's nothing wrong with your father's credit card. We arranged for it to be denied so they would have to go to the office for a few minutes. As soon as we give the signal, your parents will be told everything is fine with the credit card.\"\n\n\"Clever,\" Coke said.\n\n\"Hey, before you go,\" Pep said, pulling out the slip of paper with the latest cipher on it, \"do you have any idea what this means?\"\n\n**OGO THT LEV INI RGO OM**\n\nBones and Mya looked at it but could not decipher the message. They gave each of the twins a hug and said good-bye. A minute later, Dr. and Mrs. McDonald returned to the RV.\n\n\"Is everything okay?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Yeah,\" his father replied. \"It was just some dumb mistake with the credit card company. Are you kids okay?\"\n\n\"Couldn't be better,\" Coke replied.\n\nIt was true. Even though Dr. Warsaw was still alive, Mrs. Higgins couldn't be trusted, the bowler dudes were psychotic, and Evil Elvis was out there determined to get them, Coke was feeling pretty good. If anybody tried to mess with him or his sister, they would be in for a big surprise. He and his sister had enough firepower to take out a small tank.\n\nNow they were armed, as they say, to the teeth.\n\n## Chapter 22\n\n## ACCIDENTS HAPPEN\n\nYou're probably getting a little impatient, maybe even a little angry, by now. On the first page of this book, you were told\u2014you were _promised_ \u2014that Coke was going to be thrown into a giant shredder. So far, we have encountered no shredder. Not a _shred_ of a shredder. You have every right to be mad. Promises should be kept. But trust me, dear reader. Your patience will be rewarded. Soon.\n\nInterstate 20 starts close to the gas station where the twins met up with Bones and Mya. It cuts all the way across the state of South Carolina and doesn't end until it reaches West Texas.\n\nThe highway looked like it stretched ahead to infinity, so Pep pulled out the cipher she had been puzzling over ever since she received it that morning.\n\n**OGO THT LEV INI RGO OM**\n\nIt looked so easy, but she couldn't seem to crack it.\n\nThen, as they were driving through Lee State Park near Bishopville, South Carolina, she figured it out. Pep noticed that when the first four letters\u2014OGOT\u2014were reversed, it spelled out TOGO. TOGO very probably meant TO GO, which possibly meant GO TO. \"Go to\" would be an obvious way to start a message.\n\nSo if reversing the first two letters made sense, and reversing the next pair of letters made sense, what would happen if she reversed _all_ the pairs of letters after that? She wrote it out in her notebook....\n\n**GOT OTH ELI VIN GRO OM**\n\n\"Go to the living room!\" Pep shouted.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" her father said from the driver's seat. \"It's an RV. We don't even _have_ a living room.\"\n\n\"Uh, nothing, Dad,\" Pep said. \"I was just having a dream or something.\"\n\nShe leaned over to show Coke how she had figured out the cipher.\n\n\"Go to the living room?\" Coke whispered. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"Beats me.\"\n\nAs the highway unrolled endlessly in front of them, each person in the family was deep in thought. Pep tried to figure out what \"go to the living room\" meant. Coke was trying to figure out how he would be able to use the fireworks he had purchased as weapons without hurting anyone in his family. Mrs. McDonald was trying to think of a way to convince the rest of the family to visit the Button Museum, which was right nearby.\n\nYes, it's a museum about buttons. Look it up if you don't believe me.\n\nAnd Dr. McDonald was thinking about his next book. He had to admit that the last one he had written, _The Impact of Coal on the Industrial Revolution_ , had been a bomb. Oh, it sold a few thousand copies and received some nice reviews in scholarly journals. But hardly anybody had read it. He wanted to write something that _millions_ of people would read. Working as a university professor was rewarding, but what he _really_ wanted was to see his name on the bestseller list.\n\n\"I was thinking that I should try something more commercial next time,\" he announced to nobody in particular. \"I should write a biography of somebody _really_ famous.\"\n\n\"I thought you had already decided that you were going to write a biography of Herbert Hoover, dear,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\nHe _was_ going to write a biography of President Hoover. But that was before they visited the Hoover Historical Center in North Canton, Ohio, and found out it was the home of the guy who owned the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company.\n\n\"I changed my mind,\" he replied. \"Nobody cares about Herbert Hoover. Even _I_ don't care about Herbert Hoover.\"\n\nSoon they started seeing road signs for Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. Stomachs had started rumbling. It would be a good time to stop for lunch. Mrs. McDonald decided not to mention the Button Museum to the rest of the family. She had another idea.\n\n\"Take exit 73A, Ben,\" she said. \"It's coming up on the right.\"\n\n\"What's there?\" he asked.\n\n\"Trust me.\"\n\nShe directed him into the heart of the city, until they reached Taylor Street. He pulled into the parking lot of the AgFirst Farm Credit Bank.\n\nAnd there it was, right in the middle of the parking lot.\n\n\"Behold!\" announced Mrs. McDonald with a sweep of her arm.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"What do you _think_ it is?\" said her mother. \"It's the largest fire hydrant in the world!\"\n\n\"You gotta be kidding me,\" said Coke.\n\nBut Coke's mother wasn't kidding. Oh sure, there's a twenty-five-foot fire hydrant in Beaumont, Texas, and a twenty-nine-foot fire hydrant in Elm Creek, Manitoba. But this one was _thirty-nine feet_ tall and made of five tons of steel set in a concrete base. Even Dr. McDonald was impressed by the sheer grandeur of it.\n\n\"Why do they have an enormous fire hydrant in the middle of this parking lot?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"They must have some really big fires around here,\" Dr. McDonald remarked.\n\n\"Or some really big dogs,\" said Coke.\n\nMrs. McDonald was awestruck and rushed to take photos and jot down notes for _Amazing but True_.\n\n\"Now I want to show you something even _more_ interesting,\" she said, stepping out of the RV. \"Follow me.\"\n\nCoke grabbed his backpack and Pep took her Frisbee grenade. They had decided to bring their weapons with them wherever they went, just in case.\n\n\"You don't need that stuff,\" Mrs. McDonald told them. \"We're just going up the street.\"\n\n\"I want to take it, Mom,\" said Coke.\n\n\"You heard your mother,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"Leave that stuff here.\"\n\nReluctantly the twins left their weapons in the RV and walked around the corner to the other side of the parking lot.\n\n\"Behold!\" announced Mrs. McDonald with another sweep of her arm.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"It's Tunnelvision!\"\n\nWhat else could you call it? Painted on the wall of the Federal Land Bank Building was a spectacular mural depicting a tunnel that had been cut through mountain rock, with the highway curving through it and into distant hills toward a brilliant orange sunset. The mural, which is fifty feet high and seventy-five feet across, fills the wall of the building. It's so realistic, they say, that birds will sometimes fly into it. The McDonalds stood in wonder.\n\n\"Cool!\"\n\n\"Amazing!\"\n\n\"Incredible!\"\n\n\"Awesome!\"\n\n\"And who would think,\" said Mrs. McDonald, \"that two such amazing things would be a block away from each other. That's why I wanted to come to Columbia.\"\n\nShe moved back so she could take photos of Tunnelvision. Coke and Pep went up to touch the wall, just to make sure it wasn't a real tunnel.\n\n\"It's such a great optical illusion,\" Coke said. \"I feel like I could walk right through the mural, just like on those old Road Runner cartoons.\"\n\nAt that moment, at the other end of the parking lot, a light blue Ford Escort was revving its engine. It shifted into drive, started rolling forward, and began picking up speed. It was heading straight toward the wall.\n\nThe car got up to forty miles per hour before anybody noticed that it was going _awfully_ fast to be in a parking lot. It wasn't until it reached fifty miles per hour that anybody noticed it was heading straight for Tunnelvision.\n\n\"Coke, watch out!\" Pep screamed as she grabbed her brother's arm and yanked him out of the way mere milliseconds before the car slammed into the wall at the exact spot where he had been touching it.\n\n_Boooooooooooooooom!_\n\nThe impact caused the front end of the Ford to crumple like a cheap accordion. It collapsed into itself in such a way that the driver's seat was compressed to a few inches. Smoke poured out of what used to be the engine. Fragments of the former windshield flew in all directions. A siren sounded in the distance almost immediately.\n\n\"You saved my life again!\" Coke said to his sister as they lay on the asphalt a few feet from the smoldering wreck.\n\nTheir parents came running over. Strangers came running over too, some to offer help and others just to gawk. In less than a minute, a police car and ambulance had arrived on the scene.\n\n\"You okay, son?\" asked one of the cops as Coke got up and brushed himself off. \"Anything broken?\"\n\n\"No, I don't think so,\" he replied, his heartbeat still well above normal. \"It missed me by a few inches.\"\n\n\"You're a very lucky young man,\" the cop told Coke. \"One more second, and you would be dead right now.\"\n\n\"That's the third time it happened this year,\" said the cop's partner. \"This mural is just _too_ realistic. It's a public hazard, I say.\"\n\n\"We better go see how the driver made out,\" said the first cop. \"This ain't gonna be pretty.\"\n\nThey ran around to the other side of the smoking car to pull the driver out. The car had been crushed so badly that you couldn't even see the driver from the outside.\n\n\"Nobody could survive that,\" one of the cops said, grabbing his walkie-talkie. \"Better call the morgue.\"\n\nYou never want to see another human being die, especially in such a tragic manner. But the twins were willing to make an exception in this case. Secretly Coke and Pep hoped the driver was Evil Elvis. Or Mrs. Higgins. Or one of the bowler dudes. Or maybe even Dr. Warsaw himself. If those creeps were out of the picture, it would be the end of their problems. But when the cop managed to stick his head into the driver's-side window, he found something even _more_ surprising.\n\n\"There's nobody in the car,\" he said.\n\n\"What?\" said his partner. \"That's impossible.\"\n\n\"It must be remote controlled,\" said the first cop. \"Y'know, one of those new high-tech cars that drive themselves.\"\n\n\"I'll be darned. Never seen anything like _that_ before.\"\n\n\"Do this job long enough, you'll see everything.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald peered inside the car for herself, just to be sure the policemen were right.\n\n\"Why would somebody drive a remote-control car into a wall?\" she asked.\n\n\"I guess they didn't think it was a wall,\" said one of the cops. \"They thought it was a tunnel.\"\n\nCoke and Pep didn't mention to the police that whoever was controlling that car knew full well that they were driving it straight into a wall, and that they drove it straight into the wall _specifically_ because Coke was standing in front of the wall. Nobody would ever believe that.\n\nA tow truck arrived to haul the crumpled car away, and gradually the curious onlookers left. The police wrote out a report and told the McDonalds they could go.\n\n\"You kids certainly are accident-prone lately,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"One day a chest of drawers nearly falls on Pep's head, and the next day a remote-control car almost slams into Coke.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Pep said weakly. \"Those were pretty amazing coincidences.\"\n\nAs they walked back to the RV, Coke had a look on his face, a look of steely resolve.\n\n\"Do you think it was Evil Elvis?\" his sister asked him.\n\n\"Oh, I'm _sure_ it was Evil Elvis,\" Coke replied. \"I'm gonna get him for this.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Columbia SC.\n\nIn the B box, type Travelers Rest SC.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nThe McDonalds stopped off at a nearby Subway for lunch, and then got on I-26 West out of Columbia, which cuts right through Sumter National Forest. Mrs. McDonald was searching in her guidebook and on her laptop for a campground somewhere near the Georgia border.\n\n\"Can we stay somewhere that has a swimming pool?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Yeah, we never get to go swimming,\" Pep said.\n\nMost of the campgrounds Mrs. McDonald found were located in state parks or next to lakes, and they didn't usually have swimming pools.\n\n\"This place looks nice,\" she said, showing them a photo in the guidebook. \"It says here they have a babbling brook that runs the length of the campground.\"\n\n\"We don't care about brooks,\" said Coke, \"babbling or otherwise.\"\n\n\"They have a well-manicured nature trail,\" Mrs. McDonald pointed out.\n\n\"We don't care about nature trails,\" said Pep.\n\n\"You kids are tough to please,\" their mother said. \"They have a horseshoe pit... a volleyball court... pool table... propane station...\"\n\n\"We don't care,\" the twins said as one.\n\n\". . . and they have a swimming pool!\" Mrs. McDonald shouted. \"Yes! They have a swimming pool!\"\n\n\"Yeah!\"\n\n\"It's a few minutes from Greenville, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"It says here that 'You will feel so relaxed and removed from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.'\"\n\n\"Oh, please _please_ can we go there?\" Pep begged.\n\nDr. McDonald took I-385 up past Greenville and the Poinsett Highway past Furman University into the small town of Travelers Rest. It wasn't hard to find Valley Park Resort. It was exactly as it had been advertised\u2014babbling brook, shady trees, beautiful mountains.\n\n\"Can we go swimming?\" the kids asked almost as soon as the RV pulled into the parking lot.\n\n\"Go!\" Mrs. McDonald enouraged them. \"Swim! Have fun!\"\n\nThe twins quickly changed into their bathing suits and followed the signs to the pool. It wasn't exactly Olympic-sized, but it would do. A sign at the edge of the pool read\n\n\"Geronimo!\" Coke shouted as he cannonballed into the deep end. Pep carefully waded in at the other end. They met in the middle of the pool.\n\nAfter the automobile \"accident\" at Tunnelvision, the twins thought that taking a swim would calm their nerves. And it did. After a fierce splash fight, Coke and Pep rolled over and floated on their backs, looking up at the sky. There's something about being surrounded by water that makes a person feel safe. Maybe it reminds us of what life was like in the womb.\n\nAnd yet, at the same time, it was hard for Coke and Pep to get Evil Elvis out of their heads. He was a different kind of criminal. Like a cat that likes to play with its prey, it seemed like Evil Elvis enjoyed toying with them. Why else would he put Pep's feet in soda and tell her it would eat away at her flesh? Why else would he hide outside their RV in the middle of the night playing Elvis music? Why else would he dig a giant pit in the ground for Pep to fall into? He could have killed them anytime he wanted to, but he seemed to enjoy taunting them. And he seemed to have an unlimited amount of time and money to do it.\n\nThe twins, of course, finally had some weapons they could use to defend themselves. But they still had a big disadvantage. They didn't know where or when Evil Elvis was going to strike. How do you get back at somebody if you can't find him?\n\nThese are the kinds of thoughts that were buzzing around in the twins' minds as they relaxed in the pool. After floating on his back for a long time, Coke rolled over to do a dead man's float. And when he opened his eyes and looked under the water, this is what he saw, written, in large red letters, on the bottom of the pool.\n\n**MOOVRETTHTOGO**\n\n## Chapter 23\n\n## MORE LAME MUSEUMS\n\n\"Oh no, not _another_ one!\" Coke said underwater, the bubbles pouring out of his mouth.\n\nMOOVRETTHTOGO. What could _that_ possibly mean?\n\nCoke showed his sister the letters at the bottom of the pool and quickly memorized them. As soon as they climbed out of the water and toweled off, Pep wrote the cipher down on a blank page in her notebook and got to work.\n\nMOOVRETTHTOGO. She figured that before anything else, she would try out the same strategy that had worked on the last cipher. She reversed the first two letters, and then reversed the third and fourth letters.\n\nOM OV. OMOV\n\nWell, that didn't mean anything. This would require a bit more thought. Pep resolved to work on it more seriously later.\n\nIf they hadn't decided to go swimming, it occurred to Coke, they would have never seen the message left for them at the bottom of the pool. How was it, he wondered, that Evil Elvis was able to send them these messages so easily? He had to know exactly where they were going to go and when they were going to be there. Then he had to get to that location first, plant the cipher, and leave.\n\nCoke scratched his head and remembered... the computer chip. Way back in California, when they had first joined The Genius Files program, GPS devices had been implanted into both of their scalps. Their every move could be tracked. And there was no way to remove the computer chips. How Evil Elvis managed to write letters on the bottom of a pool filled with water was anybody's guess.\n\n\"We've got to tell Mom and Dad what's going on,\" Pep told her brother as they headed back to the RV. \"Honesty is the best policy.\"\n\n\"Don't you remember what Dr. Warsaw told us after the wedding?\" Coke replied. \"He said if we say one word about any of this to our parents, he'll kill them both.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Travelers Rest SC.\n\nIn the B box, type Hartwell GA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nDespite everything that had happened in South Carolina, the twins somehow managed to have a relaxing dinner and get a good night's sleep. In the morning, the McDonalds pulled out of Valley Park Resort around nine o'clock and made their way to I-85 South.\n\nThe Blue Ridge Mountains appeared hazily in the distance. It wasn't long before the McDonalds started to see a lot of water out the windows on both sides, as well as people fishing, boating, and water skiing. It was enormous Lake Hartwell, which has 962 miles of shoreline. The lake was named after Nancy Hart, a woman who almost singlehandedly captured six British soldiers in the Revolutionary War.\n\nThey were going over a long bridge when a sign came into view....\n\n\"Woo-hoo!\" Coke shouted. \"The Goober State!\"\n\n\"Why are peanuts called goobers, anyway?\" Mrs. McDonald asked, figuring one of them might know the answer.\n\n\"It's one of those mysteries of life,\" replied Dr. McDonald, \"like what happened to Amelia Earhart. Hey, maybe I should write a biography about _her_.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Coke said, \"the word _goober_ was an African term that was brought to America by slaves before the Civil War.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Know-It-All,\" said Pep, rubbing her eyes.\n\n\"Aren't you going to regale us with some obscure trivia about the state of Georgia, honey?\" asked his mother.\n\nCoke had to search his memory for a moment before he was able to come up with anything.\n\n\"Georgia is the nation's number one producer of the three Ps,\" he finally said, recalling a copy of the _Weekly Reader_ from second grade. \"Peanuts, pecans, and peaches.\"\n\n\"Everybody knows that, bonehead,\" Pep said with a snort.\n\n\"Don't call your brother a bonehead.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" Coke replied. \"Well, the Georgia state seashell is the knobbed whelk.\"\n\n\"That's more like it, Son!\" said his father.\n\nPep rolled her eyes in disgust.\n\nBy the age of thirteen, many kids take an active interest in where they go on a family vacation and even help their parents plan out the trip. But Coke and Pep were still pretty much content to let their parents take care of these details. Mrs. McDonald, in particular, seemed to really enjoy doing the research by herself and setting the agenda.\n\n\"What do they have in Georgia?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Yeah, where are we going today?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Oh, it's a secret,\" Mrs. McDonald told them. \"We're going someplace very special to one of you. You'll find out when we get there.\"\n\n\"SLM,\" Coke mumbled under his breath to his sister. Like a lot of twins, they had developed a shorthand way of communicating information they wanted to keep private. SLM stood for Some Lame Museum.\n\nIt was just as well that Coke and Pep _didn't_ know where they were going. With those computer chips implanted in their scalps, if they were to mention any location, they could be tracked more easily.\n\n\"I _will_ tell you where we're _not_ going,\" said Mrs. McDonald, looking through her guidebook. \"The world's largest peanut monument, in Ashburn, Georgia. It's too far out of our way.\"\n\n\"Bummer,\" Coke said. \"I really want to see that.\"\n\n\"The Lunchbox Museum in Columbus has more than two thousand metal lunchboxes and seventeen hundred thermoses,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"That could be very interesting to see.\"\n\n\"Can we go? Oh, please?\" Pep begged, not all that convincingly.\n\n\"Maybe next time you go cross-country,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"When I'm in the old folks' home.\"\n\n\"Then there's the U.S. National Tick Collection in Statesboro,\" Mrs. McDonald continued. \"They have a machine that freeze-dries the ticks and coats them with gold for better viewing under a high-powered microscope.\"\n\n\"Ticks are my favorite bug,\" Pep remarked. \"They're _adorable_.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I'll bet you're a big fan of Lyme disease too,\" Coke told his sister.\n\n\"Cordele, Georgia, is the watermelon capital of the world,\" Mrs. McDonald said, closing her book, \"and Claxton is the fruitcake capital of the world. But both of them are far to the south of where we're heading.\"\n\n\"Fruitcake needs a capital?\" asked Coke.\n\nDr. McDonald pulled off the highway for a quick detour to the small town of Hartwell, Georgia, which was also named after Nancy Hart. But that's not why the McDonalds went there. The RV stopped alongside a historical marker and a stone monument....\n\n\"The Cherokee Indians called this spot _Ah-Yeh-Li A-Lo-Hee_ ,\" said Mrs. McDonald, \"or the center of the world. Many different trails radiated in all directions from this hub.\"\n\n\"Hub?\" Coke said with a snort. \"They should have called it the middle of nowhere.\"\n\n\"Where's the gift shop?\" Pep asked. \"This place is lame.\"\n\n\"That's the problem with kids these days,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"You have no sense of history. When I was your age, we appreciated what happened before our time. I could name every state in the union, and all the state capitals too.\"\n\n\"Yeah, Dad,\" Coke said, \"but there were only thirteen states back then.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Hartwell GA.\n\nIn the B box, type 2319 Duncan Bridge Road, Sautee GA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nLeaving Hartwell on the Lavonia Highway, road signs begin to appear for Gainesville, Georgia, which calls itself the chicken capital of the world.\n\n\"That's nothing to brag about,\" Coke said.\n\n\"Apparently they have a large number of poultry-processing plants there,\" Dr. McDonald noted.\n\n\"Please don't tell me you're going to take us to a poultry-processing plant,\" Pep said. \"I will vomit.\"\n\n\"Hey, you should know what goes into the making of your food,\" Coke said.\n\n\"We're _not_ going to take you to a poultry-processing plant,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"We're not even going to Gainesville.\"\n\n\" _Thank_ you,\" said Pep.\n\n\"We're going to the Gourd Museum!\"\n\n\"No!\" both kids shouted.\n\n\"Wait, are you kidding me?\" Coke asked. \"Do you mean those gourd things that people put in baskets for no reason around Halloween time?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"They have a gourd museum?\" asked Pep. \"And _that's_ the special place we're going to today?\"\n\n\"No, the Gourd Museum is _on the way_ to the special place we're going today,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"It sounds fascinating,\" Coke said. \"Can't we just drive off a cliff instead?\"\n\nThe kids might not have been happy about it, but Dr. McDonald steered the RV along a series of small roads, passing through part of the Chattahoochee National Forest until he reached Duncan Bridge Road and the Gourd Museum.\n\n\"Can we wait in the car?\" Pep asked. \"This place looks like it's going to be boring on steroids.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we don't care about gourds,\" said Coke.\n\n\"Suit yourselves,\" Mrs. McDonald said as she grabbed her camera. \"Someday you'll regret that you came all the way to Sautee, Georgia, and you didn't go to the Gourd Museum.\"\n\n\"I guess I'll just have to live with the guilt,\" Coke said.\n\nAfter her parents got out of the RV, Pep pulled out her notebook and got back to work on the cipher they had seen at the bottom of the swimming pool.\n\n**MOOVRETTHTOGO**\n\nShe thought about it for a long time. Then she noticed the last four letters\u2014TOGO. She remembered that the previous cipher they received had started with the same letters, but backward\u2014OGOT. That couldn't be a coincidence. It had to mean something.\n\nSo she wrote out the entire cipher backward....\n\n**OGOTHTTERVOOM**\n\nThen she started reversing each of the letter pairs, the strategy that had worked on the last cipher....\n\n**GOTOTHETVROOM**\n\n\"Go to the TV room!\" she shouted.\n\n\"TV room?\" asked Coke, who had been looking over her shoulder as she worked. \"What TV room?\"\n\n\"Do you think they have a TV room in the Gourd Museum?\" Pep asked.\n\nThey were about to hop out of the RV to find out when their parents came strolling back into the parking lot.\n\n\"Oh, you kids missed a good time,\" said their father as he opened the driver's-side door.\n\n\"I haven't had so much fun since the time we went to the Spam Museum,\" said their mother.\n\n\"Mom, do they have a TV room in the Gourd Museum?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"A TV room?\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"Of course not. But they have two hundred gourds from twenty-three countries. It was fascinating. You should have seen the artwork created by the gourd artists.\"\n\n\"Gourd artists?\" asked Coke.\n\nAs her father started up the RV, Pep turned to a blank page in her notebook and wrote the two ciphers they had received.\n\n**1. Go to the living room**\n\n**2. Go to the TV room**\n\nIt just didn't make any sense. Yet.\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type 2319 Duncan Bridge Road, Sautee GA.\n\nIn the B box, type Atlanta GA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\nLeaving the Gourd Museum, the McDonalds got back on the road and drove right by Gainesville without stopping to look at any chickens. Dr. McDonald merged onto I-985 heading south, which soon merged with I-85.\n\nGradually the woods, lakes, trees, and mountain scenery of North Georgia started giving way to buildings, traffic, and road signs indicating the number of miles to Atlanta.\n\n\"I'm hungry,\" Coke said. \"Can we stop for lunch soon?\"\n\n\"Way ahead of ya,\" Mrs. McDonald said.\n\nBefore they reached the Atlanta city limits, she instructed Dr. McDonald to pull off onto a street called College Avenue. A few minutes later, they were rolling into the Waffle House parking lot.\n\n\"Waffle House?\" shouted Coke. \"I love Waffle House!\"\n\n\"Oh, this isn't Waffle House,\" said his mother.\n\n\"It sure looks like a Waffle House, Mom.\"\n\n\"No, it's the Waffle House _Museum_!\" she said triumphantly.\n\n\"No! Say it ain't so!\" Coke protested.\n\n\"What's the big deal?\" asked his mother. \"We went to the Gourd Museum. We went to the Spam Museum. We went to the Mustard Museum and the Pez Museum. What's the problem with a Waffle House Museum?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what the problem is,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"We have too many museums. _Everything_ isn't important. Everything doesn't deserve to have its own _shrine_ dedicated to it. They probably have an air museum somewhere.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Dr. Grumpy,\" said Mrs. McDonald as they parked the RV outside the Waffle House Museum. \"Why don't you lighten up a little and have some fun?\"\n\nCoke slung the backpack full of fireworks over his shoulder. Pep grabbed her Frisbee grenade.\n\n\"Do you really _need_ that stuff?\" Dr. McDonald asked Coke.\n\n\"I'm taking it, Dad.\"\n\nCoke remembered that the last time he didn't take his weapons with him, a car nearly ran him over at Tunnelvision.\n\n\"Fine,\" Dr. McDonald said, throwing up his hands. He was still upset at the Dr. Grumpy remark.\n\nThe twins walked a few paces behind their parents.\n\n\"Keep an eye out,\" Pep whispered. \"This is just the kind of place where Evil Elvis would show up.\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" Coke whispered back, \"if he's behind the counter here, I'll blow this place to kingdom come.\"\n\nAs it turned out, Evil Elvis was _not_ behind the counter. Instead, the McDonalds learned how the first Waffle House opened at this spot in 1955. Now there are more than fifteen hundred Waffle Houses all over the country, and each of them is open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year.\n\n\"They don't even need to put locks on the doors,\" Coke noted.\n\n\"Wow,\" Pep said as she read from a display case, \"it says here that if you stacked up all the sausage patties that Waffle House serves in a day, it would be four times the size of the Empire State Building!\"\n\nThe museum was actually quite interesting, but now the family was hungrier than ever. Fortunately, around the corner from the Waffle House Museum is... a Waffle House!\n\nThey walked over and were enjoying a perfectly normal, pleasant family meal, up until the moment that Coke received his second apple cinnamon waffle. As he picked it up and was about to bite into it, he noticed that this was burned into the perimeter of the crust...\n\n**20\u201312\u20137\u201312\u20137\u201319\u201322\u201311\u2013**\n\n**12\u201312\u201315\u20139\u201312\u201312\u201314**\n\n\"Oh no,\" he said. \"Numbers.\"\n\nThe ciphers were coming fast and furious now.\n\n## Chapter 24\n\n## THE SECRET FORMULA\n\n\"Oh, this one's a piece of cake,\" Pep said to her brother after they were back on the road. \"I'll bet even _you_ can solve it.\"\n\nWhile their parents blasted an oldies station in the front seats, Coke examined the new cipher, which his sister had written down in her notebook.\n\n**20\u201312\u20137\u201312\u20137\u201319\u201322\u201311\u2013**\n\n**12\u201312\u201315\u20139\u201312\u201312\u201314**\n\nTo Coke, it looked like a meaningless string of numbers. There were a bunch of twelves in there, and they repeated. But his brain was only good at storing and accumulating vast quantities of information. It simply wasn't hard-wired to organize and process data. He handed the notebook back to his sister.\n\n\"Look, it's simple,\" she told him. \"First you write out the alphabet....\"\n\n\"Then you put a number below each letter....\"\n\n\"The first number in the cipher is 20, so that must be a T,\" she said. \"Then comes the number 12, and that's an L. After that is 7, which is the letter G. And then another L...\"\n\n\"T-L-G-L?\" Coke said. \"That doesn't mean anything.\"\n\nPep did it again in her head, just to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Coke was right. The message couldn't be TLGL.\n\nShe thought about it for a moment, and then brightened.\n\n\"Oh, I got it!\" she said. \"You need to put the numbers _backward_!\"\n\nPep crossed out the first line of numbers and wrote it again, this time putting the number 1 below the letter Z and working back until the number 26 was below the A. Then she plugged in the corresponding letters to the numbers.\n\nGOTOTHEPOOLROOM\n\n\"Go to the pool room!\" Coke said, almost loud enough for his parents to hear. \"What's _that_ supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"He wants us to go to a house or something,\" Pep replied. She added the new message to the list they had received so far.\n\n**1. Go to the living room**\n\n**2. Go to the TV room**\n\n**3. Go to the pool room**\n\nShe looked to her brother, and all he could do was shrug his shoulders.\n\nIt was just eight miles on Dekalb Avenue from the Waffle House into Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. The McDonalds had not been to a big city since Washington, D.C. Coke and Pep craned their necks to look up at the tall buildings as they entered downtown Atlanta.\n\nDr. McDonald drove past Georgia State University and CNN headquarters on Marietta Street before turning right toward Centennial Olympic Park, the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Georgia Aquarium was on their left.\n\n\"Is _this_ the special place you said you were taking us to today?\" Pep asked. \"Are we going to the aquarium?\"\n\n\"No...,\" Mrs. McDonald said as they drove along the north side of the park. \" _This_ is the special place we're going to today.\"\n\nAcross the street was a huge modern building, with the words WORLD OF COCA-COLA written on it.\n\n\"We took you to the Birthplace of Pepsi in North Carolina,\" said Dr. McDonald as he looked around for a parking lot. \"So we figured it was only fair to take you to the birthplace of Coke too.\"\n\n\"This is _way_ bigger than that lame Pepsi place,\" marveled Coke.\n\nPep wrinkled up her nose. She knew her brother was right, and she also remembered what had happened to her back at the Birthplace of Pepsi.\n\nThey parked the RV. Coke grabbed his backpack, and Pep grabbed her Frisbee grenade, just in case.\n\n\"Again with the backpack?\" complained Dr. McDonald. \"What do you keep in there, anyway?\"\n\n\"My private stuff,\" Coke replied. \"I like to have it with me in case somebody breaks into the RV.\"\n\n\"Nobody's going to break into the RV,\" his mother argued.\n\n\"I want it, okay?\" Coke said.\n\nSeeing as how they came to the World of Coke just for him, Coke's parents dropped the argument right there and started walking toward the building.\n\n\"Did you know that only two people in the world know the secret formula to Coke?\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"Really?\" Pep said.\n\n\"Yeah. I read about it somewhere. In fact, those two guys aren't even allowed to fly in the same plane together.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Coke asked.\n\n\"Because if the plane crashed and they both died,\" Dr. McDonald told him, \"there would be _nobody_ who knew the secret formula.\"\n\n\"I can't believe that,\" Coke said. \"They must have written it down somewhere, or put it on a computer.\"\n\n\"That's the story I heard,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"I don't know if it's true or not.\"\n\nThe World of Coke is a sort of combination museum and theme park. Dr. McDonald whined about having to pay money to see what was essentially a commercial for the Coca-Cola Company. He remarked that they should be paying _him_. But he went to buy tickets anyway. Next to the ticket office was a security station with serious-looking guards and a metal detector.\n\n\"They're looking through everybody's backpacks,\" Pep whispered to her brother. \"You'll never make it through security carrying all those fireworks.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Coke said, and then called to his parents, \"I changed my mind. I'm going to go put my backpack in the RV.\"\n\nDr. McDonald sighed and gave Coke the keys to the RV. Pep held on to her Frisbee grenade, knowing the guard would not be able to tell it wasn't an ordinary Frisbee.\n\n\"Why would you want to bring a Frisbee into the World of Coca-Cola?\" her mother asked her.\n\n\"You never know when you might want to have a catch, Mom,\" Pep replied.\n\n\"Since when do you like Frisbee so much?\"\n\n\"Like _forever_ , Mom,\" Pep said, rolling her eyes. \"What planet have _you_ been living on?\"\n\nDr. McDonald finished his transaction at the ticket booth, catching the end of the Frisbee discussion.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, \"how about we have a little catch right _now_ in the parking lot while we're waiting for Coke to come back? Here, toss that thing to me, Pep. Lemme see if I remember how to throw it.\"\n\n\"No!\" Pep said. There was no way she was going to let anybody touch her fifty-thousand-dollar Frisbee grenade. \"Leave me alone.\"\n\nDr. McDonald could only shake his head. \"Kids,\" he said.\n\nAfter going through security, the first room the McDonalds entered told the history of Coca-Cola. Like Pepsi, Coke was invented by a pharmacist. His name was John Pemberton, and he was a Civil War veteran who lived in Atlanta. In May of 1886, he concocted the first batch of Coke syrup in a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard. He carried a jug of it down the street to Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water. They sold it for five cents a glass and claimed that it was not only refreshing but also cured morphine addiction, headaches, and other ailments.\n\n\"Hey, Dad, maybe you should write a biography about the two guys who invented Coke and Pepsi,\" suggested Pep. \"That would make a good book.\"\n\n\"Not a bad idea,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"But it says here that John Pemberton never witnessed the success of Coca-Cola. He died just two years after he invented the stuff.\"\n\n\"That's sad,\" said Pep.\n\nThe World of Coke is huge, and the McDonalds wanted to see all of it. Milestones of Refreshment is a history of Coca-Cola memorabilia. In Search of the Secret Formula is a 3-D movie for kids in which your seat shakes and you get squirted with water. Bottle Works is a fully functioning bottling line. The Pop Culture art gallery features all kinds of artwork that uses the Coke logo. And of course, there's the Coca-Cola Store, where you can buy hundreds of products with the Coke logo.\n\nFor the twins, their favorite part was Taste It! on the upper level. You can sample sixty Coca-Cola drinks from all over the world, with names like Sparberry, Sunfill, and Inka. They even have a Coca-Cola Freestyle dispenser that lets you invent new drinks by mixing a hundred different flavor combinations any way you'd like.\n\nWhile the twins were tasting all the drinks, their parents said they wanted to spend more time looking at the old Coca-Cola ads and artifacts through the decades. Everyone agreed to meet back at the RV in an hour.\n\nHaving ingested such a large quantity of carbonated beverages, Coke let out a burp that could be heard all the way across the Taste It! lounge. Pep was disgusted, but some of the other kids laughed.\n\n\"Hey, I have a great idea,\" Coke said.\n\n\"I don't like the sound of this already.\"\n\n\"Let's go find the secret formula for Coke!\"\n\n\"You heard what Dad told us,\" said Pep. \"Only two people in the world know the formula.\"\n\n\"Oh, give me a break,\" Coke said. \"That's gotta be a myth. I'm sure it's written down somewhere in this building. Come on, let's go look for it.\"\n\n\"You're crazy!\" his sister said as she followed her brother out of the room. \"We'll get in trouble.\"\n\n\"You know,\" Coke said, \"you'd get into a lot less trouble if you weren't always so worried about getting into trouble. Hey, look!\"\n\nThere was a door near the corner with a sign that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY on it.\n\n\"I'm going in there,\" Coke said. \"Come with me.\"\n\n\"I will not!\" Pep said. \"What would you do if you had the secret formula anyway? Mix up a batch down the basement and start your own soda company?\"\n\n\"No,\" Coke told her, \"I'd sell the formula to the highest bidder.\"\n\n\"Even if the secret formula _is_ on a computer,\" Pep said, \"I'm sure it's password protected. They have security here. They check the backpacks. You're not going to be able to just waltz right in there and find the secret formula so easily.\"\n\nCoke started flapping his arms and making chicken noises.\n\n_\"Buck buck buck buck...\"_\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\n\"Come on,\" Coke said. \"I'll bet the secret formula is right beyond that door. Where's your sense of adventure?\"\n\n\"I lost it at the Birthplace of Pepsi,\" she told him. \"If you want to go looking for the secret formula so badly, go ahead. I'll meet you back at the RV.\"\n\nWith that, she walked away.\n\n\"You're no fun,\" Coke called after her. \"Okay, fine. I'll go by myself.\"\n\nCoke pulled opened the door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. It was pitch-dark inside.\n\n\"Grab him!\" somebody yelled.\n\n## Chapter 25\n\n## THINGS GO BETTER WITH COKE\n\nFour hands grabbed Coke. In seconds, his arms were tied tightly behind his back. He was pushed roughly into a chair and his legs were bound together. He struggled, but it was no use.\n\nHe felt his heart beating fast in his chest. How _stupid_ it was to open that door, Coke told himself. He should have listened to his sister.\n\n\"It's about time we met,\" said the gruff voice in the dark. \"My name... is Evil Elvis.\"\n\nThe light flicked on. There he was, just as Pep had described him\u2014in a white jumpsuit, with a rubber Elvis mask on his face. He took a long swig from a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola.\n\n\"Help! Help!\" Coke screamed.\n\n\"Save your breath,\" Evil Elvis told him. \"Nobody can hear you.\"\n\nThe small room was empty, except for a wooden desk and a small trash can. Coke was being held from behind by the men who had tied him up.\n\n\"You!\" Coke sputtered. \"You scared my sister to death at the Birthplace of Pepsi!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Evil Elvis, chuckling. \"That was so much fun. And now it's your turn, Coke. Only this time, it will be more than just scaring. How fitting it is for me to kill you right here at the World of Coke. Everything that goes around comes around.\"\n\n\"What's _that_ supposed to mean?\" Coke just about spat out the words.\n\n\"Let him go, boys,\" said Evil Elvis.\n\nCoke turned around to see two guys dressed in security officer uniforms. They looked like real security guys except for one thing\u2014they were wearing bowler hats.\n\n\"The bowler dudes!\" Coke hollered.\n\n\"At your service,\" snickered the one with a mustache.\n\n\"I thought you guys had changed,\" Coke said. \"You told me you had stopped harming kids and now you were into jousting.\"\n\nThe clean-shaven bowler dude snickered some more. \"That's called lying,\" he said.\n\n\"So now you two work for Evil Elvis?\"\n\n\"We work for whomever pays us,\" said the mustachioed bowler dude.\n\n\"Whoever,\" said Evil Elvis. \"It's _whoever_ pays us, you idiot!\"\n\n\"Whatever.\"\n\n\"How did you know I was going to come in here?\" Coke asked. \"Was it the GPS chip?\"\n\n\"That's how I knew you would come to _Atlanta_ ,\" said Evil Elvis. \"Once you got here, I knew you wouldn't be able to resist opening a door that had a sign on it that specifically said not to open it. That's the way you are, Coke. You can't resist challenging authority. You thought you'd find the secret formula to Coca-Cola in here. I know all about you. I'm in your head.\"\n\nCoke struggled against the ropes, but they were tight. He wished he had his backpack full of fireworks with him.\n\n\"Why don't you take off that stupid mask?\" Coke said. \"Show me your real face.\"\n\n\"You're not in a position to be telling anyone what to do,\" Evil Elvis correctly pointed out. He took a swig from his bottle, then put it down on the desk. Then he pulled a little cigarette lighter out of his pocket and flicked it. He stared into the flame, mesmerized.\n\n\"Isn't fire beautiful?\" Evil Elvis asked.\n\n\"It sure is, boss,\" both bowler dudes replied, snickering.\n\n\"I wasn't asking _you_ morons!\"\n\nCoke recalled that his sister had mentioned something about Evil Elvis being a pyromaniac. But he thought it would be best not to encourage him in that direction.\n\n\"What's the deal with those ciphers you've been sending us?\" Coke asked. \"Go to the living room. Go to the pool room. What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, never mind my little messages,\" said Evil Elvis. \"They would have been important if you hadn't come here. But I've got you now. So you can forget about all those rooms. You'll never need them. You're never going to leave _this_ room. Well, at least not alive.\"\n\nEvil Elvis tilted his head back and drained the last few ounces from the bottle. Then he held the lighter next to the edge of the bottle. The plastic started to smoke and melt. Coke looked up at the ceiling. There were no smoke detectors.\n\n\"Isn't it interesting how fire can destroy, and also create,\" Evil Elvis continued. \"If I heat this bottle to a certain temperature with this flame, it will melt. Then I could mold it into just about anything. A child's toy, a tool, even another bottle.\"\n\nEvil Elvis was obviously crazy. Coke looked around desperately for a way out. There were two doors\u2014the one he had entered, and another one behind Evil Elvis.\n\n\"What are you going to do to me?\" Coke asked, stalling for time.\n\n\"Oh, I have big plans for you, young man,\" Evil Elvis said as he flicked off the lighter and tossed the melted bottle into the garbage. \"In fact, you're going to save the earth.\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\" snickered the bowler dudes, but Evil Elvis ignored them.\n\n\"Coke,\" he said, \"do you realize that Americans go through two and a half million plastic bottles every _hour_? What a terrible waste. Fortunately a lot of those bottles get melted down and recycled. They're often made into roads, playground equipment, plastic lawn chairs and tables\u2014\"\n\n\"What does any of that have to do with _me_?\" Coke shouted. \"Why don't you leave me and my sister alone? What do you have against us? I never did _anything_ to you!\"\n\n\"Oh yes you did,\" Evil Elvis said, anger now in his voice. \"You most certainly did. Fellows, help our guest into the next room, won't you?\"\n\n\"Sure thing, boss.\"\n\nEvil Elvis opened the door behind him. The bowler dudes picked Coke up and carried him into the next room.\n\nThere were two large machines in there, connected by a conveyor belt of some sort. Coke guessed this was where the Coca-Cola was bottled, but he didn't see any bottles anywhere.\n\n\"How did you get into this place?\" Coke demanded.\n\n\"Oh, let's just say I have connections.\"\n\nThe bowler dudes carried Coke over to one of the machines, which was about the size of a refrigerator. The other machine, to the left, was even larger. It had an opening at the top like a funnel, and the raised conveyor belt went around the perimeter of the room and fed into the opening.\n\n\"Do you know what a 3-D printer is, Coke?\" asked Evil Elvis.\n\n\"A printer that prints in 3-D?\"\n\n\"Oh, you're a smart one,\" Evil Elvis said sarcastically. \"No wonder you were selected to be in The Genius Files program.\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\" said the bowler dudes.\n\n\"Using heat compression, a 3-D printer can take empty soda bottles and spray the melted plastic through a tiny nozzle in successive layers to form a three-dimensional object,\" said Evil Elvis. \"It uses a stepper motor and dual compact extruders.\"\n\n\"So what?\" shouted Coke, struggling to get free. \"What does that have to do with me?\"\n\nThe bowler dudes snickered.\n\n\"Well, let me explain, Coke,\" Evil Elvis said calmly. \"We all agree that recycling is a good thing, right? When we discard something we don't want or need anymore, the right thing to do is to recycle it, so it can be made into something else. Well, I don't want or need _you_ anymore, Coke. So I'm going to recycle you.\"\n\n\"You're insane!\"\n\n\"What, would you rather I just bury you in a landfill?\" asked Evil Elvis. \"That wouldn't be very green of me, now would it?\"\n\n\"You'll never get away with this!\" Coke shouted. \"Security will burst through those doors any second!\"\n\nThe bowler dudes laughed.\n\n\"We _are_ security,\" the clean-shaven one said.\n\n\"And we're already here,\" said the mustachioed one.\n\n\"Shut up, you idiots!\" shouted Evil Elvis. \"It was enough to say you _are_ security! You didn't have to say you're already here! He _knows_ you're here!\"\n\n\"Sorry, boss.\"\n\nEvil Elvis rubbed his forehead, then turned his attention back to Coke.\n\n\"I believe in freedom of choice,\" he said, almost in a kindly voice. \"So I'll let you choose. Would you rather be recycled into a children's toy or a piece of playground equipment? Or maybe you'd like to be turned into a nice lawn chair for people to sit on? With a 3-D printer, you can be made into just about any object.\"\n\n\"You can't fool me!\" Coke said defiantly. \"That machine is a fake.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's the real thing, Coke.\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\" said the bowler dudes. \"That was a Coke slogan, right?\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\n\"If that thing uses melted plastic,\" Coke said, \"you can't just put a _person_ in and mold him into some other shape.\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" said Evil Elvis. \"You can't take plastic bottles and put them directly in the 3-D printer. First they have to be... shredded!\"\n\nSee? I _told_ you that eventually the story would involve Coke being thrown into a giant shredder! You didn't believe me!\n\nEvil Elvis pointed to the even larger machine next to the 3-D printer. He flipped a switch on its side, and a whirring noise came out of it. It was vibrating. The raised conveyor belt began to move.\n\n\"There's a sensor at the top of the shredder that detects when something\u2014or _someone_ \u2014has been inserted into the hopper,\" said Evil Elvis excitedly. \"That turns on a series of high-torque, hydraulically powered rollers, which pull the object into the shredding chamber. This baby has a nine-hundred-horsepower Briggs & Stratton turbine engine in it, so once it grabs you, it doesn't let go.\"\n\n\"I don't want to hear it!\" Coke shouted. \"Why do you crazy people always feel the need to explain how you're going to kill somebody?\"\n\n\"Well, that's all part of the fun, Coke.\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\"\n\n\"Shut up! Once inside the shredding chamber, Coke, your helpless body will encounter two sets of spinning, serrated blades made of high-grade chromium steel. They're set at an angle to cut one way and then the other, so they'll chop your body into 6,093 tiny, unrecognizable particles. It's called crosscutting. Isn't technology wonderful?\"\n\n\"You're insane!\"\n\n\"Coke, your mother drove all the way across the country to look at a frying pan. And _I'm_ insane?\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\"\n\n\"Leave my mother out of this!\" Coke shouted.\n\n\"Enough talk,\" Evil Elvis said. \"Hoist him up on the belt, boys!\"\n\nThe bowler dudes each took one end of Coke's body and lifted him up on the conveyor belt, which went all the way around the room and ended directly in front of the shredder's gaping mouth.\n\n\"Stop!\" Coke shouted as he moved along the conveyor belt. \"Help!\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm going to miss you, Coke!\" said Evil Elvis. \"It has been so much fun toying with you and your sister.\"\n\n\"You're a lunatic!\" Coke screamed. His body was on the other side of the room now, turning the corner. \"You're _worse_ than Dr. Warsaw!\"\n\n\"Thank you!\" said Evil Elvis. \"You couldn't have paid me a higher compliment.\"\n\n\"I'll do anything!\" Coke begged. \"Let me go!\"\n\n\"The die is cast, so to speak,\" said Evil Elvis excitedly. \"The shredder will cut your body into pieces about the size of a kernel of corn. Those pieces will get mixed in with all the other plastic, which gets melted and fed into the 3-D printer. Then the printer will mold you into a lawn chair.\"\n\n\"I don't _want_ to become a lawn chair!\"\n\n\"What's the matter? Don't you care about the environment?\" asked Evil Elvis. \"Come on! Things go better with Coke.\"\n\n\"Good one, boss!\"\n\nCoke was three-quarters of the way around the room now. In about ten feet, he would drop into the shredder.\n\n\"Good-bye forever!\" Evil Elvis said with a wave of his hand. \"We must take our leave. I can't bear to hear the sound of a child being shredded. Let's go, boys.\"\n\nThe bowler dudes opened the door for Evil Elvis, and he skipped out jauntily, singing, _\"I'd like to teach the world to sing, in per-fect har-mo-ny....\"_\n\n\"Help! Help!\"\n\nThe conveyor belt advanced agonizingly slowly while Coke flailed around, trying desperately to free an arm or leg. When that didn't work, he tried to roll off the belt, even though success would mean falling five feet to the ground, possibly onto his head. Even that would be preferable to falling into the mouth of the shredder.\n\nThe conveyor belt continued its relentless progress toward its final destination. Coke had expended just about all the energy he had, with no results. It looked like it was all over. His head was less than two feet from the shredder when the door suddenly flew open.\n\nIt was Pep.\n\n\"Coke!\" she shouted. \"What are you doing up there?\"\n\n\"Never mind that!\" Coke yelled. \"Get me off!\"\n\nPep grabbed the chair and pulled it over so she would have something to stand on. Then she grabbed Coke's shirt and tried to pull him off the conveyor belt.\n\n\"You're too heavy!\" she shouted.\n\nCoke's head was mere inches from the shredder when his sister gave one last desperate yank, ripping his shirt and sending him flying off the conveyor belt and landing on the hard linoleum floor with a thud.\n\n_\"Ooooooooof!\"_ he groaned when he hit the floor. \"Will you be careful? I almost broke my leg.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Pep asked. \"I was worried about you, so I came back.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you later,\" he said. \"Get these ropes off me, and let's blow this pop stand.\"\n\nPep untied the rope and they ran down the steps to the first floor, not slowing down until they were safely out in the parking lot.\n\n\"Where _were_ you?\" Dr. McDonald said when they got to the RV. \"We've been looking all over!\"\n\n\"I was learning about recycling,\" Coke said.\n\n\"What happened to your shirt, Coke?\" asked his mother. \"It's ripped to pieces! I wish you'd be more careful with your clothes.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm glad you're back,\" Dr. McDonald said as he reached into the cooler on the floor next to him. \"Anybody want a Coke?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Atlanta GA.\n\nIn the B box, type Summerville GA.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 26\n\n## NATURE LOVERS\n\nAs the RV pulled out of the parking lot, Coke and Pep sat in stunned silence.\n\n\"Wasn't that fun, kids?\" Mrs. McDonald rhapsodized. \"I had a fabulous time!\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Pep said glumly. \"Fun.\"\n\nThe World of Coca-Cola hadn't been that much fun for Coke, especially when he was nearly shredded into tiny pieces and recycled into lawn furniture.\n\nThey got on I-75 heading north out of Atlanta and rode it for fifty-eight long miles, then took the exit for Route 140 West. As they were driving through Chattahoochee National Forest\u2014up in the northwest corner of Georgia\u2014the GPS suddenly stopped working.\n\nNO SIGNAL, it said.\n\nDr. McDonald had a pretty good sense of direction, and he enjoyed reading maps. But like most people, after he got a GPS he became dependent on it.\n\n\"How are we going to find the campground now?\" he asked nobody in particular. \"I don't know where I'm going. It's getting dark.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Ben,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"We'll find the campground. I'll call them on the cell if we have to, and they'll direct us.\"\n\n\"This thing is a rip-off,\" Dr. McDonald said, giving the portable GPS a little slap with his hand. \"It's supposed to cover the entire continental United States.\"\n\nCoke and Pep, with problems of their own, hadn't been paying much attention. But when he heard the letters _GPS_ , Coke looked up.\n\n\"Did you just say the GPS isn't working?\" he asked.\n\n\"It's not getting a signal out here in the boonies,\" said his father. \"It thinks we're in Siberia or someplace.\"\n\n\"Dad is worried that we're lost,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"We're not lost!\" shouted Dr. McDonald, who never considered himself lost. Being lost is a sign of weakness. Being lost isn't \"manly.\"\n\nCoke and Pep looked at each other. If the GPS in the car wasn't getting a signal, neither would the GPS chip that had been implanted in their scalps. That would mean Evil Elvis wouldn't be able to find them. So they were safe. For a while, anyway.\n\n\"This is beautiful country out here,\" Pep noted, gazing at the trees passing by. \"Maybe we should stay here for a few days.\"\n\n\"Or the rest of our lives,\" added Coke.\n\nThey continued on, with Dr. McDonald getting progressively more apprehensive as each mile went by. Then, just when the forest came to an end, Mrs. McDonald noticed a little street sign on the left: SLOPPY FLOYD LAKE ROAD.\n\n\"Take a left here, Ben!\" she said, just before they reached the intersection.\n\nShe knew she was right, because three miles down the road, nestled in a picturesque little valley near Summerville, Georgia, was the campground where she had made a reservation for the night\u2014James H. \"Sloppy\" Floyd State Park.\n\n\"This is the place,\" Mrs. McDonald said as she hopped out of the RV.\n\n\"Sloppy Floyd State Park?\" asked Pep. \"What's up with _that_?\"\n\n\"He was a Georgia politician,\" Coke inexplicably remembered from an article he had read in _Newsweek_. \"He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from to 1953 to 1974.\"\n\n\"You have no right to know that!\" Pep shouted. \"Nobody should know that kind of stuff!\"\n\n\"I thought everybody knew that,\" Coke replied.\n\nDr. McDonald found the registration office and parked the RV. It was getting late and everyone was tired, so the McDonalds just had a quick snack instead of dinner and got ready for bed.\n\nKnowing they were out of GPS range, Coke and Pep were able to sleep easy. There would be no middle-of-the-night visitors wearing Elvis masks or bowler hats. No secret messages to decode. No traps or large objects falling on top of them from high places.\n\n\"They can't find us here,\" Coke said to his sister just before dropping off to sleep.\n\nIn the morning, Mrs. McDonald made pancakes for everyone and they ate outside at a picnic table. Camping in a state park is a little different from the usual RV campground. More trees. More nature. Fewer people.\n\n\"Isn't it beautiful here?\" Mrs. McDonald said, taking in a deep breath of clean air. \"So quiet and peaceful.\"\n\n\"Do we have to leave right away?\" asked Pep. \"Can't we stay here awhile?\"\n\n\"Yeah, we should move here permanently,\" said Coke.\n\n\"Actually, your mother and I thought it would be fun to do a little birding here before we got back on the road. The state park is known for birding.\"\n\n\"Hunting for birds?\" said Coke. \"Cool. Do we eat what we kill?\"\n\n\"Birding is not hunting,\" said Mrs. McDonald sternly. \"You _watch_ the birds. Through binoculars.\"\n\nI should mention here that Coke knew perfectly well that birding did not mean hunting and killing birds. Sometimes he just liked saying obnoxious things to annoy his parents. I'm sure you can relate.\n\n\"Watching birds?\" he asked. \"What's the point of _that_?\"\n\n\"To appreciate the beauty of our winged friends,\" his father explained.\n\n\"I'd rather appreciate the _taste_ of my winged friends,\" said Coke.\n\n\"Birding sounds boring,\" said Pep. \"It sounds more boring than whale watching.\"\n\n\"Whale watching is _fun_!\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"It would be more fun if you were allowed to shoot the whales,\" said Coke.\n\n\"Look, you two don't have to come birding with us,\" said Dr. McDonald as he took two pairs of binoculars out of the glove compartment. \"You're big kids and you can be on your own for a while. But Mom and I are going.\"\n\nThe sky was looking threatening in the distance, but Coke and Pep weren't about to sit around the RV for hours waiting for their parents to come back. When they had checked in, the park ranger had given them a brochure that described several scenic hikes through the forest.\n\n\"Do you think we'll be safe if we go on a hike?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Nobody can bother us here,\" Coke said. \"There's no GPS signal, remember?\"\n\n\"Let's take our weapons, just in case,\" Pep said.\n\nAfter grabbing the Frisbee grenade and Coke's backpack full of fireworks, they decided to hike the Marble Mine Trail, which leads to the entrance of an old mine where marble was quarried back in the days before the state park existed. They set out on the wide, well-marked trail into the woods.\n\nAfter about a mile, Coke suddenly stopped in his tracks.\n\n\"Listen,\" he said. \"Do you hear something?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Neither do I,\" he said. \"It's perfectly quiet out here. I don't remember the last time I heard the sound of silence. Do you? Isn't that amazing? I can't wait to tell\u2014\"\n\n\"I could hear the silence if you'd stop talking,\" Pep said. And he did, for a minute.\n\n\"Think of it,\" Coke continued. \"We're probably the only people for miles around.\"\n\n\"I wonder if there's a square inch in this forest where no human being in history has ever set foot,\" Pep said.\n\nThat's when she looked up and saw this carved into a tree...\n\n**OGAYOTAYETHAYUNGLEJAYOOMRAY**\n\n\"You gotta be kidding me!\" Coke shouted, looking around to see if the person who had carved the letters was still in the area.\n\n\"Calm down,\" Pep said. But her brother was furious now.\n\n\"Enough with the stupid ciphers!\" Coke yelled into the woods. \"Come and get us, Evil Elvis! What are you, chicken? Show your face, you coward!\"\n\n\"Maybe that message is for somebody _else_ ,\" Pep said hopefully. \"Maybe it's just some code the park rangers use. How could Evil Elvis know where we are, or that we would come to this exact spot?\"\n\n\"Oh, he knew,\" Coke said, kicking the tree \"Somehow, he knew. He knows _everything_. He knows what we're going to do even before we decide what we're going to do next. I hate him!\"\n\nPep looked at the carving on the tree again.\n\n**OGAYOTAYETHAYUNGLEJAYOOMRAY**\n\nShe didn't have her notebook with her to write down all the possible combinations. But after staring at the letters for a few minutes and seeing all those AY combinations, her face suddenly brightened.\n\n\"It's in pig latin, you big dope!\" she said. \"All you have to do is separate the letters into smaller words.\"\n\n\"Huh? I don't get it,\" Coke admitted.\n\n\"It's simple,\" Pep explained. \"OGAY is GO in pig latin. OTAY means TO. ETHAY means THE. UNGLEJAY means... it's GO TO THE JUNGLE ROOM!\"\n\n\"Cute,\" Coke said. \"We're in the middle of a forest, and he says go to the jungle room. Another stupid nonexistent room we're supposed to find. This guy is driving me nuts. Let's get back to the RV before he jumps out from behind some tree.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Pep said, running to catch up with her brother. \"Didn't you tell me that Evil Elvis said the ciphers didn't matter anymore?\"\n\n\"That was because he had me tied up,\" Coke said. \"He thought I would fall into the shredder and that would be the end of me. But I got away. So the old ciphers matter, and now he's sending us _new_ ones too.\"\n\nWhen they got back to the RV, the first thing Pep did was open her notebook and add the new cipher to the list.\n\n**1. Go to the living room**\n\n**2. Go to the TV room**\n\n**3. Go to the pool room**\n\n**4. Go to the jungle room**\n\nA few minutes later, it had started to drizzle outside and their parents came running back from their birding expedition.\n\n\"So how many birds did you kill?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Very funny,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"We spotted an eastern bluebird. It makes a sound like _true-ly true-ly_ , in soft gurgling notes. Dad took some great photos.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Dr. McDonald, \"should we get on the road, or do you kids still want to live here permanently?\"\n\n\"No!\" both kids shouted. \"We hate nature. Let's blow this pop stand.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Summerville GA.\n\nIn the B box, type Huntsville AL.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 27\n\n## LET'S TURN IT UP A LITTLE\n\nA thunderstorm was on the horizon as Dr. McDonald flipped on the wipers and steered the RV back on Route 48 heading west. To his relief, the GPS began working again as soon as he left the state park. It was a quick ten miles to the small town of Menlo, and from there just two miles until this appeared....\n\n\"Woo-hoo!\" yelled Coke. \"Sweet home Alabama! Hey, can you guys name two things that the following people have in common? Hank Aaron, George Washington Carver, Nat King Cole, Helen Keller, Joe Louis, Willie Mays, Jesse Owens, and Satchel Paige.\"\n\n\"They were all from Alabama?\" guessed Pep.\n\n\"That's only _one_ thing they have in common,\" Coke said. \"The other thing was that they were all human beings.\"\n\n\"You're a moron.\"\n\n\"Don't call your brother a moron,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\nShe dropped her dog-eared copy of _Georgia Off the Beaten Path_ into the garbage bag and took her brand-new _Alabama Family Adventure Guide_ out of the glove compartment.\n\n\"What's the plan for Alabama, Mom?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"It's starting to come down hard,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"Let's keep the driving to a minimum today, okay?\"\n\n\"Well, there's the MOOseum in Montgomery,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"It tells the history of beef and cattle. And they have a pest control museum in Decatur.\"\n\n\"Great,\" said Dr. McDonald with a groan. \"A museum devoted to bugs.\"\n\n\"Let's see,\" Mrs. McDonald continued. \"There's a spear-hunting museum in Summerdale. And at the Hall of History Museum in Bessemer, they have Adolph Hitler's typewriter!\"\n\n\"Why is Hitler's typewriter in Alabama?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"It doesn't say,\" her mother replied. \"Hmm, this is interesting. In the town of Sylacauga, there's a monument to a lady who got hit by a meteorite that crashed through the roof of her house in 1954. And in the same town, they have a tribute to Gomer Pyle....\"\n\n\"Who's Gomer Pyle?\" the twins asked, in unison.\n\n\"Never mind,\" replied both parents.\n\n\"Well, you'll be pleased to hear that we're not going to _any_ of those places,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"Yay!\"\n\n\"So where are we going?\" asked Coke. \"Wherever it is, it won't be much fun in the rain.\"\n\n\"Oh, you'll see,\" said his mother. \"Stay on Route 117, Ben.\"\n\nOutside, the sky was getting darker and more ominous. A few small towns passed by\u2014Valley Head, Henagar\u2014as they traveled across rural northern Alabama. It was pretty, but after a while pretty loses its appeal and the human brain yearns for \"different\" instead.\n\n\"Are we there yet?\" asked Pep an hour after they had crossed the state line. \"Color me officially bored.\"\n\nThey stopped for lunch at the side of the road near Guntersville Lake, but didn't get out of the RV because of the rain coming down. After lunch they switched to Route 72 West. It wasn't long before they reached the outskirts of a large city\u2014Huntsville, Alabama. Dr. McDonald pulled off the highway just past the University of Alabama campus. A strange sight came into view: three or four huge, white rockets pointing toward the sky.\n\nHe pulled into a parking lot. The rain had tapered off a bit, but now there was lightning and the rumble of thunder in the distant sky.\n\n\"Is _this_ where we're going today?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"Yup,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"Oh,\" Pep said, disappointed.\n\n\"Rockets are cool,\" said Coke.\n\n\"You think _anything_ that ignites is cool.\"\n\n\"Well, anything that ignites _is_ cool.\"\n\nHuntsville, Alabama, is known as the rocket capital of the world. It was here where the rockets were developed to put our astronauts in orbit around the earth and on the moon. Parts of the space shuttle and the International Space Station were designed here too.\n\n\"The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is a museum devoted to the space program,\" Mrs. McDonald read from her guidebook. \"The Apollo 16 capsule is here, as well as a full-size replica of a Saturn V rocket. They have all kinds of interactive exhibits, demonstrations, and IMAX movies. They even have a rock that was brought back from the moon.\"\n\n\"Isn't this exciting?\" Dr. McDonald asked, forgetting for a moment that teenagers don't get excited about anything their parents tell them is exciting.\n\nIt actually _was_ exciting, but the twins weren't about to admit that.\n\nMrs. McDonald passed out ponchos for everyone to wear so they wouldn't get soaked in the rain. Coke was about to put on his backpack but stopped. If his fireworks got wet, they would be useless. Pep's Frisbee grenade would be ruined too. She had been specifically warned to keep it dry. Reluctantly the twins left their weapons in the RV and made a dash through the rain for the ticket window.\n\n\"Do you think they have any rides here?\" Coke asked while they waited in line.\n\n\"No, they don't have rides here,\" Dr. McDonald replied, irritated. \"It's not some silly amusement park. It's a _museum_. That's what's wrong with kids today. You can't enjoy anything unless you're staring at a screen or your body is being thrown back and forth in a little car. When I was a kid we used to go outside and\u2014\"\n\n\"Shush, Ben.\"\n\nA flash of lightning lit up the sky.\n\nAt the ticket window, the lady behind the glass ran the credit card through her little machine and handed Dr. McDonald four tickets.\n\n\"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation,\" she said, \"Actually, we _do_ have two rides here at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. I think you'll enjoy them.\"\n\n\"Yeah!\" the twins yelled, with a fist bump. \"Rides!\"\n\n\"Can we go on the rides first?\" asked Pep. \"Please?\"\n\n\"What are you kids, two years old?\" Dr. McDonald said, thoroughly disgusted.\n\n\"Ben!\"\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" he agreed. \"You can go on the rides first. Go have fun. We'll catch up with you later.\"\n\n\"Yay!\"\n\nThey made their way over to Space Shot, an amusement park-style ride in which a large group of people sit on chairs that wrap around a tall tower.\n\n\"This looks scary,\" Pep told Coke as they were strapped into their seats.\n\n\"Will you relax? It's just a _ride_.\"\n\nA voice instructed the riders to \"put your hands and feet out\"\u2014and at that moment the chairs were propelled 140 feet straight up in the air, in 2.5 seconds. Coke and Pep screamed, of course. It felt like they were in a rocket ship that had lifted off its launching pad. When they reached the top, they experienced pure weightlessness for a few seconds before Space Shot fell back to earth.\n\n\"That was _cool_!\" Pep said when they were unstrapped from the seats. She was no longer fearful. \"Let's go do the other ride!\"\n\nThe G-Force Accelerator is in a round silver building that looks like a flying saucer. Before you go inside, a sign near the entrance lists a bunch of medical issues that should prevent people from getting on the ride\u2014motion sickness, asthma, heart problems, seizures, back or neck pain, inner ear problems, detached retina, and so on.\n\n\"Do you think this thing is safe?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Of _course_ it's safe!\" said her brother. \"They wouldn't have it here if it wasn't safe.\"\n\nThe twins were escorted into a large white tent.\n\n\"For your own safety,\" announced a disembodied voice, \"inside the G-Force Accelerator, cross your hands over your chest. If at any point you feel sick, say the word _stop_ , and the G-Force Accelerator will come to a stop.\"\n\n\"They just say that so you can't sue them afterward,\" Coke told Pep.\n\n\"If you don't have any questions,\" the voice continued, \"you may proceed inside the G-Force Accelerator.\"\n\nA door slid open with a _whoosh_ , and the voice told them to enter the G-Force Accelerator. It was a round room that was larger and darker than the waiting room. There were about forty cushioned segments along the circular wall, half of them red and half of them blue. Coke and Pep were the only riders.\n\nThe voice instructed them to buckle themselves in tightly. There were no seats, just seat belts attached to the wall. It's a standing ride, in which you lean back slightly.\n\nIn the center of the room was a little booth where a woman was sitting in front of a control panel. Her back was to the twins.\n\n\"Greetings!\" she said into a microphone after the door had closed. \"Welcome to G-Force Accelerator. This is the same type of simulator we use to help our astronauts train for a space flight.\"\n\n\"Does that voice sound familiar to you?\" Coke asked his sister.\n\nBefore Pep could answer, the woman turned around in her chair.\n\n\"Mrs. Higgins!\" Pep shouted. \"No!\"\n\nYes, it was _her_ \u2014the psycho who had set their school on fire, chased them through The House on the Rock, tricked them into causing a riot at Wrigley Field, and tried to blow their eardrums out at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\n\n\"Well, look who's here!\" said Mrs. Higgins, as cheery as can be. \"My good friends the McDonald twins. What a coincidence! How nice to see you two again.\"\n\n\"Help!\" Pep screamed, struggling to free herself from the seat belt. \"Help!\"\n\n\"Let us out of here!\" demanded Coke.\n\n\"Oh, don't be such babies,\" Mrs. Higgins said as she pressed the spin button on the control panel in front of her. \"This is going to be fun!\"\n\nThe G-Force Accelerator started rotating slowly around Mrs. Higgins's booth in the middle.\n\n\"We walked right into her trap!\" Pep said disgustedly. \"I knew it! We _never_ should have come here!\"\n\nCoke looked all around him for an opening. A door, a window, an emergency exit sign.\n\n\"See? It's not dangerous,\" Mrs. Higgins told them soothingly. \"It's like one of those little teacup rides they have at kiddie amusement parks.\"\n\n\"I don't like it,\" Pep said. \"And I don't like _you_.\"\n\n\"Let me tell you a little bit about G forces,\" said Mrs. Higgins as she turned a knob to make the room spin just a little bit faster. \"You see, one G is the regular gravitational force we feel every day. Two G is twice that force, obviously. As the G force gets higher, it's almost as if you get heavier. So if you weigh a hundred pounds, at two Gs it feels like you weigh two hundred pounds. At three Gs it feels like you weigh three hundred pounds. And so on. See? This is not only fun, it's educational too.\"\n\nThe twins were beginning to feel a little dizzy as they spun around and around. Coke closed his eyes for a moment, but that made it worse.\n\n\"Why are you here?\" demanded Pep as she felt her body press against the wall of the G-Force Accelerator. \"You told us that you had stopped hurting children and you were into... uh... what was it called?\"\n\n\"Spelunking,\" Coke said. \"Exploring caves.\"\n\n\"Ah, you see one cave and you've seen 'em all,\" said Mrs. Higgins cheerfully. \"That's the problem with spelunking. You could go away for a few million years, come back, and the cave would look exactly the same as it did the first time. Me, I like _action_. That's why I applied for the job here. Everything is in motion. Let's turn it up a little, shall we?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\nShe turned the dial in front of her, and the G-Force started spinning faster. The rumbling noise it made as it turned around got louder too.\n\n\"I'll bet you hardly even noticed when it went from two Gs to three right there,\" Mrs. Higgins said. \"It's not so bad, is it?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Coke yelled. He felt like a weight was bearing down on him and there was invisible pressure against his face. \"It's bad! Turn it off!\"\n\n\"The human body is an amazing machine, don't you think?\" asked Mrs. Higgins. \"Isn't it interesting to think about how much a body can endure? It all depends on the magnitude of the G force, the duration, the location, and the position of the body, you see.\"\n\n\"Shut up!\" Pep screamed as she spun around and around. \"We don't want to hear it!\"\n\n\"One good slap to the face might have the force of a hundred Gs, but that doesn't kill anybody,\" continued Mrs. Higgins. \"Yet the force of sixteen Gs for a minute can kill you, and so will seventy-five Gs for just one _second_. How are you two feeling over there?\"\n\n\"I think I'm gonna puke!\" Pep shouted. \"I feel terrible!\"\n\n\"Well, maybe now you know how _I_ felt when you kids threw Dr. Warsaw out of The Infinity Room at The House on the Rock,\" said Mrs. Higgins. \"Maybe now you know how _I_ felt when he dumped me and got married to your aunt Judy instead.\"\n\n\"That wasn't our fault!\" Coke screamed. \"Leave us alone!\"\n\n\"Oh no. Not now,\" said Mrs. Higgins. \"This is too much fun.\"\n\n\"She's crazy!\" Pep shrieked. \"Do something, Coke!\"\n\n\"What do you expect _me_ to do?\" he replied.\n\n\"Stop! Stop it!\"\n\n\"Did you say go faster?\" asked Mrs. Higgins. \"Sure!\"\n\nShe gave the dial another twist, and the G-Force Accelerator spun even faster.\n\n_\"Nooooooooooooooooo!\"_\n\nCoke tried to move his head left and right but discovered he couldn't. The centrifugal force had pinned it to the wall. Similarly, his arms and legs were jammed in their positions. He was helpless.\n\n\"At four Gs, you start losing your color vision,\" Mrs. Higgins said gleefully. \"Anything higher than that, and your lungs start to collapse, your esophagus stretches, and the blood starts to pool in your legs. Gee, I wonder how fast this thing can go?\"\n\n\"That's enough!\" Coke yelled. \"We give up! We'll do anything you want! Just stop it! I want to get _off_!\"\n\nPep shrieked again, but she was drowned out by the noise of the G-Force Accelerator.\n\n\"In space, no one can hear you scream, Pep,\" Mrs. Higgins said. \"Eventually, you'll get to the point where you can't stand it anymore, and then we're talking about GILOC.\"\n\n\"What's GILOC?\" Coke asked, fighting off the nausea that was beginning to overtake him.\n\n\"Gravity-induced loss of consciousness,\" explained Mrs. Higgins. \"Your blood is pushed toward your feet. Your heart isn't strong enough to push it up to your brain anymore. The lack of blood flow gives you tunnel vision. And finally everything goes black. A-ha-ha-ha! I can't wait!\"\n\nThe twins fought to conserve their energy and stay awake. The flesh on their cheeks was flapping like a flag on a windy day.\n\n\"Are you still conscious?\" Mrs. Higgins asked as they spun around and around her. \"Wow. I'm impressed! You're pulling seven Gs now. At nine Gs, it will feel like your head weighs ninety pounds. And anything over ten Gs, well, your shoes come flying off your feet. Your teeth get pulled right out of your gums, one at a time. Your eyeballs go flying out of their sockets. Your arms get ripped off at the shoulders. Your internal organs\u2014\"\n\nThat's when the lights went out.\n\n\"Drat!\" shouted Mrs. Higgins.\n\nThe G-Force Accelerator started slowing down. Gradually, the rumbling grew quieter. Finally the ride came to a complete stop.\n\n\"W-what happened?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nCoke looked up. There was nobody sitting in the control booth.\n\n\"Where's Higgins?\" he asked.\n\n\"She's gone,\" Pep replied.\n\nThe twins unstrapped themselves from their seat belts and stumbled out the door of the G-Force Accelerator like their bodies were made of rubber. Their parents were waiting for them at the exit.\n\n\"So was it fun?\" asked Mrs. McDonald. \"The electrical storm knocked out all the power. The whole place shut down. It's a total blackout.\"\n\n\"I'll bet you kids are disappointed that the ride stopped in the middle, huh?\" said Dr. McDonald.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke said, holding his head. \"We should demand our money back.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald suggested getting some ice cream, but the restaurant\u2014the Rocket City Grill\u2014was closed because of the power failure. Even the gift shop had its doors locked.\n\nAfter they had recovered their equilibrium, the twins managed to walk under their own power back to the parking lot. They were still nauseous, dizzy, confused, and more than anything else, exhausted.\n\n\"Where are we going now?\" Coke asked, even though the only place he really wanted to go was to bed.\n\nDr. McDonald turned the key in the ignition.\n\n\"In the immortal words of Horace Greeley,\" he said, \"go west, young man.\"\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Huntsville AL.\n\nIn the B box, type Tupelo MS.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 28\n\n## FOLLOW YOUR NOSE\n\nThe rain was still coming down hard as Dr. McDonald pulled the RV onto I-565 out of Huntsville, Alabama, heading west. He could barely see through the windshield and almost missed the exit to turn onto Route 24. For the sake of safety, both parents agreed that it would be best to stop for the night as soon as possible. It took awhile to reach it, but they finally pulled into Slickrock, a campground in Russellville, Alabama. By dawn, the sky had cleared and they got back on the road early. Soon they were on I-22, when they saw this....\n\n\"Woo-hoo,\" hollered Coke. \"The Magnolia State!\"\n\n\"Umm, can you smell the honeysuckle yet?\" asked Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"No, but I'm starting to smell the holding tank,\" her husband replied. \"Coke, it's time you did a dump.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay, Dad.\"\n\n\"What are we going to do in Mississippi?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"Can we go to Yazoo City?\" asked Coke.\n\n\"What's in Yazoo City?\" asked his father.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Coke said. \"I just like saying Yazoo City.\"\n\nMrs. McDonald opened her _Road Guide to Mississippi_ and started leafing through it.\n\n\"Let's see,\" she said. \"Root beer was invented in Biloxi... Greenville is the towboat capital of the world... the International Checkers Hall of Fame is in Petal...\"\n\n\"Oh, that sounds _real_ interesting,\" Coke said, stifling a yawn.\n\n\"... the world's largest shrimp is on display in Pascagoula,\" Mrs. McDonald continued. \"And oooh, look! The man who invented the dollar sign is buried near Pinckneyville!\"\n\nDr. McDonald was getting increasingly irritated. With every offbeat destination his wife suggested, he would roll his eyes, shake his head, and let out a groan.\n\n\"The world's largest cedar bucket is in Oxford,\" Mrs. McDonald continued, \"and in 1884, at a shoe store in Vicksburg, a man named Phil Gilbert came up with the idea of selling left and right shoes together in the same box!\"\n\n(Note to the reader: This stuff is _true_. I didn't make any of it up. Go ahead and Google it if you don't believe me.)\n\n\"How did they sell shoes before _that_?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"One at a time, I guess,\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"Who would buy one shoe?\" asked Coke. \"A one-legged man?\"\n\nAt that point, Dr. McDonald reached the point of exasperation. He grabbed the _Road Guide to Mississippi_ out of his wife's hand.\n\n\"Tell you what,\" he said. \"Forget about the stupid guidebook.\"\n\nAnd with that, he threw _Road Guide to Mississippi_ out the window.\n\n\"Ben!\"\n\n\"Dad!\"\n\n\"Our lives are too planned out,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"That's what's wrong with the world today. We need a guidebook for _everything_. Why go anywhere anymore? You can just read about places in a guidebook or watch a video. Let's be spontaneous for a change. Let's just wing it!\"\n\n\"I can't believe you did that, Ben!\" shouted Mrs. McDonald. \"I would _never_ throw your things out the window.\"\n\n\"I can't take it anymore!\" Dr. McDonald hollered, taking his hands off the steering wheel for a moment. \"Who cares about root beer and checkers and how shoes used to be sold? I say we head west and follow our noses. That's what the pioneers did when they settled this country. They didn't have guidebooks. They relied on their instincts.\"\n\nIn the back, Coke and Pep rushed to grab their cell phones so they could text each other.\n\nCoke:\n\n**That was AWESOME!**\n\nPep:\n\n**Dad is going mental**\n\nShe may have been right. Dr. McDonald was not known for his spontaneity. He was a planner, a list maker, a scheduler, an alphabetizer.\n\nBut the family had been riding around in the little RV for more than two weeks now. If you take laboratory rats and confine them in an enclosed space for a long period of time, they start acting strange. They become aggressive; they fight and engage in other antisocial behaviors. People are no different.\n\nFor the next few minutes, the RV was filled with the unpleasant sound of angry silence. The twins were afraid to say anything. Mrs. McDonald was fuming. Her husband had never been a mean man, and it wasn't like him to act so impulsively. She felt lost without a guidebook, just like he felt lost without his GPS.\n\n\"I'm going to stop at the first decent-size town we come to,\" Dr. McDonald said, hoping to break the silence. \"We'll get out and explore. You never know what you might find.\"\n\nBut there were no towns in sight\u2014just a lot of nothing out the window on I-22. It wasn't until they had driven almost thirty miles that a sign finally came into view.\n\n### TUPELO\n\n\"Okay, we're going to Tupelo,\" Dr. McDonald announced, flipping on his turn signal.\n\n\"What's in Tupelo?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" her father replied. \"That's the beauty of it! We'll find out when we get there. Because that's the kind of adventurous, spontaneous family that we are. Right, gang?\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. Right, Dad,\" said Pep.\n\n\"Tupelo, here we come!\" Coke yelled with fake enthusiasm.\n\n\"I have an idea,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"I'll Google Tupelo on my laptop. Then we can find out what sights\u2014\"\n\n\"No!\" Dr. McDonald shouted. \"No Googling! We're going to be spontaneous for once in our lives! I'm serious, Bridge. Open that laptop and I'll chuck it out the window.\"\n\n\"I think he means it, Mom,\" said Pep.\n\nMrs. McDonald resumed her fuming.\n\n\"I'll tell you something about Tupelo,\" Coke told the family. \"Did you know that before the Civil War, Tupelo was called Gum Pond?\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Nobody Cares,\" said Pep.\n\nDr. McDonald pulled off the highway at exit 90 and began to meander around the small town of Tupelo. They passed a bedding store, a cemetery, a couple of restaurants, and a suburban neighborhood. After about five minutes of meandering, everybody had had enough of Tupelo.\n\n\"I hate to break it to you guys,\" Coke said, \"but there's nothing going on here.\"\n\n\"Yeah, why did we come here?\" asked Pep.\n\n\"Your _father_ wanted to be spontaneous,\" said Mrs. McDonald, an edge to her voice.\n\n\"Spontaneity is boring,\" said Coke.\n\n\"See, Ben?\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"If you hadn't thrown my guidebook out the window, we could be going somewhere _interesting_ right now. That's why I use guidebooks.\"\n\nBut a few seconds later, they passed a little sign.\n\n**ELVIS PRESLEY PARK**\n\nThe twins looked at each other, panic in their eyes. Elvis Presley Park? If Evil Elvis was going to attack them anywhere, this would be the place.\n\n\"Hmmm,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Why would they name a park after Elvis Presley?\"\n\n\"We don't want to go to that park,\" Coke shouted from the back. \"It sounds boring.\"\n\nBut it was too late. Dr. McDonald had already made the right turn onto Elvis Presley Drive.\n\nThat's where they saw this....\n\n\"I'll tell you why they named the park after Elvis Presley,\" said Dr. McDonald. \"Because he was born here, in this very house!\"\n\nHe pulled up to the curb near 306 Elvis Presley Drive and turned off the ignition.\n\n\"I don't think we should stop here, Dad,\" Coke said urgently. \"It looks like a rough neighborhood. We might get robbed.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's probably boring too,\" said Pep. \"Elvis was way before our time. I barely know who he was.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly,\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Elvis is universal, and timeless. Everybody loves him. This will be great for _Amazing but True_.\"\n\n\"See, Bridge?\" said Dr. McDonald as he opened his door. \"When you're spontaneous, you never know what you might run into.\"\n\n\"We're staying in here,\" Coke said as his parents got out of the RV.\n\n\"Yeah, we don't want to go in there,\" Pep agreed.\n\n\"Fine,\" said Mrs. McDonald brusquely as she grabbed her camera. She and Dr. McDonald walked up the sidewalk to the little white house, leaving the twins alone in the RV.\n\nToo bad they missed the tour. Even though Elvis only lived in the tiny two-room house for a couple of years, it has been designated a Mississippi landmark. Dr. and Mrs. McDonald took the tour and also visited the grounds. There's a museum, a fountain, and a statue of thirteen-year-old Elvis holding a guitar. Surrounding the house is the Walk of Life\u2014forty-two granite blocks representing each year of Elvis's life, with a little piece of information about what he did in that year. Also, nearby is the church where Elvis and his family worshiped. Inside, you can watch a video that shows what church services would have been like when Elvis was a young boy.\n\nWhile their parents took their tour, Coke and Pep sat in the RV, worrying.\n\n\"I bet Evil Elvis is in there,\" Pep said, looking out the window. \"I hope he doesn't hurt Mom or Dad.\"\n\n\"If we went in there, I'm sure he would try to kill us,\" said Coke.\n\nJust then, there was a tap on the window at the other side of the RV.\n\n_\"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!\"_ Pep screamed.\n\nA policeman was looking at them through the glass.\n\n\"It's _him_!\" Pep shouted. \"Evil Elvis! He's dressed like a cop now! Get the fireworks ready, Coke!\"\n\nBut it wasn't Evil Elvis dressed like a cop. It was a _cop_ dressed like a cop.\n\n\"Do your parents know you're here by yourselves?\" he asked after Coke rolled down the window.\n\n\"Yes, officer,\" Coke replied politely. \"They'll be back any minute.\"\n\n\"This is a no-parking zone, y'know,\" the policeman said. \"I'm gonna have to give your parents a ticket.\"\n\nThe officer wrote up the ticket on his pad and slipped it under the windshield wiper.\n\n\"It won't happen again, sir,\" Coke said.\n\n\"See that it doesn't.\"\n\nThe twins breathed a sigh of relief. They had gotten a ticket, but at least nobody had tried to kill them.\n\nIt wasn't until the policeman drove away that Pep got out of the RV and took a good look at the ticket. This is all it said...\n\n\"It's not a ticket,\" Pep said. \"It's a cipher!\"\n\n\"You mean that cop wasn't a real cop?\" asked her brother.\n\nPep didn't answer. She didn't care about who the cop was. She was already juggling the letters around in her head.\n\n\"It could be a twisted path cipher,\" she said after a few minutes of staring at it.\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"Look,\" Pep said, picking up a pencil, \"don't think of the letters as going left to right or right to left. Think of them as being along a twisted path that can start at any letter.\"\n\nShe put the point of the pencil below the G on the bottom right corner of the cipher. Then she began to draw a line....\n\n\"GO INTO THE MEDITATION GARDEN,\" Coke said as he followed the twisted path. \"What's that supposed to mean?\"\n\nThere was no time to discuss it because their parents came down the sidewalk and got in the RV.\n\n\"You kids should have come along,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"It was cool.\"\n\n\"Do they have a meditation garden in there?\" Pep asked.\n\n\"No,\" replied her mother, \"not that I know of.\"\n\nDr. McDonald put the key in the ignition and started up the RV. Then, quite suddenly, he looked up for a moment and turned off the motor. He sat there motionless, staring out the windshield at the Elvis Presley birthplace with a faraway look in his eyes. It seemed like he was in a trance.\n\n\"Ben, are you okay?\" asked Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"What's the matter, Dad?\" asked Pep, alarmed.\n\n\"I think he might be having a stroke!\" said her mother. \"Call 911! I'll go get help!\"\n\nBut before she could even pull the door handle, Dr. McDonald snapped out of it.\n\n\"I've _got_ it!\" he said excitedly.\n\n\"Got _what_?\" they all asked.\n\n\"I just figured out what I should write my next book about.\"\n\n\"What, Dad?\"\n\n\"I'm going to write a biography of Elvis Presley.\"\n\nCoke and Pep looked at each other, horrified looks on their faces.\n\n\"That's a _wonderful_ idea, Ben!\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Elvis started out dirt poor in this little house and became one of the most famous people of the twentieth century. He died tragically. You can use your history background. You love his music....\"\n\n\"It will sell like crazy!\" Dr. McDonald said. \"A lot better than _The Impact of Coal on the Industrial Revolution_.\"\n\nAs their parents got more and more excited with the idea, Coke and Pep got more and more upset. That's all they needed\u2014their dad researching the life of Elvis while Evil Elvis was trying to kill them.\n\n\"I think it's a terrible idea, Dad,\" Coke said. \"Nobody cares about Elvis anymore. He died like forty years ago.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Pep agreed, \"and besides, there are probably _hundreds_ of books about Elvis Presley.\"\n\n\"That just proves people have a hunger to read about him,\" Dr. McDonald said. \"But mine will be better. I'll find out everything there is to know about him. I'll write the _definitive_ biography of Elvis. Mark my words, this will get me on the bestseller list.\"\n\nHe had a dreamy look on his face as he started up the engine again and pulled away from 306 Elvis Presley Drive.\n\nIf you wanted to find out everything there is to know about Elvis Presley, there's one place you'd need to go.\n\nGraceland. Elvis Presley's house. Memphis, Tennessee.\n\n* * *\n\nGo to Google Maps (http:\/\/maps.google.com\/).\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\nIn the A box, type Tupelo MS.\n\nIn the B box, type Memphis TN.\n\nClick Get Directions.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chapter 29\n\n## GRACELAND\n\nMrs. McDonald pulled the road atlas out of the glove compartment and spread it across the dashboard. She was thrilled to see that Tupelo, Mississippi, was only about a hundred miles from Memphis. Unless they hit some unexpected traffic along the way, they would be in Tennessee in less than two hours. Graceland was just a few miles past the state line.\n\nShe got on her cell phone and found out that there was an RV campground right across the street from Graceland. Perfect!\n\nWhile he drove, Dr. McDonald's face showed a sense of calm and glassy-eyed peacefulness that hadn't been there for a long time. He was humming the old Paul Simon song. . .\n\n_\"Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. I'm going to Graceland....\"_\n\nIn his head, he had already started planning out his Elvis biography. The first chapter would begin on the day Elvis and his twin brother, Jesse, were born in Tupelo. The chapter would end that very same day, when Jesse died during childbirth.\n\nIn the back of the RV, meanwhile, the twins realized there was nothing they could do to avoid a trip to Graceland and an inevitable confrontation with Evil Elvis. They were nervously preparing to go to war.\n\nCoke carefully read the instructions on his fireworks so he would know how to light them, aim them, and shoot them. Pep was loosening up her throwing arm. She knew it might be up to her to take out Evil Elvis with the Frisbee grenade. She would only get one shot, so it would have to count. She felt like Luke Skywalker preparing for the dive into the Death Star.\n\nThe twins had a few other \"weapons\" at their disposal, but it wasn't like they would be much help in a fight: One roll of duct tape. A can of Silly String. Two yo-yos. A jar of bubbles. A can of Spam they got at the Spam Museum in Minnesota. A can of alligator repellent. If worse came to worst, they could hit somebody with the POUPON U toilet seat their mother had bought them back at the Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. It was pretty hard.\n\nThey were speeding along I-22, traveling west and north diagonally across the state of Mississippi. Dr. McDonald didn't look like he was going to stop for food, drink, or to stretch his legs. He was a man on a mission. The countryside was flying by at sixty miles per hour, and nobody was paying much attention to the scenery.\n\nShortly after they drove through Holly Springs National Forest, they passed this....\n\nWhen they crossed the state line and there was no exuberant outburst from the backseat, Mrs. McDonald turned around to see if anything was wrong.\n\n\"No woo-hoo?\" she asked. \"No facts about Tennessee? It's the Volunteer State, you know.\"\n\n\"I volunteer to go home,\" Coke said glumly.\n\nMinutes later, they reached the outskirts of Memphis. Dr. McDonald noticed the gas tank was close to empty, so he pulled into a station to fill it. When he started up the engine again, the GPS indicated they were just a few miles from Graceland. He made a left onto East Shelby Drive and drove a short time before he came to a street marked ELVIS PRESLEY BLVD.\n\n\"This is it, Ben,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"Make a right here.\"\n\nIt wasn't a fancy neighborhood, as they had expected. There were no other mansions around, and few houses at all. Most of the buildings on the street were pawn shops, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and motels. They knew they were getting close to Graceland when they passed the Elvis Presley Boulevard Shopping Center and a Days Inn motel with a sign out front that said...\n\n\"Before Elvis there was nothing.\"\n\n\u2014JOHN LENNON\n\n\"I'm so excited!\" said Mrs. McDonald.\n\nJust past that motel, they saw this on the left....\n\n\"This is it!\" said Dr. McDonald, and he began singing \"Hound Dog.\" The kids groaned.\n\nDirectly across the street from Graceland is a hotel called\u2014naturally enough\u2014the Heartbreak Hotel. And directly behind the hotel is a large campground filled with RVs. Dr. McDonald pulled into the parking lot. Mrs. McDonald got out and went to check in at the office.\n\n\"I think we're gonna need this,\" Coke whispered to his sister as he grabbed his backpack. But his father stopped him.\n\n\"Do you really think they're going to let you take that backpack into Graceland?\" he said. \"It's like a museum. Use your head, Son.\"\n\nCoke looked to Pep.\n\n\"I'll take my Frisbee,\" she said.\n\n\"You take that thing _everywhere_ ,\" said Dr. McDonald, \"and I haven't seen you throw it once.\"\n\n\"I have a feeling I'm going to throw it this time, Dad.\"\n\nCoke stashed his backpack in the RV and shut the door. It was going to be up to Pep to defend them this time.\n\nMrs. McDonald returned from checking in at the office. The whole family walked through the parking lot of the Heartbreak Hotel and followed signs to the Graceland ticket window.\n\nThere were a few tour options. In addition to seeing Elvis's home, visitors can also visit the Elvis Presley Car Museum, which includes thirty-three cars, motorcycles, go-carts, dune buggies, and other vehicles owned by Elvis. There's also an optional tour of his private jet, the _Lisa Marie_ , which has a living room, a bedroom, gold-plated seat belts, suede chairs, leather-covered tables, and twenty-four-karat gold-flecked sinks.\n\n\"Doesn't that sound cool?\" asked Mrs. McDonald.\n\n\"No,\" the twins replied in unison.\n\n\"You kids are so grumpy,\" she told them. \"I wish you'd try to get into this. You're going to remember this experience for the rest of your lives.\"\n\n\"I'll bet we will,\" Coke replied.\n\nDr. McDonald bought the tickets and handed one to each of the twins.\n\n\"Okay, I think you kids should take the Graceland tour first,\" he told them. \"Mom and I need to speak with somebody in the office about researching my book.\"\n\nCoke and Pep looked at their parents with sad puppy-dog eyes.\n\n\"We'll meet up later,\" Mrs. McDonald said. \"You kids wouldn't want to hang around with old fogies like us anyway.\"\n\n\"We want to go with you old fogies,\" Pep whined.\n\n\"You know what?\" Dr. McDonald said. \"This is ridiculous. You kids are thirteen years old now. It's time for you to show a little independence. You don't need us leading you around like you're toddlers. How are you going to make your way in the world if you follow us everywhere? That's what's wrong with kids today.\"\n\n\"But we're scared,\" Pep admitted.\n\n\"Scared?\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"That's crazy. This place is like Disney World.\"\n\nYeah, if Mickey Mouse was a mass murderer.\n\nTheir parents said good-bye, and Coke and Pep walked away, dragging their heels. They stalled for a few minutes to look in a gift shop that sold Elvis playing cards, spoons, T-shirts, mints, photos, videos, CDs, dolls, nail files, back scratchers, and just about every product imaginable with a picture of Elvis Presley on it.\n\n\"Elvis is probably making more money dead than he ever did alive,\" Coke commented.\n\nFinally the twins got on the shuttle bus that would take them across the street to Graceland. Nobody else was on the bus.\n\n\"Maybe everything will be all right,\" Pep said hopefully. \"Maybe Evil Elvis isn't even here, and we got all worked up over nothing.\"\n\n\"Where is everybody?\" Coke asked the bus driver.\n\n\"Oh, it's pretty quiet today,\" she replied. \"Most of the tourists are from the Professional Elvis Impersonators Association.\"\n\n\"The _what_?!\" Pep asked.\n\n\"The Professional Elvis Impersonators Association,\" said the bus driver. \"They're a real group, and about a hundred of 'em are here already, with more on the way. They come in costume and everything. I'll tell ya, those guys are nuts.\"\n\n\"We know,\" said Coke.\n\nIt was a quick trip across the street. The bus drove up the winding driveway that cut across the front lawn and stopped in front of Graceland.\n\nThe colonial-style house, with four white columns, wasn't quite as grand as the twins expected. It looked a little like a town library. But the lawn and landscaping were perfectly manicured. A plaque out front said the house had been built in 1939 and it was on the National Register of Historic Places.\n\nThere was a uniformed guard standing around to help people with questions and directions.\n\n\"So this is it, huh?\" Coke asked as he got off the bus.\n\n\"Yup,\" the guard said. \"Elvis bought this house when he was just twenty-two years old, and he paid a hundred thousand dollars for it.\"\n\nYou, dear reader, probably don't know or care how much a house costs today. There's no reason why you should. But a place like Graceland\u2014even without a famous owner\u2014will go for many _millions_ of dollars.\n\n\"Where do we go first?\" Pep asked the guard.\n\n\"Go to the living room.\"\n\n\"Wait. What did you say?\"\n\n\"Go to the living room,\" said the guard, pointing to the right of the front steps.\n\nCoke turned to Pep.\n\n\"That was the first cipher!\" they said simultaneously.\n\nThere were two white statues of lions on the side of the front steps. The twins climbed the steps slowly, looking all around for trouble.\n\n\"Okay,\" Coke said, \"let's find Evil Elvis, take him out with the Frisbee before he can lay a hand on us, and blow this pop stand.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan,\" Pep agreed.\n\nCoke pulled open the door and saw four Elvis impersonators\u2014with white jumpsuits and slicked-back hair\u2014in the front hallway. He tensed up instinctively.\n\n\"Throw it, Pep!\" Coke said, \"Let's kill them all!\"\n\n\"Calm down!\" Pep said, holding her brother back. \"None of them are Evil Elvis.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"They're not wearing masks,\" she explained.\n\nThe Elvis impersonators were weeping at the sight of Elvis's living room and consoling each other. Coke and Pep entered the house cautiously. She held her Frisbee grenade tightly, ready to let it fly at any moment.\n\nThe living room was almost all white\u2014white rug, white chairs, and a long white couch. There was a big mirror over the fireplace, and two big stained-glass peacocks on the doors. A rope across the doorway prevented visitors from going into the room.\n\n\"This is where his funeral service was held,\" said one of the weeping Elvises, and that made them sob all the more.\n\nOutside the living room, there were steps leading upstairs, but the second floor was closed to the public. Just past the living room was a smaller music room with a black grand piano. Three more Elvis impersonators were in there, speaking in solemn tones and dabbing their eyes with tissues.\n\nThe twins walked cautiously down the hall on the right to Elvis's parents' bedroom and then across the foyer to the dining room and the kitchen. There were several more Elvis impersonators there.\n\n\"This place is _crawling_ with Elvises!\" Coke told Pep. \"How will we know when we see Evil Elvis?\"\n\n\"We'll know.\"\n\nIt wasn't clear which way to go next, so Pep asked one of the guards.\n\n\"Go to the TV room,\" he said, pointing downstairs.\n\nCoke looked at his sister.\n\n\"That was the second cipher!\"\n\nThey walked down the steps. To the left was a room with three old-time TV sets side by side, presumably so Elvis could watch three channels at the same time. There was yellow carpet on the floor, a lightning bolt painted on the wall, and a sculpture of a white monkey on the coffee table. It was getting creepy, and Pep grabbed Coke by the elbow.\n\nTo the right of the TV room was a small room with folded multicolor fabric on the walls and ceiling. In the middle of the floor was a pool table.\n\n\"The third cipher said to go to the pool room!\" Coke recalled. \"That means the jungle room will be next.\"\n\nAnd so it was. They climbed the steps again to the most unusual\u2014some would say _weirdest_ \u2014room of them all. There was green shag carpeting, not just on the floor but also on the _ceiling_. A waterfall filled one wall, and oddly carved wooden chairs covered with animal fur were scattered around the room.\n\nFrom there, a door led outside. There had been no sign of Evil Elvis inside Graceland.\n\n\"He's not here,\" Pep said hopefully as they walked into the backyard.\n\n\"Don't let down your guard,\" Coke warned his sister. \"Be ready with the Frisbee.\"\n\nGraceland has a huge backyard with horses grazing behind a white fence. More Elvis impersonators were wandering around the grounds. The twins looked them over carefully and decided they were not a threat.\n\nThe path led to two separate buildings out back. The Hall of Gold was filled with gold records on the walls, stage costumes, and posters from Elvis movies. The racquetball building once had a full-size court, but now houses more awards, memorabilia, and photos.\n\nThat was it. They had toured every room and every building at Graceland. There had been lots of Elvis sightings, but no sightings of Evil Elvis. Even so, the twins refused to relax. There was the sense of a lurking presence everywhere, a sense of impending doom that never went away.\n\n\"I have a bad feeling,\" Pep said.\n\n\"So do I,\" said her brother.\n\nThat's when they saw this....\n\n\"That was the last cipher,\" Pep said. \"Go into the meditation garden.\"\n\nThe path led around to the south end of the house, where there was a kidney-shaped swimming pool. It was smaller than you would expect for such a famous celebrity. Behind the pool was a circular fountain and a statue of Jesus.\n\n\"This is it,\" Coke said solemnly as they entered the meditation garden. They were alone.\n\nThere were four graves in front of them, laid out side by side in an arc\u2014Elvis, his mother, his father, and his grandmother. There was also a little memorial to his twin brother, Jesse. Flowers had been placed all around, along with notes sent by fans. At the top end of Elvis's tomb was an eternal flame that danced in the wind.\n\n\"He's down there,\" Pep said quietly as they stood in front of the tomb. \"Six feet under.\"\n\nA few Elvis impersonators strolled into the meditation garden and immediately began sobbing at the sight of Elvis's grave.\n\n\"Maybe we should say a prayer or something,\" Coke whispered to his sister.\n\nThey closed their eyes and prayed silently. When they opened them again, a figure was standing at the other side of Elvis's tomb, behind the flickering flame, his arms crossed in front of him.\n\nIt was Evil Elvis.\n\n## Chapter 30\n\n## EVIL ELVIS UNMASKED\n\n\"I love an eternal flame,\" Evil Elvis said. \"Don't you?\"\n\n_\"Ahhhhhhhhh!\"_ Pep fell back as if she had been hit by a strong gust of wind.\n\nThere was nowhere to run. There were two Elvises on either side of them, and they weren't crying anymore. They had their arms crossed, and they were glowering.\n\n\"Be ready to throw the Frisbee grenade,\" Coke whispered to Pep. \"This is our chance to get rid of him once and for all.\"\n\n\"I've got to hand it to you kids,\" Evil Elvis said. \"I never thought you would make it out of the World of Coke alive. And after you did, I was _sure_ the G-Force Accelerator would be the end of you. But here you are. You know what? You've got spunk.\"\n\nCoke was about to say something, but Evil Elvis wasn't done.\n\n\"I _hate_ spunk,\" he added.\n\nPep fingered the Frisbee grenade, pushing on the power button. She was waiting for the perfect moment to fling it and hoping that her aim would be true.\n\n\"Why do you hate us so much?\" Coke asked. \"We never did anything to you.\"\n\nBut Evil Elvis wasn't in the mood to answer questions. He had his own agenda.\n\n\"It's such a shame that Elvis Presley had to die so young,\" he said. \"The same will be said about you two.\"\n\nCoke looked left and right, searching for an escape path in case Pep missed with the Frisbee grenade, or if it failed to detonate. Pep tightened her grip on the Frisbee.\n\n\"Who are you, really?\" Coke asked. \"Why don't you take off that silly mask and show your face?\"\n\n\"We all wear a mask, don't we?\" said Evil Elvis. \"You pretend to be a couple of sweet, innocent kids on vacation with your parents. But you're cold-blooded killers. That's what you are. You killed Archie Clone in Washington, and you nearly killed Dr. Warsaw in Wisconsin.\"\n\nThat voice! Coke had heard it before and tried to place it. It sounded strange, like Evil Elvis was trying to disguise his real voice.\n\n\"What are you going to do to us _here_?\" Coke asked. \"Stomp us to death with your blue suede shoes?\"\n\nEvil Elvis laughed.\n\n\"No, you would only find some way to escape,\" he replied. \"I'm tired of playing games with you. I have a simpler idea. Do you know what Elvis used to do when he didn't like what was on TV?\"\n\n\"Change the channel?\" Coke guessed.\n\n\"No,\" said Evil Elvis. \"He would shoot the screen.\"\n\nWith that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol.\n\n\" _Now_ , Pep!\" Coke shouted.\n\nPep quickly jumped into position, brought back her arm, and whipped the Frisbee _hard_ at Evil Elvis. The Frisbee hit him on the wrist and ricocheted off, landing in the swimming pool behind him. The gun fell out of his hand and went off when it hit the ground.\n\n\"You little punks!\" shouted Evil Elvis.\n\n\"Run!\" Coke shouted.\n\n\"Get them!\"\n\nThere was a driveway next to the meditation garden that went alongside Graceland and out to the street. Coke and Pep took off in that direction, pursued by Evil Elvis and four other Elvis impersonators.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" Pep yelled.\n\n\"I don't know!\" Coke yelled back. \"Follow me!\"\n\nWhen they made it around to the front of the mansion, they had about five steps on the closest Elvis impersonator. A shuttle bus was waiting to take visitors back across the street. But the twins didn't get on it. With Coke running in front, they dashed across the huge lawn, out the gate, and into Elvis Presley Boulevard.\n\nIt's a wide street with four lanes of traffic, and cars were whizzing by in both directions. Grabbing his sister's hand, Coke ran out into the street anyway. A blue Toyota swerved out of the way at the last instant and avoided hitting them by inches. There was honking and cursing from the drivers.\n\n\"Watch out!\"\n\n\"What are you kids, nuts?\"\n\nCoke and Pep dodged three more cars, almost getting run over several times. One of the cars screeched to a halt and got rear-ended by the truck right behind it. That provided a screen to slow down the Elvises, who were already huffing and puffing. Coke and Pep made it to the other side of the street unscathed.\n\n\"Come on!\" Coke said to his sister. \"We can hide in the RV!\"\n\nPep turned around for a moment to look behind. The Elvises were still trying to cross the street.\n\nThe twins ran past several souvenir stores, around the back of the Heartbreak Hotel, and into the campground behind it. It took them a minute or two to find their RV among the dozens of them parked out there, many of them looking identical.\n\nCoke yanked open the side door, thankful that their parents usually forgot to lock it, and climbed inside. Pep slammed the door behind them.\n\nThey got down on the floor so they couldn't be seen through any windows. They were breathing heavily and sweating, their hearts pounding.\n\n\"You were supposed to\u2014\"\n\n_\"Shhhhhhhhh!\"_ Pep warned her brother. \"He might hear us!\"\n\n\"You were supposed to skip the Frisbee grenade off the _ground_!\" Coke whispered. \"Don't you remember? It was programmed to explode on the _second_ impact.\"\n\n\"I forgot,\" Pep whispered. \"I panicked. You should be thankful that I knocked the gun out of his hand.\"\n\n\"Okay, we're safe here,\" Coke whispered.\n\n\"What do we do _now_?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Coke said. \"We wait for Mom and Dad to get back. Then we'll get out of here.\"\n\nCowering there on the floor of the RV, it felt like an hour had passed. In fact, it was only a few minutes. They listened carefully for noises outside but only heard the sound of a jet overhead.\n\nCoke reached over for his backpack full of fireworks. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that buying all that stuff had been a big mistake. He should have known that he wouldn't be able to bring the backpack into any museums or public buildings that had security. Even if he could, it would have been impossible to open the backpack the instant they were threatened, take out the fireworks, light them, and get away without blowing himself up. That was a hundred dollars' worth of fireworks wasted.\n\nFive minutes had passed since they had been hiding in the RV.\n\n\"I think we lost them,\" Pep said.\n\nThat's when the door opened.\n\nIt was Evil Elvis.\n\n_\"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!\"_ Pep screamed. \"Coke! Do something!\"\n\n\"Well, _here_ you are!\" said Evil Elvis. \"I've been looking all over for you two.\"\n\nCoke decided the only defense was a good offense. He jumped on Evil Elvis, flailing wildly at him with both fists.\n\n\"Leave us _alone_!\" Coke shouted.\n\nWhile Coke and Evil Elvis wrestled on the floor, Pep managed to find the can of Silly String, and she started spraying it all over Evil Elvis's mask. When that didn't seem to work, she got out the can of alligator repellent she had bought at South of the Border and started shooting it at Evil Elvis. He grabbed the can and flung it toward the driver's seat.\n\n\"No more Mr. Nice Guy!\" he said, fending off Coke's blows. \"You two are _dead_!\"\n\nPep tried to open up the bubble jar that Bones and Mya had given them so she could throw the bubble soap into Evil Elvis's eyes and blind him, but she couldn't twist the top off. She tried to hit him over the head with a can of Spam, but it went flying out of her hand. She looked around desperately for something she could use as a weapon.\n\nThe POUPON U toilet seat that her mother had gotten at the Mustard Museum!\n\nPep grabbed it and swung it at him, but she got off-balance and only delivered a glancing blow.\n\n\"That's _enough_!\" Evil Elvis shouted, ripping the toilet seat out of Pep's hand and brandishing it like a baseball bat.\n\nCoke fell back, exhausted. His shirt was ripped. He had no fight left in him.\n\nEvil Elvis reached into a pocket, the same pocket he had pulled a gun from in the meditation garden.\n\nThis was it. The twins were done for. It was over. Now Coke was _really_ mad.\n\n\"I can't believe you forgot to lock the door!\" he yelled at his sister. \"This is all _your_ fault!\"\n\n\"I thought _you_ locked it!\" Pep shouted back.\n\n\"How could I lock it?\" Coke yelled. \"You came in after me!\"\n\n\"There's no reason to bicker, kids,\" Evil Elvis said. \"It doesn't matter who was supposed to lock it. You'll both be dead soon.\"\n\nInstead of pulling a gun from his pocket, he pulled out a cigarette lighter and flicked it on.\n\n\"Before I seal up the door from the outside and drop this in the gas tank,\" Evil Elvis said, \"it's only fair to let you know who was responsible for killing you.\"\n\nWith his other hand, he peeled off the Elvis mask and fake Elvis hair. It turned out that _he_ was a _she_.\n\n\"AUNT JUDY!\" shouted the twins.\n\n\"That's right, you little twerps!\" Aunt Judy said, now using her normal female voice. \"And I thought you two were so smart.\"\n\n\"But you're our aunt!\" shouted Pep. \"Why would you want to hurt us? Our mother is your sister!\"\n\n\"And you know what?\" Aunt Judy said, \"I always hated my sister. I couldn't believe she actually had the nerve to show up for my wedding. There's only one person I care about\u2014Dr. Herman Warsaw. My husband. Oh, I wish I could see the look on my sister's face when she finds your bodies in here.\"\n\nCoke clutched his backpack to his chest. Slowly he moved his hand until he found the zipper. The fireworks would be their only chance.\n\n\"Dr. Warsaw told you to kill us?\" Pep asked, trembling.\n\n\"Let's just say Hermy suggested that while he's recuperating from his injuries\u2014injuries that _you_ caused, by the way\u2014I could, shall we say, take matters into my own hands.\"\n\n\"But I thought you were on your honeymoon!\" Pep said.\n\n\"Oh, we will be,\" Aunt Judy said. \"Just as soon as you two are dead. Then our minds will be at ease and we can enjoy our life together.\"\n\nCoke found the zipper pull on his backpack. He made a cough to mask the sound as he tried to nonchalantly open it.\n\n\"Hey! Gimme that!\" Aunt Judy shouted as she grabbed the backpack away from him. \"What's in here, more of your little _toys_?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Coke lied. \"It's my toys. Leave them alone.\"\n\n\"It would be a shame if anything were to happen to them,\" Aunt Judy said, holding the flame from the cigarette lighter near the bottom of the backpack.\n\n\"That's a really bad idea,\" Coke warned.\n\n\"Well, if _you're_ saying it, I'm guessing it must be a really _good_ idea,\" said Aunt Judy.\n\n\"No, seriously,\" said Pep. \"You really shouldn't do that.\"\n\n\"You expect me to listen to you kids?\" asked Aunt Judy, moving the flame closer to the backpack.\n\nCoke shrank back instinctively.\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked Aunt Judy, talking in baby talk. \"Are you afraid your little toys are going to burn? Boo-hoo!\"\n\nShe couldn't see it, but one of the edges of the backpack had ignited. The flame was moving up the side.\n\n\"Pep!\" Coke hollered. \"Jump!\"\n\nBoth twins dove for the door at the same moment the first explosion detonated. It was the Exploding Mosquito, a spinning device that ordinarily shoots up in the air and erupts with a huge blast of light, sparks, and smoke. Since it was confined inside Coke's backpack, it blew up right there, which set off a chain reaction.\n\nCoke and Pep had tumbled out the door by the time the gunpowder inside the Classic Repeater Four Pack exploded with a flash and shredded the backpack.\n\nAunt Judy didn't know what hit her. The RV was rocked by a series of blasts that slammed her against the wall. Rockets were flying around the confined space and exploding into red, white, and blue fireballs. Smoke was everywhere. The curtains had caught on fire. Aunt Judy struggled to get up and get out of the RV, but the flying rockets made it impossible.\n\n\"Run!\" Coke yelled. \"If one of those things reaches the gas tank, the whole thing's gonna blow!\"\n\nA few seconds later, that's exactly what happened. One of the rockets damaged the floor of the RV and made a tiny puncture in a seam of the gas tank, which had been filled to the brim a few hours earlier. When a burning cinder fell through the hole, the tank exploded in a huge orange fireball, with wood, metal, and burning debris flying in every direction.\n\nBy the time the fire department arrived, there wasn't much left except for some twisted metal and tires, which were still burning and giving off an awful-smelling stench. Everything else was burned beyond recognition.\n\nCoke and Pep didn't stop running until they got to the entrance of the campground. Exhausted and still in a state of shock, they sat on the bench there, catching their breath while the RV burned. Lots of people had gathered around to see the fire, but nobody paid any attention to the twins.\n\n\"Well,\" Coke finally said, \"I guess we don't have to worry about Evil Elvis anymore.\"\n\nA few minutes later, their parents came strolling back from their tour of Graceland.\n\n\"Great news!\" Dr. McDonald told the kids. \"I spoke with some people in the office, and they're going to let me look at Elvis's personal papers for my book. Hey, what happened to you two? You're a mess.\"\n\n\"It's a long story,\" Coke said.\n\n\"I can't believe you ripped _another_ shirt!\" said Mrs. McDonald. \"Why can't you take better care of your clothing? I wish you would be more careful.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" Dr. McDonald said, throwing an arm around each of the twins, \"let's go back to the RV.\"\n\n\"Umm, yeah, about the RV...\"\n\n## EPILOGUE\n\nWhat?! Are you kidding me? They blew up the RV? And Evil Elvis was Aunt Judy the whole time? I didn't see _that_ coming!\n\nWhat happened to Mrs. Higgins? Where did the bowler dudes run off to? How are the McDonalds going to get home to California _now_?\n\nTo find out the answers to these and other questions, well, you'll just have to read The Genius Files #4.\n\n## ABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nDan Gutman (seen here at the World of Coca-Cola) has written many books for young people, such as _Honus & Me, The Homework Machine, The Kid Who Ran For President, The Million Dollar Shot_, and the My Weird School series. If you'd like to find out about Dan or his books, visit www.dangutman.com.\n\nVisit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.\n\n## Credits\n\nCover art \u00a9 2013 by Tim Jessell\n\nCover design by Erin Fitzsimmons\n\n## Copyright\n\nThe Genius Files #3: You Only Die Twice\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2013 by Dan Gutman\n\nAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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+{"text":"\n\nLittle did I expect that my life's purpose would come in the form of a blue-eyed, button-nosed bundle of boy. This book is dedicated to him.\n\n#\n\nIntroduction\n\nChapter 1 Free Food Fully Loaded\n\nChapter 2 How-To's & What For's\n\nChapter 3 Power Muffins\n\nChapter 4 Brownie Points\n\nChapter 5 A Cookie in the Hand Is Worth Two in La Bouche\n\nChapter 6 Cupcake Love\n\nChapter 7 Raising the Bar\n\nChapter 8 Baked Donut Holes\n\nChapter 9 Our Daily Bread\n\nResources\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\n\nI wasn't always into health food. Back in my corporate days I would often eat frozen yogurt for lunch and cookie dough ice cream as an after-dinner chaser and think nothing of it. That is, until I started to look like Miss Piggy with an attach\u00e9 case. Then it dawned on me that maybe I needed to rethink my choices.\n\nI started to read all about the ill effects of refined white sugar on the body and realized my long-term prognosis wasn't good. So I set out to my local health food store to see if I could find some desserts made with alternative sweeteners. No go. I could not find one crumb of a cookie that did not contain evaporated cane juice (a fancy term for sugar).\n\nI never thought of myself as a pioneer in anything, let alone baking, but I found myself in my kitchen that night with a boatload of all-natural, low-glycemic sweeteners and went to work. Mind you, I didn't know what I was doing, so it took a while to get anything edible to come out of the oven, but I was determined.\n\nIt took about a year, but after extensive research about nutrition and the science of baking, coupled with disastrous errors for which I should have been put on trial, I came up with an assortment of goodies containing only organic and healthful ingredients sweetened with stevia and coconut nectar.\n\nAnd like most everything I do in my life, if it's tasty and smile-inducing, I have to share. So, in 2006 I opened my bakery, Sweet Debbie's Organic Cupcakes. And from day one, my Irresistible Red Velvet Cupcakes, imbued with fresh cranberries and lemon; my Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies, filled with homemade dark chocolate chips; and my Cran Ban Thank You Bran Muffins, made with potassium-rich bananas and dried cranberries; among other Sweet Debbie's originals, started flying out the bakery door due to customer demand.\n\nAnd just as I was enjoying the momentum, I found out\u2014after several anaphylactic episodes\u2014that my son has life-threatening allergies to almost every food in the USDA pyramid, except salt.\n\nSo in 2009 I went back into my kitchen, did some more research and experiments, and came up with gluten-free and allergy-free formulas for all the Sweet Debbie's menu items.\n\nIn that same year I revamped my bakery so it could be a safe haven for those with dietary restrictions similar to my son's, and against all odds, business increased exponentially. It is now the go-to bakeshop for anyone with an allergy or intolerance to dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, gluten, nuts and sugar, and for folks who are just plain hungry for a wholesome treat.\n\nBut soon I realized that there must be people out there who don't have access to my bakery and who might want to partake. And even though Sweet Debbie's ships its treats nationwide, I thought there might be some type A, paranoid individuals who don't trust anyone to make their snacks for them. Thus, I decided to write it all down.\n\nSo here you are (okay, maybe you're not necessarily paranoid and type A, or maybe you are, but it's nothing to be ashamed of). Here are my blow-by-blow lists of Must-Haves and Must Do's, my How-To's and What For's, so you will be well equipped to tackle any recipe in this book like a defensive linebacker donning an adorable apron.\n\nBy using the \"clean\" ingredients suggested in this book, you won't have to worry about having sugar rushes and crashes, or ingesting artificial colors, pesticides or preservatives. It means you will never have to worry again about your food-allergic child being denied a cupcake or not having a fuel-filled energy bar to eat right before soccer practice. Above all, it means you can feel confident that the kick-it-up-a-notch, nutritious, allergen-free treats coming out of your oven will keep you and the members of your family healthy, happy and unharmed.\n\nIn the pages that follow, I explain why I use nourishing grapeseed oil and coconut oil; how and why it's best to sweeten with zero-calorie, all-natural stevia and mineral-rich coconut nectar; and how my gluten-free flour mix packs an alimental punch, and I offer a treasure trove of valuable tips, tricks and intimate details.\n\nMany of the munchies in these pages are geared to kids in terms of taste, portion sizes, ease of handling and lunch-box compatibility, but there are a few treats in each chapter that are designed for you, my awesome reader, for whom I've developed some more sophisticated and grown-up indulgences.\n\nAnd it is you, my fellow baker, with whom I share this gastronomical journey one hearty and satisfying nosh at a time. Let's dig in!\n\n#\n\nI've always loved grocery shopping. It makes me happy to be around so much food.\n\nAnd now, more than ever before, I see all the \"alternative\" choices I used to be able to get only at health food stores hanging out on supermarket shelves, rubbing elbows with more mainstream fare.\n\nMost of the ingredients you'll need to make these recipes are quite easy on the pocketbook. However, there are a few superfood prima donnas among them that boast a designer sticker price. I ask you to just think of them as your health insurance co-pay, because I promise you, none of them are pricier than the cost of getting sick.\n\nHere you'll find a comprehensive list of almost everything you'll need to get started. After much analysis and testing, I chose each component based on its high nutritional value as well as baking functionality. So it is with great pleasure that I now introduce you to the cast.\n\nSorghum flour\u2013contains a vast array of vitamins and minerals, including B6, potassium, iron, magnesium, some vitamin E and antioxidants. Poor little sorghum used to compete with wheat flour for attention, but now he is more popular than ever because he's whole grain and gluten free.\n\nMillet flour\u2013is highly nutritious and includes the B-complex vitamins, iron, phosphorous and potassium. Since Miss Millet is very shy, it is not all that well known that she is considered the least allergenic and most digestible of all the gluten-free grains.\n\nQuinoa flour\u2013is queen in the gluten-free fiefdom because quinoa is a protein unto herself and thus doesn't need some gassy bean dude to complete her. She has the full amino acid collection and is spectacularly rich in potassium, iron, copper, manganese and calcium.\n\nTeff flour\u2013is a flour milled from teff, a teensy-weensy gluten-free grain that contains a powerhouse of nutrients, including calcium, thiamin and iron. Teff is very fashionable and comes in a variety of colors, ranging from dark brown to red to ivory. I use ivory due to its mild flavor and soft texture.\n\nTapioca flour\u2013is derived from the cassava root and is high in calcium, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and iron. A bit of a starchy fellow, tapioca is a good thickener.\n\nBuckwheat flour\u2013contains B vitamins, minerals, flavonoids and all eight essential amino acids. I like to buy buckwheat groats and then grind them in my coffee grinder. The resulting flour is lighter in color than store-bought buckwheat flour and tastes a little better in these recipes. I refer to this as \"light buckwheat flour\" in the recipes contained in this book.\n\nAmaranth flour\u2013has the good sense to contain not only the vitamins found in the previously mentioned gluten-free flours, but also elusive vitamin K, which is essential for good bone health. Amaranth is also high in lysine, a prominent amino acid in the amino acid community.\n\nRice bran\u2013is a treasure chest of phytonutrients, fiber, iron, protein, vitamins B and E, and omega fatty acids. It is a key ingredient in my bestselling Cran Ban Thank You Bran Muffins.\n\nCornmeal\u2013is considered a whole grain and contains a laundry list of nutrients, including niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and vitamins B6, E and K. I use the coarse grind because of its exquisite texture and taste.\n\nCacao powder\u2013contains important antioxidants, proteins and essential minerals. Some cacao powders are like a cheap date and may want to go Dutch, so stay away from them like the plague. Hook up with raw cacao powder, if possible.\n\nBaking powder\u2013is available gluten-free and sodium-free, and I'll tell you where you can get it in the resource section.\n\nGuar gum\u2013comes in handy quite often. Just when you think you're falling apart, Mr. Guar will save the day and hold it all together for you. He hails from a leguminous plant, so if that's an allergy issue, use xanthan gum instead.\n\nXanthan gum\u2013is derived from a fermented polysaccharide. Xanthan is the better gum to use for yeasted goods and for pastries that contain a lot of citric acid.\n\nStevia powder\u2013is a miraculous all-natural sweetener as it has zero calories and contains vitamins A and C, magnesium, zinc and iron.\n\nErythritol\u2013sounds like an artificial chemical, but it is actually found in nature, in fruits and vegetables, and is an all-natural, zero-calorie sweetener. It does not promote tooth decay, is a free-radical-fighting antioxidant and is very easily digested. I use the powdered kind for the recipes in this book.\n\nCoconut nectar\u2013is a nutrient- and enzyme-dense, minimally processed, hypoallergenic, low-glycemic sweetener that contains seventeen amino acids, fiber, and vitamins B and C. How dare they call it a sap!\n\nChocolate chips\u2013that is, the dark chocolate variety, are filled with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. The higher the cacao content, the better. However, most packaged chocolate chips are only about 40 percent cocoa and are processed with refined sugar and soy lecithin. I will show you how easy it is to make dark chocolate chips with a high cacao content that are completely allergen free and sugar free.\n\nGrapeseed oil\u2013is an excellent source of antioxidants, plant sterols, vitamins C and E, as well as the essential fatty acids omega-3, omega-6 and omega-9.\n\nCoconut oil\u2013is considered one of the most desirable fats because it is nutrient dense and contains lauric acid, which has been shown to boost immunity. Coconut oil is a medium-chain fatty acid that gives the body an instant source of energy.\n\nVanilla extract\u2013adds not only aromatics and flavor but also antioxidants to your baked goods. Just make sure you get the kind with no grain alcohol to guarantee it's gluten free.\n\nPumpkin seeds\u2013are a good source of minerals, such as phosphorous, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc and iron, as well as protein and vitamin K.\n\nSunflower seeds\u2013contain a healthy dose of vitamins B1, B5 and E, as well as folate, copper, magnesium, selenium and phosphorous. Ms. Sunflower parades herself around as a seed but is technically a fruit.\n\nChia seeds\u2013are nature's richest plant-based source of omega-3. They are supercharged with antioxidants, fiber, phytonutrients and proteins and are a great source of energy.\n\nHemp seeds\u2013contain an alphabet soup of vitamins, all eight essential amino acids, and a perfect balance of the essential fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6, and they are a complete plant-based protein.\n\nRice milk\u2013is always enriched with calcium and vitamin D and sometimes with vitamin B12. I use the kind that is unsweetened and made with organic whole grain brown rice.\n\nCoconut milk\u2013is now available in many flavors and in shelf-stable cardboard containers of different sizes. It is enriched with calcium, folate, magnesium, selenium and vitamins B12 and D.\n\nCoconut milk yogurt\u2013is fortified with life-enhancing probiotics and is now abundantly available in a wide rainbow of flavors, but for the purposes of this book, I use the plain.\n\n#\n\nPlease follow me as I show you the techniques I use to make my baked goods. Once you get the hang of it, you'll see how easy and fast it is to whip up a batch of my muffins, brownies, cookies, cupcakes, energy bars and donut holes. The breads take a little more patience because of the rising time, but don't be intimidated by the yeast. He is not a beast and is really very friendly. But if at first you don't succeed, bake and bake again. That's what I do to this day. Trust me, your efforts will be greatly rewarded.\n\n### Frosting Technique\n\nInstead of using the traditional offset spatula to frost our cupcakes, donut holes and brownies, we use the precious espresso spoon. The little oval head is the perfect shape for swirling the frosting around and around and creating nice grooves.\n\n### Mixing Technique\n\nIt's important to keep in mind that with gluten-free flour, there's really no such thing as overmixing. So when incorporating ingredients, take the extra time to stir and stir again until you are sure that everyone is mingling and getting along in the batter.\n\n### Wrapping Technique\n\nWhen wrapping the baked goods for freezer storage, make sure that the packages are really airtight to keep out any moisture.\n\n### Sweetening Technique\n\nThe sweeteners I use in my recipes require certain handling to do what they do best.\n\n#### Stevia Powder\n\nWhen stevia powder comes out of her bottle, she tends to get all over the place. So in order to avoid a white powder cloud in your face, add stevia to the recipe's liquid ingredients and stir well to combine, making sure the stevia is thoroughly incorporated.\n\n#### Coconut Nectar\n\nSince coconut nectar is thick and sticky, measuring it can be tricky. The spout can get a little bit messy, so I suggest you unscrew the bottle cap and the attached spout and then pour straight from the bottle. Always measure coconut nectar in an oiled measuring cup so that it will slip out easily and completely.\n\n### Recipes within My Recipes\n\nIf you'd like to bake as \"cleanly\" as possible, it helps to make your seed butters, chocolate chips and gluten-free flour mix from scratch. Here are the recipes for these.\n\n#### HEMP SEED BUTTER\n\nMakes almost 2 cups of seed butter\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n2 cups hemp seeds\n\n4-5 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Place the hemp seeds in a large frying pan over medium-low heat and toast them for about 4 minutes. Let them cool.\n\n2. Grind the toasted hemp seeds in a coffee grinder or food processor until a powder forms.\n\n3. Place the powder in a medium-size bowl, add the grapeseed oil a little at a time and stir until combined.\n\nStore the hemp seed butter in an airtight container in the refrigerator so it stays fresh longer.\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nIf you don't want to heat your hemp seeds, you can make this seed butter without toasting. The resulting butter will be green, not brown.\n\n#### SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER\n\nMakes almost 2 cups of seed butter\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n2 cups raw sunflower seeds\n\n4-5 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. In order to get ground sunflower seeds to mimic peanut butter as closely as possible in color and flavor, roast the sunflower seeds in the oven before grinding.\n\n2. Preheat oven to 275\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n3. Spread the sunflower seeds out in a single layer in the pan. Roast in the oven for 30\u201335 minutes, or until the sunflower seeds turn light brown, stirring halfway through roasting.\n\n4. Take the pan out of the oven and let the seeds cool.\n\n5. Grind the sunflower seeds in a coffee grinder or food processor until a powder forms. Place the powder in a medium-size bowl, add the grapeseed oil a little at a time and stir until combined.\n\nStore the sunflower seed butter in an airtight container in the refrigerator so it stays fresh longer.\n\n#### DARK CHOCOLATE CHIPS\n\nMakes about 8 ounces of chocolate chips\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n4 ounces 100 percent cacao unsweetened chocolate bar\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n6 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup powdered erythritol\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Chop the chocolate into chunks, place them in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl with the coconut oil and microwave 30 seconds at a time until the chocolate melts.\n\n3. Add the coconut nectar, powdered erythritol, stevia and salt and stir to combine. Set this aside to cool slightly.\n\n4. Cut off a small tip of a disposable pastry bag or the corner of a gallon-size ziplock Baggie. Place the bag tip down in a tall drinking glass and fold the top edges of the bag around the perimeter of the glass to hold it up.\n\n5. Fill the bag with the melted chocolate. Take the filled bag out of the glass and twist the top to prevent leakage.\n\n6. Squeeze little chocolate teardrops onto the parchment paper until the bag is empty.\n\n7. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer until the chips harden, about 1 hour.\n\nStore the chocolate chips in the freezer, in an airtight plastic bag or freezer-safe glass jar, until you're ready to bake with them.\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nTo make the cutouts to top the cupcakes, as seen in some of the photos, pour the melted chocolate into chocolate candy trays in whatever shape you want to make. These trays can be bought in any candy supply or cake-decorating store. Place the trays in the freezer for about an hour, or until the chocolate hardens completely, and then just pop the shapes out.\n\n#### ALL-PURPOSE GLUTEN-FREE FLOUR MIX\n\nThis is the mix you'll make as the basis for every recipe in this book. You should double or triple the recipe so you have a nice big batch at the ready whenever you need it. In order to save money, you can buy all these flours in bulk and store them in an airtight container in the freezer. This will extend their shelf life for up to a year.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n1 cup tapioca flour\n\n\u00be cup sorghum flour\n\n\u00be cup millet flour\n\n\u00bc cup ivory teff flour\n\n\u00bc cup quinoa flour\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Put all the flours in a gallon-size ziplock Baggie and toss it around and turn it upside down to thoroughly combine.\n\nWhen measuring out gluten-free flour for a recipe, always loosen it up first by shaking its container, whether it be a tub of Tupperware or the aforementioned ziplock. Then scoop it up with a large spoon and transfer it into the measuring cup and level it off. You have to do it this way because gluten-free flour is very dense and compact, and you don't want to end up with more volume in your measuring cup than is called for in the recipe.\n\n### Tool Kit\n\nHere is a list of the essentials you need for baking with this book.\n\nBig Spoon or Whisk\n\nEither will do for stirring and mixing. You won't need a hand mixer or a stand-up mixer for any of these recipes.\n\nEspresso Spoon\n\nWhen you decorate your goodies with swirls of frosting, use this darling utensil.\n\nBaking Spatula\n\nThe head of a baking spatula should be rubber or silicone. You'll use this for smoothing out batters evenly in the pan.\n\nStainless-Steel Slotted Spatula\n\nThis spatula is used for lifting delicate cookies and brownies from the pan and rescuing dough balls from drowning in baking-soda baths.\n\nMeasuring Spoons\n\nMake sure yours are stainless-steel, as they last the longest. Also, make sure your measuring spoon set includes a   teaspoon. You'll be using that one a lot.\n\nMeasuring Cups\n\nYou'll need one measuring cup that holds at least 2 cups for mixing ingredients and microwaving. I use a glass measuring cup for this purpose.\n\nYou'll need stainless-steel measuring cups that include 1, \u00bd,   and \u00bc cups to measure both dry and liquid ingredients for these recipes.\n\nMixing Bowls\n\nYou'll need a large stainless-steel mixing bowl and a medium-size one for mixing ingredients. You'll also need a medium-size and small microwave-safe bowl for making sauces, glazes and frostings.\n\n8 \u00d7 8 \u00d7 2-inch Aluminum Baking Pan\n\nYou'll use this pan for baking brownies, quick breads and energy bars.\n\n15 \u00d7 10 \u00d7 1-inch Aluminum Jelly-Roll Pan\n\nYou'll use this pan for baking energy bars and donut holes.\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch Aluminum Cookie or Baking Sheet\n\nWith its curled-up edges on the short sides and flat edges on the long sides, this sheet is indispensible for baking cookies and breads.\n\nStandard 12-Cup Muffin Tin\n\nThis muffin tin has wells for twelve standard-size muffins. The wells are an inch bigger than those of a cupcake tin. You'll also need this muffin tin for some of the bread roll recipes.\n\nStandard 12-Cup Cupcake Tin\n\nThis cupcake tin has wells for twelve standard-size cupcakes.\n\n24-Cup Mini Muffin Tin\n\nThis muffin tin has twenty-four wells and is used for some of the mini recipes in this book. Surprisingly, you won't need it for mini muffins or cupcakes, but rather petite brownies and breads.\n\nStandard-Size and Mini Paper Baking Cups\n\nPaper baking cups are essential to prevent sticking and to avoid messy cleanups when making the muffins and cupcakes and some of the miniature brownies and breads in this book.\n\nBiscuit Cutter\n\nA biscuit cutter allows you to make circles that are the perfect size for the pizza wheels.\n\nParchment Paper\n\nParchment paper works wonders to prevent sticky situations when baking. Wax paper does not.\n\nWire Cooling Racks\n\nThese are needed for the proper cooling down of baked goods when they come out of the oven.\n\nCutting Board\n\nA cutting board is necessary for chopping fruits, vegetables and potatoes.\n\nSteamer\n\nA steamer is used to cook and soften up vegetables when preparing purees.\n\nPotato Ricer\n\nYou'll need one of these to make perfectly smooth purees.\n\nCoffee Grinder\n\nA coffee grinder provides an easy way to grind seeds and grains.\n\nFood Processor or High-Speed Blender\n\nThese tools are sometimes used when making purees and combining ingredients.\n\n#\n\nFirst thing in the morning, my son has to have one of these grand-slam breakfast muffins, and I need my coffee so no one gets hurt. And since he never used to eat anything wholesome that wasn't already baked into a tortilla chip, I have found these muffins to be my savior.\n\nI find that the more compact a food item, the easier and faster it is to get out the door at the start of the day. So each power muffin is packed to capacity with nutrition. Beginning with a live-wire flour base and ending with energy-boosting fats and fruits that are bursting with flavor, these dynamos are so stuffed with vitamins, minerals and roughage, it is standing room only in there. And the best part about it is these morning glories will get those little butts out of bed with absolutely no fuss at all.\n\nMushy Monkey Banana Muffins\n\nPumpkin Pie Muffins\n\nSalted Caramel Apple Muffins\n\nSunflower Butter and Jelly Muffins\n\nStoned Fruit Muffins\n\nCran Ban Thank You Bran Muffins\n\nDillicious Herb-Stuffed Muffins\n\nMango Buckwheat Pancake Muffins\n\n## MUSHY MONKEY BANANA MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nThere is something very comforting and curious about these banana muffins. It must have something to do with Curious George (which my son watches ad nauseam), because once they cool on the rack, he hoards them and sleeps with them under his pillow so he can have breakfast in bed. This is where the \"mushy\" comes from. And I blame the oddball monkey. I'm sure he's responsible. In any event, these potassium-rich muffins have the added benefit of turmeric, a spice that has wonderful anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties, as well as a mellow yellow hat...I mean hue.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bd teaspoon turmeric powder\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large bananas)\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, turmeric powder and stevia and stir to combine. Add the mashed banana and rice milk, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about three-quarters full.\n\n5. Bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep muffins in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 150 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 23 g carbohydrates, 160 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\n## PUMPKIN PIE MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nPumpkin isn't just your Fall guy anymore. Mr. Pumpkin is now available all year round in all his orange eminence. He is rich in beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, magnesium and potassium. And pumpkin pie spice, a premixed blend of cinnamon, ginger, lemon peel, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom, found in any grocery store, is a potent potpourri that has healing anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits. So, I beg of you, don't wait for October, November or December before you whip up these muffs, because passion for pumpkin is not seasonal anymore.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nMuffins\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup canned pumpkin puree\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\nTopping\n\n2 teaspoons cinnamon powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and stevia and stir to combine. Add the pumpkin puree and rice milk, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about three-quarters full. Dust the top of each with a sprinkling of cinnamon.\n\n5. Bake the muffins for 16 to 18 minutes, or until they are golden orange and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 150 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 24 g carbohydrates, 160 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## SALTED CARAMEL APPLE MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nIf I had to choose one candy I miss most since giving up dairy and refined sugar, it would have to be caramels. There is something about their chewy, sweet gooeyness that is very comforting (and cavity inducing). So imagine my ecstasy when I tasted my fake caramel sauce for this recipe for the first time. It is so good that it instantly became my friend and faux simultaneously. Make this for people you love, because they will take a pledge of allegiance to you forever.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nMuffins\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened applesauce\n\n1 small Gala or Granny Smith apple (about 5 ounces), peeled, cored and sliced into \u00bc-inch pieces\n\nCaramel Sauce\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the muffins, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and stevia and stir to combine. Add the rice milk and applesauce, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Fold in about half of the apple pieces.\n\n5. To make the caramel sauce, mix together the coconut nectar, sunflower seed butter and salt in a small bowl until well blended.\n\n6. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Top each with the caramel sauce and the remaining apple pieces.\n\n7. Bake the muffins for 16 to 18 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n8. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let rest for about 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 170 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 27 g carbohydrates, 170 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 11 g sugars\n\n## SUNFLOWER BUTTER AND JELLY MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nLittle Miss Sunflower Seed is like an A-list movie star because she contains elusive, hard-to-get selenium, which, among other wondrous things, is involved in reproductive health for men. Selenium is a trace mineral that possesses extremely powerful antioxidant properties, which help your body rebel against disease. So get ready for your close-up, Miss Seedy, because you have the lead role in this jelly roll.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n3 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup grape jelly\n\n\u00bd cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n1 cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and stevia and stir to combine. Add the grape jelly, sunflower seed butter and rice milk and stir until the liquid is absorbed.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about three-quarters full.\n\n5. Bake the muffins for 15 to 17 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 210 calories, 10 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 28 g carbohydrates, 170 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nYou can use the plum lemon jam from the Plum Lemon Pinkyprints recipe (see here) as a substitute for the grape jelly with equally magnificent results.\n\n## STONED FRUIT MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nEven though I don't have one yet, I remember being one, and I truly believe that teenagers are the reason Moms become premature antiques. If I remember correctly, it is at this age that children grow an appendage called \"attitude,\" because they know way, way more than you. So just save your breath and tell your kid what you've made them for breakfast, because I'm sure their ears will perk up when you tell them you've made them muffins with stoned fruit.\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nStoned in this context means \"stones have been removed.\" Just as pitted means \"pits have been removed\" and gutted means...oh, never mind.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00be teaspoon ginger powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground cardamom\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n  cup apricot, peach, nectarine or plum puree\n\n1 cup diced apricots, peaches, nectarines or plums\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, guar gum, cardamom and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and stevia and stir to combine. Add the rice milk and fruit puree, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Add \u00bd cup of the diced fruit and stir to distribute evenly.\n\n5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Top each with the remaining \u00bd cup of diced fruit.\n\n6. Bake the muffins for 17 to 18 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 150 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 26 g carbohydrates, 160 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 5 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nThe apricots, peaches, nectarines or plums used for the puree should be peeled, but should not be cooked.\n\n## CRAN BAN THANK YOU BRAN MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nWhen I was about eight weeks pregnant, my husband started to smell bad. I didn't realize at the time that my warped sense of smell was a result of a tsunami of hormones invading my body, not a change in my husband's. This was followed by an ambush of nausea and strange cravings. Then, in a cruel turn of events, my plumbing got plugged up. When your digestive system is acting so unprofessionally, it's important to have an edible intervention, pregnant or not pregnant. Bran is definitely famous for its fiber. Cranberries and bananas, not so much. But, in addition to an abundance of potassium and antioxidants, cranberries and bananas pack a fibrous punch. Roughage aside, the combination of the tangy cranberry, mellow banana and crispy bran makes this the mother of all muffins.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n1 cup rice bran\n\n1\u00bc cups unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc cup mashed banana\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons cinnamon powder\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n\u00be cup dried cranberries\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Place the rice bran in a medium-size bowl. Add the rice milk and stir until well blended and absorbed. Fold in the mashed banana.\n\n3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, stevia and water to the dry ingredients, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Next add the rice bran mixture and stir to combine. Add \u00bd cup of the dried cranberries and stir to distribute evenly.\n\n5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Top each with the remaining \u00bc cup of dried cranberries.\n\n6. Bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 160 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 160 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 9 g sugars\n\n## DILLICIOUS HERB-STUFFED MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nAnd now for something completely different, a savory muffin with all the most vibrant herbs your spice rack or garden can hold. My favorite is dill. Its fragrance and flavor enhance any dish. And with the additions of rosemary, thyme and oregano, this muffin smacks of a garden Alice Waters might have planted. Maybe you and your kids can plant these herbs in the backyard and have them at your fingertips whenever you feel the urge to have a Dillicious Muffin.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nMuffins\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n1 small cauliflower (about 12 ounces), divided into small florets\n\n1 cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n6 teaspoons minced fresh dill, or 3 teaspoons dried dill\n\n2 teaspoons finely minced fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary\n\n2 teaspoons dried thyme\n\n2 teaspoons dried minced onion\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon dried oregano\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bd teaspoon chili powder (optional)\n\n\u00bd teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00be cup shredded vegan, soy-free cheddar cheese (I use Daiya cheddar cheese. See resources for more information.)\n\nTopping\n\n1 tablespoon dried dill\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Steam the cauliflower florets in a medium-size saucepan for about 15 minutes, or until tender. Transfer the florets, a few at a time, to a potato ricer and push them through into a medium-size bowl. This will give you lumpless cauliflower puree.\n\n3. Mix together the rice milk and vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n4. Whisk together the flour, dill, rosemary, thyme, minced onion, baking powder, baking soda, oregano, guar gum, chili powder, if using, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n5. Add the cauliflower puree, rice milk mixture and grapeseed oil, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Fold in \u00bd cup of the cheddar cheese.\n\n6. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about three-quarters full. Top each with the remaining \u00bc cup of cheese. Dust the top of each with a sprinkling of dill.\n\n7. Bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n8. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 140 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 185 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 1 g sugars\n\n## MANGO BUCKWHEAT PANCAKE MUFFINS\n\nMakes 12 standard-size muffins\n\nIf you had to choose which of the muffins in this chapter to give your kids right before school, it should be this one. In recent studies, mango has been found to help children concentrate and to increase memory retention due to its glutamine acid content. Also, mango contains enzymes that are helpful in digestion, as well as soluble dietary fiber and antioxidants. And best of all, when your teenager's face breaks out with acne, you can put these muffins on his or her face, because mango helps clear clogged pores. Just a serving suggestion.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n1\u00bc cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be cup light buckwheat flour\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n2 teaspoons ginger powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bd cup fresh or frozen (thawed) mango puree\n\n\u00bd cup fresh or frozen (thawed) mango, cut into \u00bc-inch dice\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and stevia and stir to combine. Add the rice milk and mango puree, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Top each with a sprinkling of the diced mango.\n\n5. Bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 muffin): 150 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 160 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\n#\n\nThe good thing about brownies is they love to dress up and accessorize. Just accent them with superfoods, like mesquite and green tea, and spices, such as cayenne, and then top them with a tasteful frosting, and they're ready to go out in their red high heels and party.\n\nIf you like your brownies a little underdone, like I prefer them, go for the lower bake time suggested and you will experience a melt-in-your-mouth, otherworldly fudge-like creation. If you want to take it one step further, put the brownies in the freezer overnight, and then eat two squares and thank me in the morning.\n\nGourmet Dark Chocolate Mesquite Brownies\n\nLemon Parsnipannies\n\nGirl Scout Brownies\n\nUnmatchable Matcha Teanies\n\nBlondies with Roots\n\nSunflower Buttercup Brownies\n\nCaramel Glazed Fakin' Bacon Brownies\n\n## GOURMET DARK CHOCOLATE MESQUITE BROWNIES\n\nMakes 16 brownies\n\nMesquite powder is a nutritionally dense, gluten-free flour that exudes the flavors of caramel, chocolate and molasses. It is exceptionally high in calcium, potassium, iron, zinc and the amino acid lysine, and it helps even out blood sugar levels over an extended period of time. You can find it very easily online or in health food stores. But beware. When mesquite powder gets into bed with other gluten-free flours, flavorful fireworks ignite. Maybe that's why they named grills after it.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nBrownies\n\nGrapeseed oil, for greasing the pan\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup cacao powder\n\n2 tablespoons mesquite powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n7 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n5 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\nChocolate Frosting\n\n3 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup powdered erythritol\n\n3 tablespoons cacao powder\n\n\u00bd tablespoon warm water\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with grapeseed oil.\n\n2. To make the brownies, whisk together the flour, cacao powder, mesquite powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Next add the water and stir until it is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth down with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon.\n\n5. Bake the brownies for 11 to 12 minutes, or until the batter starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Rotate the pan from front to back after 9 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting the brownies into 16 squares.\n\n7. To make the frosting, mix together the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a small bowl. Add the powdered erythritol, cacao powder, warm water, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n8. Frost the brownies when they are completely cool.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 brownie): 130 calories, 8 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 16 g carbohydrates, 80 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nPlease be sure to wait for the brownies to cool completely, or they will fall apart when you try to cut them.\n\n## LEMON PARSNIPANNIES\n\nMakes 16 parsnipannies\n\nI didn't plan on naming these brownies after a similar-sounding township in New Jersey; it just baked out that way. Once I realized that a pureed parsnip adds a luxurious scrumptiousness to brownies that is hard to describe, I started to tremble with excitement at the possibilities. This funny-looking albino root vegetable is a great source of vitamins B6, C and E, as well as folic acid, magnesium and niacin. And the pairing of parsnip and lemon is serendipitous.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nParsnipannies\n\nCoconut oil, for greasing the pan\n\n1 small parsnip (about 4 ounces)\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n  teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon lemon extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\nLemon Icing\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n  teaspoon turmeric powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with coconut oil.\n\n2. Peel the skin off the parsnip and slice it into \u00bd-inch-thick pieces. Steam the parsnip pieces in a medium-size saucepan for about 15 minutes, or until tender. Transfer the parsnip pieces to a potato ricer and push them through into a small bowl. This will give you lumpless parsnip puree. Measure out   cup of the puree and set aside.\n\n3. To make the parsnipannies, whisk together the flour, baking powder, guar gum, baking soda, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the lemon juice, lemon extract and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture.\n\n5. Next add the parsnip puree and coconut milk to the flour mixture, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n6. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth down with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon.\n\n7. Bake the parsnipannies for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the batter is a light golden brown and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n8. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 20 minutes before cutting the parsnipannies into 16 squares.\n\n9. To make the lemon icing, microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, lemon juice, turmeric powder and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n10. When the parsnipannies are completely cool, top each with icing.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 parsnipanny): 150 calories, 10 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 14 g carbohydrates, 80 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 1 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nYou can serve any leftover parsnip puree as a healthy snack or as a side dish in place of mashed potatoes. Add some tasty herbs and spices from your garden and spice rack, and I guarantee a standing ovation from your dining audience.\n\n## GIRL SCOUT BROWNIES\n\nMakes 16 brownies\n\nOne of the world's most beloved Girl Scout cookies is Samoas. Of course, those delicious cookies are filled with allergens, not to mention hydrogenated fats and sugar. So to bring some semblance of wholesomeness to this longtime fave, I re-created the cookie's delicious romance of vanilla cake with toasted coconut and caramel, all drizzled silly with dark chocolate sauce, and reincarnated it as a brownie. It'll sweep you off your feet, it's that good. Scout's honor! (Or is that for the boys?)\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nTopping\n\n3 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut\n\nCaramel Sauce\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nChocolate Sauce\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons cacao powder\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nBrownies\n\nCoconut oil, for greasing the pan\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n  teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n3 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\n\u00bc cup warm water\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. To make the topping, spread the shredded coconut in a small frying pan and toast for about 10 minutes over medium heat. Stir the coconut halfway through to ensure even toasting.\n\n2. To make the caramel sauce, mix together the coconut nectar, sunflower seed butter and salt in a small bowl until well combined.\n\n3. To make the chocolate sauce, microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a small microwave-safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the cacao powder, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n4. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with coconut oil.\n\n5. To make the brownies, whisk together the flour, baking powder, guar gum, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n6. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the coconut milk, warm water, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n7. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth down with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon.\n\n8. Spread the caramel sauce evenly over the batter and top with the toasted coconut. Drizzle the chocolate sauce over the caramel and coconut.\n\n9. Bake the brownies for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the batter starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.\n\n10. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before cutting the brownies into 16 squares.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 brownie): 200 calories, 14 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 21 g carbohydrates, 77 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein, 9 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nFreeze these for brownies that taste like English toffee.\n\n## UNMATCHABLE MATCHA TEANIES\n\nMakes 24 mini-muffin-size teanies\n\nThese are the perfect accompaniment to a tea party of any size. Whether it's high tea at three o'clock for the ladies or a tea party for your budding princesses, these teanies add unparalleled nutritional perks. In addition to vitamin C, chromium, zinc and magnesium, Matcha green tea contains unique and powerful antioxidants called catechins, which counteract the effect of free radicals, a cause of DNA damage. I also add hemp seeds to the batter and the frosting to bump up the protein, omega-3, omega-6 and phytonutrient content. Just some added health insurance.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nTeanies\n\n24 mini paper baking cups\n\n2\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 teaspoons Matcha green tea powder\n\n1 teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00be teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00be teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bd teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc teaspoon coriander powder\n\n\u00bd cup grapeseed oil\n\n  cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00be cup water\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n  cup hemp seeds\n\nFrosting\n\n1 cup hemp seed butter (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon Matcha green tea powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 24-cup mini muffin tin with mini paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the teanies, whisk together the flour, Matcha green tea powder, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum, salt and coriander in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Next add the water and rice milk, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the hemp seeds and mix well to distribute evenly.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling the cups to the top.\n\n5. Bake the teanies for 13 to 14 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown around the edges and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the muffin tin from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before removing the teanies to cool completely.\n\n7. To make the frosting, mix together the hemp seed butter, coconut nectar, Matcha green tea powder and salt in a small bowl and stir to combine.\n\n8. Frost the teanies when they are completely cool.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 teanie): 180 calories, 8 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 16 g carbohydrates, 80 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## BLONDIES WITH ROOTS\n\nMakes 16 blondies\n\nIf you highlight your locks, like I used to do, you will especially appreciate this platinum pixie snack with its chic chocolate chip roots and sophisticated spices of coriander and cardamom. Cardamom is rich in vitamin C and riboflavin, and is considered beneficial to the kidneys and bladder. Coriander is high in potassium and calcium, as well, and aids in digestion. And after your first bite, I'm sure you'll agree that blondies are more fun!\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nGrapeseed oil, for greasing the pan\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon coriander powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground cardamom\n\n\u00bc teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with grapeseed oil.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, coriander, cardamom, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the rice milk, grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Fold in \u00be cup of the chocolate chips.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth down with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon. Top with the remaining \u00bc cup of chocolate chips.\n\n5. Bake the blondies for 15 to 16 minutes, or until the batter turns a light golden brown and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 20 minutes before cutting the blondies into 16 squares.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 blondie): 110 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 60 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 5 g sugars\n\n## SUNFLOWER BUTTERCUP BROWNIES\n\nMakes 24 mini-muffin-size buttercups\n\nThe most traumatic moment of my childhood was when I realized that peanut butter cups were a seasonal food. They don't do well in the hot summer months, and they were banned from the tote when we went to Jones Beach. When I first set out to create these brownies, I vowed that they would be my little peanut buttercup perennials. What I got was so much more. The sunflower seed butter caramelizes with the chocolate, and the brownies have a butter-like aroma when they come out of the oven. It may be un-American to say this, but these buttercups rival the original, and my kid eats them at the ballpark, in bed (see the Mushy Monkey Banana Muffins story) and even on the shores of Los Angeles.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n24 mini paper baking cups\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2\u00bd teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bd teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened applesauce\n\n  cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n1\u00bc cups chocolate chips (see here)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 24-cup mini muffin tin with mini paper baking cups.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, applesauce, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Next add the sunflower seed butter and stir to combine. Fold in \u00be cup of the chocolate chips.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling the cups to the top, and top each with the remaining \u00bd cup of chocolate chips.\n\n5. Bake the buttercups for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch.\n\n6. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before removing the buttercups to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 buttercup): 150 calories, 8 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 18 g carbohydrates, 50 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n### CARAMEL GLAZED FAKIN' BACON BROWNIES\n\nMakes 16 brownies\n\nLike any nice Jewish girl from Queens, I grew up eating bacon for breakfast every now and then, on paper plates. This made it kosher. Nowadays, even though there is a plethora of fake bacon out there, it is highly processed and probably contains soy. Oy, what's an allergy mama to do? Well, I'll tell you in one word. Shitake. In addition to being a great source of vitamin C, iron and dietary fiber, shitake mushrooms, when baked, are a perfect impersonator of bacon. So enjoy these on a Sunday morning, and the house will smell just like cured meat. And you don't even have to use disposable tableware.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nFaux Bacon\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup \u00bc-inch-thick sliced shitake mushrooms\n\n1 tablespoon grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nCaramel Sauce\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nBrownies\n\nGrapeseed oil, for greasing the pan\n\n1\u00bc cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup cacao powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n  teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n  teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n10 tablespoons warm water\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the faux bacon, spread the shitake on the prepared pan. Drizzle the grapeseed oil on the mushrooms, toss them gently with your hands to coat and sprinkle with the salt. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the mushrooms are slightly crisp. Set aside.\n\n3. Reduce the heat of the oven to 325\u00b0F.\n\n4. To make the caramel sauce, mix together the coconut nectar, sunflower seed butter and salt in a small bowl until well combined.\n\n5. To make the brownies, grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with grapeseed oil.\n\n6. Whisk together the flour, cacao powder, baking soda, guar gum, salt and cayenne, if using, in a large bowl.\n\n7. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Next add the warm water and stir until it is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n8. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, smooth down with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon and drizzle with caramel sauce. With a swirling motion, run a pointy knife in and out of the caramel sauce so some of it seeps into the brownie. Top evenly with the \"bacon\" bits.\n\n9. Bake the brownies for 11 to 12 minutes, or until the batter starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Rotate the pan from front to back after 9 minutes of baking.\n\n10. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let rest for about 20 minutes before cutting the brownies into 16 squares.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 brownie): 120 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 20 g carbohydrates, 140 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 8 g sugars\n\n#\n\nWhen I was a little girl, I wouldn't eat the cookie my mother put in my hand unless another one was firmly placed in the other. I can't tell you why I did this; it's not like I didn't know where my next snack was coming from. I guess it was a security issue. With a younger brother in tow, I never knew what might be left in the cookie jar. Now, my son, who's an only child, doesn't have to worry about siblings eating his rations\u2014just his mother. Poor kid.\n\nQuinoa Cranberry Cookies\n\nSunflower Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies\n\nOatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies\n\nCosmic Chocolate Chip Cookies\n\nPlum Lemon Pinkyprints\n\nSicilian Mandel Bread\n\nBasil Lemonade Cookies\n\n## QUINOA CRANBERRY COOKIES\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nOne day I found my cupboards empty, save for quinoa flakes and dried cranberries. What kind of mother am I! So in need of some comfort, I used what I had and made my son some Quinoa Cranberry Cookies. Let me tell you, what a surprise it was to find that the blending of nutty-flavored quinoa flakes with sweet and tart dried cranberries was like a match made on JDate. Hey, don't knock online dating. That's how I met my husband. Anyway, even more than my tax return filing status, you should appreciate that when your kids eat these cookies, you can pat yourself on the back for getting them to eat their spinach. That's right. Quinoa is a complete, gluten-free protein grain that is related to the spinach family. And just so you know, these cookies are best right out of the oven, because they melt in your mouth like \"butta.\"\n\nSunflower Butter Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip and Quinoa Cranberry Cookies\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup quinoa flakes\n\n\u00be cup hot water\n\n\u00be cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup amaranth flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00be cup dried cranberries\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Pour the quinoa flakes into a medium-size bowl, add the hot water and let sit without stirring.\n\n3. Whisk together the two flours, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour the coconut oil mixture into the flour mixture.\n\n5. Next add the quinoa flake mixture and stir to combine. Fold in the dried cranberries.\n\n6. Take about 1\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Flatten each ball gently with the bottom of a measuring cup.\n\n7. Bake the cookies for 16 to 18 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown around the edges. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n8. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 145 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 18 g carbohydrates, 80 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 10 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nUse extra-virgin coconut oil if you want the final product to taste and smell like coconut. Otherwise, use refined coconut oil.\n\n## SUNFLOWER BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nThese cookies might freak you out, because they taste more like peanut butter cookies than peanut butter cookies. And better yet, as I hinted earlier, the selenium in sunflower seeds confer health benefits relating to men's virility, so that they are almost like Mother Nature's Viagra. So have your man keep some of these cookies socked away in his glove compartment, because you never know when the mood might strike.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup amaranth flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bd teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n3 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n6 tablespoons water\n\n\u00be cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture.\n\n4. Add the sunflower seed butter and water to the flour mixture and mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips.\n\n5. Take about 1\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Flatten each ball gently with the bottom of a measuring cup.\n\n6. Bake the cookies for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown around the edges. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 215 calories, 11 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 29 g carbohydrates, 100 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## OATMEAL FUDGE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nEven though you may not think of putting chocolate in your child's bowl of oatmeal, there's no harm in doing so, as the antioxidant and mineral content of cacao powder is so immense, it's a natural juxtaposition to the high-fiber oats. But even better than that, the combinations of flavors can't be beat. So instead of hot cereal, I sometimes serve these cookies to my child as the first meal of the day, and I haven't heard a complaint yet.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup cacao powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n1\u00bc cups gluten-free oats\n\n\u00be cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the flour, cacao powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture.\n\n4. Add the water to the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips.\n\n5. Take about 1\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Flatten each ball gently with the bottom of a measuring cup.\n\n6. Bake the cookies for 12 to 13 minutes, or until the oats look a little dry and the kitchen smells like chocolate. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back after 9 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 160 calories, 7 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 30 g carbohydrates, 100 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\n## COSMIC CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nFace it, kids are the CEOs of their own microcosmic universe, and the adults who try to hack into this sacred space suck big-time. So the best thing to do to exist in the same stratum is to prepare yummies for their tummies that will make them think you're a superhero from Planet Kitchen. With the subtle spices ginger and nutmeg, overflowing with protective phytonutrients and exquisite flavor, I guarantee your kids will conclude that these Cosmic Chocolate Chip Cookies are out of this world!\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bc cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be cup amaranth flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ginger powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n  teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon orange extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n7 tablespoons water\n\n\u00be cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, baking soda, guar gum, ginger, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla, orange extract and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture.\n\n4. Add the water to the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Fold in the chocolate chips.\n\n5. Take about 1\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Flatten each ball gently with the bottom of a measuring cup.\n\n6. Bake the cookies for 12 to 13 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown around the edges. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back after 9 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 170 calories, 7 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 100 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## PLUM LEMON PINKYPRINTS\n\nMakes about 16 cookies\n\nI think pinkies must be envious of their opposable neighbors four digits down. Let's face it. Thumbs get all the action. With thumb sucking, thumbs-ups, sticking out like a sore thumb, hitching a ride by way of thumb, being all thumbs if you're clumsy and holiday cookies called thumbprints, it's clear there is a prejudice. So I'm here to start the equal rights for pinkies movement by introducing my Plum Lemon Pinkyprints. They are now a hands-down favorite in my house.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nJam Filling\n\n\u00bd cup dried plums (aka prunes)\n\n1 cup water\n\n\u00bc cup freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\nCookies\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup amaranth flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n  cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon lemon extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. To make the jam filling, boil the dried plums in the water in a medium-size saucepan for 15 minutes, or until very soft. Drain the water and place the plums and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.\n\n2. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n3. To make the cookies, whisk together the two flours, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla, lemon extract and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture, add the water and stir until the liquid is absorbed.\n\n5. Form the dough into marquise-shaped ovals, using about 1\u00bd tablespoons for each, and place them about 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.\n\n6. Gently press your pinkie, lengthwise, in the middle of each oval to form an indentation.\n\n7. Spoon some plum lemon jam filling into each indentation. Dip your index finger into some water, and smooth out the top of the filling in each cookie with your wet finger.\n\n8. Bake the pinkyprints for 17 to 18 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n9. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 pinkyprint): 150 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 24 g carbohydrates, 80 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## SICILIAN MANDEL BREAD\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nMandel bread is the Jewish answer to Italian biscotti. This is surprising, since Jews always answer a question with a question, not an answer. But in any event, I think Mandel is a little confused, because he's really a cookie, not a loaf. This crisp and herby cookie, twice baked, is good for dipping in and then sipping your beverage of choice.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup amaranth flour\n\n5 tablespoons raw pumpkin seeds, coarsely chopped\n\n1 teaspoon dried rosemary\n\n1 teaspoon dried thyme\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup water\n\n1 teaspoon lemon zest\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, pumpkin seeds, rosemary, thyme, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Next add the water and lemon zest and stir until incorporated.\n\n4. Form the dough into a log and flatten it so that it is about 8 inches long and 4\u00bd inches wide. Place the log on the prepared cookie sheet.\n\n5. Bake the log for 25 to 26 minutes, or until it is a light golden brown and is firm to the touch. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes. Keep the oven on.\n\n7. Place the log on a cutting board. Slice the log into \u00bd-inch slices, on an angle, with a wet serrated knife. Arrange the slices on the cookie sheet, cut side down. Bake the slices for 12 to 13 minutes, turning them over halfway through baking, until both sides are lightly toasted.\n\n8. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nSweet Truth\n\nWhen flattening the log before it's baked, it helps to put a piece of parchment paper and another cookie sheet on top of it and press down to ensure an even layer all the way across.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 160 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 24 g carbohydrates, 100 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## BASIL LEMONADE COOKIES\n\nMakes about 12 cookies\n\nThe first thing I concocted when I bought my Vitamix blender was a Basil Lemonade Smoothie. I was growing basil in my backyard and had just planted a Meyer lemon tree in the front. I was excited to finally be able to \"live off the land.\" The green lemonade was a big hit, so \u00e0 la Hollywood, I made a sequel in a different format. Hopefully, it'll be a blockbuster in an oven near you.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCookies\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup light buckwheat flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd teaspoon lemon extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n7 tablespoons water\n\n3 tablespoons finely minced fresh basil\n\nLemon Glaze\n\n1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut milk\n\n\u00bc teaspoon turmeric powder\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n5 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the cookies, whisk together the two flours, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the vanilla, lemon extract and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture.\n\n4. Add the water to the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the basil.\n\n5. Take about 1\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Flatten each gently with the bottom of a measuring cup.\n\n6. Bake the cookies for 13 to 14 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown around the edges. Rotate the cookie sheet from front to back after 9 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cookie sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before removing the cookies to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the lemon glaze, mix together the coconut milk and turmeric powder in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol and lemon juice and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n9. Frost the completely cooled cookies.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cookie): 125 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 18 g carbohydrates, 100 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n#\n\nOne day a friend of mine told her four-year-old son that she loved him. He replied, \"I love you, too, Mommy, but only when you give me cupcakes.\" So the demoralization of this tale is that at this age, a child's love is most likely cupcake conditional. Luckily, with these recipes, no matter what, a child can love these cupcakes and his or her mommy, too!\n\nBlack and White Delight Cupcakes\n\nChocoholic Cupcakes\n\nIrresistible Red Velvet Cupcakes\n\nCrazy for Coconut Cupcakes\n\nVivid Vanilla Cupcakes\n\nMocha Italian Espresso Cupcakes\n\nRuby Red Wine and Chocolate Cupcakes\n\n## BLACK AND WHITE DELIGHT CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nSince I'm from New York City, I was inspired to create these cupcakes as an ode to the classic delicatessen cookies of the same name. The cacao powder used for the \"black\" frosting in this recipe flows with flavonoids, compounds engaged in antioxidant activity, which helps reduce cellular damage caused by pesky free radicals. The \"white\" frosting contains erythritol, a natural, zero-calorie sweetener derived from fruits and vegetables. So in a world where most issues fall into the gray zone, it's comforting to know that you can count on your cupcakes to be black and white.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n  teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon lemon extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\nVanilla Frosting\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n2 tablespoons warm vanilla rice milk\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nChocolate Frosting\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n3 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00be cup cacao powder\n\n2 tablespoons warm water\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla, lemon extract and stevia to the flour mixture and mix well to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the yogurt until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 15 to 16 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the vanilla frosting, mix together the powdered erythritol and vanilla rice milk in a small bowl. Add the coconut oil and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n9. To make the chocolate frosting, mix together the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a small bowl. Add the cacao powder, warm water, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n10. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes, vanilla frosting on one half and chocolate frosting on the other.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 200 calories, 9 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 23 g carbohydrates, 110 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 15 g sugars\n\n## CHOCOHOLIC CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nNo need for a twelve-step program here, because being addicted to chocolate, or these cupcakes, for that matter, is a good thing. Not only do you get the good stuff that chocolate brings, but I've also added a potassium boost thanks to the avocado in the frosting. The avocado adds not only health benefits but also a smooth creaminess, and no one but you will know it's in there.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n1 cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n  cup cacao powder\n\n1\u00bc teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\nChocolate Frosting\n\n1 cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup mashed avocado\n\n2 cups powdered erythritol\n\n1 cup cacao powder\n\n2 tablespoons warm water\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, cacao powder, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the yogurt until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 16 to 17 minutes, or until they bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the chocolate frosting, mix together the coconut nectar, coconut oil and mashed avocado in a large bowl. Add the powdered erythritol, cacao powder, warm water, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n9. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 180 calories, 9 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 22 g carbohydrates, 135 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 12 g sugars\n\n## IRRESISTIBLE RED VELVET CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nMost people go gaga over red velvet cake, but then some ask, \"What's so great about it?\" Since I'm Jewish, I answer a question with a question and ask back, \"Well, what's so great about a diamond? Isn't it just a rock?\" And that, girlfriend, is all that needs to be said, because that's really what red velvet cupcakes are. Edible diamonds. No?\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n10 ounces of frozen (thawed) cranberries\n\n\u00bc cup water\n\n2 tablespoons unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 tablespoon cacao powder\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc cup fresh squeezed lemon juice\n\n\u00bc teaspoon baking soda\n\nCranberry Frosting\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2\u00bd cups powdered erythritol\n\n\u00bc cup cranberry puree (leftover from cupcake preparation)\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, place the cranberries and water in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.\n\n3. Mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a small bowl.\n\n4. Whisk together the flour, cacao powder, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n5. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and 1 cup of the cranberry puree, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n6. Mix together the lemon juice and baking soda in a small bowl, wait till it fizzes, and then quickly stir it into the batter. Act swiftly here so the baking soda doesn't lose its potency once it hits the citric acid.\n\n7. Spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 22 to 23 minutes, or until they bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n8. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 30 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n9. To make the cranberry frosting, microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, the remaining \u00bc cup of cranberry puree, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n10. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for no longer than 1 day, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 175 calories, 7 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 110 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nI use xanthan gum instead of guar gum in this recipe because all the citric acid from the lemon juice renders guar gum ineffective. Speaking of lemon juice, only freshly squeezed works. If you use lemon juice from a bottle, the cupcakes will not retain their rosy color from the cranberries.\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nMake sure to wait the entire time suggested before removing the baked cupcakes from their tin. Otherwise, you will have gummy cupcakes on your hands and you won't be very happy with me.\n\n## CRAZY FOR COCONUT CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nThe reason I'm so crazy for coconut, in all its various incarnations, is that scientific studies have shown it to have beneficial effects on the skin, hair, heart, liver, kidneys and bones, to boost immunity, and to aid digestion and weight management. \"Weight management?\" I can hear that incredulous tone in your voice. \"Look at all those calories! Check out all those fat grams!\" Well, it's true. Because it's a medium-chain fatty acid, coconut is more readily absorbed in your body, which causes it to increase your metabolism, which helps you burn more energy. So forget about that chichi weight loss program and eat these cupcakes for Jenny Craig's sake.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n  cup unsweetened shredded coconut\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00be teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\nCoconut Butter Frosting\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 cups powdered erythritol\n\n\u00bd cup sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nTopping\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened shredded coconut\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the coconut milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, shredded coconut, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the coconut milk mixture and stir until it is absorbed. Stir in the yogurt until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 15 to 16 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the coconut butter frosting, microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, sunflower seed butter, coconut milk and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n9. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes.\n\n10. Pour the shredded coconut into a small bowl. Roll the top of each frosted cupcake in the coconut topping to coat.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 200 calories, 12 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 140 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## VIVID VANILLA CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nThis vanilla cupcake has a supermoist crumb and real vanilla bean speckled inside and out. A favorite among foodie toddlers.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1\u00bc teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\n\u00bd vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise and seeds scooped out and reserved\n\nVanilla Frosting\n\n2\u00bd cups powdered erythritol\n\n6 tablespoons warm vanilla rice milk\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise and seeds scooped out and reserved\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and stir until it is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the yogurt and vanilla bean seeds until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 15 to 16 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the vanilla frosting, mix together the powdered erythritol and warm vanilla rice milk in a medium-size bowl. Add the coconut oil and salt and stir until smooth and well incorporated. Stir in the vanilla bean seeds.\n\n9. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 190 calories, 9 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 22 g carbohydrates, 130 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\n## MOCHA ITALIAN ESPRESSO CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nWhen I was a new mom, my favorite food group was caffeine. Since Peet's didn't accommodate my request for an IV of their Mocha Java Blend directly into my bloodstream, I was left to my own devices. This cupcake was the result. The tender and moist mocha cake gets an extra spike from an espresso frosting, which tops it off better than a thick spritz of foam on a venti Caff\u00e9 Macchiato.... Or is that one of those \"other\" Seattle brands?\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc cup black coffee (room temperature)\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 tablespoons espresso powder\n\n1 tablespoon cacao powder\n\n1\u00bc teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\nEspresso Frosting\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 cups powdered erythritol\n\n2 tablespoons hot water\n\n2 tablespoons espresso powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the rice milk, coffee and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, espresso powder, cacao powder, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk\u2013coffee mixture and stir until it is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the yogurt until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 16 to 17 minutes, or until they bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back after 10 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the espresso frosting, mix together the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a medium-size bowl. Add the powdered erythritol, hot water, espresso powder and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n9. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 180 calories, 8 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 23 g carbohydrates, 150 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n## RUBY RED WINE AND CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES\n\nMakes 12 standard-size cupcakes\n\nI used to whine a lot during the week, until Friday came, but now I just add wine to my chocolate cupcakes and Friday comes rather quickly. You should try it; it's like having your very own cupcake vineyard right in your kitchen.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCupcakes\n\n12 standard-size paper baking cups\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc cup Pinot noir\n\n1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n  cup cacao powder\n\n1\u00bc teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup vegan, soy-free plain yogurt (I use So Delicious coconut milk yogurt. See resources for more information.)\n\nChocolate Frosting\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons mashed avocado\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n\u00bd cup cacao powder\n\n1 tablespoon warm water\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nPinot Noir Pink Frosting\n\n\u00bd tablespoon coconut oil\n\n\u00bd tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n\u00be cup powdered erythritol\n\n\u00bd tablespoon Pinot noir\n\n\u00bd tablespoon cranberry puree\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a standard 12-cup cupcake tin with paper baking cups.\n\n2. To make the cupcakes, mix together the rice milk, Pinot Noir and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, cacao powder, baking powder, baking soda, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and stir until it is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Stir in the yogurt until well combined.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the measuring cup, as the spout will make it easier to pour the batter into the cupcake tin without spillage.\n\n6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be about two-thirds full. Bake the cupcakes for 16 to 17 minutes, or until they bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the cupcake tin from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the cupcake tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes to cool completely.\n\n8. To make the chocolate frosting, mix together the coconut nectar, coconut oil and avocado in a medium-size bowl. Add the powdered erythritol, cacao powder, warm water, stevia and salt and stir until smooth and well incorporated.\n\n9. To make the Pinot noir pink frosting, microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a small microwave-safe bowl for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, Pinot noir, cranberry puree and salt and stir until smooth and well combined.\n\n10. Frost the completely cooled cupcakes with the chocolate frosting. Place a dollop of the Pinot noir pink frosting on top.\n\nKeep unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze them for up to 3 months. Leftover frosting keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks if stored in an airtight container.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 cupcake): 190 calories, 9 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 23 g carbohydrates, 135 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 15 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nIf you don't have cranberries on hand you can also use raspberry puree or beet puree to \"pinken-up\" the frosting.\n\n#\n\nI often speak to groups of people who are dealing with the challenges of either food allergies, celiac disease, diabetes or the munchies, and I invariably hear that there aren't enough nut-free, sugar-free or otherwise \"safe\" high-protein and healthful energy bars on the market. This chapter is my solution, so that everyone can have quick, delicious and nutritious fuel whenever they need it.\n\nAntioxidant Blast Bars\n\nChocolate Chia Power Bars\n\nSweet Cranberry Hemp Bars\n\nFudgy Fig-a-Mama-Jig Bars\n\nLean Green Logs\u2014Unbaked\n\nA\u00e7a\u00ed Berry Truffles\u2014Unbaked\n\nSeedy Date Balls\u2014Unbaked\n\n## ANTIOXIDANT BLAST BARS\n\nMakes 25 bars\n\nGoji berries and blueberries top the charts when it comes to antioxidant content. I have included them, along with pumpkin seeds for a blast of protein, in this exquisitely crunchy, colorful and nutritious berry bar. The reason I don't use whole goji berries is that even though they start out bright and rosy red before they go in the oven, they come out an unappealing muddy shade of brown. Thank goodness for goji berry powder, which just disappears into the crowd while still providing all the promised nutrients.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nSheet of parchment paper slightly larger than 15 \u00d7 10 inches\n\n4 cups gluten-free oats\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup goji berry powder\n\n1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n1 cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup fresh or frozen (thawed) blueberries\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 300\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper, with a little extra over the sides.\n\n2. Mix together the oats, flour, goji berry powder, pumpkin seeds, guar gum and salt in a large bowl.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 60 seconds. Add the stevia and stir to combine. Pour the coconut oil mixture into the oats mixture and mix well. Fold in the blueberries.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into the corners and on top with a wet baking spatula to cover the pan evenly.\n\n5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the oats are a light golden brown and look dry. Rotate the pan from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before putting in the freezer for at least 1 hour.\n\n7. Transfer the parchment paper to a cutting board and cut into 25 bars.\n\nWrap each bar individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 bar): 170 calories, 10 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 4 g fiber, 3 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nWait until the bars are completely chilled before cutting into them, or else they will fall apart.\n\n## CHOCOLATE CHIA POWER BARS\n\nMakes 25 bars\n\nBeyond being a low-maintenance pet, chia is great because it is high in omega-3s, calcium, fiber, magnesium, niacin and potassium. Chia is also known to enhance endurance when doing strenuous activity. Combining this biodynamic seed with phytonutrient-rich cacao powder is a powerful energy bar waiting to be eaten.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nSheet of parchment paper slightly larger than 15 \u00d7 10 inches\n\n4 cups gluten-free oats\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup unsweetened coconut chips (also called flaked coconut)\n\n\u00be cup raw sunflower seeds\n\n  cup cacao powder\n\n3 tablespoons chia seeds\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n1 cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1 cup fresh or frozen (thawed) cranberries, chopped\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 300\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper, with a little extra over the sides.\n\n2. Mix together the oats, flour, coconut chips, sunflower seeds, cacao powder, chia seeds, guar gum and salt in a large bowl.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 60 seconds. Add the stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the oats mixture and mix well. Fold in the cranberries.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into the corners and on top with a wet baking spatula to cover the pan evenly.\n\n5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the kitchen smells like chocolate and toasted oats. Rotate the pan from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before putting in the freezer for at least 1 hour.\n\n7. Transfer the parchment paper to a cutting board and cut into 25 bars.\n\nWrap each bar individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 bar): 180 calories, 11 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 4 g fiber, 3 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nPeople who are allergic to mustard and sesame seeds may also be allergic to chia seeds.\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nSometimes I break up one of these bars, put it in a bowl, add some rice milk or coconut milk and eat it as cereal.\n\n## SWEET CRANBERRY HEMP BARS\n\nMakes 16 bars\n\nJust in case there is some confusion, hemp seed has nothing to do with marijuana. So sorry to be the messenger on that one. But the good news is, instead of making you all high and hungry, hemp fills you up, levels off your blood sugar and contains heart-healthy omega-3 and omega-6, as well as vitamins A, B, D and E. So now you can have the high of your life just knowing that you're harboring such nutritious kernels in your snack.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nSheet of parchment paper slightly larger than 8 \u00d7 8 inches\n\n1\u00be cups gluten-free oats\n\n  cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n  cup hemp seeds\n\n  teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n6 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n6 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc cup dried cranberries\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, with a little extra over the sides.\n\n2. Mix together the oats, flour, hemp seeds, guar gum and salt in a large bowl.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds and stir to combine. Pour the coconut oil mixture into the oat mixture. Fold in the dried cranberries.\n\n4. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into the corners and on top with a wet baking spatula to cover the pan evenly.\n\n5. Bake for 24 to 25 minutes, or until the oats are a light golden brown. Rotate the pan from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before putting in the freezer for at least 1 hour.\n\n7. Transfer the parchment paper to a cutting board and cut into 16 bars.\n\nWrap each bar individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 bar): 100 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 19 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 5 g sugars\n\n## FUDGY FIG-A-MAMA-JIG BARS\n\nMakes 25 bars\n\nYou should do a jig when your kids eat figs because they are high in calcium, iron and potassium. The only way I used to eat figs was by way of Fig Newtons. These remind me a little of those. They have a touch of fudge that won't add any pudge.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nSheet of parchment paper slightly larger than 15 \u00d7 10 inches\n\n12 dried Calimyrna figs, de-stemmed and cut into \u00bd-inch pieces\n\n3 tablespoons water\n\n4 cups gluten-free oats\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be cup raw pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped\n\n  cup cacao powder\n\n1 teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n1 cup coconut oil\n\n\u00bd cup coconut nectar\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 300\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with the parchment paper, with a little extra over the sides.\n\n2. Place the figs and water in a food processor or blender and puree.\n\n3. Mix together the oats, flour, pumpkin seeds, cacao powder, guar gum and salt in a large bowl.\n\n4. Microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a 2-cup measuring cup for 60 seconds. Add the stevia and stir to combine. Pour the coconut oil mixture into the oats mixture. Fold in the fig puree.\n\n5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into the corners and on top with a wet baking spatula to cover the pan evenly.\n\n6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the oats are a dark golden brown and look dry. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 15 minutes before putting in the freezer for at least 1 hour.\n\n8. Transfer the parchment paper to a cutting board and cut into 25 bars.\n\nWrap each bar individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 bar): 150 calories, 8 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 27 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 4 g fiber, 3 g protein, 6 g sugars\n\n## LEAN GREEN LOGS\u2014UNBAKED\n\nMakes about 14 logs\n\nI went through a raw phase. The first time I served my husband raw lasagna, he almost walked out. So I stopped making his meals that way, but I saved an extra-special treat for myself. So now it's yours, too, and I give you permission not to share. Also, unlike my grandparents in Florida, spirulina does not like the heat, which is the reason these bars are unbaked. But as you'll see in the recipe, the groats are cooked, so Sandra Lee might say these bars are semi-raw. The toasted groats lend a Nestl\u00e9 Crunch\u2013like \"snap, crack and pop\" quality to these bars, which will give you bowls more fun than hearing your cereal talk.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nLogs\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1 cup water, plus 3 tablespoons for the date and fig puree\n\n\u00bd cup buckwheat groats\n\n10 Medjool dates, pitted and halved\n\n6 dried Calimyrna figs, de-stemmed and halved\n\n  cup hemp seeds\n\n\u00bc cup goji berries\n\n2 teaspoons cacao powder\n\n\u00be teaspoon spirulina powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon Matcha green tea powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ginger powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd cup raw pumpkin seeds, roughly chopped\n\nChocolate Glaze\n\n1 four-ounce bar 100 percent unsweetened chocolate, chopped\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 375\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the logs, combine the 1 cup water and the buckwheat groats in a medium-size saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. Spread the groats out on the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the groats are very crunchy. There should not be a soggy one in the bunch. Toss the groats halfway through baking.\n\n3. Combine the dates, figs and the 3 tablespoons water in a food processor or blender and puree. Spoon the date-fig puree into a large bowl.\n\n4. Add the hemp seeds, goji berries, cacao powder, spirulina powder, Matcha green tea powder, ginger and salt to the date-fig puree and stir to combine. Fold in the toasted buckwheat groats and pumpkin seeds.\n\n5. Take about 1 tablespoon of the \"dough,\" and with wet hands, shape it into a log. Place the log on the prepared pan that was used to toast the groats. Repeat until you have used up all the dough. Place the logs in the freezer to chill while you make the chocolate glaze.\n\n6. To make the chocolate glaze, combine the chocolate, coconut oil and coconut nectar in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds at a time until the chocolate melts. Add the stevia and salt and stir to combine.\n\n7. Take the logs out of the freezer, dip each into the melted chocolate and set back down on the pan. Place the glazed logs back in the freezer to chill for 2 hours.\n\nWrap each log individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 log): 135 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 19 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 8 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nThe beauty of parchment paper is that it can be reused several times before you have to discard it, as seen in this recipe.\n\n## A\u00c7A\u00cd BERRY TRUFFLES\u2014UNBAKED\n\nMakes about 18 truffles\n\nIf a blueberry walked into a bar and hooked up with a cosmopolitan piece of chocolate sass, you would get a taste of a\u00e7a\u00ed. A popular berry from Brazil, a\u00e7a\u00ed conveniently comes in powdered form, so you can easily add it to this energy bar. It is filled with calcium and vitamins A, B6 and E and is high in antioxidants, but it loses its potency if heated.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nTruffles\n\n8 \u00d7 8-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n12 Medjool dates, pitted and halved\n\n1 cup raw sunflower seeds\n\n1 cup raw pumpkin seeds\n\n3 tablespoons a\u00e7a\u00ed powder\n\n3 tablespoons frozen (thawed) cranberries\n\n3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice\n\n2 teaspoons cacao powder\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nTopping\n\n\u00bd cup unsweetened shredded coconut\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Line an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. Combine the dates, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, a\u00e7a\u00ed powder, cranberries, orange juice, cacao powder and salt in a food processor or blender and process until almost smooth.\n\n3. Take about 1 tablespoon of the date mixture, and with wet hands, shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the date mixture.\n\n4. Pour the shredded coconut into a small bowl. Roll each ball in the coconut and place it back on the prepared pan. Put the truffles in the freezer to chill for at least 1 hour.\n\nPlace the truffles in a sealable plastic bag and keep them frozen until ready to eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 truffle): 110 calories, 5 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 9 g sugars\n\nA\u00e7a\u00ed Berry Truffles and Seedy Date Balls\n\n## SEEDY DATE BALLS\u2014UNBAKED\n\nMakes about 14 seedy balls\n\nNo, this recipe has nothing to do with blind dates or terrible pickup lines. This was the best name for these balls. Seeds are a perfect source of quick energy and contain all the amino acids, omegas, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and fiber your body needs. With no heat hitting them, the live enzymes stay intact.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDate Balls\n\n8 \u00d7 8-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n6 Medjool dates, pitted and halved\n\n6 dried plums (aka prunes), pitted and cut into \u00bd-inch pieces\n\n\u00bd cup raw sunflower seeds\n\n\u00bd cup raw pumpkin seeds\n\n\u00bc cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup fresh or frozen (thawed) blueberries\n\n1 teaspoon cacao powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n3 tablespoons water\n\nTopping\n\n\u00bc cup chia seeds\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Line an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. Combine the dates, plums, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chocolate chips, blueberries, cacao powder, salt and water in a food processor or blender and process until almost smooth.\n\n3. Take about 1 tablespoon of the date-plum mixture, and with wet hands, shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the date-plum mixture.\n\n4. Pour the chia seeds into a small bowl. Roll each ball in the chia seeds and place it back on the prepared pan. Place the balls in the freezer to chill for 2 hours.\n\nWrap each ball individually in parchment paper or bakery tissue paper, place in a sealable plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to pack or eat.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 ball): 80 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 20 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 2 g protein, 7 g sugars\n\n#\n\nSome people may take a firm stand against healthy donut holes, insisting that donuts should not, in any way, shape or form, possess any nutritional value. But since you're reading this book, I know you beg to differ. So here are some scrumptious donut recipes just for you, in all their unhole-y wholesomeness.\n\nApple Fritter Donut Holes\n\nDouble Chocolate Chip Glazed-Over Donut Holes\n\nBlueberry Streusel Donut Holes\n\nPumpkin Spice Donut Holes\n\nVanilla Bean\u2013Glazed Banana Donut Holes\n\nCoconut Crunch Donut Holes\n\nSaffron and Cardamom Donut Holes\n\n## APPLE FRITTER DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nMaybe it has something to do with Eve, but every gal I know just loves a sugar-stuffed, fat-filled apple fritter every now and then. It's obviously a sinfully delicious fete for your palate, but here I've made it healthful and festive by inviting cinnamon, sunflower seed butter and an apple cider\u2013lemon glaze to the (dough) ball. I guarantee that your banishment from the Garden will be of no consequence due to the gratification you will receive from taking a bite from this sweet apple.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup light buckwheat flour\n\n\u00bd teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n3 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons sunflower seed butter (see here)\n\n1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup grated, peeled Granny Smith apple\n\nApple Cider\u2013Lemon Glaze\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice\n\n1 tablespoon apple cider\n\nTopping\n\n\u00be teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the donut holes, whisk together the two flours, cinnamon, baking powder, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Add the rice milk, coconut nectar, sunflower seed butter, lemon juice, vanilla and stevia to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Fold in the grated apple.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the pan.\n\n5. Bake the donut holes for 12 to 13 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\n7. To make the apple cider\u2013lemon glaze, microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, lemon juice and apple cider and stir to combine.\n\n8. Frost each donut hole with the glaze, sprinkle a little cinnamon on each and place on the wire rack to set.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 60 calories, 2 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHIP GLAZED-OVER DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nI usually judge how happy a person's home is by how much chocolate they have in it. I've always been a chocolate person, and I especially have always liked chocolate donuts. Ever since I was old enough to place an over-the-counter donut order, I've faithfully asked for the Chocolate Glazed, rudely ignoring the other, just as capable donuts. But after years of suffering the consequences of the donut's sugar, fat and who knows what else, I was compelled to create a healthier version. It's just as delicious as the original version, if not more so, and judging by the gallon bags filled with these donuts in my freezer, they keep my homeys and me very happy.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 tablespoons cacao powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n  teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n3 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 tablespoon plum lemon jam (see here)\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bd teaspoon orange extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n  cup chocolate chips (see here)\n\nGlaze\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons cacao powder\n\n1 tablespoon water\n\n\u00bd cup powdered erythritol\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the donut holes, whisk together the flour, cacao powder, guar gum, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the rice milk, plum lemon jam, vanilla, orange extract and stevia. Pour into the flour mixture and stir to combine. Fold in the chocolate chips.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the pan.\n\n5. Bake the donut holes for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they spring back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\n7. To make the glaze, microwave the coconut oil and the coconut nectar in a measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the cacao powder, water, powdered erythritol and salt and stir to combine.\n\n8. Frost each donut hole with the glaze and place on the wire rack to set.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 60 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 60 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## BLUEBERRY STREUSEL DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nSince streusel is a blueberry's BFF, it is always a natural topping choice. Blueberries can certainly make a go of it on their own in any dessert, as they burst with tangy sweetness and anthocyanin, the antioxidant responsible for them getting the pigment blues. But it's nice to know that when your blueberry is down a donut hole, some streusel has it covered.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup gluten-free oats, ground (use a coffee grinder or food processor)\n\n\u00bd teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n  teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n3 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon lemon extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bd cup fresh or frozen (thawed) blueberries\n\nStreusel\n\n\u00bd cup gluten-free oats, ground (use a coffee grinder or food processor)\n\n\u00bd teaspoon cinnamon powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the donut holes, whisk together the flour, the \u00bc cup of ground oats, cinnamon, guar gum, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the rice milk, lemon extract and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Fold in the blueberries.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n5. To make the streusel, mix together the \u00bd cup of ground oats and the cinnamon in a small bowl.\n\n6. Roll the dough balls in the streusel and place them about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan.\n\n7. Bake the donut holes for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n8. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 50 calories, 1 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 13 g carbohydrates, 50 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nThe oats should be coarsely ground, not too fine, as this lends the donut holes and the streusel a nicer texture.\n\n## PUMPKIN SPICE DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nEvery October I take my son to the makeshift neighborhood pumpkin patch, where, in addition to hundreds of pumpkins of various sizes, shapes and colors, there are wagon rides, toys, games, pony rides, candy and scary stuffed stuff. It's like a vortex I get sucked into and can't get out of for at least four hours. And they have not one porta-potty! Since it seems my bladder shrinks in direct proportion to the scarcity of a local toilet, I hastily leave the patch to find relief, and\u2014more often than not\u2014forget to buy a pumpkin. That's why I use canned organic pumpkin here. At least Whole Foods has restrooms.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup light buckwheat flour\n\n2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n3 tablespoons unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n5 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree\n\nCinnamon Dust\n\n\u00bc cup cinnamon powder\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the rice milk and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture. Add the pumpkin puree and stir to combine.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n5. Pour the cinnamon into a small bowl. Roll the dough balls in the cinnamon and place them about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan.\n\n6. Bake the donut holes for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they are golden orange and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 50 calories, 2 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## VANILLA BEAN\u2013GLAZED BANANA DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nI once took so much banana bread at an all-you-can-eat restaurant that my date had to physically hold me down to keep me from going back for more. That's when I decided to move three thousand miles away and develop my own banana bread recipes so I wouldn't be seen in public ever again putting banana bread in my pocketbook. So here's a donut hole that reminds me of that era, but this time no one is holding me back from loading up my clutch.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n2 tablespoons amaranth flour\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n3 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n2 tablespoons vanilla rice milk\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n\u00bc cup mashed banana\n\nVanilla Bean Glaze\n\n1 tablespoon coconut oil\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n2 tablespoons vanilla rice milk\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise and seeds scooped out and reserved\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the donut holes, whisk together the two flours, baking powder, nutmeg, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the rice milk, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture, add the mashed banana and stir to combine.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan.\n\n5. Bake the donut holes for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\n7. To make the vanilla bean glaze, microwave the coconut oil and coconut nectar in a measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol, vanilla rice milk and salt and stir to combine. Next add the vanilla bean seeds and mix well.\n\n8. Frost the donut holes with the glaze and place them on the wire rack to set.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 60 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## COCONUT CRUNCH DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nThere is a misconception out there that the coconut is a tree nut because it ends with the letters \"n-u-t\" and grows on a \"t-r-e-e.\" But I assure you the coconut is a drupe, which means it's a fibrous, one-seeded piece of fruit. So next time someone mistakenly declares that coconuts are tree nuts, you should ask them if donuts are \"n-u-t-s,\" as well.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n1\u00bc cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bc cup amaranth flour\n\n2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\n1 teaspoon vanilla extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\nTopping\n\n1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened coconut milk\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. Whisk together the two flours, shredded coconut, baking powder, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n3. Microwave the coconut nectar and coconut oil in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the coconut milk, vanilla and stevia and stir to combine. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n5. Pour the shredded coconut into a small bowl and the coconut milk into a cup. Dip the dough balls, one by one, in the coconut milk, roll them around in the shredded coconut and place them about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan.\n\n6. Bake the donut holes for 12 to 13 minutes, or until they bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n7. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 70 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 3 g sugars\n\n## SAFFRON AND CARDAMOM DONUT HOLES\n\nMakes about 20 donut holes\n\nI have a great affinity to saffron. Its exquisite aroma, taste and health benefits far outweigh the fact that it is a tad expensive. But let me be the first to tell you, you're worth it! The combination of this antiaging, vitamin- and mineral-containing \u00fcber-herb is like a pea in the cardamom pod. The complementary elements of spice and sophistication make this a donut hole in one.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDonut Holes\n\n15 \u00d7 10-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\n\u00bc cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n  teaspoon crushed saffron threads\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n2 tablespoons coconut oil\n\n\u00bd teaspoon lemon extract\n\n\u00bc teaspoon stevia powder\n\n1\u00be cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bc teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground cardamom\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon fine sea salt\n\nSaffron Glaze\n\n2 tablespoons unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n  teaspoon crushed saffron threads\n\n1 cup powdered erythritol\n\n  teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 325\u00b0F. Line a 15 \u00d7 10-inch jelly-roll pan with parchment paper.\n\n2. To make the donut holes, microwave the rice milk and saffron threads in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds and let steep for about 2 minutes. Add the coconut nectar, coconut oil, lemon extract and stevia and stir to combine.\n\n3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cardamom, guar gum and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle. Add the rice milk mixture and stir to combine.\n\n4. Take about \u00bd tablespoon of the dough and shape it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared pan. Repeat until you have used up all the dough, placing the balls about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan.\n\n5. Bake the donut holes for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch. Rotate the pan from front to back after about 9 minutes of baking.\n\n6. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the donut holes to cool completely.\n\n7. To make the saffron glaze, microwave the rice milk, coconut nectar and saffron threads in a 2-cup measuring cup for 20 seconds. Add the powdered erythritol and salt and stir to combine.\n\n8. Frost the donut holes with the glaze and place on the wire rack to set.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap individually and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 donut hole): 50 calories, 2 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 10 g carbohydrates, 40 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 1 g protein, 3 g sugars\n\n#\n\nIt's time to take a stroll on the savory side. We think of bread as sustenance, as something to give our children as the bookends to a bountiful middle. When there are limitations to our diet for whatever the reasons, meeting nutritional needs and nibbling requirements can be easily compromised. In this chapter you will find a recipe for every day of the week that offers the health benefits and the tastes you crave. You can also count on these loaves to restore the slice to your life.\n\nGuacamole Rolls\n\nMultigrain Loafer\n\nPotato Pizza Wheels\n\nMini Bagels\n\nPumpcornbread\n\nYam Jam Soda Bread (Muffinized)\n\nKrispy Kale 'n' Cheese Soft Pretzel Rods\n\n## GUACAMOLE ROLLS\n\nMakes 12 rolls\n\nIf Jefferson Starship built their city on rock and roll, just think about how much more they could have accomplished if they'd had the good sense to put it together with guac and roll. With a metropolis full of essential nutrients, phytochemicals and vitamins such as A, B, C, E and K, as well as copper, iron, phosphorous, potassium, folate, lutein and magnesium, avocado provides the building blocks for one helluva healthy superstructure. So please don't let the life-enhancing monosaturated fat count scare you away from this misunderstood fruit. Avocado is a great foundation for any salad, dip, chip and, in this case, bread roll.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCoarse-grind cornmeal, for dusting the muffin tin\n\n1\u00bc cups warm water (about 110\u00b0F)\n\n2\u00bc teaspoons active dry yeast\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1\u00bd cups light buckwheat flour\n\n4 teaspoons dried minced onion\n\n2 teaspoons fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd teaspoon garlic powder\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground cumin\n\n\u00bd teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n2 tablespoons smoothly mashed avocado\n\n2 tablespoons ground chia seeds (use a coffee grinder)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 200\u00b0F and then turn it off. Dust the wells of a standard 12-cup muffin tin with the cornmeal.\n\n2. Combine the warm water and yeast in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add the coconut nectar and stir to combine. Let the yeast mixture sit for about 8 minutes, or until foamy.\n\n3. Whisk together the two flours, minced onion, salt, garlic powder, baking soda, cumin and xanthan gum in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the yeast mixture, mashed avocado and chia seeds and stir to combine.\n\n5. Take about 3 tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it into a well of the prepared muffin tin. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n6. Cover the muffin tin with a clean dish towel, place it in the oven for 1 hour and allow the dough balls to rise.\n\n7. Remove the dish towel and let the dough balls continue to rise in the oven while it preheats to 425\u00b0F.\n\n8. Bake the rolls for 25 to 27 minutes, or until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.\n\n9. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the rolls for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep the rolls in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 roll): 120 calories, 1 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 400 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 1 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nPeople who are allergic to mustard and sesame seeds may also be allergic to chia seeds.\n\n## MULTIGRAIN LOAFER\n\nMakes 12 round loaves\n\nThese yeasty little loaves do not loaf around when it comes to providing dynamic amino acid, mineral and vitamin essentials. The whole grains\u2014amaranth, cornmeal and buckwheat, all of whose benefits are complex and complete\u2014add extraordinary flavor and depth of crust. These go great with salads and soup or as a crusty snack all on their own.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nCoarse-grind cornmeal, for dusting the muffin tin\n\n1\u00bc cups warm water (about 110\u00b0F)\n\n2\u00bc teaspoons active dry yeast\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1  cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n  cup amaranth flour\n\n  cup light buckwheat flour\n\n  cup coarse-grind cornmeal\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n3 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bd teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 200\u00b0F and then turn it off. Dust the wells of a standard 12-cup muffin tin with the cornmeal.\n\n2. Combine the warm water and yeast in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add the coconut nectar and stir to combine. Let the yeast mixture sit for about 8 minutes, or until foamy.\n\n3. Whisk together the three flours, cornmeal, salt, baking soda and xanthan gum in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the yeast mixture, grapeseed oil and apple cider vinegar and stir to combine.\n\n5. Take about 3 tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it into a well of the prepared muffin tin. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n6. Cover the muffin tin with a clean dish towel, place it in the oven for 1 hour and allow the dough balls to rise.\n\n7. Remove the dish towel and let the dough balls continue to rise in the oven while it preheats to 425\u00b0F.\n\n8. Bake the loaves for 25 to 27 minutes, or until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.\n\n9. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the loaves for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 loaf): 150 calories, 4 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 25 g carbohydrates, 300 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 1 g sugars\n\n## POTATO PIZZA WHEELS\n\nMakes about 16 wheels\n\nThis recipe should be called the \"Pizza Wheel Gold Rush,\" because neighbors will trek across acres of lawns, the challenging terrain of rosebush-lined paths and pebbled walkways to wind up at your doorstep when you make these. The combination of tomato sauce and potato spooning in this bread will leave you and your family swooning for Italy and Idaho all in the same bite.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\nCoarse-grind cornmeal, for dusting the baking sheet and cutting out the pizza wheels\n\n1 medium russet potato (about 8 ounces)\n\n1 cup warm water (about 110\u00b0F)\n\n2\u00bc teaspoons active dry yeast\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n1\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup amaranth flour\n\n\u00bd cup light buckwheat flour\n\n\u00bd cup coarse-grind cornmeal\n\n3 tablespoons dried minced onion\n\n3 tablespoons dried oregano\n\n1 tablespoon dried rosemary\n\n1 tablespoon garlic powder\n\n2 teaspoons fine sea salt\n\n\u00be teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n\u00bd teaspoon baking soda\n\n\u00bd cup tomato sauce\n\n\u00bd teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n\u00be cup shredded vegan, soy-free mozzarella cheese (I use Daiya mozzarella cheese. See resources for more information.)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 200\u00b0F and then turn it off. Place the parchment paper on a 15 \u00d7 13-inch baking sheet and then dust evenly with cornmeal.\n\n2. Peel the potato and cut it into \u00bd-inch chunks. Steam the potato chunks in a medium-size saucepan for about 15 minutes, or until tender. Transfer the potato chunks to a potato ricer and push them through into a small bowl. This will give you lumpless mashed potatoes.\n\n3. Combine the warm water and yeast in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add the coconut nectar and stir to combine. Let the yeast mixture sit for about 8 minutes, or until foamy.\n\n4. Whisk together the three flours, cornmeal, minced onion, oregano, rosemary, garlic powder, salt, xanthan gum and baking soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n5. Add the yeast mixture, tomato sauce and apple cider vinegar and stir to combine. Fold in \u00be cup of the mashed potatoes. Next add the shredded mozzarella and mix well. The dough will be very wet and sticky at this point.\n\n6. Take about 3 tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball, and place it on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n7. Flatten the balls gently with your wet hand to make disks about \u00bd inch thick and then use a biscuit cutter to cut out your potato pizza wheels. Use the cornmeal for easier handling.\n\n8. When placing the wheels on the baking sheet, make sure they lie on some cornmeal so the bottoms don't stick.\n\n9. Cover the baking sheet with a clean dish towel, place in the oven for 1 hour and allow the wheels to rise.\n\n10. Remove the dish towel and let the wheels continue to rise in the oven while it preheats to 425\u00b0F.\n\n11. Bake the wheels for 35 to 37 minutes, or until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.\n\n12. Transfer the baking sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the wheels for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 wheel): 120 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 20 g carbohydrates, 300 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 2 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nFor extra pizza pizzazz, top each wheel with extra sauce and cheese during the last 5 to 10 minutes of baking. You can use any tomato sauce that you know and love.\n\n## MINI BAGELS\n\nMakes about 13 mini bagels\n\nIf you're a Jew from Queens, it is a Queensborough Bridge, Midtown Tunnel and overall tristate area requirement that you eat bagels for breakfast every Sunday morning. So that's what I did until I moved out West, got hitched and had my son. Now that all conventional bagels are considered contraband in my house, I was forced by law (see above) to figure out a way to make a wholesome, crispy and mouthwatering bagel to have for breakfast on Sundays. By hook, by crook and by throwing out a lot of gook, I came up with a recipe that passes the test and lets me back into my home state by way of the Verrazano. I'll pay the toll. Fuhget about it.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDough\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\nCoarse-grind cornmeal, for dusting the baking sheet and bagel wrangling\n\n1\u00bc cups warm water (about 110\u00b0F)\n\n1 tablespoon active dry yeast\n\n1 tablespoon coconut nectar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00be cup tapioca flour\n\n\u00bc cup amaranth flour\n\n3 tablespoons light buckwheat flour\n\n1 tablespoon mesquite powder\n\n1\u00bd teaspoons fine sea salt\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n3 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bd teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\nDip\n\n4 cups water\n\n2 tablespoons baking soda\n\nToppings\n\nSaut\u00e9ed thinly sliced onion\n\nCaraway seeds\n\nChia seeds\n\n(anything goes, so use your imagination and taste buds)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 200\u00b0F and then turn it off. Place the parchment paper on a 15 \u00d7 13-inch baking sheet and dust evenly with cornmeal.\n\n2. To make the dough, combine the warm water and yeast in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add the coconut nectar and stir to combine. Let the yeast mixture sit for about 8 minutes, or until foamy.\n\n3. Whisk together the four flours, mesquite powder, salt, baking soda and xanthan gum in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the yeast mixture, grapeseed oil and apple cider vinegar and stir to combine.\n\n5. Take about 2\u00bd tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball and place it on the prepared baking sheet. Use cornmeal for easier handling. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n6. Cover the baking sheet with a clean dish towel, place it in the oven for 1 hour and allow the dough balls to rise.\n\n7. Take the risen dough balls out of the oven, remove the dish towel and preheat the oven to 425\u00b0F.\n\n8. To make the dip, pour the water into a medium-size pot and bring it to a boil. Add the baking soda and stir to dissolve. Remove the pot from the heat.\n\n9. Place the dough balls, 3 or 4 at a time, in the hot water dip for about 30 seconds, turning them once after about 15 seconds. Remove the dough balls with a slotted spatula and place them on the prepared baking sheet, rolling them in the cornmeal to make them easier to handle. Make sure each dough ball sits on some cornmeal so the bottom doesn't stick.\n\n10. Poke a hole in the middle of each dough ball with your finger.\n\n11. Press in the toppings of your choice and bake the bagels for 13 to 15 minutes, or until they are golden brown.\n\n12. Transfer the baking sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the bagels for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 bagel): 140 calories, 4 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 23 g carbohydrates, 370 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 1 g sugars\n\nSweet Truth:\n\nMesquite powder not only provides a nutritional boost but also gives the bagels a gorgeous golden complexion.\n\n## PUMPCORNBREAD\n\nMakes 16 squares\n\nYou know how people get all warm and fuzzy when waxing nostalgic about their great-grandmum's Amish corn bread recipe that's been passed down through genetics? Well, I'm not one of those people. My grandma had no time to bake, let alone eat, while running through the forests of Warsaw, with my mom dangling from her arms, to escape the Nazi evildoers, so I have no meaningful tale to tell about this pumpkin-stuffed comfort carb. All I can tell you is, I added pinches of some of my favorite spices to rev this original recipe up to a place that just feels right. Feel free to customize according to your spice threshold, and be sure to pass the recipe on to your kids so they won't call you when they're forty, and ask you to bring one over because they're hungry and waxing nostalgic about your pumpcornbread from yesteryear.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nGrapeseed oil, for greasing the pan\n\n\u00be cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bc teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n1\u00bc cups coarse-grind cornmeal\n\n\u00bd cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 teaspoon sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground cumin\n\n\u00bd teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n\u00bc teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon black pepper\n\n\u00bc teaspoon cayenne powder\n\n3 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n3 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\n\u00be cup canned pumpkin puree\n\nTopping\n\n\u00bc cup fresh corn kernels\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground nutmeg\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 375\u00b0F. Grease an 8 \u00d7 8-inch square baking pan with the grapeseed oil.\n\n2. Mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n3. Whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, cumin, nutmeg, guar gum, black pepper and cayenne in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar and pumpkin puree and stir to combine. Next add the rice milk mixture and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth.\n\n5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a wet baking spatula or the back of a wet spoon. Sprinkle the corn kernels and nutmeg on top.\n\n6. Bake the pumpcornbread for 23 to 25 minutes, or until it is a light golden brown around the edges and it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Rotate the pan from front to back halfway through baking.\n\n7. Transfer the pan from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 20 minutes before cutting the pumpcornbread into 16 squares.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 square): 80 calories, 3 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 150 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 2 g sugars\n\n## YAM JAM SODA BREAD (MUFFINIZED)\n\nMakes 24 mini soda breads\n\nYou don't have to be Irish to enjoy these yammy soda breads in your jammies any time of year. And since I end up eating way too much of it if left to my own loaf, I've devised these to be muffinized so everyone can have their very own mini-jam.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\n24 mini paper baking cups\n\n1 small yam (about 4 ounces)\n\n1 cup unsweetened plain rice milk\n\n\u00bd teaspoon apple cider vinegar\n\n2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup amaranth flour\n\n2 teaspoons sodium-free baking powder\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon fine sea salt\n\n\u00be teaspoon guar gum\n\n\u00bc teaspoon ground cardamom\n\n6 tablespoons grapeseed oil\n\n\u00bc cup coconut nectar\n\n1 tablespoon plum lemon jam (see here)\n\n\u00bd cup dried currants\n\n3 teaspoons caraway seeds\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 350\u00b0F. Line a 24-cup mini muffin tin with mini paper baking cups.\n\n2. Peel the yam and slice it into \u00bd-inch chunks. Steam the yam chunks in a medium-size saucepan for about 15 minutes, or until tender. Transfer the yam chunks to a potato ricer and push them through into a small bowl. This will give you lumpless mashed yam.\n\n3. Mix together the rice milk and apple cider vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup.\n\n4. Whisk together the two flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, guar gum and cardamom in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n5. Add the grapeseed oil, coconut nectar, plum lemon jam and rice milk mixture to the flour mixture, and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the batter is smooth. Fold in   cup of the mashed yam. Add \u00bc cup of the currants and all the caraway seeds and mix well.\n\n6. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, dividing it evenly. Each cup should be filled to the top. Sprinkle the remaining \u00bc cup of currants on top of each cup.\n\n7. Bake the mini soda breads for 11 to 12 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and bounce back slightly to the touch.\n\n8. Transfer the muffin tin from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for about 10 minutes before removing the mini soda breads for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 soda bread): 90 calories, 4 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 15 g carbohydrates, 150 mg sodium, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 4 g sugars\n\n## KRISPY KALE 'N' CHEESE SOFT PRETZEL RODS\n\nMakes about 16 rods\n\nSince I'm originally from New York City, soft and salty pretzels hold a special place in my intestine. The man on the corner with the cart and the smell of roasting white dough in the middle of winter bring back a high-glycemic rush to my blood. Of course, I couldn't help but come up with a healthier but just as satisfying version. Kale is king in terms of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It is high in vitamins A, B6 and C, folic acid, potassium, lutein and bioflavonoids. And when baked, kale gets irresistibly crisp. That and the crunch of caraway give a hearty nutritional bump to this supercharged hot rod.\n\n### MUST HAVE\n\nDough\n\n15 \u00d7 13-inch sheet of parchment paper\n\nCoarse-grind cornmeal, for dusting the baking sheet and rod wrangling\n\n1\u00bc cups warm water (about 110\u00b0F)\n\n4 teaspoons active dry yeast\n\n1 teaspoon coconut nectar\n\n2\u00bd cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (see here)\n\n1 cup tapioca flour\n\n\u00bd cup light buckwheat flour\n\n\u00bc cup caraway seeds\n\n2 teaspoons fine sea salt\n\n1 teaspoon baking soda\n\n1 teaspoon xanthan gum\n\n\u00bc cup grapeseed oil\n\n2 tablespoons coconut nectar\n\nDip\n\n4 cups water\n\n\u00bc cup baking soda\n\nTopping\n\n2 cups finely minced kale\n\n2 cups shredded vegan, soy-free mozzarella cheese (I use Daiya mozzarella cheese. See resources for more information.)\n\nSheet of parchment paper (optional)\n\n### MUST DO\n\n1. Preheat oven to 200\u00b0F and then turn it off. Place the parchment paper on a 15 \u00d7 13-inch baking sheet and dust evenly with the cornmeal.\n\n2. To make the dough, combine the warm water and yeast in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add the coconut nectar and stir to combine. Let the yeast mixture sit for about 8 minutes, or until foamy.\n\n3. Whisk together the three flours, caraway seeds, salt, baking soda and xanthan gum in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle.\n\n4. Add the yeast mixture, grapeseed oil and coconut nectar and stir to combine.\n\n5. Take about 3 tablespoons of the dough, shape it into a ball and then roll it into a rod about 3 inches long. Place the rod on the prepared baking sheet. Use the cornmeal for easier handling. Repeat until you have used up all the dough.\n\n6. Cover the prepared baking sheet with a clean dish towel, place in the oven for 1 hour and allow the rods to rise.\n\n7. Take the risen rods out of the oven, remove the dish towel and preheat the oven to 425\u00b0F.\n\n8. To make the dip, pour the water into a medium-size pot and bring it to a boil. Add the baking soda and stir to dissolve. Remove the pot from the heat.\n\n9. Place the rods, 3 or 4 at a time, in the hot water dip for about 30 seconds, turning them over once after about 15 seconds. Remove each rod with a slotted spatula and place on the prepared baking sheet.\n\n10. To make the topping, mix together the kale and cheese, and spread the mixture out on a big sheet of parchment paper or on a cutting board. Roll one of the rods in the kale and cheese mixture until coated and until the rod is about 6 inches long. Place it back on the prepared baking sheet, making sure it rests on some cornmeal so the bottom doesn't stick. Repeat until all the rods are coated.\n\n11. Bake the rods for 14 to 16 minutes, or until they are a light golden brown and the cheese and kale are crisp.\n\n12. Transfer the baking sheet from the oven to a wire rack and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the rods for a complete cooldown.\n\nKeep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.\n\nNutrition Information Per Serving (1 rod): 140 calories, 6 g total fat, 0.0 mg cholesterol, 20 g carbohydrates, 360 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein, 1 g sugars\n\n# RESOURCES\n\nIn my quest to find the cleanest, most fairly traded, most organic, least cross-contaminated ingredients, I have stumbled upon the sweetest and most caring companies that offer most everything you need to make all the recipes in this book. I am thrilled to acquaint you with:\n\nEdison Grainery\n\nwww.edisongrainery.com\n\nThis is a family-run operation that offers grains, seeds, superfoods and flours from a nut-free, gluten-free, kosher and certified organic facility. Not only that, but their prices are very reasonable. These people are like mishpucha (Yiddish for \"family\") but nicer. You can even call them up and mix and match your orders so that they are custom made to suit your needs.\n\nEden Foods\n\nwww.edenfoods.com\n\nEden Foods sells the finest-grade organic Matcha green tea powder. They make sure the growers of these antioxidant-rich tea leaves follow strict organic farming practices for optimum flavor and nutrient retention. This company also sells dried cranberries sweetened with apple juice.\n\nThe Teff Company\n\nwww.teffco.com\n\nMost teff comes from Ethiopia, where the conditions to grow this grain are ideal. The owner of this company realized that the climate and soil were perfect right where he was in Idaho, and he started to successfully grow teff locally. You can order his very high-quality ivory teff flour on the company website. The price can't be beat, and shipping is included.\n\nDaiya\n\nwww.daiyafoods.com\n\nDaiya makes the best mozzarella and cheddar cheeses that are free from dairy, casein, soy, whey and lactose, and it is all made in a facility free from milk, eggs, soy, peanuts and tree nuts. Luckily, a lot of grocery stores are starting to carry these cheeses in shredded and wedge forms.\n\nDakota Prairie Organic Flour Co.\n\nwww.dakota-prairie.com\n\nDakota Prairie mills their wide range of gluten-free flours in a dedicated facility. They carry both organic and conventional flours at very competitive prices.\n\nCoconut Secret\n\nwww.coconutsecret.com\n\nYou will be thoroughly enlightened when you go to this website and read how the owners of Coconut Secret discovered this low-glycemic, enzyme-filled, all-natural sweetener and graced us all who use it in our daily lives. This company is my one and only source for coconut nectar.\n\nNutraceutical\n\nwww.nutraceutical.com\n\nI use only KAL Pure Stevia Natural Extract, made by this company, because I find it to be superior in every way to all other brands of stevia powder on the market today.\n\nNutrex Hawaii\n\nwww.nutrex-hawaii.com\n\nHawaii is known to have the most highly nutritious, potent and pure spirulina. This company sells Hawaiian Spirulina Pacifica, which is 100 percent vegetarian and kosher, and is a non-GMO spirulina free of pesticides and herbicides.\n\nZSweet\n\nwww.zsweet.com\n\nWould you ever believe that powdered \"sugar\" could have no sugar grams? Well, ZSweet figured out how to do it with the all-natural, zero-calorie sweeteners erythritol and stevia. All the ingredients in their powdered erythritol are gluten free, certified non-GMO, vegan, kosher and zero glycemic. You can buy it at Whole Foods, the Vitamin Shoppe or online at Amazon.\n\nAuthentic Foods\n\nwww.authenticfoods.com\n\nThis company adheres to the strictest standards for keeping their gluten-free flours just that, free from gluten. Their emphasis is on keeping ingredients nutritious and safe for celiacs. They are renowned for their superfine flours, which result in fluffy, light-textured baked goods.\n\nNavitas Naturals\n\nwww.navitasnaturals.com\n\nYou can find your goji berry powder, goji berries, mesquite powder, chia seeds and hemp seeds here. This company is known for selling premium organic superfoods, and, boy, do they deliver on that promise!\n\nSambazon\n\nwww.sambazon.com\n\nHere you can order your organic freeze-dried a\u00e7a\u00ed powder. The company makes sure to use a non-thermal process of drying the berries to make a powder with maximum health benefits.\n\nClabber Girl\n\nwww.clabbergirl.com\n\nLuckily, this company makes a gluten-free and sodium-free baking powder called Innova, which is produced in a nut-free facility. Now they add calcium to it to make it even healthier!\n\nTurtle Mountain\n\nwww.sodeliciousdairyfree.com\n\nThe So Delicious yogurts are heavenly and are really what the name says they are\u2014so delicious! I use their coconut milk plain yogurt and unsweetened coconut milk exclusively for my recipes that call for these ingredients. This company pays very close attention to the segregation of ingredients and tests its products for any traces of allergens, and they insist their co-packers do the same.\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nThank you to Rachel and Leo for being the giants upon whose shoulders I stood from the beginning, which allowed me to fly, fail, fluctuate, be verklempt, flop around and ultimately begin to fulfill my mission in life. I love you both more than my vocabulary allows me to express.\n\nTo my brother Barry for always being there for me, wherever \"there\" was, at any given moment, and for your wisdom, wit and willingness to pinch-hit in a pinch, drive when I had no car and taste test the untested experiments in the early days.\n\nTo my editor, Sarah Pelz, for her initial resounding \"yes\" and passionate follow-through, and for letting my idiosyncratic voice be heard.\n\nTo my extraordinary agent, Lisa Ekus, for getting in the ring, putting up her dukes and fighting on my behalf every negotiating point of the way. You're my own personal miracle worker.\n\nTo Jaimee Constantine, a big thank-you for taking care of business so seamlessly.\n\nTo Dianne Jacob, who bossed me around and kicked my keister all in the name of a worthy book proposal. Thank you for upping my writing game and for the introduction to Lisa.\n\nTo Carl Kravats, my brilliant food photographer and fellow grazer, who captured my goodies most exquisitely, beyond what I dreamed possible.\n\nTo Cindy Epstein, my food stylist, who made my baked goods look like movie stars and ready for their close-up in a most magical way.\n\nTo Mary Aalto for being my devoted recipe tester and friend.\n\nTo Maria de la Torre for cheerleading way back when and for being so graciously and selflessly helpful every step of the way. I value your friendship always.\n\nTo Pam Levin, my go-to Tilt-a-Whirl girl, for making lunch and life more fun, and for your generosity, talent and one-in-a-million sense of humor.\n\nTo Sue Saporta for being so supporta, uh, supportive, and for all the recipe testing and playdates. Thank you for your feedback, kindness and friendship.\n\nTo Elissa, my dearest friend, though farthest in distance, you're nearest at heart. Thank you for thinking I was a bitch when we were ten, but still being my friend for all these years.\n\nTo Michelle Arcilla, for your outstanding makeup and hair artistry, and for helping make me and the \"gals\" look glamorous in a very hot kitchen.\n\nTo my husband, who bears witness to my life every day and makes it meaningful in doing so. Thank you for your patience, your unwavering belief in all my mishegas, and your unconditional love.\n\n# ABOUT THE AUTHOR\n\nDebbie Adler is a graduate of Binghamton University and was a CPA for a large accounting firm in New York City until she realized that all she wanted to do was count to a dozen. She is now the chef and owner of Sweet Debbie's Organic Cupcakes, which caters to celebrities, Hollywood studios, large food companies and customers nationwide. Debbie lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son and raccoons that eat her garbage every night, even though she lives next door to five-star restaurant owners. Visit her website at www.sweetdebbiesorganiccupcakes.com.\n\nSweet Debbie's Organic Treats\n\nISBN: 978-14603-2106-5\n\n\u00a9 2013 by Debbie Adler\n\nAll rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. For permission please contact Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada, M3B 3K9.\n\nThe health advice presented in this book is intended only as an informative resource guide to help you make informed decisions; it is not meant to replace the advice of a physician or to serve as a guide to self-treatment. Always seek competent medical help for any health condition or if there is any question about the appropriateness of a procedure or health recommendation.\n\nAll photography by Carl Kravats except cover photograph and photograph here. Photograph here by Michael Paul\/Getty Images.\n\nCIP Data available upon request.\n\n\u00ae and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and\/or its licensee. Trademarks indicated with\n\n\u00ae are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and\/or other countries.\n\nwww.Harlequin.com\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"#  \n#  \n\n# Copyright\n\nCopyright \u00a9 1921 by Georgette Heyer\n\nCover and internal design \u00a9 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.\n\nCover image \u00a9 Fine Art Photographic Library\n\nSourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems\u2014except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews\u2014without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.\n\nThe characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.\n\nPublished by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.\n\nP.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410\n\n(630) 961-3900\n\nFax: (630) 961-2168\n\nwww.sourcebooks.com\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.\n\n# Contents\n\nFront Cover\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nDedication\n\nPrologue\n\nOne\n\nTwo\n\nThree\n\nFour\n\nFive\n\nSix\n\nSeven\n\nEight\n\nNine\n\nTen\n\nEleven\n\nTwelve\n\nThirteen\n\nFourteen\n\nFifteen\n\nSixteen\n\nSeventeen\n\nEighteen\n\nNineteen\n\nTwenty\n\nTwenty-one\n\nTwenty-two\n\nTwenty-three\n\nTwenty-four\n\nTwenty-five\n\nTwenty-six\n\nTwenty-seven\n\nTwenty-eight\n\nTwenty-nine\n\nEpilogue\n\nAbout the Author\n\nBack Cover\n\n# To G.B.H.\n# Prologue\n\nClad in his customary black and silver, with raven hair unpowdered and elaborately dressed, diamonds on his fingers and in his cravat, Hugh Tracy Clare Belmanoir, Duke of Andover, sat at the escritoire in the library of his town house, writing.\n\nHe wore no rouge on his face, the almost unnatural pallor of which seemed designedly enhanced by a patch set beneath his right eye. Brows and lashes were black, the former slanting slightly up at the corners, but his narrow, heavy-lidded eyes were green and strangely piercing. The thin lips curled a little, sneering, as one dead-white hand travelled to and fro across the paper.\n\n'...but it seems that the Fair Lady has a Brother, who, finding Me Enamoured, threw down the Gauntlet. I soundly whipt the presumptuous Child, and so the Affair ends. Now, as you, My dear Frank, also took some Interestt in the Lady, I write for the Express Purpose of informing You that at my Hands she has received no Hurt, nor is not like to. That I in part tell You and You shall not imagine Yr self in Honor bound again to call Me out, which Purpose, an I mistake not, I yesterday read in Yr Eyes. I should be Exceeding loth to meet You in a Second Time, when I should consider it my Duty to teach You an even severer Lesson than Before. This I am not Wishful of doing for the Liking I bear You.\n\n'So in all Friendship believe me, Frank,\n\n'Your most Obedient, Humble\n\n'Devil.'\n\nHis Grace of Andover paused, pen held in mid-air. A mocking smile dawned in his eyes, and he wrote again.\n\n'In the event of any Desire on Yr Part to hazard Yr Luck with my late Paramour, Permit Me to warn You 'gainst the Bantam Brother, who is in Very Truth a Fire-Eater, and would wish to make of You, as of Me, one Mouthfull. I shall hope to see You at the Queensberry Rout on Thursday, when You may Once More strive to direct mine Erring Footsteps on to the Thorny Path of Virtue.'\n\nHis Grace read the postscript through with another satisfied, sardonic smile. Then he folded the letter, and affixing a wafer, peremptorily struck the hand-bell at his side.\n\nAnd the Honourable Frank Fortescue, reading the postscript half-an-hour later, smiled too, but differently. Also he sighed and put the letter into the fire.\n\n'And so ends another affaire... I wonder if you'll go insolently to the very end?' he said softly, watching the paper shrivel and flare up. 'I would to God you might fall honestly in love \u2013 and that the lady might save you from yourself \u2013 my poor Devil!'\n\n# One\n\nAt The Chequers Inn, Fallowfield\n\nChadber was the name of the host, florid of countenance, portly of person, and of manner pompous and urbane. Solely within the walls of the Chequers lay his world, that inn having been acquired by his great-grandfather as far back as the year 1667, when the jovial Stuart King sat on the English throne, and the Hanoverian Electors were not yet dreamed of.\n\nA Tory was Mr Chadber to the backbone. None so bitter 'gainst the little German as he, and surely none had looked forward more eagerly to the advent of the gallant Charles Edward. If he confined his patriotism to drinking success to Prince Charlie's campaign, who shall blame him? And if, when sundry Whig gentlemen halted at the Chequers on their way to the coast, and, calling for a bottle of Rhenish, bade him toss down a glass himself with a health to his Majesty, again who shall blame Mr Chadber for obeying? What was a health one way or another when you had rendered active service to two of his Stuart Highness's adherents?\n\nIt was Mr Chadber's boast uttered only to his admiring Tory neighbours, that he had, at the risk of his own life, given shelter to two fugitives of the disastrous 'Forty-five, who had come so far out of their way as quiet Fallowfield. That no one had set eyes on either of the men was no reason for doubting an honest landlord's word. But no one would have thought of doubting any statement that Mr Chadber might make. Mine host of the Chequers was a great personage in the town, being able both to read and to write, and having once, when young, travelled as far north as London town, staying there for ten days and setting eyes on no less a person than the great Duke of Marlborough himself when that gentleman was riding along the Strand on his way to St James's.\n\nAlso, it was a not-to-be-ignored fact that Mr Chadber's home-brewed ale was far superior to that sold by the landlord of the rival inn at the other end of the village.\n\nAltogether he was a most important character, and no one was more aware of his importance than his worthy self.\n\nTo 'gentlemen born', whom, he protested, he could distinguish at a glance, he was almost obsequiously polite, but on clerks and underlings, and men who bore no signs of affluence about their persons, he wasted none of his deference.\n\nThus it was that, when a little green-clad lawyer alighted one day from the mail coach and entered the coffee-room at the Chequers, he was received with pomposity and scarce-veiled condescension.\n\nHe was nervous, it seemed, and more than a little worried. He offended Mr Chadber at the outset, when he insinuated that he was come to meet a gentleman who might perhaps be rather shabbily clothed, rather short of purse, and even of rather unsavoury repute. Very severely did Mr Chadber give him to understand that guests of that description were entirely unknown at the Chequers.\n\nThere was an air of mystery about the lawyer, and it appeared almost as though he were striving to prove mine host. Mr Chadber bridled, a little, and became aloof and haughty.\n\nWhen the lawyer dared openly to ask if he had had any dealings with highwaymen of late, he was properly and thoroughly affronted.\n\nThe lawyer became suddenly more at ease. He eyed Mr Chadber speculatively, holding a pinch of snuff to one thin nostril.\n\n'Perhaps you have staying here a certain \u2013 ah \u2013 Sir \u2013 Anthony \u2013 Ferndale?' he hazarded.\n\nThe gentle air of injury fell from Mr Chadber. Certainly he had, and come only yesterday a-purpose to meet his solicitor.\n\nThe lawyer nodded.\n\n'I am he. Be as good as to apprise Sir Anthony of my arrival.'\n\nMr Chadber bowed exceeding low, and implored the lawyer not to remain in the draughty coffee-room. Sir Anthony would never forgive him an he allowed his solicitor to await him there. Would he not come to Sir Anthony's private parlour?\n\nThe very faintest of smiles creased the lawyer's thin face as he walked along the passage in Mr Chadber's wake.\n\nHe was ushered into a low-ceilinged, pleasant chamber looking out on to the quiet street, and left alone what time Mr Chadber went in search of Sir Anthony.\n\nThe room was panelled and ceilinged in oak, with blue curtains to the windows and blue cushions on the high-backed settle by the fire. A table stood in the centre of the floor, with a white table-cloth thereon and places laid for two. Another smaller table stood by the fireplace, together with a chair and a stool.\n\nThe lawyer took silent stock of his surroundings, and reflected grimly on the landlord's sudden change of front. It would appear that Sir Anthony was a gentleman of some standing at the Chequers.\n\nYet the little man was plainly unhappy, and fell to pacing to and fro, his chin sunk low on his breast, and his hands clasped behind his back. He was come to seek the disgraced son of an Earl, and he was afraid of what he might find.\n\nSix years ago Lord John Carstares, eldest son of the Earl of Wyncham, had gone with his brother, the Hon Richard to a card party, and had returned a dishonoured man.\n\nThat Jack Carstares should cheat was incredible, ridiculous, and at first no one had believed the tale that so quickly spread. But he had confirmed that tale himself, defiantly and without shame, before riding off, bound, men said, for France and the foreign parts. Brother Richard was left, so said the countryside, to marry the lady they were both in love with. Nothing further had been heard of Lord John, and the outraged Earl forbade his name to be mentioned at Wyncham, swearing to disinherit the prodigal. Richard espoused the fair Lady Lavinia and brought her to live at the great house, strangely forlorn now without Lord John's magnetic presence; but, far from being an elated bridegroom, he seemed to have brought gloom with him from the honeymoon, so silent and so unhappy was he.\n\nSix years drifted slowly by without bringing any news of Lord John, and then, two months ago, journeying from London to Wyncham, Richard's coach had been waylaid, and by a highwayman who proved to be none other than the scapegrace peer.\n\nRichard's feelings may be imagined. Lord John had been singularly unimpressed by anything beyond the humour of the situation. That, however, had struck him most forcibly, and he had burst out into a fit of laughter that had brought a lump into Richard's throat, and a fresh ache to his heart.\n\nUpon pressure John had given his brother the address of the inn, 'in case of accidents', and told him to ask for 'Sir Anthony Ferndale' if ever he should need him. Then with one hearty handshake, he had galloped off into the darkness...\n\nThe lawyer stopped his restless pacing to listen. Down the passage was coming the tap-tap of high heels on the wooden floor, accompanied by a slight rustle as of stiff silks.\n\nThe little man tugged suddenly at his cravat. Supposing \u2013 supposing debonair Lord John was no longer debonair? Supposing \u2013 he dared not suppose anything. Nervously he drew a roll of parchment from his pocket and stood fingering it.\n\nA firm hand was laid on the door-handle, turning it cleanly round. The door opened to admit a veritable apparition, and was closed again with a snap.\n\nThe lawyer found himself gazing at a slight, rather tall gentleman who swept him a profound bow, gracefully flourishing his smart three-cornered hat with one hand and delicately clasping cane and perfumed handkerchief with the other. He was dressed in the height of the Versailles fashion, with full-skirted coat of palest lilac laced with silver, small-clothes and stockings of white, and waistcoat of flowered satin. On his feet he wore shoes with high red heels and silver buckles, while a wig of the latest mode, marvellously powdered and curled and smacking greatly of Paris, adorned his shapely head. In the foaming lace of his cravat reposed a diamond pin, and on the slim hand, half covered by drooping laces, glowed and flashed a huge emerald.\n\nThe lawyer stared and stared again, and it was not until a pair of deep blue, rather wistful eyes met his in a quizzical glance, that he found his tongue. Then a look of astonishment came into his face, and he took a half step forward.\n\n'Master Jack!' he gasped. 'Master \u2013 Jack!'\n\nThe elegant gentleman came forward and held up a reproving hand. The patch at the corner of his mouth quivered, and the blue eyes danced.\n\n'I perceive that you are not acquainted with me, Mr Warburton,' he said, amusement in his pleasant, slightly drawling voice. 'Allow me to present myself: Sir Anthony Ferndale, \u00e0 vous servir!'\n\nA gleam of humour appeared in the lawyer's own eyes as he clasped the outstretched hand.\n\n'I think you are perhaps not acquainted with yourself, my lord,' he remarked drily.\n\nLord John laid his hat and cane on the small table, and looked faintly intrigued.\n\n'What's your meaning, Mr Warburton?'\n\n'I am come, my lord, to inform you that the Earl, your father, died a month since.'\n\nThe blue eyes widened, grew of a sudden hard, and narrowed again.\n\n'Is that really so? Well, well! Apoplexy, I make no doubt?'\n\nThe lawyer's lips twitched uncontrollably.\n\n'No, Master Jack; my lord died of heart failure.'\n\n'Say you so? Dear me! But will you not be seated, sir? In a moment my servant will have induced the chef to serve dinner. You will honour me, I trust?'\n\nThe lawyer murmured his thanks and sat down on the settle, watching the other with puzzled eyes.\n\nThe Earl drew up a chair for himself and stretched his foot to the fire.\n\n'Six years, eh? I protest 'tis prodigious good to see your face again, Mr Warburton... And I'm the Earl? Earl and High Toby, by Gad!' He laughed softly.\n\n'I have here the documents, my lord...'\n\nCarstares eyed the roll through his quizzing glass.\n\n'I perceive them. Pray return them to your pocket, Mr Warburton.'\n\n'But there are certain legal formalities, my lord \u2013'\n\n'Exactly. Pray do not let us mention them!'\n\n'But, sir!'\n\nThen the Earl smiled, and his smile was singularly sweet and winning.\n\n'At least, not until after dinner, Warburton! Instead, you shall tell me how you found me?'\n\n'Mr Richard directed me where to come, sir.'\n\n'Ah, of course! I had forgot that I told him my \u2013 pied-\u00e0-terre when I waylaid him.'\n\nThe lawyer nearly shuddered at this cheerful, barefaced mention of his lordship's disreputable profession.\n\n'Er \u2013 indeed, sir. Mr Richard is eager for you to return.'\n\nThe handsome young face clouded over. My lord shook his head.\n\n'Impossible, my dear Warburton. I am convinced Dick never voiced so foolish a suggestion. Come now, confess! 'tis your own fabrication?'\n\nWarburton ignored the bantering tone and spoke very deliberately.\n\n'At all events, my lord, I believe him anxious to make \u2013 amends.'\n\nCarstares shot an alert, suspicious glance at him.\n\n'Ah!'\n\n'Yes, sir. Amends.'\n\nMy lord studied his emerald with half-closed eyelids.\n\n'But why \u2013 amends, Warburton?' he asked.\n\n'Is not that the word, sir?'\n\n'I confess it strikes me as inapt. Doubtless I am dull of comprehension.'\n\n'You were not wont to be, my lord.'\n\n'No? But six years changes a man, Warburton. Pray, is Mr Carstares well?'\n\n'I believe so, sir,' replied the lawyer, frowning at the deft change of subject.\n\n'And Lady Lavinia?'\n\n'Ay.' Mr Warburton looked searchingly across at him, seeing which, my lord's eyes danced afresh, brim full with mischief.\n\n'I am delighted to hear it. Pray present my compliments to Mr Carstares and beg him to use Wyncham as he wills.'\n\n'Sir! Master Jack! I implore you!' burst from the lawyer, and he sprang up, moving excitedly away, his hands twitching, his face haggard.\n\nMy lord stiffened in his chair. He watched the other's jerky movements anxiously, but his voice when he spoke was even and cold.\n\n'Well, sir?'\n\nMr Warburton wheeled and came back to the fireplace, looking hungrily down at my lord's impassive countenance. With an effort he seemed to control himself.\n\n'Master Jack, I had better tell you what you have already guessed. I know.'\n\nUp went one haughty eyebrow.\n\n'You know what, Mr Warburton?'\n\n'That you are innocent!'\n\n'Of what, Mr Warburton?'\n\n'Of cheating at cards, sir!'\n\nMy lord relaxed, and flicked a speck of dust from his great cuff.\n\n'I regret the necessity of having to disillusion you, Mr Warburton.'\n\n'My lord, do not fence with me, I beg! You can trust me, surely.'\n\n'Certainly, sir.'\n\n'Then do not keep up this pretence with me; no, nor look so hard neither! I've watched you grow up right from the cradle, and Master Dick too, and I know you both through and through. I know you never cheated at Colonel Dare's nor anywhere else! I could have sworn it at the time \u2013 ay, when I saw Master Dick's face, I knew at once that he it was who had played foul, and you had but taken the blame!'\n\n'No!'\n\n'I know better! Can you, Master Jack, look me in the face and truthfully deny what I have said? Can you? Can you?'\n\nMy lord sat silent.\n\nWith a sigh, Warburton sank on to the settle once more. He was flushed, and his eyes shone, but he spoke calmly again.\n\n'Of course you cannot. I have never known you lie. You need not fear I shall betray you. I kept silence all these years for my lord's sake, and I will not speak until you give me leave.'\n\n'Which I never shall.'\n\n'Master Jack, think better of it, I beg of you! Now that my lord is dead \u2013'\n\n'It makes no difference.'\n\n'No difference? 'Twas not for his sake? 'Twas not because you knew how he loved Master Dick?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then 'tis Lady Lavinia \u2013'\n\n'No.'\n\n'But \u2013'\n\nMy lord smiled sadly.\n\n'Ah, Warburton! And you averred you knew us through and through! For whose sake should it be but his own?'\n\n'I feared it!' The lawyer made a hopeless gesture with his hands. 'You will not come back?'\n\n'No, Warburton, I will not; Dick can manage my estates. I remain on the road.'\n\nWarburton made one last effort.\n\n'My lord!' he cried despairingly. 'Will you not at least think of the disgrace to the name an you be caught?'\n\nThe shadows vanished from my lord's eyes.\n\n'Mr Warburton, I protest you are of a morbid turn of mind! Do you know, I had not thought of so unpleasant a contingency? I swear I was not born to be hanged!'\n\nThe lawyer would have said more, had not the entrance of a servant carrying a loaded tray, put an end to all private conversation. The man placed dishes upon the table, lighted candles, and arranged two chairs.\n\n'Dinner is served, sir,' he said.\n\nMy lord nodded and made a slight gesture toward the windows. Instantly the man went over to them and drew the heavy curtains across.\n\nMy lord turned to Mr Warburton.\n\n'What say you, sir? Shall it be burgundy or claret, or do you prefer sack?'\n\nWarburton decided in favour of claret.\n\n'Claret, Jim,' ordered Carstares, and rose to his feet.\n\n'I trust the drive has whetted your appetite, Warburton, for honest Chadber will be monstrous hurt an you do not justice to his capons.'\n\n'I shall endeavour to spare his feelings,' replied the lawyer with a twinkle, and seated himself at the table.\n\nWhatever might be Mr Chadber's failings, he possessed an excellent cook. Mr Warburton dined very well, beginning on a fat duck, and continuing through the many courses that constituted the meal.\n\nWhen the table was cleared, the servant gone, and the port before them, he endeavoured to guide the conversation back into the previous channels. But he reckoned without my lord, and presently found himself discussing the Pretender's late rebellion. He sat up suddenly.\n\n'There were rumours that you were with the Prince, sir.'\n\nCarstares set down his glass in genuine amazement.\n\n'I?'\n\n'Indeed, yes. I do not know whence the rumour came, but it reached Wyncham. My lord said nought, but I think Mr Richard hardly credited it.'\n\n'I should hope not! Why should they think me turned rebel, pray?'\n\nMr Warburton frowned.\n\n'Rebel, sir?'\n\n'Rebel, Mr Warburton. I have served under his Majesty.'\n\n'The Carstares were ever Tories, Master Jack, true to their rightful king.'\n\n'My dear Warburton, I owe nought to the Stuart princes. I was born in King George the First's reign, and I protest I am a good Whig.'\n\nWarburton shook his head disapprovingly.\n\n'There has never been a Whig in the Wyncham family, sir.'\n\n'And you hope there never will be again, eh? What of Dick? Is he faithful to the Pretender?'\n\n'I think Mr Richard does not interest himself in politics, sir.'\n\nCarstares raised his eyebrows, and there fell a silence.\n\nAfter a minute or two Mr Warburton cleared his throat.\n\n'I \u2013 I suppose, sir \u2013 you have no idea of \u2013 er \u2013 discontinuing your \u2013 er \u2013 profession?'\n\nMy lord gave an irrepressible little laugh.\n\n'Faith, Mr Warburton, I've only just begun!'\n\n'Only \u2013 But a year ago, Mr Richard \u2013'\n\n'I held him up? Aye, but to tell the truth, sir, I've not done much since then!'\n\n'Then, sir, you are not \u2013 er \u2013 notorious?'\n\n'Good gad, no! Notorious, forsooth! Confess, Warburton, you thought me some heroic figure? \"Gentleman Harry\", perhaps?'\n\nWarburton blushed.\n\n'Well, sir \u2013 I \u2013 er \u2013 wondered.'\n\n'I shall have to disappoint you, I perceive. I doubt Bow Street has never heard of me \u2013 and \u2013 to tell the truth \u2013 'tis not an occupation which appeals vastly to my senses.'\n\n'Then why, my lord, do you continue?'\n\n'I must have some excuse for roaming the country,' pleaded Jack. 'I could not be idle.'\n\n'You are not \u2013 compelled to \u2013 er \u2013 rob, my lord?'\n\nCarstares wrinkled his brow inquiringly.\n\n'Compelled? Ah \u2013 I take your meaning. No, Warburton, I have enough for my wants \u2013 now; time was \u2013 but that is past. I rob for amusement's sake.'\n\nWarburton looked steadily across at him.\n\n'I am surprised, my lord, that you, a Carstares, should find it \u2013 amusing.'\n\nJohn was silent for a moment, and when he at length spoke it was defiantly and with a bitterness most unusual in him.\n\n'The world, Mr Warburton, has not treated me so kindly that I should feel any qualms of conscience. But, an it gives you any satisfaction to know it, I will tell you that my robberies are few and far between. You spoke a little while ago of my probable \u2013 ah \u2013 fate \u2013 on Tyburn Tree. I think you need not fear to hear of that.'\n\n'I \u2013 It gives me great satisfaction, my lord, I confess,' stammered the lawyer, and found nothing more to say. After a long pause he again produced the bulky roll of parchment and laid it down before the Earl with the apologetic murmur of:\n\n'Business, my lord!'\n\nCarstares descended from the clouds and eyed the packet with evident distaste. He proceeded to fill his and his companion's glass very leisurely. That done, he heaved a lugubrious sigh, caught Mr Warburton's eye, laughed in answer to its quizzical gleam, and broke the seal.\n\n'Since you will have it, sir \u2013 business!'\n\nMr Warburton stayed the night at the Chequers and travelled back to Wyncham next day by the two o'clock coach. He played piquet and \u00e9cart\u00e9 with my lord all the evening, and then retired to bed, not having found an opportunity to argue his mission as he had hoped to do. Whenever he had tried to turn the conversation that way he had been gently but firmly led into safer channels, and somehow had found it impossible to get back. My lord was the gayest and most charming of companions, but talk 'business' he would not. He regaled the lawyer with spicy anecdotes and tales of abroad, but never once allowed Mr Warburton to speak of his home or of his brother.\n\nThe lawyer retired to rest in a measure reassured by the other's good spirits, but at the same time dispirited by his failure to induce Carstares to return to Wyncham.\n\nNext morning, although he was not up until twelve, he was before my lord, who only appeared in time for lunch, which was served as before in the oak parlour.\n\nHe entered the room in his usual leisurely yet decided fashion and made Mr Warburton a marvellous leg. Then he bore him off to inspect his mare, Jenny, of whom he was inordinately proud. By the time they returned to the parlour luncheon was served, and Mr Warburton realised that he had scarcely any time left in which to plead his cause.\n\nMy lord's servant hovered continually about the room, waiting on them, until his master bade him go to attend to the lawyer's valise. When the door had closed on his retreating form, Carstares leaned back in his chair, and, with a rather dreary little smile, turned to his companion.\n\n'You want to reason with me, I know, Mr Warburton, and, indeed, I will listen an I must. But I would so much rather that you left the subject alone, believe me.'\n\nWarburton sensed the finality in his voice, and wisely threw away his last chance.\n\n'I understand 'tis painful, my lord, and I will say no more. Only remember \u2013 and think on it, I beg!'\n\nThe concern in his face touched my lord.\n\n'You are too good to me, Mr Warburton, I vow. I can only say that I appreciate your kindness \u2013 and your forbearance. And I trust that you will forgive my seeming churlishness and believe that I am indeed grateful to you.'\n\n'I wish I might do more for you, Master Jack!' stammered Warburton, made miserable by the wistful note in his favourite's voice. There was no time for more; the coach already awaited him, and his valise had been hoisted up. As they stood together in the porch, he could only grip my lord's hand tightly and say good-bye. Then he got hurriedly into the coach, and the door was slammed behind him.\n\nMy lord made his leg, and watched the heavy vehicle move forward and roll away down the street. Then with a stifled sigh he turned and walked towards the stables. His servant saw him coming and went at once to meet him.\n\n'The mare, sir?'\n\n'As you say, Jim \u2013 the mare. In an hour.'\n\nHe turned and would have strolled back.\n\n'Sir \u2013 your honour!'\n\nHe paused, looking over his shoulder.\n\n'Well?'\n\n'They're on the look-out, sir. Best be careful.'\n\n'They always are, Jim. But thanks.'\n\n'Ye \u2013 ye wouldn't take me with ye, sir?' pleadingly.\n\n'Take you? Faith, no! I've no mind to lead you into danger. And you serve me best by remaining to carry out my orders.'\n\nThe man fell back.\n\n'Ay, sir; but \u2013 but \u2013'\n\n'There are none, Jim.'\n\n'No, sir \u2013 but ye will have a care?'\n\n'I will be the most cautious of men.' He walked away on the word, and passed into the house.\n\nIn an hour he was a very different being. Gone was the emerald ring, the foppish cane; the languid air, too, had disappeared, leaving him brisk and businesslike. He was dressed for riding, with buff coat and buckskin breeches, and shining top boots. A sober brown wig replaced the powdered creation, and a black tricorne was set rakishly atop.\n\nHe stood in the deserted porch, watching Jim strap his baggage to the saddle, occasionally giving a curt direction. Presently Mr Chadber appeared with the stirrup-cup, which he drained and handed back with a word of thanks and a guinea at the bottom.\n\nSomeone called lustily from within, and the landlord, bowing very low, murmured apologies and vanished.\n\nJim cast a glance at the saddle-girths, and, leaving the mare quietly standing in the road, came up to his master with gloves and whip.\n\nCarstares took them silently and fell to tapping his boot, his eyes thoughtfully on the man's face.\n\n'You will hire a coach, as usual,' he said at length, 'and take my baggage to \u2013' (He paused, frowning) \u2013 'Lewes. You will engage a room at the White Hart and order dinner. I shall wear \u2013 apricot and \u2013 h'm!'\n\n'Blue, sir?' ventured Jim, with an idea of being helpful.\n\nHis master's eyes crinkled at the corners.\n\n'You are a humorist, Salter. Apricot and cream. Cream? Yes, 'tis a pleasing thought \u2013 cream. That is all \u2013 Jenny!'\n\nThe mare turned her head, whinnying as he came towards her.\n\n'Good lass!' He mounted lightly and patted her glossy neck. Then he leaned sideways in the saddle to speak again to Salter, who stood beside him, one hand on the briddle.\n\n'The cloak?'\n\n'Behind you, sir.'\n\n'My wig?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Pistols?'\n\n'Ready primed, sir.'\n\n'Good. I shall be in Lewes in time for dinner \u2013 with luck.'\n\n'Yes, sir. Ye \u2013 ye will have a care?' anxiously.\n\n'Have I not told you?' He straightened in the saddle, touched the mare with his heel, and bestowing a quick smile and a nod on his man, trotted easily away.\n\n# Two\n\nMy Lord at the White Hart\n\nSir Anthony Ferndale sat before the dressing-table in his room at the White Hart, idly polishing his nails. A gorgeous silk dressing gown lay over the back of his chair, and, behind him, Jim was attending to his wig, at the same time hovering anxiously over the coat and waistcoat that were waiting to be donned.\n\nCarstares left off polishing his nails, yawned, and leaned back in his chair, a slim graceful figure in cambric shirt and apricot satin breeches. He studied his cravat for some moments in the mirror, and lifted a hand to it. Salter held his breath. With extreme deliberation the hand moved a diamond and emerald pin the fraction of an inch to one side, and fell to his side again. Salter drew a relieved breath, which brought his master's eyes round to himself.\n\n'No trouble, Jim?'\n\n'None at all, sir.'\n\n'Neither had I. 'Twas most surprisingly easy. The birds had no more fight in them than sparrows. Two men in a coach \u2013 one a bullying rascal of a merchant, the other his clerk. Gad! but I was sorry for that little man!' He paused, his hand on the rouge pot.\n\nSalter looked an inquiry.\n\n'Yes,' nodded Carstares. 'Very sorry. The fat man would appear to bully and browbeat him after the manner of his kind; he even blamed him for my advent, the greasy coward! Yes, Jim, you are right \u2013 he did not appeal to me, ce M. Fudby. So \u2013' ingenuously, 'I relieved him of his cash-box and two hundred guineas. A present for the poor of Lewes.'\n\nJim jerked his shoulder, frowning.\n\n'If ye give away all ye get, sir, why do ye rob at all?' he asked bluntly.\n\nHis whimsical little smile played about my lord's mouth.\n\n''Tis an object for my life, Jim; a noble object. And I believe it amuses me to play Robin Hood \u2013 take from the rich to give to the poor,' he added, for Salter's benefit. 'But to return to my victims \u2013 you would have laughed had you but seen my little man come tumbling out of the coach when I opened the door!'\n\n'Tumble, sir? Why should he do that?'\n\n'He was at pains to explain the reason. It seems he had been commanded to hold the door to prevent my entering \u2013 so when I jerked it open, sooner than loose his hold, he fell out on to the road. Of course, I apologised most abjectly \u2013 and we had some conversation. Quite a nice little man... It made me laugh to see him sprawling on the road, though!'\n\n'Wish I could have seen it, your honour. I would ha' liked fine to ha' been beside ye.' He looked down at the lithe form with some pride. 'I'd give something to see ye hold up a coach, sir!'\n\nHaresfoot in hand, Jack met his admiring eyes in the glass, and laughed.\n\n'I make no doubt you would... I have cultivated a superb voice, a trifle thick and beery, a little loud, perhaps \u2013 ah, something to dream of o' nights! I doubt they do, too,' he added reflectively, and affixed the patch at the corner of his mouth.\n\n'So? A little low, you think? But 'twill suffice \u2013 What's toward?'\n\nDown below in the street there was a great stirring and bustling: horses' hoofs, shouts from the ostlers, and the sound of wheels on the cobble-stones. Jim went to the window and looked down, craning his neck to see over the balcony.\n\n''Tis a coach arrived, sir.'\n\n'That much had I gathered,' replied my lord, busy with the powder.\n\n'Yes, sir. O lord, sir!' He was shaken with laughter.\n\n'What now?'\n\n''Tis the curiosest sight, sir! Two gentlemen, one fat and t'other small! One's all shrivelled-looking, like a spider, while t'other \u2013'\n\n'Resembles a hippopotamus \u2013 particularly in the face?'\n\n'Well yes, sir. He do rather. And he be wearing purple.'\n\n'Heavens, yes! Purple, and an orange waistcoat!'\n\nJim peered afresh.\n\n'So it is, sir! But how did you know?' Even as he put the question, understanding flashed into Jim's eyes.\n\n'I rather think that I have had the honour of meeting these gentlemen,' replied my lord placidly. 'My buckle, Jim... Is't a prodigious great coach with wheels picked out in yellow?'\n\n'Ay, your honour. The gentlemen seem a bit put out, too.'\n\n'That is quite probable. Does the smaller gentleman wear somewhat \u2013 ah \u2013 muddied garments?'\n\n'I can't see, sir, he stands behind the fat gentleman.'\n\n'Mr Bumble Bee... Jim!'\n\n'Sir!' Jim turned quickly at the sound of the sharp voice.\n\nHe found that my lord had risen, and was holding up a waistcoat of pea-green pattern on a bilious yellow ground, between a disgusted finger and thumb. Before his severe frown Jim dropped his eyes and stood looking for all the world like a schoolboy detected in some crime.\n\n'You put this \u2013 this monstrosity \u2013 out for me to wear?' in awful tones.\n\nJim eyed the waistcoat gloomily and nodded.\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Did I not specify cream ground?'\n\n'Yes, sir. I thought \u2013 I thought that 'twas cream!'\n\n'My good friend, it is \u2013 it is \u2013 I cannot say what it is. And pea-green!' he shuddered. 'Remove it.'\n\nJim hurried forward and disposed of the offending garment.\n\n'And bring me the broidered satin. Yes, that is it. It is particularly pleasing to the eye.'\n\n'Yes, sir,' agreed the abashed Jim.\n\n'You are excused this time,' added my lord, with a twinkle in his eye. 'What are our two friends doing?'\n\nSalter went to the window.\n\n'They've gone in to the house, sir. No, here's the spider gentleman! He do seem in a hurry, your honour!'\n\n'Ah!' murmured his lordship. 'You may assist me into this coat. Thanks.'\n\nWith no little difficulty, my lord managed to enter into the fine satin garment, which, when on, seemed moulded to his back, so excellently did it fit. He shook out his ruffles and slipped the emerald ring on to his finger with a slight frown.\n\n'I believe I shall remain here some few days,' he remarked presently. 'To \u2013 ah \u2013 allay suspicion.' He looked across at his man as he spoke, through his lashes.\n\nIt was not in Jim's nature to inquire into his master's affairs, much less to be surprised at anything he might do or say. He was content to receive and promptly execute his orders, and to worship Carstares with a dog-like devotion, following blindly in his wake, happy as long as he might serve him.\n\nCarstares had found him in France, very down upon his luck, having been discharged from the service of his late master owing to the penniless condition of that gentleman's pocket. He had engaged him as his own personal servant, and the man had remained with him ever since, proving an invaluable acquisition to my Lord John. Despite a singularly wooden countenance, he was by no means a fool, and he had helped Carstares out of more than one tight corner during his inglorious and foolhardy career as highwayman. He probably understood his somewhat erratic master better than anyone else, and he now divined what was in his mind. He returned that glance with a significant wink.\n\n''Twas them gentlemen ye held up to-day sir!' he asked, jerking an expressive thumb towards the window.\n\n'M'm. Mr Bumble Bee and friend. It would almost appear so. I think I do not fully appreciate Mr Bumble Bee. I find his conduct rather tiresome. But it is just possible that he thinks the same of me. I will further my acquaintance with him.'\n\nJim grunted scornfully, and an inquiring eye was cocked at him.\n\n'You do not admire our friend? Pray, do not judge him by his exterior. He may possess a beautiful mind. But I do not think so. N-no, I really do not think so.' He chuckled a little. 'Do you know, Jim, I believe I am going to enjoy myself to-night!'\n\n'I don't doubt it, your honour. 'Twere child's play to trick the fat gentleman.'\n\n'Probably. But it is not with the fat gentleman that I shall have to deal. 'Tis with all the officials of this charming town, an I mistake not. Do I hear the small spider returning?'\n\nSalter stepped back to the window.\n\n'Ay, sir \u2013 with three others.'\n\n'Pre-cisely. Be so good as to hand me my snuff-box. And my cane. Thank you. I feel the time has now come for me to put in an appearance. Pray, bear in mind that I am new come from France and journey by easy stages to London. And cultivate a stupid expression. Yes, that will do excellently.'\n\nJim grinned delightedly; he had assumed no expression of stupidity, and was consequently much pleased with this pleasantry. He swung open the door with an air, and watched 'Sir Anthony' mince along the passage to the stairs.\n\nIn the coffee-room the city merchant, Mr Fudby by name, was relating the story of his wrongs, with many an impressive pause, and much emphasis, to the mayor, town-clerk, and beadle of Lewes. All three had been fetched by Mr Chilter, his clerk, in obedience to his orders, for the bigger the audience the better pleased was Mr Fudby. He was now enjoying himself quite considerably, despite the loss of his precious cash-box.\n\nSo was not Mr Hedges, the mayor. He was a fussy little man who suffered from dyspepsia; he was not interested in the affair, and he did not see what was to be done for Mr Fudby. Further, he had been haled from his dinner, and he was hungry; and, above all, he found Mr Fudby very unattractive. Still, a highroad robbery was serious matter enough, and some course of action must be thought out; so he listened to the story with an assumption of interest, looking exceedingly wise, and, at the proper moments, uttering sounds betokening concern.\n\nThe more he saw and heard of Mr Fudby, the less he liked him. Neither did the town-clerk care for him. There was that about Mr Fudby that did not endear him to his fellow-men, especially when they chanced to be his inferiors in the social scale. The beadle did not think much about anything. Having decided (and rightly) that the affair had nothing whatever to do with him, he leaned back in his chair and stared stolidly up at the ceiling.\n\nThe tale Mr Fudby was telling bore surprisingly little resemblance to the truth. It was a much embellished version, in which he himself had behaved with quite remarkable gallantry. It had been gradually concocted during the journey to Lewes.\n\nHe was still holding forth when my lord entered the room. Carstares raised his glass languidly to survey the assembled company, bowed slightly, and walked over to the fire. He seated himself in an armchair and took no further notice of anybody.\n\nMr Hedges had recognised at a glance that here was some grand seigneur and wished that Mr Fudby would not speak in so loud a voice. But that individual, delighted at having a new auditor, continued his tale with much relish and in a still louder tone.\n\nMy lord yawned delicately and took a pinch of snuff.\n\n'Yes, yes,' fussed Mr Hedges. 'But, short of sending to London for the Runners, I do not see what I can do. If I send to London, it must, of course, be at your expense, sir.'\n\nMr Fudby bristled.\n\n'At my expense, sir? Do ye say at my expense? I am surprised! I repeat \u2013 I am surprised!'\n\n'Indeed, sir? I can order the town-crier out, describing the horse, and \u2013 er \u2013 offering a reward for the capture of any man on such animal. But \u2013' he shrugged and looked across at the town-clerk \u2013 'I do not imagine that 'twould be of much use \u2013 eh, Mr Brand?'\n\nThe clerk pursed his lips and spread out his hands.\n\n'I fear not; I very much fear not. I would advise Mr Fudby to have a proclamation posted up round the country.' He sat back with the air of one who has contributed his share to the work, and does not intend to offer any more help.\n\n'Ho!' growled Mr Fudby. He blew out his cheeks. ''Twill be a grievous expense, though I suppose it must be done, and I cannot but feel that if it had not been for your deplorably cowardly conduct, Chilter \u2013 yes, cowardly conduct I say \u2013 I might never have been robbed of my two hundred!' He snuffled a little, and eyed the flushed but silent Chilter with mingled reproach and scorn. 'However, my coachman assures me he could swear to the horse again, although he cannot remember much about the man himself. Chilter! How did he describe the horse?'\n\n'Oh \u2013 er \u2013 chestnut, Mr Fudby \u2013 chestnut, with a half-moon of white on its forehead, and one white foreleg.'\n\nJack perceived that it was time he took a hand in the game. He half turned in his chair and levelled his quizzing-glass at Mr Chilter.\n\n'I beg your pardon?' he drawled.\n\nMr Fudby's eyes brightened. The fine gentleman was roused to an expression of interest at last. He launched forth into his story once more for my lord's benefit. Carstares eyed him coldly, seeing which, Mr Hedges came hurriedly to the rescue.\n\n'Er \u2013 yes, Mr Fudby \u2013 quite so! Your pardon, sir, I have not the honour of knowing your name?'\n\n'Ferndale,' supplied Jack, 'Sir Anthony Ferndale.'\n\n'Er \u2013 yes \u2013' Mr Hedges bowed. 'Pray pardon my importuning you with our \u2013'\n\n'Not at all,' said my lord.\n\n'No \u2013 quite so \u2013 The fact is, these \u2013 er \u2013 gentlemen have had the \u2013 er \u2013 misfortune to be waylaid on their journey here.'\n\nSir Anthony's glass was again levelled at the group. His expression betokened mild surprise.\n\n'All these gentlemen?' he inquired blandly. 'Dear, dear!'\n\n'Oh, no, no, no, sir! Not all! Only Mr \u2013 er \u2013'\n\n'Fudby,' said that worthy, and discovered that Sir Anthony was bowing frigidly. At once he rose, and resting his knuckles on the table before him, bent his body slowly and painfully. Sir Anthony inclined his head. Whereupon, to the delight of all the rest, Mr Fudby bowed again with even greater stateliness than before. Mr Hedges observed Sir Anthony's lips to twitch convulsively. He waited for Mr Fudby to subside, and then continued:\n\n'Yes \u2013 Mr Fudby and Mr \u2013'\n\n'My clerk!' snapped Fudby.\n\nSir Anthony favoured Mr Chilter with his peculiarly sweet smile, and turned again to Mr Hedges.\n\n'I see. A daylight robbery, you say?'\n\n'Broad daylight!' boomed Mr Fudby.\n\n'Er \u2013 yes, yes,' interposed the mayor, fearing a fresh outbreak from that quarter. 'I wonder if you have seen anything of such an animal as Mr \u2013 er \u2013 Chilter \u2013 described?'\n\n''Tis a most extraordinary thing,' said Carstares slowly, 'but I have just bought such an one.' He glanced round with an inquiring smile and one eyebrow lifted.\n\n'Well!' ejaculated Mr Fudby. 'Well!'\n\n'Dear me, sir, what a strange coincidence! May I ask where you bought it, and from whom?'\n\n'She has not been in my possession over two hours. I bought her from an out-at-elbows ruffian, on my way hither. I thought at one time that 'twas strange that the man should possess such a mare \u2013 pure bred, I vow \u2013 and wondered why he was so eager to be rid of her.'\n\n'He was eager because he knew he would be recognised by her,' explained Mr Fudby kindly.\n\n'Without doubt. Perhaps you would like to see her? I will send my man \u2013'\n\n'Oh no, no!' cried the mayor. 'We would not dream of so inconveniencing you \u2013'\n\n''Twere a pleasure,' bowed Jack, devoutly hoping that Mr Fudby would not require to see Jenny, who, he felt sure, would betray him by her very evident affection.\n\n'No, no, Sir Anthony, 'tis quite unnecessary, I assure you, but I thank you for all that. Mr Fudby, if you would describe the man himself. I will see to the proclamation.'\n\n'Describe him, Chilter!' ordered Mr Fudby, who was becoming rather grumpy.\n\nMr Chilter smiled suddenly.\n\n'Certainly, sir!' he said with alacrity. ''Twas a great ruffianly fellow, monstrous tall \u2013'\n\n'How tall?' interrupted the town-clerk. 'Six feet?'\n\n'Oh, quite!' lied Mr Chilter. 'And fat.'\n\nJack's shoulders shook.\n\n'Fat, you say?' he asked gently.\n\n'Very fat,' affirmed Mr Chilter. 'And prodigious rough, swearing dreadfully in his speech.'\n\n'You could not see his face, I suppose?'\n\nMr Chilter hesitated.\n\n'I could see his mouth and chin,' he said, 'and I remarked a long scar running from his under-lip to the \u2013 er \u2013 bottom of his face.'\n\nInvoluntarily Carstares' hand caressed his perfectly smooth chin. Either the little clerk was a born romancer, or for some reason or other he did not want the highwayman to be taken.\n\n'Well, Sir Anthony?' the mayor was saying. 'Does that description fit your man?'\n\nMy lord frowned thoughtfully.\n\n'Tall,' he said slowly, 'and fat \u2013 you said fat, I think, Mr Chilter?'\n\nRather anxiously Mr Chilter reiterated this statement.\n\n'Ah! And with a long scar \u2013 yes, that is undoubtedly he. Furthermore,' he added audaciously, 'he has a squint in his left eye. 'Tis a most ill-favoured rogue in all.'\n\n'It would appear so, Sir Anthony,' remarked the mayor drily. He did not in the least believe the story of the squint, and imagined that the fine court gentleman was amusing himself at their expense. Nevertheless, he had no intention of remonstrating; the sooner he could withdraw from this very tiresome affair the better. So he gravely took down all the absurd particulars, remarked that the man should be easy to find, and made ready to depart.\n\nThe town-clerk rose, and tapped the beadle on the shoulder, whereupon that worthy, with a grunt, abandoned his pose of masterly inactivity and followed the mayor out of the room.\n\nMr Fudby rose.\n\n'I doubt I shall never see my money again,' he said pettishly. 'If you, Chilter, had not been so \u2013'\n\n'Allow me to offer you some snuff, Mr Chilter,' interposed my lord gently, extending his jewelled box. 'Doubtless, sir, you would wish to see my mare?'\n\n'I know nought of horses,' snorted Mr Fudby. ''Tis my clerk who appears to have remarked all the details.' He sneered terrifically.\n\n'Then pray, do me the honour of walking as far as the stables, Mr Chilter. 'Twere as well to be certain about the mare. Mr \u2013 ah \u2013 Fudby, your servant.'\n\n'And now, Mr Chilter, I have a grudge against you,' said Carstares, as they walked across the little garden.\n\n'Me, sir? Oh \u2013 er \u2013 have you, Sir Anthony?'\n\nHe looked up and perceived that the gentleman was laughing.\n\n'Yes, Mr Chilter, a very serious grudge: you have described me as fat!'\n\nChilter nearly fainted.\n\n'You, sir,' he gasped, and stared in amazement.\n\n'Also that I swear dreadfully in my speech, and that I have a scar running from my mouth to my chin.'\n\nMr Chilter stood stock-still in the middle of the path.\n\n'It was you, sir, all the time? You held us up? Were you the man who wrenched open the door?'\n\n'I was that infamous scoundrel. I beg leave once more to apologise for my carelessness in opening that same door. Now tell me, why did you take such pains to throw dust in their sleepy eyes?'\n\nThey resumed their walk slowly. The little clerk flushed.\n\n'I scarce know, sir, save that I \u2013 that I liked you, and \u2013 and \u2013'\n\n'I see. 'Twas prodigious good of you, Mr Chilter. I wonder if there is anything that I can do to show my gratitude?'\n\nAgain the clerk flushed and lifted his head proudly.\n\n'I thank you, sir, but there is nought.'\n\nBy now they had reached the stable. Carstares opened the door and they entered.\n\n'Then will you accept this in token of my regard, sir?'\n\nMr Chilter gazed at the emerald ring that glowed and winked at him from the palm of my lord's hand. He looked up into the blue eyes and stammered a little.\n\n'Indeed, sir \u2013 I \u2013 I \u2013'\n\n''Tis honestly come by!' pleadingly. 'Come, Mr Chilter, you'll not hurt my feelings by refusing? You will keep it in remembrance of a man \u2013 a fat man, Mr Chilter \u2013 who rudely jerked you on to the road?'\n\nThe clerk took it with unsteady fingers.\n\n'I thank you most \u2013'\n\n'Nay, I beg of you. 'Tis I thank you for aiding me so kindly... Come and see my Jenny! Well, lass?' For the mare at the first sound of his voice had turned in her loose-box, and was whinnying and pawing the ground eagerly.\n\n'I do not understand, sir, anything: how it is that you are a highwayman, or why you have honoured me with your confidence \u2013 why you should trust me. But \u2013 thank you.'\n\nAs he spoke, Mr Chilter placed his hand in my lord's and for the second time in his life, felt the pressure of those firm, kindly fingers.\n\n'Why, your honour! You've lost your emerald!'\n\n'No, Jim. I gave it away.'\n\n'Ye \u2013 ye gave it away, sir?'\n\n'M'm. To the small spider.'\n\n'B-but \u2013'\n\n'And he called me fat, too.'\n\n'Called ye fat, sir?' asked the man, bewildered.\n\n'Yes. Very fat. By the way, let me tell you that I brought Jenny at Fittering to-day from the naughty ruffian who waylaid Mr Bumble Bee.' He proceeded to give Jim a sketch of what had transpired below. When he had finished the man shook his head severely.\n\n'I doubt ye'll never learn wisdom, sir,' he scolded.\n\n'I? What have I done?'\n\n'What did ye want to tell it all to the spider man for, sir? 'Twas most incautious of ye. Like as not, he'll split to the fat gentleman, and we'll have the whole town at our heels.'\n\n'Which just shows all you know of the small spider,' replied his master calmly. 'Hand me the powder.'\n\n# Three\n\nIntroducing the Hon Richard Carstares\n\nWyncham! A stately old house with mullioned windows, standing high on its stone terraces, half-covered by creepers; a house surrounded by lawns, rolling down on the one side to a river that rippled and murmured its way along beneath overhanging trees and a blue sky, over boulders and rocks, so clear and sparkling that the myriad pebbles could be seen deep down on its bed.\n\nIn the other direction, the velvet lawns stretched away till they met the orchards and the quiet meadowland.\n\nOn two sides the house had its terraces, very white in the sunshine, with stone steps leading down to a miniature lake where water-lilies grew and where the tiny fish darted to and fro unconcernedly.\n\nFlagged walks there were, running between flower beds a riot of colour, and solemn old trees that had stood there through all the years. Cool woodland lay beyond the little river, carpeted with dark moss, where in spring the primroses grew. So thick was the foliage of the trees that the sun but penetrated in uneven patches.\n\nUp the terrace walls crept roses, yellow and red, pink and white, and tossed their trailing sprays across the parapet. Over the walls of the house they climbed, mingling with purple clematis, jasmine, and sickly honeysuckle. The air was heavy with their united perfumes, while, wafted from a bed below, came the smoky scent of lavender.\n\nThe old house seemed half asleep, basking in the sunlight. Save for a peacock preening its feathers on the terrace steps, there was no sign of life...\n\nThe old place had harboured generations of Carstares. Earl had succeeded Earl and reigned supreme, and it was only now that there was no Earl living there. No one knew where he was. Scarce a month ago one died, but the eldest son was not there to take his place. For six years he had been absent, and none dared breathe his name, for he disgraced that name, and the old Earl cast him off and forbade all mention of him. But the poor folk of the countryside remembered him. They would tell one another tales of his reckless courage; his sweet smile and his winning ways; his light-heartedness and his never-failing kindness and good-humour. What a rider he was! To see him sit on his horse! What a swordsman! Do ye mind the time he fought young Mr Welsh over yonder in the spinney with half the countryside watching? Ah, he was a one, was Master Jack! Do ye mind how he knocked the sword clean out o' Mr Welsh's hand, and then stood waiting for him to pick it up? And do ye mind the way his eyes sparkled, and how he laughed, just for the sheer joy o' living?\n\nEndless anecdotes would they tell, and the old gaffers would shake their heads and sigh, and long for the sight of him again. And they would jerk their thumbs towards the Manor and shrug their old shoulders significantly. Who wanted Mr Richard for squire? Not they, at least. They knew he was a good squire and a kindly man, but give them Master John, who would laugh and crack a joke and never wear the glum looks that Mr Richard affected.\n\nIn the house, Richard Carstares paced to and fro in his library, every now and again pausing to glance wretchedly up at the portrait of his brother hanging over his desk. The artist had managed to catch the expression of those blue eyes, and they smiled down at Richard in just the way that John was always wont to smile \u2013 so gaily, and withal so wistfully.\n\nRichard was twenty-nine, but already he looked twice his age. He was very thin, and there were deep lines on his good-looking countenance. His grey eyes bore a haunted, careworn look, and his mouth, though well-shaped, was curiously lacking in determination. He was dressed soberly, and without that touch of smartness that had characterised him six years ago. He wore black in memory of his father, and it may have been that severity, only relieved by the lace at his throat, that made his face appear so prematurely aged. There was none of his brother's boyishness about him; even his smile seemed forced and tired, and his laughter rarely held merriment.\n\nHe pulled out his chronometer, comparing it with the clock on the mantelpiece. His pacing took him to the door, and almost nervously he pulled it open, listening.\n\nNo sound came to his ears. Back again, to and fro across the room, eagerly awaiting the clanging of the bell. It did not come, but presently a footfall sounded on the passage without, and someone knocked at the door.\n\nIn two strides Richard was by it, and had flung it wide. Warburton stood there.\n\n'Warburton! At last! I have been waiting this hour and more!'\n\nMr Warburton disengaged himself, bowing.\n\n'I regret I was not able to come before, sir,' he said primly.\n\n'I make no doubt you travelled back as quickly as possible \u2013 come in, sir.'\n\nHe led the lawyer into the room and shut the door.\n\n'Sit down, Warburton \u2013 sit down. You \u2013 you found my brother?'\n\nAgain Warburton bowed.\n\n'I had the felicity of seeing his lordship, sir.'\n\n'He was well? In good spirits? You thought him changed \u2013 yes? Aged perhaps, or \u2013'\n\n'His lordship was not greatly changed, sir.'\n\nRichard almost stamped in his impatience.\n\n'Come, Warburton, come! Tell me everything. What did he say? Will he take the revenues? Will he \u2013'\n\n'His lordship, sir, was reluctant to take anything, but upon maturer consideration, he \u2013 ah \u2013 consented to accept his elder son's portion. The revenues of the estate he begs you will make use of.'\n\n'Ah! But you told him that I would touch nought belonging to him.'\n\n'I tried to persuade his lordship, sir. To no avail. He desires you to use Wyncham as you will.'\n\n'I'll not touch his money!'\n\nWarburton gave the faintest of shrugs.\n\n'That is as you please, sir.'\n\nSomething in the suave voice made Richard, from his stand by the desk, glance sharply down at the lawyer. Suspicion flashed into his eyes. He seemed about to speak, when Warburton continued:\n\n'I believe I may set your mind at rest on one score. Mr Carstares: his lordship's situation is tolerably comfortable. He has ample means.'\n\n'But \u2013 but he lives by \u2013 robbery!'\n\nWarburton's thin lips curled a little.\n\n'Does he not?' persisted Carstares.\n\n'So he would have us believe, sir.'\n\n''Tis true! He \u2013 waylaid me!'\n\n'And robbed you, sir?'\n\n'Rob me? He could not rob his own brother, Warburton!'\n\n'Your pardon, Mr Carstares \u2013 you are right: his lordship could not rob a brother. Yet have I known a man do such a thing.'\n\nFor a long minute there was no word spoken. The suspicion that had dwelt latent in Carstares' eyes sprang up again. Some of the colour drained from his cheeks, and twice he passed his tongue between his lips. The fingers of his hand, gripping a chair-back, opened and shut spasmodically. Rather feverishly his eyes searched the lawyer's face, questioning.\n\n'John told you \u2013 told you \u2013' he started, and floundered hopelessly.\n\n'His lordship told me nothing, sir. He was singularly reticent. But there was nothing he could tell me that I did not already know.'\n\n'What do you mean, Warburton? Why do you look at me like that? Why do you fence with me? In plain words, what do you mean?'\n\nWarburton rose, clenching his hands.\n\n'I know you, Master Richard, for what you are!'\n\n'Ah!' Carstares flung out his hand as if to ward off a blow.\n\nAnother tense silence. With a great effort Warburton controlled himself, and once more the mask of impassivity seemed to descend upon him. After that one tortured cry Richard became calm again. He sat down; on his face a look almost of relief, coming after a great strain.\n\n'You learnt the truth... from John. He... will expose me?'\n\n'No, sir. I have not learnt it from him. And he will never expose you.'\n\nRichard turned his head. His eyes, filled now with a species of dull pain, looked full into Warburton's.\n\n'Oh?' he said. 'Then you...?'\n\n'Nor I, sir. I have pledged my word to his lordship. I would not speak all these years for your father's sake \u2013 now it is for his.' He choked.\n\n'You... are fond of John?' Still the apathetic, weary voice.\n\n'Fond of him \u2013 ? Good God, Master Dick, I love him!'\n\n'And I,' said Richard, very low.\n\nHe received no reply, and looked up.\n\n'You don't believe me?'\n\n'Once, sir, I was certain of it. Now \u2013 !' he shrugged.\n\n'Yet 'tis true, Warburton. I would give all in my power to undo that night's work.'\n\n'You cannot expect me to believe that, sir. It rests with you alone whether his name be cleared or not. And you remain silent.'\n\n'Warburton, I \u2013 Oh, do you think it means nothing to me that John is outcast?'\n\nBefore the misery in those grey eyes some of Warburton's severity fell away from him.\n\n'Master Richard, I want to think the best I can of you. Master Jack would tell me nothing. Will you not \u2013 can you not explain how it came that you allowed him to bear the blame of your cheat?'\n\nRichard shuddered.\n\n'There's no explanation \u2013 no excuse. I forced it on him! On Jack, my brother! Because I was mad for love of Lavinia \u2013 Oh, my God, the thought of it is driving me crazed! I thought I could forget; and then \u2013 and then \u2013 I met him! The sight of him brought it all back to me. Ever since that day I have not known how to live and not shriek the truth to everyone! And I never shall! I never shall!'\n\n'Tell me, sir,' pleaded Warburton, touched in spite of himself.\n\nRichard's head sunk into his hands.\n\n'The whole scene is a nightmare... I think I must have been mad... I scarce knew what I was about. I \u2013'\n\n'Gently, sir. Remember I know hardly anything. What induced you to mark the cards?'\n\n'That debt to Gundry. My father would not meet it; I had to find the money. I could not face the scandal \u2013 I tell you I was mad for Lavinia! I could think of nought else. I ceased to care for John because I thought him in love with her. I could not bear to think of the disgrace which would take her from me... Then that night at Dare's. I was losing; I knew I could not pay. Gad! but I can see my notes of hand under Milward's elbows, growing... growing.\n\n'Jack had played Milward before me, and he had won. I remember they laughed at him, saying his luck had turned at last \u2013 for he always lost at cards. Milward and I played with the same pack that they had used... There was another table, I think. Dare was dicing with Fitzgerald; someone was playing faro with Jack behind me. I heard Jack say his luck was out again \u2013 I heard them laugh... And all the time I was losing... losing.\n\n'The pin of my cravat fell out on to my knee. I think no one saw it. As I picked it up the thought that I should mark the cards seemed to flash into my mind \u2013 oh, it was despicable, I know! I held the ace of clubs in my hand: I scratched it with that pin \u2013 in one corner. It was easily done. By degrees I marked all four, and three of the kings.\n\n'No one noticed, but I was nervous \u2013 I dared do no more. I replaced that pin. Soon I began to win \u2013 not very much. Then Tracy Belmanoir came across the room to watch our play. From that moment everything seemed to go awry. It was the beginning of the trouble.\n\n'Tracy stood behind me \u2013 watching... I could feel him there, like some black moth, hovering... I don't know how long he stayed like that \u2013 it seemed hours. I could feel his eyes... I could have shrieked \u2013 I'll swear my hands were trembling.\n\n'Suddenly he moved. I had played the ace of hearts. He said: \"One moment!\" in that soft, sinister voice of his.\n\n'Milward was surprised. I tried to tell myself that Devil had noticed nothing... The mark on that card was so faint that I could scarce see it myself. I thought it impossible that he, a mere onlooker, should discover it. He stepped forward. I remember he brushed my shoulder. I remember how the light caught the diamonds he was wearing. I think my brain was numbed. I could only repeat to myself: \"Extravagant Devil! Extravagant Devil!\" and stare at those winking jewels. Then I thought: \"He is Lavinia's brother, but I do not like him; I do not like him...\" \u2013 little foolish things like that \u2013 and my throat was dry \u2013 parched.\n\n'He bent over the table... stretched out his white, white hand... turned over the ace... lifted his quizzing glass... and stared down at the card. Then he dropped the glass and drew out his snuff-box... It had Aphrodite enamelled on the lid. I remember it so distinctly... I heard Tracy ask Milward to examine the ace. I wanted to spring up and strangle him... I could scarce keep my hands still.' Richard paused. He drew his hand across his eyes, shuddering.\n\n'Milward saw the scratch. He cried out that the cards were marked! Suddenly everyone seemed to be gathered about our table \u2013 all talking! Jack had his hand on my shoulder; he and Dare were running through the pack. But all the while I could look at no one but Tracy \u2013 Andover. He seemed so sinister, so threatening, in those black clothes of his. His eyes were almost shut \u2013 his face so white \u2013 And he was looking at me! He seemed to be reading my very soul... For an instant I thought he knew! I wanted to shout out that he was wrong! I wanted to shriek to him to take his eyes away! Heavens knows what I should have done!... but he looked away \u2013 at Jack, with that sneering smile on his damned mask of a face! I could have killed him for that smile! I think Jack understood it \u2013 he dropped the cards, staring at Tracy.\n\n'Everyone was watching them... no one looked at me. If they had they must surely have learnt the truth; but they were hanging on Andover's lips, looking from him to Jack and back again... I remember Fitzgerald dropped his handkerchief \u2013 I was absurdly interested in that. I was wondering why he did not pick it up, when Andover spoke again... \"And Carstares' luck turned... ?\" Like that, Warburton! With just that faint, questioning in his voice.\n\n'Before Jack could speak there was an outcry. Dare cried \"Shame!\" to Andover. They laughed at him, as well they might. But I saw them exchange glances \u2013 they were wondering... It was suspicious that Jack should have had that run of luck \u2013 and that he should lose as soon as he left that table.\n\n'Milward \u2013 poor, silly Milward \u2013 gaped at Tracy and stuttered that surely 'twas another pack we had used. I could hardly breathe! Then Andover corrected him \u2013 How did he know? No one else remembered, or thought of noticing \u2013 only he!\n\n'I can see Jack now, standing there so stiffly, with his head thrown up, and those blue eyes of his flashing.\n\n'Do I understand you to accuse me, Belmanoir?' he said. 'Oh, but he was furious!\n\n'Tracy never said a word. Only his eyes just flickered to my face and away again.\n\n'Jack's hand was gripping my shoulder hard. I could feel his anger... Dare called out that the suggestion was preposterous. That John should cheat!\n\n'Tracy asked him if the cards were his. Gad! I can hear his soft, mocking voice now!\n\n'Dare went purple \u2013 you know his way, Warburton.\n\n'\"Opened in your presence on this table!\" he cried.\n\n'\"By Carstares!\" smiled Tracy.\n\n'It was true. But why should Tracy remember it, and none other? They stared at him, amazed. Dare turned to Jack for corroboration. He nodded. I think he never looked haughtier.\n\n'You know how fond of Jack Dare was? He tried to bluster it off \u2013 tried to get control over the affair. It was to no avail. We were puppets, worked by that devil, Belmanoir! One man managing that ghastly scene... He pointed out that only three of us had used that pack: Jack, Milward and I.\n\n'Jack laughed.\n\n'\"Next you will accuse Dick!\" he snapped scornfully.\n\n'\"One of you, certainly,\" smiled Andover. \"Or Milward.\"\n\n'Then everyone realised that one of us three must have marked the cards. Milward was upset, but no one suspected him. It was Jack \u2013 or me.\n\n'As long as I live I shall never forget the horror of those moments. If I were exposed it meant the end of everything between Lavinia and me. I tell you, Warburton, I would have committed any sin at that moment! Nothing would have been too black \u2013 I could not bear to lose her. You don't know what she meant to me!'\n\n'I can guess, sir,' said the lawyer, gravely.\n\n'No, no! No one could imagine the depths of my love for her! I think not even Jack... I felt his hand leave my shoulder... The truth had dawned on him. I heard the way the breath hissed between his teeth as he realised... Somehow I got to my feet, clutching at the table, facing him. I don't excuse myself \u2013 I know my conduct was beyond words dastardly. I looked across at him \u2013 just said his name, as though I could scarce believe my ears. So all those watching thought. But Jack knew better. He knew I was imploring him to save me. He understood all that I was trying to convey to him. For an instant he stared at me. I thought \u2013 I thought \u2013 God forgive me, I prayed that he might take the blame on himself. Then he smiled. Coward though I was, when I saw that hurt, wistful little smile on his lips, I nearly blurted out the whole truth. Not quite... I suppose I was too mean-spirited for that.\n\n'Jack bowed to the room and again to Dare. He said: \"I owe you an apology, sir.\"\n\n'Dare sprang forward, catching him by the shoulder \u2013 crying out that it could not be true! When Jack laughed \u2013 he fell away from him as from the plague. And all of them! My God, to see them drawing away \u2013 not looking at Jack! And Jack's face \u2013 growing paler and harder... every moment... All his friends... turning their backs to him. Davenant \u2013 even Jim Davenant walked away to the fireplace with Evans.\n\n'I could not look at Jack. I dared not. I could not go to him \u2013 stand by him! I had not the right. I had to leave him there \u2013 in the middle of the room \u2013 alone. The awful hurt in his eyes made me writhe. The room was whirling round \u2013 I felt sick \u2013 I know I fell back into my chair, hiding my face. I hardly cared whether they suspected me or not. But they did not. They knew how great was the love between us, and they were not surprised that I broke down.\n\n'I heard Andover's soft voice... he was telling some tale to Dare. Oh, they were well-bred those men! They skimmed over the unpleasant little episode \u2013 ignored Jack!\n\n'Jack spoke again. I could guess how bravely he was keeping a proud front. I know word for word what he said: \"Mr Dare, your Grace, Gentlemen \u2013 my apologies for being the cause of so unpleasant an incident. Pray give me leave.\"\n\n'They paid no heed. I heard him walk to the door \u2013 heard him open it. I could not look at him. He \u2013 he paused... and said just one word: \"Dick!\" quite softly. Heaven knows how I got to him! I know I overturned my chair. That drew Dare's attention. He said: \"You are not going, Dick?\" I shouted \"Yes,\" at him, and then Jack took my arm, leading me out.\n\n'And \u2013 and all he said was: \"Poor old Dick!\"... He \u2013 he had no word of blame for me. He would not allow me to go back and tell the truth \u2013 as I would have done. Ay, Warburton, when Jack called me to him, I could have cried it aloud \u2013 but \u2013 he would not have it... He said: \"For Lavinia's sake.\"...'\n\nWarburton blew his nose violently. His fingers were trembling.\n\n'You know what happened afterwards. You know how my father turned Jack out penniless \u2013 you know how his friends shunned him \u2013 you know my poor mother's grief. And you know that he went away \u2013 that we could not find him when \u2013 my mother died... His last words to me \u2013 were: \"Make Lavinia \u2013 happy \u2013 and try to forget \u2013 all this.\" Forget it! Heavens! Try as I might, I could hear nothing further of him until two months ago, when he \u2013 waylaid me. Then I was half-dazed at the suddenness of it. He \u2013 he grasped my hand \u2013 and \u2013 laughed! It was so dark, I could scarce see him. I only had time to demand his address, and then \u2013 he was off \u2013 galloping away over the heath. I think \u2013 even then \u2013 he bore no malice.'\n\n'He does not now!' said Warburton sharply. 'But, Master Dick, if all this is true, why do you not even now clear him? Surely \u2013'\n\nRichard turned his head slowly.\n\n'Now I may not drag my wife's name through the mud. By clearing him \u2013 I ruin her.'\n\nWarburton could find nothing to say. Only after some time did he clear his throat and say that he was honoured by Carstares' confidence.\n\n'You \u2013 ah \u2013 you dwell on the part played by his Grace on that evening. Surely your \u2013 shall we say \u2013 overwrought imagination magnified that?'\n\nRichard was disinterested.\n\n'I suppose so. Mayhap 'twas his extraordinary personality dominating me. He cannot have pulled the wires as I thought he did. Not even Belmanoir could make me act as I did. But \u2013 but at the time I felt that he was pushing \u2013 pushing \u2013 compelling me to accuse Jack. Oh, doubtless I was mad!'\n\nWarburton eyed the dejected figure compassionately. Then he seemed to harden himself and to regain some of his lost primness of manner.\n\n'You \u2013 ah \u2013 you are determined not to accept the revenues, sir?'\n\n'I have not yet sunk so low, Mr Warburton.'\n\n'His lordship leaves Wyncham and all appertaining to it at your disposal. He would be grieved at your refusal.'\n\n'I will not touch it.'\n\nThe lawyer nodded.\n\n'I confess, Mr Carstares, I am relieved to hear you say that. It will not be necessary again to communicate with his lordship. I think he does not desire any intercourse with \u2013 his family. He finds it too painful. But he wished to be remembered to you, sir. Also to her ladyship.'\n\n'Thank you... You could \u2013 ascertain nothing of his situation? He did not confide in you?'\n\n'He was very reticent, sir. I think he is not unhappy.'\n\n'And not \u2013 embittered?'\n\n'Certainly not that, sir.'\n\nMr Warburton rose, plainly anxious to be gone.\n\nReluctantly Richard followed his example.\n\n'You \u2013 have nothing further to tell me of him?'\n\n'I regret, sir \u2013 nothing.'\n\nRichard went slowly to the door, and opened it.\n\n'You must allow me to thank you, sir, for your goodness in undertaking what I know must have been a painful task. I am very grateful.'\n\nMr Warburton bowed low.\n\n'I beg you will not mention it, sir. Nothing I might do for the Carstares could be aught but a pleasure.'\n\nAgain he bowed, and the next instant was gone.\n\n# Four\n\nIntroducing the Lady Lavinia Carstares\n\nRichard went slowly back to his chair. After a moment he sat down, staring blankly out of the window, his hands loosely clasped on the desk before him. So he remained for a long while, immobile. At last, with the faintest of sighs, he moved and picked up a quill. He dipped it in the ink, and, with his other hand, drew towards him a sheaf of papers. Presently he was writing steadily.\n\nFor perhaps twenty minutes the quill travelled to and fro across the pages; then it paused, and Richard looked up towards the door.\n\nIt opened to admit Lady Lavinia. She came rustling into the room with her embroidery in her hand. She dropped her husband a mock curtsey and went over to a high-backed armchair, stretching out a dimpled hand to draw it forward. But even as her fingers touched it she had changed her mind, and fluttered over to the couch, there to seat herself with much swirling of brocades and arrangement of skirts. She then proceeded to occupy herself with her work, plying her needle hurriedly and jerkily.\n\nRichard watched her in silence, following each turn of the pretty hand and each movement of her fair head.\n\nThe silence was evidently not to my lady's taste, for she presently began to beat an impatient tattoo on the floor with one slender foot. Still, he said nothing, and she raised her pure china-blue eyes to his face.\n\n'Why so glum, Dick? Why do you not talk to me?' Her voice was rather high-pitched and childish, and she had a curious way of ending each sentence with an upward lilt and a long-drawn-out accent, very fascinating to listen to.\n\nRichard smiled with an obvious effort.\n\n'Am I, my dear? I crave your pardon. Warburton has just been.'\n\nHer face clouded over instantly, and the full-lipped mouth drooped petulantly.\n\n'He has seen him.'\n\n'Oh?' She made the word twice its length, and filled it with disinterest.\n\n'Yes. Jack will have none of it. He asks me to be his steward and to use Wyncham as I will. He is very generous.'\n\n'Yes, oh yes. And you will, Richard?'\n\nHe ignored the question.\n\n'He \u2013 Warburton \u2013 says he is not much changed.'\n\n'Oh?' Again the long-drawn monosyllable, accompanied by a tiny yawn.\n\n'He says he does not think \u2013 Jack \u2013 bears me ill-will \u2013' He paused, as if expecting her to speak, but she was absorbed in arranging two flowers \u2013 culled from a bowl at her side \u2013 at her breast, and took no notice. Carstares turned his head away wearily.\n\n'If it were not for you, my dear, I would tell the truth. I believe I shall go crazed an I do not.'\n\n'Dick!'... She dropped the flowers on the floor and thought no more about them. 'Dick!'\n\n'Oh, you need have no fear! I do not suppose,' bitterly, 'that I have the courage to face them all now \u2013 after six years.'\n\nLavinia moved restlessly, brushing her hand along the couch.\n\n'You will not do it, Richard? Promise? You will not? I could not bear the disgrace of it; promise me you will never do it?'\n\n'No,' he said slowly, not looking at her. 'No, I cannot promise that.'\n\nShe sprang to her feet, flinging her broidery from her carelessly, and waved fierce, agitated little hands.\n\n'That means you will do it. You want to disgrace me! You do not care how you hurt me by holding this threat over my head so cruelly! You \u2013'\n\n'Lavinia, for heaven's sake!' he implored, pushing back his chair. 'Calm yourself!' He knew she was about to fly into one of her sudden passions, and frowned with acute vexation.\n\n'I will not! Oh yes, yes! You think me a shrew! I know! I know! But you need not frown on me, sir, for you are worse! No, I will not hush. I am a horrid woman, but you are a cheat \u2013 a cheat \u2013 a cheat!'\n\nCarstares strode over to her.\n\n'Lavinia!'\n\n'No \u2013 no! Leave me alone! You make me miserable! You refuse me everything that I want most, and then you threaten to disgrace me \u2013'\n\n'That is untrue!' cried Richard, goaded into replying. 'I will not promise, that is all. What have I refused you that was within my means to give you? God knows you try your best to ruin me \u2013'\n\n'There! There! 'Tis I who am to blame! Pray, did you not induce my lord to leave his money to John when you knew he would have willed it all to you an you had kept silence? You took no thought to me \u2013'\n\n'For heaven's sake, Lavinia, be still! You do not know what you are saying!'\n\nShe pressed her hands to her hot cheeks.\n\n'No \u2013 I am unreasonable! I know it, but don't tell me so, for I cannot bear it! And don't look reproach at me, Richard! You drive me mad, I tell you!' She was sweeping up and down the room like some caged animal, lashing herself to a worse fury.\n\n'Say something, Richard! Do something! Don't stand there so quietly! Oh, you should never have married me! I displease you, and you make me worse; and you do not see how 'tis that I cannot live without pleasure, and money! I am despicable? Yes, yes, but what are you? Oh, why did you tell me you cheated after you had wedded me?' Angry sobs escaped her; her handkerchief was in shreds upon the floor.\n\nCarstares turned his back to her, that she might not see how she had contrived to hurt him, and the movement drove her to fresh fury.\n\n'Don't do that! Don't! Don't! You make me worse by your dreadful silence! Oh, if you really loved me!'\n\n'You cannot doubt that!' he cried out, wheeling suddenly round. 'You know how I love you! Don't you?' He gripped her by the shoulders and swung her to face him.\n\nShe trembled and gave a sobbing little laugh. As suddenly as it had come, her anger left her.\n\n'Oh, yes, yes! You do love me, Dicky?' She twined her arms about his neck and shrank closer.\n\n'God help me, yes!' he groaned, thrusting her away. 'And you \u2013 you care for no one save yourself!'\n\n'No! No!' she cried, pressing up to him again. 'Do not say that, Dick. Indeed, I love you, but I cannot live without gaiety \u2013 you know I cannot. Oh, I do not doubt but what I am very selfish, but 'tis the way I am fashioned, and I cannot change my nature. And now I have hurt you, and I did not mean to! I did not mean to!'\n\n'My dear, I know you did not; but try to be less a child, I beg of you! You are so uncontrolled, so \u2013'\n\n'I knew you would say that,' she answered in a dead voice. 'You do not understand me. You expect me to be good, and patient, and forbearing, and I tell you 'tis not in my nature.'\n\n'But, Lavinia, you can control your passions,' he said gently.\n\n'No! I cannot! We Belmanoirs \u2013 as God made us, so we are \u2013 and He made us spendthrift, and pleasure-loving, and mad!' She walked slowly to the door. 'But you do not understand, and you try to make me staid, and thoughtful, and a good mother, when I am dying for life, and excitement, and care not that for housewifery!' She opened the door slowly. 'And now my head aches, and you look grave and say 'tis my wicked temper, when I want you to be sorry, and to be ready to do anything to comfort me. Why can you not take me to London, when you know how I long to be there, instead of this gloomy house with nought to do, save mind my child and my needle? I am so tired of it all! So very tired of it all!' She could have left the room then, but he detained her.\n\n'Wait, Lavinia! You say you are unhappy?'\n\nShe released the door handle and fluttered her hands expressively.\n\n'Unhappy? No, I am dull. I am ill-tempered. I am discontented. I am aught you please, so do not be sad, Richard. I cannot bear you to be solemn. Oh, why do we quarrel?' With one of her impulsive movements she was again at his side, with her beautiful face upturned. 'Love me, Richard! Take me to London and never mind an I do squander your money. Say you do not care! Say that nothing matters so long as I am happy. Why do you not say it? Does anything matter? Don't be prudent, Dicky! Be wild! Be reckless! Be anything rather than grave and old!' Her arms crept up to his coaxingly. 'Take me to London!'\n\nCarstares smoothed the soft hair back from her forehead, very tenderly, but his eyes were worried.\n\n'My dear, I will take you, but not just yet. There is so much to be done here. If you will wait a little longer \u2013'\n\n'Ah, if I will wait! If I will be patient and good! But I cannot! Oh, you don't understand, Dicky \u2013 you don't understand!'\n\n'I am sorry, dear. I promise I will take you as soon as possible, and we will stay as long as you please.'\n\nHer arms fell away.\n\n'I want to go now!'\n\n'Dear \u2013'\n\n'Very well \u2013 very well. We will go presently. Only don't reason with me.'\n\nHe looked at her concernedly.\n\n'You are overwrought, my love \u2013 and tired.'\n\n'Yes,' she agreed listlessly. 'Oh yes; I will go now and rest. Forgive me, Dick!' She kissed her finger-tips and extended them to him. 'I will be good one day.' She turned and hurried out of the room and up the stairs, leaving the door open behind her.\n\nRichard stayed for a moment looking round at the signs of her late presence. Mechanically he stooped to pick up her embroidery and the pieces of her handkerchief. The two flowers were broken off short, and he threw them away. Then he left the room and went out on to the sunny terrace, gazing across the beautiful gardens into the blue distance.\n\nAcross the lawn came a child of four or five, waving a grimy hand.\n\n'Father!'\n\nRichard looked down at him and smiled.\n\n'Well, John?'\n\nThe boy climbed up the terrace steps, calling his news all the way.\n\n''Tis Uncle Andrew, sir. He has rid over to see you, and is coming through the garden to find you.'\n\n'Is he? Has he left his horse at the stables?'\n\n'Ay, sir. So I came to tell you.'\n\n'Quite right. Will you come with me to meet him?'\n\nThe little rosy face lighted up with pleasure.\n\n'Oh, may I?' he cried and slipped his hand in Richard's.\n\nTogether they descended the steps and made their way across the lawn.\n\n'I have run away from Betty,' announced John with some pride. 'There's Uncle Andrew, sir!' He bounded away towards the approaching figure.\n\nLord Andrew Belmanoir was Richard's brother-in-law, brother to the present Duke. He came up with John in his arms and tumbled him to the ground.\n\n'Good day, Dick! 'Tis a spoilt child you have here!'\n\n'Ay. He is but now escaped from his nurse.'\n\n'Splendid! Come, John, you shall walk with us, and we'll confound fat Betty!' He slipped his arm through Richard's as he spoke. 'Come, Dick! There's a deal I have to say to you.' He grimaced ruefully.\n\nThe child ran on ahead towards the woods, a great bull-mastiff at his heels.\n\n'What's to do now?' asked Richard, looking round into the mobile, dissipated countenance.\n\n'The devil's in it this time, and no mistake,' answered his lordship with a rueful shake of his head.\n\n'Debts?'\n\n'Lord, yes! I was at Delaby's last night, and the stakes were high. Altogether I've lost about three thousand \u2013 counting what I owe Carew. And devil take me an I know where 't's to come from! Here's Tracy turned saint and swears he'll see me damned before he hands me another penny. I doubt he means it, too.'\n\nTracy was the Duke. Richard smiled a little cynically; he had already had to lend his Grace a thousand guineas to pay off some 'trifling debt'.\n\n'He means it right enough. I believe it would puzzle him to find it.'\n\n'Do you say so? Why, 'tis impossible man! Tracy was in town scarce a fortnight since, and he had a run of the devil's own luck. I tell you, Dick, I saw him walk off with a cool five thousand one night! And then he denies me a paltry three! Lord, what a brother! And all with the air of an angel, as if he had never lost at dice. And a homily thrown in! Anyone would think I had cheated, instead of \u2013 ahem!... Dick, I'm confoundedly sorry! Damned thoughtless of me \u2013 never thought about Jo \u2013 about what I was saying \u2013 I'm a fool!' For Richard had winced.\n\n'You cannot help that,' he said, forcing a laugh. 'Have done with your apologies, and continue.'\n\nThey had come to the stream by now, and crossed the little bridge into the wood.\n\n'Oh, there's not much more. 'Tis only that something must be done, for Carew won't wait, and stap me if I'd ask him, the lean-faced scarecrow! \u2013 so I came to you, Dick.'\n\nHe let go Richard's arm and flung himself down on a fallen tree-trunk, regardless of velvet and laces.\n\n'You're a good fellow, and you don't lecture a man as Tracy does, devil take him! And you play high yourself, or you did, though 'tis an age since I saw you win or lose enough to wink at. And, after all, you're Lavvy's husband, and \u2013 oh, damn it all, Dick 'tis monstrous hard to ask you!'\n\nCarstares, leaning against a tree, surveyed the youthful rake amusedly.\n\n''Tush, Andrew!' he reassured him. 'You're welcome to ask, but the Lord knows where I'm to find it! Gad, what a life! Here's Lavinia keeps buying silks, and I don't know what all, and \u2013'\n\n'She was ever a spendthrift jade,' said Andrew with a mighty frown.\n\nRichard laughed at him.\n\n'You're a thrifty fellow yourself, of course!'\n\nAndrew looked round for something to throw at him, and finding nothing, relapsed once more into deepest despondency.\n\n'You're in the right of't. We're a worthless lot. 'Tis the old man's blood in us, I doubt not, with a smattering of her Grace. You never knew my mother, Richard. She was French \u2013 Lavvy's the spit of her. There's Tracy \u2013 stap me, but Tracy's the very devil! Have you ever seen a face like his? No, I'll swear you've not! What with his sneering mouth and his green eyes \u2013 oh, 'tis enough to make a fellow go to the dogs to have a brother like it, 'pon my soul it is? Ay, you laugh, but I tell you 'tis serious!'\n\n'Ay, go on!'\n\n'Well next there's Bob \u2013 damn it all, but I'm sorry for Bob! 'Tis a beggarly pittance they give one in the army, and he was never one to pinch and scrape. Well, as I say, there's Bob, and I never see him, but what it's: \"Lend me a hundred, Andy!\" or the like. And all to buy his mistress some gewgaw. That's what sickens me! Why, Bob's for ever in some scrape with a petticoat, and as for Tracy! Gad, how they can! Then there's Lavinia, but I should think you know her by now, and lastly, there's your humble servant. And I tell you, Dick, what with the racing, and the cards, and the bottle, I shall be a ruined man before you can turn round! And the pother is I'll never be any different. 'Tis in the blood, so where's the use in trying?' He made a rueful grimace, and rose. 'Come on, young rip! We're going back.'\n\nJohn, engaged in the task of hunting for tadpoles in the water some yards distant, nodded and ran on.\n\n'I fear my lady is indisposed,' said Richard hesitatingly. 'You wished to see her?'\n\nAndrew winked knowingly.\n\n'Tantrums, eh? Oh, I know her. No, I do not care an I do not see her; 'tis little enough she cares for me, though she's as thick as thieves with Tracy \u2013 oh, ay, I'll be dumb.'\n\nThey walked slowly back to the house, Andrew, silent for once, twirling his gold-mounted cane.\n\n'You shall have the money, of course. When do you want it?' said Richard presently.\n\n''Pon honour, you're a devilish good fellow, Dick! But if 'tis like to put you to any \u2013'\n\n'Nonsense. When do you need it?'\n\n'I should pay Carew as soon as may be. Markham can wait over if \u2013'\n\n'No, no! Wednesday?'\n\n''Twill do excellently well. Dick, you're a \u2013'\n\n'Oh, pshaw! 'Tis nought. I want your opinion on the bay mare I bought last week. You'll maybe think her a trifle long in the leg, but she's a fine animal.'\n\nJohn had run indoors, and the two men proceeded to the stables alone, Andrew discoursing all the way, recounting for his brother-in-law's benefit the choicest morsels of scandal that were circulating town at the moment. That his auditor but attended with half an ear affected him not at all; he never paused for an answer, and, in any case, was far too good-natured to care if he received none.\n\nBy the time they had duly inspected the mare, and walked back to the house, it was nearly four o'clock, and, not altogether to Carstares' surprise, Lavinia was awaiting them on the terrace, clad in a totally different gown, and with her hair freshly arranged and curled.\n\n''Twould appear that Lavinia has recovered,' remarked Andrew as they mounted the steps. 'She was ever thus \u2013 not two minutes the same. Well, Lavvy?'\n\n'Well, Andrew?' She gave him a careless hand to kiss, but smiled sweetly up at her husband. 'My headache is so much better,' she told him, 'and they said that Andrew was come to see you. So I came downstairs.' She turned eagerly to her brother. 'Tell me, Andrew, is Tracy at home?'\n\n'Lord, yes! He arrived yesterday, devil take him! Do you want him?'\n\n'Oh, yes,' she nodded. 'I want to see him again. I've not set eyes on him for an age. I want you to take me back with you.'\n\n'Surely, my dear, 'tis a trifle late in the day for such a drive?' demurred Richard, trying to conceal his annoyance. 'Can you not wait until to-morrow?'\n\n'Faith, you'll have to, Lavvy, for I'll not take you to-day, that's certain. I'm riding to Fletcher's when I leave here. Tracy can visit you to-morrow an he chooses.'\n\n'Will he?' she asked doubtfully.\n\nAndrew clapped his hand to his vest pocket. 'If I had not forgot!' he exclaimed. 'I've a letter from him for you. He intends waiting on you to-morrow, in any case. Lord, what it is to have a scatter brain like mine!' He pulled a handful of papers from his pocket and selected one, sealed, and addressed in a sloping Italian handwriting.\n\nLavinia pounced upon it joyfully, and tore it open. Andrew restored the rest of the documents to his pocket with yet another rueful laugh.\n\n'Duns, Richard! Duns!'\n\n'Give them to me,' answered the other, holding out his hand.\n\n'Oh, no! But many thanks, Dick. These are quite unimportant.'\n\n'Why not pay them all, and start afresh?' urged Carstares.\n\n'Lord, no! Why, I should be so damned elated that before the day was out there'd be a score of fresh debts staring me in the face!'\n\n'Let me lend you a thousand to begin on? Could you not keep out of debt?'\n\n'I keep out of debt? Impossible! Don't look so solemn, Dick; I told you 'twas in the blood. We never have a penny to bless ourselves with, but what's the odds? I shall have a run of luck soon \u2013 a man can't always lose. Then I shall be able to repay you, but, of course, I shan't. It'll all go at the next table. I know!' He spoke so ingenuously that Richard could not be angry with him. There was a certain frankness about him that pleased, and though he might be spendthrift and heedless, and colossally selfish, Richard felt a genuine affection for him. He would have liked to argue the point further, but Lavinia came forward, refolding her letter.\n\n'Tracy is coming to-morrow afternoon,' she told her husband. ''Twill be prodigiously agreeable, will it not?'\n\nHe assented, but with a lack of warmth that did not fail to strike her ears.\n\n'And he will stay to dine with us!' she cried challengingly.\n\n'Certainly, my love.'\n\n'Look pleased, Dicky, look pleased! Why don't you like Tracy? He is my own brother; you must like him!'\n\n'Of course I like him, Lavinia. Pray, do not be foolish.'\n\n'Oh, I am not! Don't be cross, Dicky dear!'\n\n'Well, if you like him, I'm surprised,' broke in Andrew. 'I can't bear him! Ay, flash your eyes at me, Lavvy; I don't mind.'\n\nLavinia opened her mouth to retaliate, but Richard hastily interposed. Their bickering was more than he could bear, and he never understood how Lavinia could stoop to quarrel with the boisterous youth, who tried so palpably to rouse her.\n\nHe bore them both off to the house, feeling much like a nursemaid with two recalcitrant children.\n\n# Five\n\nHis Grace of Andover\n\nLady Lavinia dressed herself with even more than her usual care next afternoon, and well-nigh drove her maid distracted by her flashes of temper and impatient, contradictory orders. So lengthy was the toilet that she was only just in her boudoir when his Grace of Andover was announced. She had no time to tell the footman that she would receive his Grace, for almost before the words were out of James' mouth, he stood bowing in the doorway, sure of his welcome.\n\nHe was curiously like his sister, this man, and at the same time curiously unlike. Hers were the high cheek-bones and pinched, aristocratic nostrils, but the mouth with its thin lips, and the heavy-lidded green eyes were totally different. His Grace's brows slanted up at the corners, and his eyes, though piercing and bright, were constantly veiled by the black-lashed lids. He wore his own black hair, unpowdered, and that, together with the black and silver garments that he always affected, greatly enhanced the natural pallor of his countenance. Altogether it was a very striking figure that stood just before the closed white door and bowed to my lady.\n\nLavinia took an eager step towards him, swinging her pearl-grey brocades.\n\n'Oh, Tracy!' she cooed, holding out both hands.\n\nHis Grace advanced into the room and bent low over them.\n\n'I rejoice to find you within, Lavinia,' he said, a faint tinge of sarcasm running through his smooth tones. 'As you perceive, I rode over.' He made a gesture towards his high boots with their wicked-looking spurs. 'No doubt Andrew forgot to give you my letter?'\n\n'No,' she said, slipping her hand in his arm. 'He remembered in time, and \u2013 oh, Tracy, I was so vastly delighted to have it!'\n\n'I am indeed honoured,' he replied. 'I am come on a sufficiently important matter.'\n\n'Oh!' She pulled her hand away disappointedly. 'Money!'\n\n'You are really wonderful, my dear. As you so crudely remark \u2013 money! Will you not be seated?'\n\nShe sank down on the couch dejectedly and watched him take a chair opposite her.\n\n'Your most noble lord and master lent me a trifling sum the other day, but very trifling. I am, as usual, hard-pressed. And that young fool Andrew must needs fall into debt.'\n\nMy lady opened wide her eyes in surprise.\n\n'Do you tell me you need money from Richard to pay Andrew's debts?' she asked, frankly incredulous.\n\n'I do not. Is it likely? The remark was purely by the way.'\n\n'Well, in any case, Andrew borrowed three thousand from poor Dick only yesterday. I know, because I heard him speak of it.'\n\nHis Grace raised his black brows in patient exasperation.\n\n'How unnecessary of Andrew! And how typical! So \"poor Dick\" has been squeezed already?'\n\n'Don't speak like that, Tracy!' she cried. 'Dicky is good to me!' She met his piercing look unflinchingly.\n\n'Now this becomes interesting,' drawled the Duke. 'Since when have you come to that conclusion? And why this sudden loyalty?'\n\n'I have always been loyal to him, Tracy! You know I have! I worry him \u2013 and indeed he is very forbearing.'\n\n'But how charming of him!'\n\n'No, do not sneer, Tracy! He has promised to take me to London for the whole winter \u2013'\n\nHis Grace leant back in his chair again.\n\n'Now I understand,' he said placidly. 'I was at a loss before.'\n\n''Tis not that, Tracy! Indeed I realise how kind he is to me. And we have quarrelled again. We are always quarrelling, and I know 'tis all my fault.'\n\n'What a comfortable conviction, my dear!'\n\n'No, no! 'Tis not comfortable, Tracy! For somehow I cannot change my disposition, though I mean to be patient and sweet. Tracy, I hate Wyncham!'\n\n'You hate Wyncham? There was a time \u2013'\n\n'I know, I know! But I never meant to live here always like this! I want to go to London!'\n\n'I thought you said you were going?'\n\n'Yes, I am! But I want to go with someone who is gay \u2013 not \u2013 not \u2013'\n\n'In fact, you want distraction, and not with the amiable Richard? Well, I can conceive that life with him might prove uninspiring. Safe, my dear, but not exciting.'\n\n'I knew you would understand! You see, he does not like me to play at cards, because I cannot stop! And he cannot see how 'tis that I care nought for what he calls \"home-life\" when there are routs, and the play, and real life. He \u2013 he is so \u2013 so \u2013 staid, Tracy, and careful!'\n\n'A good trait in a husband, Lavinia,' replied his Grace cynically. ''Tis because I do not possess it that I am single now.'\n\nHer lips curled scornfully at this, for well she knew her brother.\n\n'No, Tracy, that is not so! It is because you are a devil! No woman would marry you!'\n\n'That is most interesting, my dear,' purred his Grace. 'But pray strive to be a little more original. Continue your analysis of Richard's sterling character.'\n\n''Tis only that we are so different,' she sighed. 'I always desire to do things quickly \u2013 if I think of something, I want it at once \u2013 at once! You know, Tracy! And he likes to wait and think on it, and \u2013 oh, 'tis so tiresome, and it puts me in a bad humour, and I behave like a hysterical bourgeoise!' She got up swiftly, clasping her nervous little hands. 'When he speaks to me in that gentle, reasoning way, I could scream, Tracy! Do you think I am mad?' She laughed unmusically.\n\n'No,' he replied, 'but the next thing to it: a Belmanoir. Perhaps it was a pity you ever married Richard. But there is always the money.'\n\n'There is not,' she cried out sharply.\n\n'No? What mean you?'\n\n'Tracy, 'tis of this that I wanted to speak! You think my lord left his money to Dick?'\n\n'Certainly. He should be stupendously wealthy.'\n\n'He is not!'\n\n'But, my good girl, the revenue must be enormous. He has the land, surely?'\n\n'No! No! He has not the land! Oh, but I am angry whenever I think on it! He induced my lord to leave it to John. He has but his younger son's portion!'\n\n'I still fail to understand. You informed me that the Earl left all to Richard?'\n\n'He changed his will, Tracy!'\n\n'He \u2013 changed \u2013 his \u2013 will! Then, my dear, must you have played your cards very badly!'\n\n''Twas not my fault, Tracy, indeed 'twas not! I knew nought until the will was read. Richard never spoke a word to me about it! And now we are comparatively poor!' Her voice trembled with indignation, but his Grace only whistled beneath his breath.\n\n'I always knew, of course, that Dick was a fool, but I never guessed how much so till now!'\n\nAt that she flared up.\n\n'He is not a fool! He is an honest man, and 'tis we \u2013 we, I tell you \u2013 who are mean and despicable and mercenary!'\n\n'Undoubtedly, Lavinia, but pray do not excite yourself over it. I suppose, he is still devoted to that young hothead?'\n\n'Yes, yes \u2013 'tis all Jack, Jack, Jack, until I am sick to death of the sound of his name \u2013 and \u2013' She broke off, biting her lips.\n\n'And what?'\n\n'Oh, nought! But 'tis all so disagreeable, Tracy!'\n\n'It certainly is slightly disturbing. You had better have chosen John, in spite of it all, it seems.'\n\nShe stamped angrily.\n\n'Oh, where's the good in being flippant?'\n\n'My dear Lavinia, where's the good in being anything else? The situation strikes me as rather amusing. To think of the worthy Richard so neatly overturning all my plans!'\n\n'If it had not been for you, I might never have married him. Why did you throw them both in my way? Why did I ever set eyes on either?'\n\n'It should have been a good match, my dear, and, if I remember rightly, no one was more alive to that fact than yourself.'\n\nShe pouted angrily and turned her shoulder to him.\n\n'Still,' he continued reflectively, 'I admit that for the smart lot we are, we do seem rather to have bungled the affair.'\n\nLavinia swept round upon him.\n\n'Oh, do you care no more than that? How can you be so casual! Does it affect you not at all?'\n\nHe wrinkled his thin nose expressively.\n\n'I shall not weep over it, Lavinia, but 'tis a plaguey nuisance. But we must see what can be done. And that brings me back to the original subject. Despite these upsetting revelations, I still require that money.'\n\n'Oh, dear! How much must you have, Tracy?'\n\n'Five hundred might suffice.'\n\n'Tracy, do not the estates bring in anything?' she asked petulantly. 'And Andrew told us you had a run of marvellous luck not a fortnight since?'\n\n'Since then, my dear, I have had three runs of marvellous ill-luck. As to the estates, they are mortgaged up to the hilt, as you very well know. What little there is is between three. And Robert is extravagant.'\n\n'I hate Robert!'\n\n'I am not partial to him myself, but it makes no odds.'\n\n'I wish he might die! \u2013 oh no, no! Now I am become ill-natured again \u2013 I don't wish it \u2013 only I am so tired of everything. You shall have that money as soon as possible; but be careful. Tracy \u2013 please be careful! 'Tis not easy to get money from Dick!'\n\n'No, I should imagine not. However, we have managed rather well up to the present, take it all in all.'\n\n'Up to the present he has had all the money he wanted. My lord denied him nought!'\n\n'Well, 'tis unfortunate, as I said before, but it must be endured. Where is Dick?'\n\n'I know not. You will stay to dinner, Tracy?'\n\n'Thank you. I shall be charmed.'\n\n'Yes, yes \u2013 oh, how prodigiously pleasant it is to see you again! Soon I shall come to Andover. Will you let me stay a few days?'\n\n'The question is, will Richard allow you to stay so long in my contaminating presence?'\n\n'Richard would never keep me away, Tracy!' she replied proudly. 'He could not. Oh, why is it that I don't love him more? Why do I not care for him as much as I care for you even?'\n\n'My dear Lavinia, like all Belmanoirs, you care first for yourself and secondly for the man who masters you. That, alas! Richard has not yet succeeded in doing.'\n\n'But I do love Richard. I do, I do, yet \u2013'\n\n'Exactly. \"Yet \u2013 !\" The \"grand passion\" has not yet touched you, my dear, and you are quite self-absorbed.'\n\n'Self-absorbed! Those are hard words.'\n\n'But not too hard for the case. You think solely of yourself, your own pleasure, your own character, your own feelings. If you could cast yourself into the background a little, you would be less excitable and considerably less discontented.'\n\n'How dare you, Tracy! Pray, what of you? Are you so selfless?'\n\n'Not at all. I am precisely the same. I was merely suggesting that you might be happier an you could depose \"self\".'\n\n'You had best do the same yourself!'\n\n'My dear Lavinia, when I feel the need of greater happiness, I most undoubtedly shall. At present I am quite content.'\n\n'You are unkind!' she protested. 'And you sneer at me.'\n\n'Pray accept my heartfelt apologies! You shall come to Andover if the worthy Richard permits.'\n\nHer face cleared as by magic.\n\n'Oh, Tracy! Oh, I am so desirous to be gay once more! I cannot even receive now, on account of this mourning! But when I am at Andover \u2013 oh, we will not worry over anything, and I can be bad-tempered without feeling that someone is being hurt by me! Oh, come to Dicky at once \u2013 at once!'\n\nHe rose leisurely.\n\n'I can imagine that you try Richard's patience somewhat,' he remarked. 'Happily, your impetuosity in no way disturbs me. We will go in search of Richard.'\n\nHalf-way down the great staircase she perceived her husband, and flew to meet him.\n\n'Richard, I was coming in search of you! Tracy has invited me to Andover for a week \u2013 he purposes to ask several people to stay, and there will be parties \u2013 and entertainment! You will let me go? Say yes, Dicky \u2013 say yes, quickly!'\n\nCarstares bowed to his Grace, who stood watching them from the stairs. The bow was returned with exaggerated flourish. Carstares looked down at his wife.\n\n'So soon, Lavinia?' he remonstrated, and indicated her mourning. She shook his hand off impatiently.\n\n'Oh, Dicky, does it matter? What can it signify? I do not ask you to come \u2013'\n\n'No,' he said half-sadly, half-amusedly. 'I notice that, my dear.'\n\n'No, no! I did not mean to be unkind \u2013 you must not think that! You don't think it, do you, Dick?'\n\n'Oh, no,' he sighed.\n\n'Good Dicky!' She patted his cheek coaxingly. 'Then, you will allow me to go \u2013 ah, but yes, yes, you must listen! You know how dull I am, and how silly \u2013 'tis because I need a change, and I want to go to Andover. I want to go!'\n\n'Yes, dear, I know. But my father is not yet dead six weeks, and I cannot think it seemly \u2013'\n\n'Please, Dick, please! Please do not say no! 'Twill make me so unhappy! Oh, you will not be so unkind? You will not forbid me to go!'\n\n'I ask you not to, Lavinia. If you need a change, I will take you quietly to Bath, or where you will. Do not pain me by going to Andover just now.'\n\n'Bath! Bath! What do I want with Bath at this time of the year? Oh, 'tis kind in you to offer, but I want to go to Andover! I want to see all the old friends again. And I want to get away from everything here \u2013 'tis all so gloomy \u2013 after \u2013 after my lord's death!'\n\n'Dearest, of course you shall go away \u2013 but if only you would remember that you are in mourning \u2013'\n\n'But 'tis what I wish to forget! Oh, Dicky, don't, don't, don't be unkind.'\n\n'Very well, dear. If you must go \u2013 go.'\n\nShe clapped her hands joyfully.\n\n'Oh thank you, Dicky! And you are not angry with me?'\n\n'No, dear, of course not.'\n\n'Ah! Now I am happy! 'Tis sweet of you, Dicky, but confess you are secretly thankful to be rid of me for a week! Now are you not?' She spread out her fan in the highest good-humour and coquetted behind it. Richard was induced to smile.\n\n'I fear I shall miss you too sadly, dear.'\n\n'Oh!' She dropped the fan. 'But think how you will look forward to see me again, and I you. Why, I shall be so thankful to be back after a week away, that I shall be good for months!'\n\nHis face lightened, and he caught her hands in his.\n\n'Darling, if I thought you would miss me \u2013 !'\n\n'But of course I shall miss you, Dick \u2013 oh, pray, mind my frock! Shall I not miss him, Tracy?'\n\nRichard suddenly remembered his brother-in-law's presence. He turned and went to the foot of the stairs.\n\n'So you are determined to wrest my wife from me?' he smiled.\n\nTracy descended leisurely, opening his snuff-box.\n\n'Yes, I require a hostess,' he said. 'And I have' \u2013 he paused \u2013 'induced her to honour Andover with her presence. Shall we have the felicity of seeing you at any time?'\n\n'I thank you, no. I am not, you will understand, in the mood for the gaiety for which my poor Lavinia craves.'\n\nThe Duke bowed slightly, and they all three went out on to the terrace, Lavinia laughing and talking as Richard had not heard her laugh or talk for days. She was the life and soul of the little dinner-party, flirting prettily with her husband and exerting herself to please him in every way. She had won her point; therefore she was in excellent spirits with all the world, and not even the spilling of some wine on her new silk served to discompose her.\n\n# Six\n\nBath: 29 Queen Square\n\nThe autumn and the winter passed smoothly, and April found the Carstares installed at Bath, whither Lady Lavinia had teased her husband into going, despite his desire to return to Wyncham and John. She herself did not care to be with the child, and was perfectly content that Richard should journey occasionally to Wyncham to see that all was well with him.\n\nOn the whole, she had enjoyed the winter, for she had induced Richard to open Wyncham House, Mayfair, the Earl's town residence, where she had been able to hold several entirely successful routs, and many select little card-parties. Admirers she had a-many, and nothing so pleased her vain little heart as masculine adulation. Carstares never entered his home without stumbling against some fresh flame of hers, but as they mostly consisted of what he rudely termed the lap-dog type, he was conscious of no jealous qualms, and patiently submitted to their inundation of his house. He was satisfied that Lavinia was happy, and, as he assured himself at times when he was most tired, nothing else signified.\n\nThe only flaw to Lavinia's content was the need of money. Not that she was stinted, or ever refused anything that he could in reason give her; but her wants were never reasonable. She would demand a new town chariot, upholstered in pale blue, not because her own was worn or shabby, but because she was tired of its crimson cushions. Or she would suddenly take a fancy to some new, and usually fabulously expensive toy, and having acquired it, weary of it in a week.\n\nWithout a murmur, Richard gave her lap-dogs (of the real kind), black pages, jewels, and innumerable kickshaws, for which she rewarded him with her highest smiles and tenderest caresses. But when she required him to refurnish Wyncham House in the style of the French Court, throwing away all the present Queen Anne furniture, the tapestries, and the countless old trappings that were one and all so beautiful and so valuable, he put his foot down with a firmness that surprised her. Not for any whim of hers was Jack's house to be spoiled. Neither her coaxing nor her tears had any effect upon Richard, and when she reverted to sulks, he scolded her so harshly that she was frightened, and in consequence silenced.\n\nFor a week she thought and dreamt of nothing but gilded French chairs, and then abruptly, as all else, the fancy left her, and she forgot all about it. Her mantua-maker's bills were enormous, and caused Richard many a sleepless night, but she was always so charmingly penitent that he could not find it in his heart to be angry; and, after all, he reflected, he would rather have his money squandered on her adornment than on that of her brothers. She was by turns passionate and cold to him: one day enrapturing him by some pretty blandishment, the next snapping peevishly when he spoke to her.\n\nAt the beginning of the season he dutifully conducted her to routs and bals masqu\u00e9s, but soon she began to go always with either Andrew or Robert, both of whom were in town, and whose casual chaperonage she much preferred to Richard's solicitous care. Tracy was rarely in London for more than a few days at a time, and the Carstares, greatly to Richard's relief, saw but little of him. Carstares disliked Colonel Lord Robert Belmanoir, but the Duke he detested, not only for his habitual sneer towards him, but for the influence that he undoubtedly held over Lavinia. Richard was intensely jealous of this, and could sometimes hardly bring himself to be civil when his Grace visited my lady. Whether justly or not, he inwardly blamed Tracy for all Lavinia's crazy whims and periodical fits of ill-temper. It did not take his astute Grace long to discover this, and with amused devilry he played upon it, encouraging Lavinia in her extravagance, and making a point of calling on her whenever he was in town.\n\nCarstares never knew when not to expect to find him there; he came and went to and from London with no warning whatsoever. No one ever knew where he was for more than a day at a time, and no one was in the least surprised if he happened to be seen in London when he should, according to all accounts, have been in Paris. They merely shrugged their shoulders, and exchanged glances, murmuring: 'Devil Belmanoir!' and wondering what fresh intrigue he was in.\n\nSo altogether Richard was not sorry when my lady grew suddenly sick of town and was seized with a longing for Bath. He had secretly hoped that she might return to Wyncham, but when she expressed no such wish, he stifled his own longing for home, shut up the London house, and took her and all her baggage to Bath, installing her in Queen Square in one of the most elegantly furnished houses in the place.\n\nLady Lavinia was at first charmed to be there again, delighted with the house, and transported over the excellencies of the new French milliner she had discovered.\n\nBut the milliner's bills proved monstrous, and the drawing-room of her house not large enough for the routs she contemplated giving. The air was too relaxing for her, and she was subject to constant attacks of the vapours that were as distressing to her household as they were to herself. The late hours made her head ache as it never ached in London, and the damp gave her a cold. Furthermore, the advent of an attractive and exceedingly wealthy little widow caused her many a bitter hour, to the considerable detriment of her good-temper.\n\nShe was lying on a couch in her white and gilt drawing-room one afternoon \u2013 alas! the craze for French furniture was o'er \u2013 smelling-bottle in hand and a bona fide ache in her head, when the door opened and Tracy walked into the room.\n\n'Good heavens!' she said faintly, and uncorked her salts.\n\nIt was his Grace's first appearance since she had come to Bath, and the fact that he had politely declined an invitation that she had sent him still rankled in her mind. He bowed over the limp hand that she extended, and looked her up and down.\n\n'I regret to find you thus indisposed, my dear sister,' he said smoothly.\n\n''Tis nought. Only one of my stupid headaches. I am never well here, and this house is stuffy,' she answered fretfully.\n\n'You should take the waters,' he said, scrutinising, through his eyeglass, the chair to which she had waved him. 'It has an unstable appearance, my dear; I believe I prefer the couch.' He moved to a smaller sofa and sat down.\n\n'Pray, how long have you been in Bath?' she demanded.\n\n'I arrived last Tuesday week.'\n\nLady Lavinia started up.\n\n'Last Tuesday week? Then you have been here ten days and not visited me until now!'\n\nHe appeared to be examining the whiteness of his hands through the folds of black lace that drooped over them.\n\n'I believe I had other things to do,' he said coolly.\n\nA book of sermons that she had been trying to peruse slid to the ground as Lavinia jerked a cushion into place.\n\n'And you come to me when it suits you? How could you be so unkind as to refuse my invitation?' There was a rising, querulous note in her voice which gave warning of anger.\n\n'My dear Lavinia, if you exhibit your deplorable temper to me, I shall leave you, so have a care. I thought you would understand that your good husband's society, improving through it may be, would be altogether too oppressive for my taste. In fact, I was surprised at your letter.'\n\n'You might have come for my sake,' she answered peevishly, sinking back again. 'I suppose you have been dancing attendance on the Molesly woman? Lud! but I think you men have gone crazed.'\n\nUnderstanding came to his Grace, and he smiled provokingly.\n\n'Is that what upsets you? I wondered.'\n\n'No 'tis not!' she flashed. 'And I do not see why you should think so! For my part, I cannot see that she is even tolerable and the way the men rave about her is disgusting! Disgusting! But 'tis always the same when a woman is unattached and wealthy. Well! Well! Why do you not say something? Do you find her so lovely?'\n\n'To tell the truth, my dear, I have barely set eyes on the lady. I have been otherwise engaged, and I have done with all women, for the time, save one.'\n\n'So I have heard you say before. Do you contemplate marriage? Lud! but I pity the girl.' She gave a jeering little laugh, but it was evident that she was interested.\n\nHis Grace was not in the least ruffled.\n\n'I do not contemplate marriage, Lavinia, so your sympathies are wasted. I have met a girl \u2013 a mere child, for sure \u2013 and I will not rest until I have her.'\n\n'Lord! Another farmer's chit?'\n\n'No, my dear sister, not another farmer's chit. A lady.'\n\n'God help her! Who is she? Where does she live?'\n\n'She lives in Sussex. Her name I shall not tell you.'\n\nHer ladyship kicked an offending cushion on to the floor, and snapped at him.\n\n'Oh, as you please! I shall not die of curiosity!'\n\n'Ah!' The cynical lips curled annoyingly, and Lady Lavinia was seized with a mad desire to hurl her smelling-bottle at him. But she knew that it was worse than useless to be angry with Tracy, so she yawned ostentatiously, and hoped that she irritated him. If she did, she got no satisfaction from it, for he continued, quite imperturbably:\n\n'She is the daintiest piece ever a man saw, and I'll swear there's blood and fire beneath the ice!'\n\n'Is it possible the girl will have none of your Grace?' wondered Lavinia in mock amazement, and had the pleasure of seeing him frown.\n\nThe thin brows met over his arched nose, and the eyes glinted a little, while she caught a glimpse of cruel white teeth closing on a sensual under-lip. She watched his hand clench on his snuff-box, and exulted silently at having roused him. It was a very brief joy, however, for the next moment the frown had disappeared, the hand unclenched, and he was smiling again.\n\n'At present she is cold,' he admitted, 'but I hope that in time she will become more plastic. I think, Lavinia, I have some experience with your charming, if capricious sex.'\n\n'I don't doubt you have. Where did you meet this perverse beauty?'\n\n'In the Pump Room.'\n\n'Lud! Pray, describe her.'\n\n'I shall be delighted. She is taller than yourself, and dark. Her hair is like a dusky cloud of black, and it ripples off her brow and over her little ears in a most damnably alluring fashion. Her eyes are brown, but there are lights in them that are purest amber, and yet they are dark and velvety \u2013'\n\nMy lady had recourse to the smelling-bottle.\n\n'But I perceive I weary you. A man in love, my dear Lavinia \u2013'\n\nShe was up again at that.\n\n'In love? You? Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense! You do not know what the word means. You are like a \u2013 like a fish, with no more of love in you than a fish, and no more heart than a fish, and \u2013'\n\n'Spare me the rest, I beg. I am very clammy, I make no doubt, but you will at least accord me more brain than a fish?'\n\n'Oh, you have brain enough!' she raged. 'Brain for evil! I grant you that!'\n\n'It is really very kind of you \u2013'\n\n'The passion you feel now is not love. It is \u2013 it is \u2013'\n\n'Your pardon, my dear, but at the present moment I am singularly devoid of all strenuous emotions, so your remark is \u2013'\n\n'Oh, Tracy, Tracy, I am even quarrelling with you!' she cried wretchedly. 'Oh, why? \u2013 why?'\n\n'You are entirely mistaken, my dear. This is but the interchange of compliments. Pray, do not let me hinder you in the contribution of your share!'\n\nHer lip trembled.\n\n'Go on, Tracy, go on.'\n\n'Very well. I had described her eyes, I think?'\n\n'Very tediously.'\n\n'I will strive to be brief. Her lips are the most kissable that I have ever seen \u2013'\n\n'And, as you remarked, you have experience,' she murmured.\n\nHe bowed ironically.\n\n'Altogether she's as spirited a filly as you could wish for. All she needs is bringing to heel.'\n\n'Does one bring a filly to heel? I rather thought \u2013'\n\n'As usual, my dear Lavinia, you are right: one does not. One breaks in a filly. I beg leave to thank you for correcting my mixed metaphor.'\n\n'Oh, pray do not mention it.'\n\n'I will cease to do so. She needs breaking in. It should be amusing to tame her.'\n\n'Should it?' She looked curiously at him.\n\n'Vastly. And I am persuaded it can be done. I will have her.'\n\n'But what if she'll none of you?'\n\nSuddenly the heavy lids were raised.\n\n'She will have no choice.'\n\nLady Lavinia shivered and sat up.\n\n'La, Tracy! Will you have no sense of decency?' she cried. 'I suppose,' she sneered, 'you think to kidnap the girl?'\n\n'Exactly,' he nodded.\n\nShe gasped at the effrontery of it.\n\n'Heavens, are you mad? Kidnap a lady! This is no peasant girl, remember. Tracy, Tracy, pray do not be foolish! How can you kidnap her?'\n\n'That, my dear, is a point which I have not yet decided. But I do not anticipate much trouble.'\n\n'But goodness gracious me! has the child no protectors? No brothers? No father?'\n\n'There is a father,' said Tracy slowly. 'He was here at the beginning of their stay. He does not signify, and, which is important, he is of those that truckle. Were I to make myself known to him, I believe I might marry the girl within an hour. But I do not want that. At least \u2013 not yet.'\n\n'Good God, Tracy! do you think you are living in the Dark Ages? One cannot do these things now, I tell you! Will you not at least remember that you represent our house? 'Twill be a pretty thing an there is a scandal!' She broke off helplessly and watched him flick a remnant of snuff from his cravat.\n\n'Oh, Tracy! 'Tis indeed a dangerous game you play. Pray consider!'\n\n'Really, Lavinia, you are most entertaining. I trust I am capable of caring for myself and mine own honour.'\n\n'Oh, don't sneer \u2013 don't sneer!' she cried. 'Sometimes I think I quite hate you!'\n\n'You would be the more amusing, my dear.'\n\nShe swept the back of her hand across her eyes in a characteristic movement.\n\n'How cross I am!' she said, and laughed waveringly. 'You must bear with me, Tracy. Indeed, I am not well.'\n\n'You should take the waters,' he repeated.\n\n'Oh, I do! \u2013 I do! And that reminds me that I must look for your beauty.'\n\n'She is not like to be there,' he answered. ''Tis only very seldom that she appears.'\n\n'What! Is she then religieuse?'\n\n'Religieuse! Why, in heaven's name?'\n\n'But not to walk in the Rooms \u2013 !'\n\n'She is staying here with her aunt, who has been ill. They do not mix much in society.'\n\n'How very dreadful! Yet she used to walk in the Rooms, for you met her there?'\n\n'Yes,' he admitted coolly. ''Tis for that reason that she now avoids them.'\n\n'Oh, Tracy, the poor child!' exclaimed his sister in a sudden fit of pity. 'How can you persecute her, if she dislikes you?'\n\n'She does not.'\n\n'Not! Then \u2013'\n\n'Rather, she fears me. But she is intrigued, for all that. I persecute her, as you call it, for her own (and my) ultimate good. But they quit Bath in a few days, and then, nous verrons!' He rose. 'What of Honest Dick?'\n\n'Don't call him by that odious name! I will not have it!'\n\n'Odious, my dear? Odious? You would have reason an I called him Dishonest Dick.'\n\n'Don't! Don't!' she cried, covering her ears.\n\nHis Grace laughed softly.\n\n'Oh, Lavinia, you must get the better of these megrims of yours, for there is nought that sickens a man sooner, believe me.'\n\n'Oh, go away! \u2013 go away!' she implored. 'You tease me and tease me until I cannot bear it, and indeed I do not mean to be shrewish! Please go!'\n\n'I am on the point of doing so, my dear. I trust you will have in a measure recovered when next I see you. Pray bear my respects to Hon \u2013 to the Honourable Richard.'\n\nShe stretched out her hand.\n\n'Come again soon!' she begged. 'I shall be better tomorrow! 'Tis only to-day that my head aches till I could shriek with the worry and the pain of it! Come again!'\n\n'Unfortunately I anticipate leaving Bath within a day or two. But nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to comply with your wishes.' He kissed her hand punctiliously, and took his leave. At the door he paused, and looked back mockingly. 'By the way \u2013 her name is \u2013 Diana.' He bowed again and swept out, as Lavinia buried her face in the cushions and burst into tears.\n\nIt was thus that Richard found her, twenty minutes later and his concern was so great that it in part restored her spirits, and she spent a quiet and, for him, blissful evening, playing at piquet.\n\nIn the middle of a game she suddenly flung down her hand and caught at his wrist.\n\n'Dicky, Dicky \u2013 I will go home!'\n\n'Go home? What do you mean? Not \u2013'\n\n'Yes, yes \u2013 Wyncham! Why not?'\n\n'My dear, do you mean it?' His voice quivered with joyful surprise, and the cards slipped from his hands.\n\n'Yes, I mean it! But take me quickly before I change my mind! I can sleep at Wyncham, and here I lie awake all night, and my head aches. Take me home and I will try to be a better wife! Oh, Dicky, have I been tiresome and exacting? I did not mean to be! Why do you let me?' She came quickly round the table and knelt at his side, giving no heed to the crumpling of her billowing silks. 'I have been a wicked, selfish woman!' she said vehemently. 'But indeed I will be better. You must not let me be bad \u2013 you must not, I tell you!'\n\nHe flung his arm about her plump shoulders and drew her tightly to him.\n\n'When I get you home at Wyncham, I promise you I will finely hector you, sweetheart,' he said, laughing to conceal his deeper feelings. 'I shall make you into a capital housewife!'\n\n'And I will learn to make butter,' she nodded. 'Then I must wear a dimity gown with a muslin apron and cap. Oh, yes, yes \u2013 a dimity gown!' She sprang up and danced to the middle of the room. 'Shall I not be charming, Richard?'\n\n'Very charming, Lavinia!'\n\n'Of course! Oh, we will go home at once \u2013 at once! But first I must procure some new gowns from Margu\u00e9rite!'\n\n'To make butter in, dear?' he protested.\n\nShe was not attending.\n\n'A dimity gown \u2013 or shall it be of tiffany with a quilted petticoat? Or both?' she chanted. 'Dicky, I shall set a fashion in country toilettes!'\n\nDicky sighed.\n\n# Seven\n\nIntroducing Sundry New Characters\n\nNot twenty minutes' walk from Lady Lavinia's house in Queen Square resided a certain Madam Thompson \u2013 a widow \u2013 who had lived in Bath for nearly fifteen years. With her was staying Miss Elizabeth Beauleigh and her niece, Diana. Madam Thompson had been at a seminary with Miss Elizabeth when both were girls, and they had ever afterwards kept up their friendship, occasionally visiting one another, but more often contenting themselves with the writing of lengthy epistles, full of unimportant scraps of news and much gossip, amusing only on Miss Elizabeth's side, and on the widow's uninteresting and rambling.\n\nIt was a great joy to Madam Thompson when she received a letter from Miss Beauleigh begging that she and her niece might be allowed to pay a visit to her house in Bath, and to stay at least three weeks. The good lady was delighted at having her standing invitation at last accepted, and straight-way wrote back a glad assent. She prepared her very best bedchamber for Miss Beauleigh, who, she understood, was coming to Bath principally for a change of air and scene after a long and rather trying illness.\n\nIn due course the two ladies arrived, the elder very small and thin, and birdlike in her movements; the younger moderately tall, and graceful as a willow tree, with great candid brown eyes that looked fearlessly out on to the world, and a tragic mouth that belied a usually cheerful disposition, and hinted at a tendency to look on the gloomy side of life.\n\nMadam Thompson, whose first meeting with Diana this was, remarked on the sad mouth to Miss Elizabeth, or Betty as she was more often called, as they sat over the fire on the first night, Diana herself having retired to her room.\n\nMiss Betty shook her head darkly and prophesied that her precious Di would one day love some man as no man in her opinion deserved to be loved!\n\n'And she'll have love badly,' she said, clicking her knitting-needles energetically. 'I know these temperamental children!'\n\n'She looks so melancholy,' ventured the widow.\n\n'Well there you are wrong!' replied Miss Betty. ''Tis the sunniest-tempered child, and the sweetest-natured in the whole wide world, bless her! But I don't deny that she can be miserable. Far from it. I've known her weep her pretty eyes out over a dead puppy even! But usually she is gay enough.'\n\n'I fear this house will be dull and stupid for her,' said Madam Thompson regretfully. 'If only my dear son George were at home to entertain her \u2013'\n\n'My love, pray do not put yourself out! I assure you Diana will not at all object to a little quiet after the life she has been leading in town this winter with her friend's family.'\n\nWhatever Diana thought of the quiet, she at least made no complaint, and adapted herself to her surroundings quite contentedly.\n\nIn the morning they would all walk as far as the Assembly Rooms, and Miss Betty would drink the waters in the old Pump Room, pacing sedately up and down with her friend on one side and her niece on the other. Madame Thompson had very few acquaintances in Bath, and the people she did know were all of her own age and habits, rarely venturing as far as the crowded fashionable quarter; so Diana had to be content with the society of the two old ladies, who gossiped happily enough together, but whose conversation she could not but find singularly uninteresting.\n\nShe watched the monde with concealed wistfulness, seeing Beau Nash strut about among the ladies, bowing with his extreme gallantry, always impeccably garbed, and in spite of his rapidly increasing age and bulk still absolute monarch of Bath. She saw fine painted madams in enormous hoops, and with their hair so extravagantly curled and powdered that it appeared quite grotesque, mincing along with their various cavaliers; elderly beaux with coats padded to hide their shrunken shoulders, and paint to fill the wrinkles on their faces; young rakes; stout dowagers with their demure daughters; old ladies who had come to Bath for their health's sake; titled folk of fashion, and plain gentry from the country \u2013 all parading before her eyes.\n\nOne or two young bucks tried to ogle her, and received such indignant glances from those clear eyes, that they never dared annoy her again, but for the most part no one paid any heed to the unknown and plainly clad girl.\n\nThen came his Grace of Andover upon the stage.\n\nHe drew Diana's attention from the first moment that he entered the Pump Room \u2013 a black moth amongst the gaily-hued butterflies. He had swept a comprehensive glance round the scene and at once perceived Diana. Somehow, exactly how she could never afterwards remember, he had introduced himself to her aunt and won that lady's good will by his smoothness of manner and polished air. Madam Thompson, who, left to herself, never visited the Assembly Rooms, could not be expected to recognise Devil Belmanoir in the simple Mr Everard who presented himself.\n\nAs he had told his sister, Diana was cold. There was something about his Grace that repelled her, even while his mesmeric personality fascinated. He was right when he said that she feared him; she was nervous, and the element of fear gave birth to curiosity. She was intrigued, and began to look forward to his daily appearance in the Pump Room with mingled excitement and apprehension. She liked his flattering attention, and his grand air. Often she would watch him stroll across the floor, bowing to right and left with that touch of insolence that characterised him, and rejoiced in the knowledge that he was coming straight to her, and that the painted beauties who so palpably ogled and invited him to their sides could not alter his course. She felt her power with a thrill of delight, and smiled upon Mr Everard, giving him her hand to kiss, and graciously permitting him to sit with her beside her aunt. He would point out all the celebrities of town and Bath for her edification, recalling carefully chosen and still more carefully censored anecdotes of each one. She discovered that Mr Everard was an entertaining and harmless enough companion, and even expanded a little, allowing him a glimpse of her whimsical nature with its laughter and its hint of tears.\n\nHis Grace of Andover saw enough to guess at the unsounded depths in her soul, and he became lover-like. Diana recoiled instinctively, throwing up a barrier of reserve between them. It was not what he said that alarmed her, but it was the way in which he said it, and the vague something in the purring, faintly sinister voice that she could not quite define, that made her heart beat unpleasantly fast, and the blood rush to her temples. She began first to dread the morning promenade, and then to avoid it. One day she had a headache; the next her foot was sore; another time she wanted to work at her fancy stitchery, until her aunt, who knew how she disliked her needle, and how singularly free from headaches and all petty ailments she was wont to be, openly taxed her with no longer wishing to walk abroad.\n\nThey were in the girl's bedroom at the time, Diana seated before her dressing-table, brushing out her hair for the night. When her aunt put the abrupt question she hesitated, caught a long strand in her comb, and pretended to be absorbed in its disentanglement. The clouds of rippling hair half hid her face, but Miss Betty observed how her fingers trembled, and repeated her question. Then came the confession. Mr Everard was unbearable; his attentions were odious; his continued presence revolting to Mistress Di. She was afraid of him, afraid of his dreadful green eyes and of his soft voice. She wished they had never come to Bath, and still more that they had not met him. He looked at her as if \u2013 as if \u2013 oh, in short, he was hateful.\n\nMiss Betty was horrified.\n\n'You cannot mean it! Dear, dear, dear! Here was I thinking what a pleasant gentleman he was, and all the time he was persecuting my poor Di, the wretch! I know the type, my love, and I feel inclined to give him a good piece of my mind!'\n\n'Oh, no \u2013 no!' implored Diana. 'Indeed, you must do no such thing, Auntie! He had said naught that I could possibly be offended at \u2013 'tis but his manner, and the \u2013 and the way he looked at me. Indeed, indeed, you must not!'\n\n'Tut, child! Of course I shall say naught. But it makes me so monstrous angry to think of my poor lamb being tormented by such as he that I declare I could tear his eyes out! Yes, my dear, I could! Thank goodness we are leaving Bath next week!'\n\n'Yes,' sighed Diana. 'I cannot help being glad, though Madam Thompson is very amiable! 'Tis so very different when there is no man with one!'\n\n'You are quite right, my love. We should have insisted on your father's staying with us instead of allowing him to fly back to his fusty, musty old volumes. I shall not be so foolish another time, I can assure you. But we need not go to the Assembly Rooms again.'\n\n'I need not go,' corrected Diana gently. 'Of course you and Madam Thompson will continue to.'\n\n'To tell the truth, my love,' confessed Miss Betty, 'I shall not be sorry for an excuse to stay away. 'Tis doubtless most ill-natured of me, but I cannot but think that Hester has altered sadly since last I saw her. She is always talking of sermons and good works!'\n\nDiana twisted her luxuriant hair into a long plait, and gave a gurgling little laugh.\n\n'Oh, Auntie, is it not depressing? I wondered how you could tolerate it! She is so vastly solemn, poor dear thing!'\n\n'Well,' said Miss Betty charitably, 'she has seen trouble, has Hester Thompson, and I have my doubts about this George of hers. A worthless young man, I fear, from all accounts. But, unkind though it may be, I shall be glad to find myself at home again, and that's the truth!' She rose and picked up her candle. 'In fact, I find Bath not half so amusing as I was told 'twould be.'\n\nDiana walked with her to the door.\n\n''Tis not amusing at all when one has no friends; but last year, when my cousins were with us and papa took a house for the season on the North Parade, 'twas most enjoyable. I wish you had been there, instead of with that disagreeable Aunt Jennifer!'\n\nShe kissed her relative most affectionately and lighted her across the landing to her room. Then she returned to her room and shut the door, giving a tired little yawn.\n\nIt was about that moment that his Grace of Andover was ushered into the already crowded card-room of my Lord Avon's house in Catharine Place, and was greeted with ribald cries of 'Oho, Belmanoir!' and 'Where's the lady, Devil?'\n\nHe walked coolly forward into the full light of a great pendant chandelier, standing directly beneath it, the diamond order on his breast burning and winking like a living thing. The diamonds in his cravat and on his fingers glittered every time he moved, until he seemed to be carelessly powdered with iridescent gems. As usual, he was clad in black, but it would have been difficult to find any other dress in the room more sumptuous or more magnificent than his sable satin with its heavy silver lacing, and shimmering waistcoat. Silver lace adorned his throat and fell in deep ruffles over his hands, and in defiance of Fashion, which decreed that black alone should be worn to tie the hair, he displayed long silver ribands, very striking against his unpowdered head.\n\nHe raised his quizzing glass and looked round the room with an air of surprised hauteur. Lord Avon, leaning back in his chair at one of the tables, shook a reproving finger at him.\n\n'Belmanoir, Belmanoir, we have seen her and we protest she is too charming for you!'\n\n'In truth, we think we should be allowed a share in the lady'th thmileth,' lisped one from behind him, and his Grace turned to face dainty, effeminate little Viscount Fotheringham, who stood at his elbow, resplendent in salmon-pink satin and primrose velvet, with skirts so full and stiffly whale-boned that they stood out from his person, and heels so high that instead of walking he could only mince.\n\nTracy made a low leg.\n\n'Surely shall you have a share in her smiles an she wills it so,' he purred, and a general laugh went up which caused the fop to flush to the ears, as he speedily effaced himself.\n\nHe had been one of those who had tried to accost Diana, and gossip-loving Will Stapely, with him at the time, had related the story of his discomfiture to at least half-a-dozen men, who immediately told it to others, vastly amused at the pertinacious Viscount's rebuff.\n\n'What was it Selwyn said?' drawled Sir George Markham, shuffling cards at Lord Avon's table.\n\nDavenant looked across at him inquiringly.\n\n'George? Of Belmanoir? When?'\n\n'Oh, at White's one night \u2013 I forget \u2013 Jack Cholmondely was there \u2013 he would know; and Harry Walpole. 'Twas of Devil and his light o'loves \u2013 quite apt, on the whole.'\n\nCholmondely looked up.\n\n'Did I hear my name?'\n\n'Ay. What was it George said of Belmanoir at White's the night Gilly made that absurd bet with Ffolliott?'\n\n'When Gilly \u2013 oh, yes, I remember. 'Twas but an old hexameter tag, playing on his name: \"Est bellum bellis vellum bellare puellis.\" He seemed to think it a fitting motto for a ducal house.'\n\nThere was another general laugh at this. Markham broke in on it:\n\n'Who is she, Tracy?'\n\nHis Grace turned.\n\n'Who is who?' he asked languidly.\n\nLord Avon burst out laughing.\n\n'Oh, come now, Belmanoir, that won't do! It really will not! Who is she, indeed!'\n\n'Ay, Belmanoir, who is the black-haired beauty, and where did you find her?' cried Tom Wilding, pressing forward with a glass in one hand and a bottle of port in the other. 'I thought you were captivated by Cynthia Evans?'\n\nTracy looked bewildered for the moment and then a light dawned on him.\n\n'Evans! Ah, yes! The saucy widow who lived in Kensington, was it not? I remember.'\n\n'He had forgotten!' cried Avon, and went off into another of the noisy laughs that had more than once caused Mr Nash to shudder and to close his august eyes. 'You'll be the death of me, Devil! Gad! but you will!'\n\n'Oh, I trust not. Thank you, Wilding.' He accepted the glass that Tom offered, and sipped delicately.\n\n'But you've not answered!' reminded Fortescue from another table. He dealt the cards round expertly. 'Is it hands off, perhaps?'\n\n'Certainly,' replied his Grace. 'It generally is, Frank, as you know.'\n\n'To my cost!' was the laughing rejoinder, and Fortescue rubbed his sword arm as if in memory of some hurt. 'You pinked me finely, Tracy!'\n\n'Clumsily, Frank, clumsily. It might have been quicker done.'\n\nThe Viscount, who had been a second at the meeting, tittered amiably.\n\n'Neatetht thing I ever thaw, 'pon my honour. All over in leth than a minute, Avon! Give you my word!'\n\n'Never mind, you had fought Devil, Frank? What possessed you?'\n\n'I was more mad than usual, I suppose,' replied Fortescue in his low, rather dreamy voice, 'and I interfered between Tracy and his French singer. He objected most politely, and we fought it out in Hyde Park.'\n\n'Gad, yes!' exclaimed his partner, Lord Falmouth. 'Why, I was Devil's second! But it was ages ago!'\n\n'Two years,' nodded Fortescue, 'but I have not forgotten, you see!'\n\n'Lord, I had! And 'twas the funniest fight I ever saw, with you as furious as could be and Devil cool as a cucumber. You were never much of a swordsman, Frank, but that morning you thrust so wildly that stap me if I didn't think Devil would run you through. 'Stead of that he pinks you neatly through the sword-arm, and damme if you didn't burst out laughing fit to split! And we all walked off to breakfast with you, Frank, as jolly as sandboys. Heavens, yes! That was a fight!'\n\n'It was amusing,' admitted Tracy at Fortescue's elbow. 'Don't play, Frank.'\n\nFortescue flung his cards face downwards on the table. 'Curse you, Tracy, you've brought bad luck!' he said entirely without rancour. 'I had quite tolerable hands before you came.'\n\n'Belmanoir, I will thtake my chestnut mare 'gaintht your new grey,' lisped the Viscount, coming up to the table, dice-box in hand.\n\n'Stap me, but that is too bad!' cried Wilding. 'Don't take him, Devil! Have you see the brute?'\n\nThe four players had finished their card-playing and were quite ready for the dice.\n\n'Trust in your luck, Belmanoir, and take him!' advised Pritchard, who loved hazarding other men's possessions, but kept a tight hold on his own.\n\n'Ay, take him!' echoed Falmouth.\n\n'Don't,' said Fortescue.\n\n'Of course I shall take him,' answered his Grace tranquilly. 'My grey against your chestnut and the best of three. Will you throw?'\n\nThe Viscount rattled his box with a flourish. Two threes and a one turned up.\n\nWith a hand on Fortescue's shoulder, and one foot on the rung of his chair, Tracy leaned forward and cast his own dice on to the table. He had beaten the Viscount's throw by five. The next toss Fotheringham won, but the last fell to his Grace.\n\n'Damnathion!' said the Viscount cheerfully. 'Will you thtake your grey againtht my Terror?'\n\n'Thunder and turf, Fotheringham! You'll lose him!' cried Nettlefold warningly. 'Don't stake the Terror!'\n\n'Nonthenth! Do you take me, Belmanoir?'\n\n'Certainly,' said the Duke, and threw.\n\n'Oh, an you are in a gaming mood, I will play you for the right to try my hand with the dark beauty!' called Markham across the room.\n\n'Against what?' asked Fortescue.\n\n'Oh, what he wills!'\n\nThe Viscount had cast and lost, and his Grace won the second throw.\n\n'It appears my luck is in,' he remarked. 'I will stake my beauty against your estates, Markham.'\n\nSir Gregory shook his head, laughing.\n\n'No, no! Keep the lady!'\n\n'I intend to, my dear fellow. She is not your style. I begin to wonder whether she altogether suits my palate.' He drew out his snuff-box and offered it to his host, and the other men finding that he was proof against their railing, allowed the subject to drop.\n\nIn the course of the evening his Grace won three thousand guineas \u2013 two at ombre and one at dice \u2013 lost his coveted grey hunter and won him back again from Wilding, to whom he had fallen. He came away at three o'clock in company with Fortescue, both perfectly cool-headed, although his Grace, for his part, had imbibed a considerable quantity of burgundy, and more punch than any ordinary man could take without afterwards feeling very much the worse for wear.\n\nAs my Lord Avon's door closed behind them, Tracy turned to his friend:\n\n'Shall we walk, Frank?'\n\n'Since our ways lie together, yes,' replied Fortescue, linking his arm in the Duke's. 'Down Brock Street and across the Circus is our quickest way.'\n\nThey strolled down the road for a few moments in silence, passing a linkman on the way. Fortescue bade him a cheery good-night, which was answered in a very beery voice, but the Duke said nothing. Frank looked into his dark-browed face thoughtfully.\n\n'You've had the luck, to-night, Tracy.'\n\n'Moderately. I hoped entirely to repair last week's losses.'\n\n'You are in debt, I suppose?'\n\n'I believe so.'\n\n'To what extent, Tracy?'\n\n'My dear fellow, I neither have, nor wish to have, the vaguest notion. Pray do not treat me to a sermon!'\n\n'I shall not. I've said all I have to say on the subject.'\n\n'Many times.'\n\n'Yes \u2013 many times. And it has had no more effect upon you than if I had not spoken.'\n\n'Less.'\n\n'I daresay, I wish it were not so, for there's good in you somewhere, Tracy.'\n\n'By what strange process of reasoning do you arrive at that?'\n\n'Well,' said Fortescue laughing, 'there's nearly always some good in the very worst of men. I count on that \u2013 and your kindness to me.'\n\n'I should be interested to know when I have been kind to you \u2013 beyond the time when I was compelled to teach you to leave me and my affairs alone.'\n\n'I was not referring to that occasion,' was the dry answer. 'I had not seen your act in that light. I meant well over the episode.'\n\n'You could not damn yourself more effectually than by saying that,' said his Grace calmly. 'But we wander from the point. When have I done you an act of kindness?'\n\n'You know very well. When you extricated me from that cursed sponging-house.'\n\n'I remember now. Yes, that was good of me. I wonder why I did it?'\n\n''Tis what I want to know.'\n\n'I suppose I must have had some sort of an affection for you. I would certainly never have done such a thing for anyone else.'\n\n'Not even for your own brother!' said Frank sharply.\n\nThey had crossed the Circus and were walking down Gay Street now.\n\n'Least of all for them,' came the placid response. 'You are thinking of Andrew's tragic act? Most entertaining, was it not?'\n\n'You evidently found it so.'\n\n'I did. I wanted to prolong the sensation, but my esteemed brother-in-law came to the young fool's rescue.'\n\n'Would you have assisted him?'\n\n'In the end I fear I should have had to.'\n\n'I believe there must be a kink in your brain!' cried Fortescue. 'I cannot else account for your extraordinary conduct!'\n\n'We Belmanoirs are all half-mad,' replied Tracy sweetly, 'but I think that in my case it is merely concentrated evil.'\n\n'I will not believe it! You have shown that you can behave differently! You do not try to strip me of all I possess \u2013 why all those unfortunate youths you play with?'\n\n'You see, you possess so little,' the Duke excused himself.\n\n'Neither do you sneer at me in your loathsome fashion. Why?'\n\n'Because I have hardly ever any desire to. I like you.'\n\n'Tare an' ouns! you must like someone else in the world besides me?'\n\n'I can think of no one. And I do not exactly worship the ground you tread on. The contemplation of my brothers appalls me. I have loved various women, and shall no doubt love many more \u2013'\n\n'No, Tracy,' interposed Fortescue, 'you have never loved a woman in your life. 'Tis that that might save you. I do not allude to the lustful passion you indulge in, but real love. For God's sake, Belmanoir, live clean!'\n\n'Pray do not distress yourself, Frank. I am not worth it.'\n\n'I choose to think that you are. I cannot but feel that if you had been loved as a boy \u2013 Your mother \u2013'\n\n'Did you ever see my mother?' inquired his Grace lazily.\n\n'No \u2013 but \u2013'\n\n'Have you ever seen my sister?'\n\n'Er \u2013 yes \u2013'\n\n'In a rage?'\n\n'Really, I \u2013'\n\n'Because, if you have, you have seen my mother. Only she was ten times more violent. In fact, we were a pleasant party when we were all at home.'\n\n'I understand.'\n\n'Good Gad! I believe you are sorry for me?' cried Tracy scornfully.\n\n'I am. Is it a presumption on my part?'\n\n'My dear Frank, when I am sorry for myself you may be sorry too. Until then \u2013'\n\n'When that day comes I shall no longer pity you.'\n\n'Very deep, Frank! You think I shall be on the road to recovery? A pretty conceit. Luckily, the happy moment has not yet come \u2013 and I do not think it is like to. We appear to have arrived.'\n\nThey were standing outside one of the tall houses where Fortescue lodged. He turned and grasped his friend's shoulders.\n\n'Tracy, give up this mad life you lead! Give up the women and the drink, and the excessive gaming; for one day, believe me, you will overstep yourself and be ruined!'\n\nThe Duke disengaged himself.\n\n'I very much object to being man-handled in the street,' he complained. 'I suppose you still mean well. You should strive to conquer the tendency.'\n\n'I wonder if you know how insolent is your tone, Belmanoir?' asked Fortescue steadily.\n\n'Naturally. I should not have attained such perfection in the art else. But pray accept my thanks for your good advice. You will forgive me an I do not avail myself of it, I am sure. I prefer the crooked path.'\n\n'Evidently,' sighed the other. 'If you will not try the straight and narrow way, I can only hope that you will fall very deeply and very honestly in love; and that the lady will save you from yourself.'\n\n'I will inform you of it when it comes to pass,' promised his Grace. 'And now good-night!'\n\n'Good-night!' Frank returned the low bow with a curt nod. 'I shall see you to-morrow \u2013 that is, this morning \u2013 at the Baths?'\n\n'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' was the smiling rejoinder. 'Sleep soundly, Frank!' He waved an ironic farewell and crossed the road to his own lodgings, which stood almost directly opposite.\n\n'And I suppose you will sleep as soundly as if you have not a stain on your conscience \u2013 and had not tried your uttermost to alienate the regard of the only friend you possess,' remarked Frank bitterly to the darkness. 'Damn you, Tracy, for the villain you are!' He walked up the steps to his own front door and turned the key in the lock. He looked over his shoulder as a door slammed across the street. 'Poor Devil!' he said. 'Oh, you poor Devil!'\n\n# Eight\n\nThe Biter Bit\n\nWith John Carstares the winter had passed quite uneventfully. He continued his highway robbery, but he made two bad blunders \u2013 not from the point of view of a thief, but from that of the gentleman in him. The first was when he stopped an opulent-looking chariot, which he found to contain two ladies, their maid and their jewels, and the second when the occupant of a large travelling coach chanced to be an old gentleman who possessed far greater courage than physical strength. On the first occasion my lord's dismay had been ludicrous, and he had hastily retired after tendering a na\u00efve apology. The old gentleman in the second episode had defied him so gallantly that he had impulsively offered him the butt end of one of his pistols. The old man was so surprised that he allowed the weapon to fall to the ground, when it exploded quite harmlessly, sending up a cloud of dust and smoke. Carstares then begged his pardon most humbly, assisted him back into his coach, and rode off before the astonished Mr Dunbar had time to collect his wits.\n\nThe robbing was not carried out in a very scientific manner, for, as has been seen, Carstares could not bring himself to terrorise women or old men, and there only remained the young and the middle-aged gentlemen, one of whom Jack offered to fight for the possession of his jewels. His challenge was promptly accepted by the man, who happened to possess a strong sense of humour, and probably saw a chance of saving his belongings in the offer. He had been speedily worsted, but Carstares was so pleased with a particularly neat thrust which he had executed, that he forwent half the booty, and the pair of them divided the contents of the jewel-box by the roadside, the sporting gentleman keeping his most valued belongings and giving Jack the surplus. They parted on the very best of terms, and all Carstares got out of the episode was a little sword practice and a few trinkets.\n\nWhen May came he was patrolling the west side of Sussex, beyond Midhurst, not because he thought it a profitable part, but because he knew and loved the country. One late afternoon towards the end of the month he rode gaily into one of the small villages that nestle amongst the Downs, and made his way down the quaint main street to the George Inn, where he drew rein and dismounted. At his call an aged ostler hobbled out of a side door, chewing an inevitable straw, and after eyeing the newcomer and his steed for an appreciable length of time, evidently decided that they were worthy of his attention, for he came forward, remarking that it had been a pleasant day.\n\nCarstares agreed with him, and volunteered the information that it would be another fine day to-morrow, if the sunset were to be trusted. To this the ostler replied that he, for one, never trusted to no red sunsets, and added darkly that there warn't nothing so deceitful to his manner o' thinking. He'd known it be such a red sunset as never was, and yet be a-pouring with rain all next day... Should he take the mare?\n\nCarstares shook his head.\n\n'No, I thank you. I remain here but a few moments. I doubt she's thirsty though \u2013 eh Jenny?'\n\n'Water, sir?'\n\n'For her, yes. For myself I fancy a tankard of your home-brewed ale. Stand, Jenny!' He turned away and walked up the steps to the inn door.\n\n'Be you a-going to leave her there, sir \u2013 a standing all by herself?' inquired the man, surprised.\n\n'Why, yes! She's docile enough.'\n\n'Well! Seems to me a risky thing to leave a hoss \u2013 and a skittish hoss at that \u2013 a-standing loose in the road. Ye won't be tying her to a post, master?'\n\nCarstares leaned his arms on the balustrade and looked down at them.\n\n'I will not. She'd be very hurt at such treatment, wouldn't you, lass?'\n\nJenny tossed her head playfully, as if in agreement, and the ostler scratched his head, looking from her to my lord:\n\n'A'most seems as if she understand what you be a-saying to her, sir!'\n\n'Of course she understands! Don't I tell you 'tis a clever little lady? If I call her now she'll come up these steps to me, and not all the ostlers in Christendom could stop her.'\n\n'Don't 'ee go for to do it, sir!' urged the old man, backing. 'She must be uncommon fond o' ye?'\n\n'She'd be a deal fonder of you if you'd fetch her a drink,' hinted Jack broadly.\n\n'Ay, sir! I be a-going this werry instant!' And with many an anxious glance over his shoulder at the perfectly quiet mare, he disappeared through an open doorway into the yard.\n\nWhen Carstares, tankard of ale in hand, emerged from the inn and sat himself down on one of the benches that stood against the wall, the mare was drinking thirstily from a bucket which the ancient one held for her.\n\n''Tis a wunnerful fine mare, sir,' he remarked at length, after a careful inspection of her points.\n\nCarstares nodded pleasantly, and surveyed Jenny through half-shut eyes.\n\n'I think so every time I look at her,' she said.\n\n'I should think she could get a bit of a pace on her, sir? Mebbe ye've tried her racing?'\n\n'No, she wasn't brought up to that. But she's fast enough.'\n\n'Ay, sir. No vices?'\n\n'Lord, no!'\n\n'Don't kick neither?'\n\n'Not with me.'\n\n'Oh! they allus knows who'll stand it and who won't.'\n\nJack drained his tankard, and setting it down on the bench beside him, rose to his feet.\n\n'She'd not dream of kicking a friend. Jenny!'\n\nThe ostler watched her pick her way towards her master, coquetting with her head, and sidling round him in the most playful manner possible. A slow smile dawned on the man's face.\n\n'Ah, it be a purty sight to watch her \u2013 so it be!' he said, and received a guinea from Jack, who never tired of listening to praise of his beloved Jenny.\n\nCarstares remounted, nodded farewell to the ostler, and rode leisurely on down the street, soon branching off to the right into a typical Sussex lane, where he trotted between uneven hedges, sweet with blossom and with May, and placid fields rolling away on either side, upwards until they merged into the undulating hills, barely discernible in the gloom, that are the downs. It was a wonderfully calm evening, with only a gentle west wind blowing, and the moon already shining faintly in the dark sky. There was nothing beyond the sound of the mare's hoofs to break the beautiful stillness of it all.\n\nHe rode for some way without meeting a soul, and when at the end of an hour someone did chance along the road it was only a labourer returning home to his supper after a long day in the fields. John bade him a cheery good evening and watched him pass on down the road humming.\n\nAfter that he met no one. He rode easily along for miles, into the fast-gathering darkness. He was frowning as he rode, thinking.\n\nCuriously, enough, it was on his penniless days in France that his mind dwelt this evening. He had resolutely thrust that dark time behind him, determined to forget it, but there were still days when, try as he might, he could not prevent his thoughts flying back to it.\n\nWith clenched teeth he recalled the days when he, the son of an Earl, had taught fencing in Paris for a living... Suddenly he laughed harshly, and at the unusual sound the mare pricked up her ears and sidled uneasily across the road. For once no notice was taken of her, and she quickened her pace with a flighty toss of her head...\n\nHe thought how he, the extravagant John, had pinched and scraped and saved rather than go under; how he had lived in one of the poorer quartiers of the city, alone, without friends \u2013 nameless.\n\nThen, cynically now, he reviewed the time when he had taken to drinking, heavily and systematically, and had succeeded in pulling himself up at the very brink of the pit he saw yawning before him.\n\nNext the news of his mother's death... John passed over that quickly. Even now the thought of it had the power of rousing in him all the old misery and impotent resentment.\n\nHis mind sped on to his Italian days. On his savings he had travelled to Florence, and from there he went gradually south, picking up all the latest arts and subtleties of fence on the way.\n\nThe change of scene and of people did much to restore his spirits. His devil-may-care ways peeped out again; he started to gamble on the little money he had left. For once Fortune proved kind; he doubled and trebled and quadrupled the contents of his purse. Then it was that he met Jim Salter, whom he engaged as his servant. This was the first friend since he had left England. Together they travelled about Europe, John gambling his way, Jim keeping a relentless hand on the exchequer. It was entirely owing to his watchfulness and care that John was not ruined, for his luck did not always hold good, and there were days when he lost with distressing steadiness. But Jim guarded the winnings jealously, and there was always something to fall back on.\n\nAt last the longing for England and English people grew so acute that John made up his mind to return. But he found that things in England were very different from what they had been abroad. Here he was made to feel acutely that he was outcast. It was impossible to live in town under an assumed name, as he would like to have done, for too many people knew Jack Carstares, and would remember him. He saw that he must either live secluded, or \u2013 and the idea of becoming a highwayman occurred to him. A hermit's existence he knew to be totally unsuited to a man of his temperament, but the free, adventurous spirit of the road appealed to him. The finding of his mare \u2013 J. the Third, as he laughingly dubbed her \u2013 decided the point; he forthwith took on himself the r\u00f4le of quixotic highwayman, roaming his beloved South Country, happier than he had been since he first left England; bit by bit regaining his youth and spirits, which last, not all the trouble he had been through had succeeded in extinguishing...\n\nClip-clop, clip-clop... With a jerk he came back to earth and reined-in his mare, the better to listen.\n\nAlong the road came the unmistakable sound of horses' hoofs, and the scrunch-scrunch of swiftly-revolving wheels on the sandy surface.\n\nBut now the moon was right out, but owing to the fact that she was playing at hide-and-seek in and out of the clouds, it was fairly dark. Nevertheless, Jack fastened his mask over his face with quick, deft fingers, and pulled his hat well over his eyes. His ears told him that the vehicle, whatever it was, was coming towards him, so he drew into the side of the road, and taking a pistol from its holster, sat waiting, his eyes on the bend in the road.\n\nNearer and nearer came the horses, until the leader swung round the corner. Carstares saw that it was an ordinary travelling chariot, and levelled his pistol.\n\n'Halt, or I fire!' He had to repeat the command before it was heard, and to ride out from the shadow of the hedge.\n\nThe chariot drew up and the coachman leaned over the side to see who it was bidding them to stop in so peremptory a manner.\n\n'What d'ye want? Who are ye? Is there aught amiss?' he cried testily, and found himself staring at a long-nosed pistol.\n\n'Throw down your arms!'\n\n'I ain't got none, blast ye!'\n\n'On your honour?' Jack dismounted.\n\n'Ay! Wish I had, and I'd see ye damned afore I'd throw 'em down!'\n\nAt this moment the door of the coach opened and a gentleman leapt lightly down on to the road. He was big and loose-limbed as far as Carstares could see, and carried himself with an easy grace.\n\nMy lord presented his pistol.\n\n'Stand!' he ordered gruffly.\n\nThe moon peeped coyly out from behind a cloud and shed her light upon the little group as if to see what all the fuss was about. The big man's face in the shadow, but Jack's pistol was not. Into its muzzle the gentleman gazed, one hand deep in the pocket of his heavy cloak, the other holding a small pistol.\n\n'Me very dear friend,' he said in a rich brogue, 'perhaps ye are not aware that that same pistol ye are pointing at me is unloaded? Don't move; I have ye covered!'\n\nJack's arm fell to his side, and the pistol he held clattered to the ground. But it was not surprise at Jim's defection that caused him that violent start. It was something far more overwhelming. For the voice that proceeded from the tall gentleman belonged to one whom, six years ago, he had counted, next to Richard, his greatest friend on earth.\n\nThe man moved a little, and the moonlight shone full on his face, clearly outlining the large nose and good-humoured mouth, and above, the sleepy grey eyes. Miles! Miles O'Hara! For once Jack could find nothing amusing in the situation. It was too inconceivably hideous that he should meet his friend in this guise, and, further, be unable to reveal himself. A great longing to tear off his mask and to grasp Miles' hand assailed him. With an effort he choked it down and listened to what O'Hara was saying:\n\n'If ye will be so kind as to give me your word of honour ye'll not be afther trying to escape, I should be greatly obliged. But I tell ye first that if ye attempt to move, I shall shoot.'\n\nJack made a hopeless gesture with his hand. He felt dazed. The whole thing was ridiculous; how Miles would laugh afterwards. He went cold. There would be no 'afterwards'... Miles would never know... He would be given over to the authorities, and Miles would never know that he had helped Jack Carstares to the scaffold... Perhaps, too, he would not mind so very much, now that he, Jack, was so disgraced. One could never tell; even if he risked everything now, and told his true identity, Miles might turn away from him in disgust, Miles, who could never stoop to a dishonourable act. Carstares felt that he would bear anything sooner than face this man's scorn...\n\n'Never tell me 'tis a dumb man ye are, for I heard ye shout meself! Do ye give me your word of honour, or must I have ye bound?'\n\nCarstares pulled himself together and set his teeth as he faced the inevitable. Escape was impossible; Miles would shoot, he felt sure, and then his disguise would be torn away and his friend would see that Jack Carstares was nothing but a common highwayman. Whatever happened, that must not be, for the sake of the name and Richard. So he quietly held out his hands.\n\n'Ay, I give you my word, but ye can bind me if ye choose.' It was his highwayman voice: raucous, and totally unlike his own.\n\nBut O'Hara's eyes were fixed on the slender white hands held out to him. In his usual haphazard fashion, Jack had quite forgotten to grime his hands. They were shapely and white, and carefully manicured.\n\nMiles took either wrist in his large hands and turned them palm upwards in the moonlight.\n\n'Singularly white hands ye have, for one in your profession,' he drawled, and tightened his hold as Jack tried to draw them away. 'No, ye do not! Now be so good as to step within, me friend.'\n\nJack held back an instant.\n\n'My mare?' he asked, and O'Hara noted the anxiety in his voice.\n\n'Ye need not be after worrying about her,' he said. 'George!'\n\nThe footman sprang forward.\n\n'Yessir?'\n\n'Ye see that mare? I want ye to ride her home. Can ye do it?'\n\n'Yessir.'\n\n'I doubt it,' murmured Jack.\n\nSo did Jenny. She refused point blank to allow this stranger to mount her. Her master had left her in one spot, and there she would stand until he chose to bid her move. In vain did the groom coax and coerce. She ran round him and seemed a transformed creature. She laid her ears flat and gnashed at the bit, ready to lash out furiously at the first opportunity.\n\nJack watched the man's futile struggles with the ghost of a smile about his lips.\n\n'Jenny!' he said quietly, and O'Hara looked round at him sharply, frowning. Unconsciously he had spoken naturally, and the voice was faintly familiar.\n\nJenny twitched the bridle from the perspiring groom and minced up to the prisoner.\n\n'Would ye allow me to have a hand free \u2013 sir?' he asked. 'Mebbe I can manage her.'\n\nWithout a word Miles released him, and he caught the bridle, murmuring something unintelligible to the now quiet animal.\n\nO'Hara watched the beautiful hand stroke her muzzle reassuringly, and frowned again. No ordinary highwayman this.\n\n'Mount her now, will 'ee?' Jack flung at the groom, and kept a warning hand on the rein as the man obeyed. With a final pat he turned away. 'She'll do now, sir.'\n\nO'Hara nodded.\n\n'Ye've trained her well. Get in, please.'\n\nJack obeyed, and in a minute or two O'Hara jumped in after him, and the coach began to move forward.\n\nFor a while there was silence, Carstares keeping himself well under control. It was almost unbearable to think that after this brief drive he would never set eyes on his friend again, and he wanted so badly to turn and grasp that strong hand...\n\nMiles turned in his seat and tried to see the masked face in the darkness.\n\n'Ye are a gentleman?' he asked, going straight to the point.\n\nJack was prepared for this.\n\n'Me, sir? Lor' no, sir!'\n\n'I do not believe ye. Don't be forgettin' I've seen your hands!'\n\n'Hands, sir?' in innocent bewilderment.\n\n'Sure, ye don't think I'd be believing ye an ordinary rogue, with hands like that?'\n\n'I don't rightly understand ye, sir?'\n\n'Bejabbers then, ye'll be understanding me to-morrow!'\n\n'To-morrow, sir?'\n\n'Certainly. Ye may as well tell me now as then. I'm not such a daft fool as I look, and I know a gentleman when I see one, even if he does growl at me as you do!' he chuckled. 'And I'd an odd feeling that I knew ye when ye spoke to the mare. I'd be loth to send a friend to the gallows.'\n\nHow well Jack knew that soft, persuasive voice. His hands clenched as he forced himself to answer.\n\n'I don't think I've ever seen ye afore, sir.'\n\n'Maybe ye have not. We shall see to-morrow.'\n\n'What do ye mean by to-morrow, sir?' ventured Carstares uneasily.\n\n'Sure, ye will have the honour of appearing before me, me friend.'\n\n'Before you, sir?'\n\n'Why not? I'm a Justice of the Peace, heaven save the mark!'\n\nThere was a breathless pause, and then at last the funny side of it struck Jack, and his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. The exquisite irony of it was almost too much for him. He, the Earl of Wyncham, was to be formally questioned by his friend St Miles O'Hara, J.P.!\n\n'What ails ye now, man? Ye find it amusing?' asked Miles, surprised.\n\n'Oh, Lud, yes!' gasped Jack, and collapsed into his corner.\n\n# Nine\n\nLady O'Hara Intervenes\n\nLady O'Hara found that her big, indolent husband was unusually silent next morning at breakfast. She had not been married long enough to consent to being practically ignored, no matter what the time of day, but she had been married quite long enough to know that before she took any direct action against him, she must first allow him to assuage his appetite. Accordingly she plied him with coffee and eggs, and with a satisfied and slightly motherly air, watched him attack a sirloin of beef. She was a pretty, bird-like little lady, with big eyes, and soft brown curls escaping from under a demure but very becoming mob cap. She measured five foot nothing in her stockings, and was sometimes referred to by her large husband as the Midget. Needless to say, this flippant appellation was in no wise encouraged by the lady.\n\nShe decided that Miles had come to the end of his repast, and, planting two dimpled elbows on the table, she rested her small chin in her hands and looked across at him with something of the air of an inquisitive kitten.\n\n'Miles!'\n\nO'Hara leaned back in his chair and at the sight of her fresh prettiness his brow cleared and he smiled.\n\n'Well, asthore?'\n\nA reproachful finger was raised and a pair of red lips pouted adorably.\n\n'Now, Miles, confess you've been vastly disagreeable this morning. Twice have I spoken to you and you've not troubled to answer me \u2013 nay, let me finish! And once you growled at me like a nasty bear! Yes, sir, you did!'\n\n'Did I now, Molly? 'Tis a surly brute you're after thinking me, then? Troth, and I've been sore perplexed, me dear.'\n\nLady O'Hara got up and sidled round to him.\n\n'Have you so, Miles?'\n\nHe flung an arm about her and drew her on to his knee.\n\n'Sure, yes, Molly.'\n\n'Well then, Miles, had you not better tell me what it is that troubles you?' she coaxed, laying a persuasive hand on his shoulder.\n\nHe smiled up at her.\n\n''Tis just an inquisitive puss you are!'\n\nAgain the pout.\n\n'And ye should not pout your pretty lips at me if ye are not wanting me to kiss them!' he added, suiting the action to the word.\n\n'But of course I do!' cried my lady, returning the kiss with fervour. 'Nay, Miles, tell me.'\n\n'I see ye mean to have the whole tale out of me, so \u2013'\n\n'To be sure I do!' she nodded.\n\nHe laid a warning finger on her lips and summoned up a mighty frown.\n\n'Now will ye be done interrupting, me lady?'\n\nNot a whit abashed, she bit the finger, pushed it away, and folding her hands in her lap, cast her eyes meekly heavenwards.\n\nWith a twinkle in his own eyes the Irishman continued:\n\n'Well, alanna, ye must know that yesterday evening I was at Kilroy's on a matter of business \u2013 and that reminds me, Molly, we had a hand or two at faro and the like before I left, and I had very distressing luck \u2013'\n\nOn a sudden my lady's demure air vanished.\n\n'Is that so, Miles? I make no doubt the stakes were prodigious high? Pray, how much have you lost?'\n\n'Whisht, darlin', 'tis a mere thrifle, I assure you... Well, as I was saying, on me way home, what should happen but that we be held up by one of these highwaymen \u2013'\n\nMy lady's eyes widened in horror, and two little hands clutched at his coat.\n\n'Oh, Miles!'\n\nHis arm tightened round her waist.\n\n'Sure, asthore, I'm still alive to tell the tale, though 'tis not far I'll be getting with you interrupting at every moment!'\n\n'But, Miles, how terrible! You might have been killed! And you never told me! 'Twas monstrous wicked of you, darling!'\n\n'Faith, Molly, how should I be telling you when 'twas yourself that was fast asleep? Now will you whisht?'\n\nShe nodded obediently, and dimpled.\n\n'Well, as I say, here was this man standing in the road, pointing his pistol at me. But will ye believe me, my love, when I tell you that that same pistol was as empty as \u2013 my own?' Here he was shaken with laughter. 'Lud, Molly, 'twas the drollest thing! I had me pistol in me hand, knowing 'twas unloaded, and wondering what the devil, saving your presence, was to be next, when the idea struck me that I should try to bluff me fine sir. So I cried out that his pistol was unloaded, and completely took him by surprise! Sure he hadn't time to ask himself how the devil I should be knowing that! He dropped it on the road. Afther \u2013'\n\n'Miles, you are becoming very Irish!'\n\n'Never say so, alanna. After that 'twas simple enough and me lord gave in. He held out his hands for me to bind \u2013 and here's where 'tis puzzling, Molly \u2013 I saw that they were a prodigious sight too white and fine for an ordinary highwayman. So I taxed him with it \u2013'\n\n''Twas a gentleman in disguise! How splendid, Miles!'\n\n'Will ye hold your tongue, asthore, and not be spoiling me story on me?'\n\n'Oh, indeed I am sorry! I will be good!'\n\n'\u2013 and he started and seemed monstrous put out. What's more, me dear, I heard him speak to his mare in an ordinary, gentleman's voice. Molly, ye never saw the like of that same mare! The sweetest \u2013'\n\n'Pray, never mind the mare, dear! I am all agog to hear about the gentleman-highwayman!'\n\n'Very well, me love, though 'twas a prodigious fine mare \u2013 When I heard him speak, it flashed across me brain that I knew him \u2013 no, ye don't Molly!' His hand was over her mouth as he spoke, and her eyes danced madly. 'But I could not for the life of me think where I had heard that voice: 'twas but the one word I heard him speak, ye understand, and when I held his wrists I felt that 'twas no stranger. And yet 'tis impossible. When I got him within the coach \u2013'\n\n'How imprudent! He might have \u2013'\n\n'Whisht now! When I got him within the coach I tried to worm his identity out of him, but 'twas to no avail. But when I told him he would have to appear before me to-day, he went off into a fit of laughing, till I wondered what he was at, at all. And not another word could I get out of him after beyond \"Yes, sir,\" and \"No, sir\". Still, I felt that 'twas a gentleman all the same, so I \u2013'\n\nHe was enveloped in a rapturous embrace.\n\n'You dear Miles! You let him escape?'\n\n'Sure, alanna, is it meself that would be doing the like? And me a Justice of the Peace withal? I told them not to handcuff me lord.'\n\n'Oh, I do so wish you had let him escape! But if 'tis really a gentleman, you will?'\n\n'I will not then, asthore. I'll be sending him to await the Assizes.'\n\n'You are very cruel, then.'\n\n'But, me darlin' \u2013'\n\n'And I wish to get off your knee.'\n\nHe drew her close.\n\n'I'll see what can be done for your prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Molly. But don't be forgetting he tried to kill the only husband you have!' He watched the effect of this with that humorous twinkle in his eye. But my lady was not to be put off.\n\n'With an empty pistol? Fie on you, Miles! And may I hide behind the screen while you question him?'\n\n'Ye may not.'\n\n'But I wish so much to see him!'\n\nO'Hara shook his head with an air of finality she knew full well. However easy-going and good-natured her husband might be, there were times when he was impervious to all blandishments. So after darkly hinting that she would be nearer than he imagined, she gave up the contest to go and visit young Master David in his nursery.\n\nFor some time in lock-up Carstares had cudgelled his brain to think out a possible mode of escape next day, but try as he might he could light on nothing. If only Miles were not to question him! It was hardly likely that he would be allowed to retain his mask, yet therein lay his only chance of preserving his incognito. He prayed that by some merciful providence O'Hara would either fail to recognise him or would at least pretend that he did not. Having decided that there was nothing further to be done in the matter he lay down on his extremely hard pallet, and went to sleep as if he had not a care in the world.\n\nNext morning, after a long and wordy argument with the head gaoler on the subject of masks, he was haled in triumph to the house.\n\nAs the little cavalcade was about to ascend the steps that led to the front door, my Lady O'Hara came gaily forth carrying a basket and a pair of scissors, and singing a snatch of song. At the sight of the highwayman the song broke off and her red lips formed a long-drawn 'Oh!' She stood quite still on the top step, gazing down at my lord. The two gaolers stood aside to allow her to come down, just as a greyhound darted up the steps and flung itself against her in an exuberance of joy. My lady, none too securely balanced, reeled; the basket fell from her arm, her foot missed the next step, and she tumbled headlong down. But in the flash of an eyelid Carstares had sprung forward and received her in his arms. He lowered her gently to the ground.\n\n'I trust you are not hurt, madam?' he asked, and retrieved her basket, handing it to her.\n\nMolly took it with a smile.\n\n'I thank you sir, not at all; though I fear I should have injured myself quite considerably had you not been so swift in catching me. 'Twas most kind of you, I am sure!' She extended her small hand, and her eyes devoured him.\n\nFor a moment my lord hesitated, and then, sweeping off his hat, he bowed low over the hand.\n\n''Twas less than nothing, madam,' he said in his own cultivated voice. 'I beg you will dismiss it from your mind.' He straightened himself as the gaolers came forward, and put on his hat again.\n\nLady O'Hara stepped aside and watched them disappear into the house. Her cheeks were rather flushed, and her eyes suspiciously bright. Suddenly she nodded her head decisively, and throwing away her luckless basket, hurried across the lawn and entered the house through a long window.\n\nMy lord was conducted to the library, where O'Hara sat awaiting him, and slouched forward with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his hat still on his head.\n\nThe head gaoler eyed him gloomily, and looked pained when Carstares with studied boorishness leaned carelessly against a fine carved table.\n\n'We 'ave refrained from 'andcuffin' pris'ner, sir, at your horders,' he said, in a tone that warned O'Hara that should harm come of it, on his head be the blame.\n\nMiles nodded.\n\n'Quite right,' he said pleasantly, and glanced at the cloaked and masked figure before him with more suspicion than ever.\n\n'But I regrets to 'ave to report very hobstinate be'aviour on part of pris'ner, sir,' added the gaoler impressively.\n\n'Indeed?' said Miles gravely. 'How so?'\n\nJack controlled an insane desire to laugh, and listened to the gaoler's complaint.\n\n'You see the pris'ner, sir, with that great mask on 'is face? Afore we set out to come 'ere, I told 'im to take it off. And 'e refoosed, sir. Seeing as 'ow you gave no horders, I did not force 'im to hobey.'\n\n'Ah!... Your name, please?'\n\n'John Smith, sir,' answered Carstares promptly and hoarsely.\n\nO'Hara wrote it down with a sceptical smile on his lips that Jack did not quite like.\n\n'Perhaps ye will have the goodness to unmask?'\n\nThere was a momentary silence.\n\n'Why, sir, I thought ye might allow me to keep it on?'\n\n'Did ye now? I will not be allowing any such thing.'\n\n'But, sir \u2013'\n\n''Tis impossible. Off with it!'\n\n'Sir \u2013'\n\n'If ye don't take it off, I shall ask these men to assist ye,' warned Miles.\n\n'May I not speak with ye alone, sir?' pleaded Jack.\n\nBy now O'Hara was greatly intrigued.\n\n'Ye may not. Unmask!' He was leaning half across the table, his eyes fixed on Jack's face.\n\nWith a quaint little laugh that made O'Hara's brows contract swiftly, my lord shrugged his shoulders French fashion and obeyed. The mask and hat were tossed lightly on to the table, and Miles found himself gazing into a pair of blue eyes that met his half defiantly, half imploringly. He drew in his breath sharply and the thin ivory rule he held snapped suddenly between his fingers. And at that crucial moment a door behind him that had stood ajar was pushed open, and my Lady O'Hara came tripping into the room.\n\nThe two gaolers and her husband turned at once to see who it was, while Jack, who had recognised her, but had not the least idea who she was, fell to dusting his boots with his handkerchief.\n\nO'Hara rose, and for once looked severe.\n\n'What \u2013' he began, and stopped, for without so much as a glance at him, my lady ran towards the prisoner, crying:\n\n'Harry! Oh, Harry!'\n\nJack gathered that he was the person addressed, and instantly made her an elaborate leg.\n\nThe next moment she was tugging at the lapels of his coat, with her face upturned to his.\n\n'Harry, you wicked boy!' she cried, and added beneath her breath: 'My name is Molly!'\n\nA laugh sprang to my lord's eyes and his beautiful smile appeared.\n\nIn a stupefied fashion O'Hara watched him steal an arm about her waist, and place a hand beneath her chin. The next instant a kiss was planted full on the little lady's lips, and he heard Jack Carstares' voice exclaim:\n\n'Fie on you, Molly, for a spoil-sport! Here had I fooled Miles to the top of my bent \u2013 and 'pon rep! he scarce knows me yet!'\n\nMy lady disengaged herself, blushing.\n\n'Oh, Miles, you do know Harry \u2013 my cousin Harry?'\n\nO'Hara collected his scattered wits and rose nobly to the occasion.\n\n'Of course I do, me dear, though at first he gave me such a shock, I was near dumbfounded. Ye are a mad, scatterbrained fellow to play such a trick upon us, devil take ye!' He laid his hands on Jack's shoulders. 'Pray, what did ye do it for, boy?'\n\nJack's brain worked swiftly.\n\n'Why, Miles, never tell me you've forgot our wager! Did I not swear I'd have you at a disadvantage \u2013 to be even with you for that night at Jasper's? But what must you do but see my pistol was unloaded and make me lose my wager! Still, 'twas worth that and a night in gaol to see your face when I unmasked!'\n\nO'Hara shook him slightly, laughing, and turned to the two amazed gaolers. The senior gaoler met his humorous glance with a cold and indignant stare, and gave a prodigious sniff.\n\n'Me good fellows,' drawled Miles. 'I'm mighty sorry ye've been worried over me young cousin here. He's fooled us all it appears, but now there's nought to be done in the matter, though I've a mind to send him to await the next sessions!' He slipped a guinea into each curiously ready palm, and replied to the head gaoler's haughty bow with a pleasant nod. In silence he watched them leave the room shaking their heads over the incomprehensible ways of the gentry. Then he turned and looked across at Carstares.\n\n# Ten\n\nLady O'Hara Retires\n\nFor a long minute silence reigned, all three actors in the little comedy listening to the heavy footsteps retreating down the passage, Carstares with one arm still around my lady's waist and a rather strained look on his face. Molly instinctively felt that something beyond her ken was in the air, and glanced fearfully up at the white face above her. The expression in the blue eyes fixed on her husband made her turn sharply to look at him. She found that he was staring at my lord as though he saw a ghost. She wanted to speak, to relieve the tension, but all words stuck in her throat, and she could only watch the d\u00e9nouement breathlessly. At last O'Hara moved, coming slowly towards them, reading John's countenance. Some of the wonder went out of his face, and, as if he sensed the other's agony of mind, he smiled suddenly and laid his hands once more on the straight, stiff shoulders.\n\n'Jack, ye rascal, what do ye mean by hugging and kissing me wife under me very eyes!'\n\nMolly all at once remembered the position of her 'Cousin Harry's' arm, and gave a little gasp, whisking herself away.\n\nMy lord put out his hands and strove to thrust his friend off.\n\n'Miles, don't forget \u2013 don't forget \u2013 what I am!'\n\n'Tare an' ouns, man! And is it meself that'll be caring what ye may or may not be? Oh, Jack, Jack, I'm so pleased to see ye, that I can scarce realise 'tis yourself I am looking at! When did ye come to England, and what-a-plague are you doing in that costume?' He jerked his head to where John's mask lay, and wrung the hand he held as though he would never stop.\n\n'I've been in England a year. As to the mask \u2013 !' He shrugged and laughed.\n\nLady O'Hara pushed in between them.\n\n'But please I do not understand!' she said plaintively.\n\nCarstares bowed over her hand.\n\n'May I be permitted to thank you for your kindly intervention, my lady? And to congratulate Miles on his marriage?'\n\nShe dimpled charmingly and curtsied. Her husband caught her round the waist.\n\n'Ay, the saucy minx! Oh, me cousin Harry, forsooth! If it had been anyone but Jack I should be angry with ye, asthore, for 'twas a wicked thrick to play entirely!'\n\nShe patted his hand and smiled across at Jack.\n\n'Of course, I would never have done such a forward thing had I not known that he was indeed a gentleman \u2013 and had he not saved me from sudden death!' she added as an afterthought.\n\nMiles looked sharply round at her and then at Carstares.\n\n'What's this?'\n\n'My lady exaggerates,' smiled my lord. ''Tis merely that I had the honour to catch her as she fell down the steps this morning.'\n\nO'Hara looked relieved.\n\n'Ye are not hurt, alanna?'\n\n'Gracious, no! But I had to do something to show my gratitude \u2013 and I was sure that you would never expose my fraud \u2013 so I \u2013 But,' as a sudden thought struck her, 'you seem to know my highwayman!'\n\n'Sure an' I do, Molly. 'Tis none other than Jack Carstares of whom ye've often heard me speak!'\n\nShe turned round eyes of wonderment upon my Lord.\n\n'Can it be \u2013 is it possible that you are my husband's dearest friend \u2013 Lord John?'\n\nJack flushed and bowed.\n\n'I was once \u2013 madam,' he said stiffly.\n\n'Once!' she scoffed. 'Oh, if you could but hear him speak of you! But I'll let you hear him speak to you, which perhaps you'll enjoy more. I know you've a prodigious great deal to say to one another, so I shall run away and leave you alone.' She smiled graciously upon him, blew an airy kiss to her husband and went quickly out of the room.\n\nCarstares closed the door behind her and came back to O'Hara, who had flung himself back into his chair, trying, manlike, to conceal the excitement he was feeling.\n\n'Come, sit ye down, Jack, and let me have the whole story!'\n\nMy lord divested himself of his long cloak and shook out his hitherto tucked-up ruffles. From the pocket of his elegant scarlet riding coat he drew a snuff-box, which he opened languidly. With his eyes resting quizzically on O'Hara's face, he took a delicate pinch of snuff and minced across the room.\n\nMiles laughed.\n\n'What's this?'\n\n'This, my dear friend, is Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart.!' He bowed with great flourish.\n\n'Ye look it. But come over here, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart., and tell me everything.'\n\nJack perched on the edge of the desk and swung his leg.\n\n'Well really, I do not think there is much to tell that you do not already know, Miles. You know all about Dare's card-party, for instance, precisely six years ago?'\n\n''Tis just exactly what I do not know!' retorted O'Hara.\n\n'You surprise me! I thought the tale was rife.'\n\n'Now, Jack, will ye have done drawling at me? Don't be forgetting I'm your friend \u2013'\n\n'But are you? If you know the truth about me, do you feel inclined to call me friend?'\n\n'There never was a time when I would not have been proud to call ye friend, as ye would very well have known, had ye been aught but a damned young hothead! I heard that crazy tale about the card-party, but do ye think I believe it?'\n\n'It was the obvious thing to do.'\n\n'Maybe, but I fancy I know ye just a little too well to believe any cock-and-bull story I'm told about ye. And even if I had been fool enough to have believed it, do ye think I'd be going back on ye? Sure, 'tis a poor friend I'd be!'\n\nJack stared down at the toe of his right boot in silence.\n\n'I know something more than we guessed happened at that same party, and I have me suspicions, but 'tis your affair, and whatever ye did ye had your reasons for. But, Jack, why in the name of wonder must ye fly off to the devil alone knows where, without so much as a good-bye to anyone?'\n\nCarstares never raised his eyes from the contemplation of the boot. He spoke with difficulty.\n\n'Miles \u2013 in my place \u2013 would you not have done the same?'\n\n'Well \u2013'\n\n'You know you would. Was it likely that I should inflict myself on you at such a time? What would you have thought of me had I done so?'\n\nO'Hara brought his hand down smartly on the other's knee.\n\n'I'd have thought ye less of a young fool! I would have gone away with ye, and nothing would have stopped me!'\n\nJack looked up and met his eyes.\n\n'I know,' he said. ''Twas the thought of that \u2013 and \u2013 and \u2013 I could not be sure. How should I know whether you would even receive me? Last night \u2013 last night \u2013 I was horribly afraid...'\n\nThe hand on his knee tightened.\n\n'Ye foolish boy! Ye foolish boy!'\n\nBit by bit he drew the story of the past six years out of Carstares, and though it was a very modified version, Miles understood his friend well enough to read between the lines.\n\n'And now,' said Jack, when the recital was over, 'tell me about yourself. When did you marry the attractive lady whom I have just been kissing?'\n\n'Ye rogue! I married Molly three years ago. 'Tis a real darling she is, isn't she? And upstairs there's a little chap \u2013 your godson.'\n\n'You lucky fellow! My godson, you say? Could you not find anyone more worthy for that? I want to see him.'\n\n'So ye shall presently. Have ye seen Richard?'\n\n'A year ago I held up his coach. 'Twas dark, and I could scarce see him, but I thought he seemed aged.'\n\n'Aged! Ye wouldn't be afther knowing him! 'Tis an old man he is. Though I swear 'tis no wonder with that hussy about the house! Lord, Jack, you were well out of that affair with her ladyship.'\n\nCarstares nursed his foot reflectively.\n\n'Lavinia? What ails her?'\n\n'Nought that I know of, save it be her shrewish temper. 'Tis a dog's life she leads poor Dick.'\n\n'Do you mean to say she does not love Dick?'\n\n'I cannot say \u2013 sometimes she's as affectionate as you please, but at others she treats him to a fine exhibition of rage. And the money she spends! Of course, she married him for what she could get. There was never anything else to count with her.'\n\nJack sat very still.\n\n'And anyone but a young fool like yourself would have seen that!'\n\nA gleam of amusement shot into the wistful blue eyes.\n\n'Probably. Yourself, for instance?'\n\nO'Hara chuckled.\n\n'Oh, ay, I knew! 'Twas the money she was after all along; and now there's not so much, it seems, as Dick won't touch a penny that belongs to you.'\n\n'M'm. Warburton told me. Foolish of him.'\n\nA grunt was the sole response.\n\nJack's eye narrowed a little as he gazed out of the window.\n\n'So Lavinia never cared? Lord, what a mix-up! And Dick?'\n\n'I'm afraid he still does.'\n\n'Poor old Dick! Devil takes the woman! Does she bully him? I know what he is \u2013 always ready to give in.'\n\n'I am not so sure. Yet I'll swear if 'twere not for John his life would be a misery. He misses you, Jack.'\n\n'Who is John?'\n\n'Did not Warburton tell you? John is the hope of the house. He's four and a half, and as spoilt a little rascal as you could wish for.'\n\n'Dick's child? Good Lord!'\n\n'Ay, Dick's child and your nephew.' He broke off and looked into the other's face. 'Jack, cannot this mystery be cleared up? Couldn't ye go back?' He was clasping Jack's hand, but it was withdrawn, and the eyes looking down into his were suddenly bored and a little cold.\n\n'I know of no mystery,' said Carstares.\n\n'Jack, old man, will ye be afther shutting me out of your confidence?'\n\nA faint, sweet smile curved the fine lips.\n\n'Let us talk of the weather, Miles, or my mare. Anything rather than this painful subject.'\n\nWith an impatient movement O'Hara flung back his chair and strode over to the window with his back to my lord. Jack's eyes followed him seriously.\n\n'If ye cannot trust me, sure I've no more to say, thin!' flashed O'Hara. 'It seems ye do not value your friends too highly!'\n\nMy lord said never a word. But the hand that rested on the desk clenched suddenly. O'Hara wheeled about and came back to his side.\n\n'Sure, Jack, I never meant that! Forgive me bad temper!'\n\nCarstares slipped off the table and straightened himself, linking his arm in the Irishman's.\n\n'Whisht, Miles, as you'd say yourself,' he laughed, 'I know that. 'Tis not that I don't trust you, but \u2013'\n\n'I understand. I'll not ask ye any more about it at all. Instead, answer me this: what made ye come out with unloaded pistols?'\n\nThe laugh died out of Carstares' face.\n\n'Oh, just carelessness!' he answered shortly, and he thought of the absent Jim with a tightening of the lips.\n\n''Twas that very reason with meself thin!'\n\nJack stared at him.\n\n'Miles, don't tell me yours were unloaded, too?'\n\n''Deed an' they were! Ecod, Jack! 'tis the best joke I've heard for a twelvemonth.' They both started to laugh. 'Sure 'twas bluff on my part, Jack, when I told ye yours was unloaded. And me lady was determined to set you free from the moment I told her all about it this morning. We were sure ye were no ordinary highwayman, though I was a fool not to have known ye right away. But now I have found ye out, ye'll stay with us \u2013 Cousin Harry?'\n\n'I cannot thank you enough, Miles, but I will not do that. I must get back to Jim.'\n\n'And who the devil is Jim?'\n\n'My servant. He'll be worried nigh to death over me. Nay, do not press me, I could not stay here, Miles. You must see for yourself 'tis impossible \u2013 Jack Carstares does not exist; only Anthony Ferndale is left.'\n\n'Jack, dear man, can I not \u2013'\n\n'No, Miles, you can do nothing, though 'tis like you to want to help, and I do thank you. But \u2013 oh well!... What about my mare?'\n\n'Plague take me if I'd not forgotten! Jack, that scoundrel of mine let her strain her fetlock. I'm demmed sorry.'\n\n'Poor Jenny! I'll swear she gave him an exciting ride, though.'\n\n'I'll be trying to buy her off ye, Jack, if I see much of her. 'Tis a little beauty she is.'\n\n'I'm not selling, though I intended to ask you to keep her, if \u2013'\n\nA quick pressure on his arm arrested him.\n\n'That will do! I'm too heavy for her anyway.'\n\n'So was that devil of a groom you put on her.'\n\n'Ay. I'm a fool.'\n\n'I always knew that.'\n\n'Whisht now, Jack! Ye'll have to take one of my nags while she heals, if ye won't stay with us. Can ye trust her to me for a week, do ye suppose?'\n\n'I don't know. It seems as though I must \u2013 oh, I retract, I retract. You are altogether too large, the day is too hot, and my cravat too nicely tied \u2013 Egad, Miles! I wish \u2013 oh, I wish we were boys again, and \u2013 Yes. When may I see your son and heir?'\n\n'Sure, ye may come now and find Molly, who'll be aching for the sight of you. Afther you, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart!'\n\n# Eleven\n\nMy Lord Turns Rescuer and Comes Nigh Ending His Life\n\nLate that afternoon Carstares left Thurze House on one of his friend's horses. He waved a very regretful farewell to O'Hara and his lady, promising to let them know his whereabouts and to visit them again soon. O'Hara had extracted a solemn promise that if ever he got into difficulties he would let him know:\n\n'For I'm not letting ye drift gaily out of me life again, and that's flat.'\n\nJack had assented gladly enough \u2013 to have a friend once more was such bliss \u2013 and had given Miles the name of the inn and the village where he would find him, for O'Hara had insisted on bringing the mare over himself. So Carstares rode off to Trencham and to Jim, with the memory of a very hearty handshake in his mind. He smiled a little as he thought of his friend's words when he had shown himself reluctant to give the required promise:\n\n'Ye obstinate young devil, ye'll do as I say, and no nonsense, or ye don't leave this house!'\n\nFor six years no one had ordered him to obey; it had been he who had done all the ordering. Somehow it was very pleasant to be told what to do, especially by Miles.\n\nHe turned down a lane and wondered what Jim was thinking. That he was waiting at the Green Man, he was certain, for those had been his orders. He was annoyed with the man over the incident of the pistols, for he had inspected them and discovered that they were indeed unloaded. Had his captor been other than O'Hara, on whom he could not fire, such carelessness might have proved his undoing. Apart from that, culpable negligence always roused his wrath. A rather warm twenty minutes was in store for Salter.\n\nFor quite an hour Carstares proceeded on his way with no mishaps nor adventures, and then, suddenly, as he rounded a corner of a deserted road \u2013 little more than a cart-track \u2013 an extraordinary sight met his eyes. In the middle of the road stood a coach, and by it, covering the men on the box with two large pistols, was a seedy-looking ruffian, while two others were engaged in what appeared to be a life-and-death struggle at the coach-door.\n\nJack reined in his horse and rose in his stirrups to obtain a better view. Then his eyes flashed, and he whistled softly to himself. For the cause of all the turmoil was a slight, graceful girl of not more than nineteen or twenty. She was frenziedly resisting the efforts of her captors to drag her to another coach further up the road. Jack could see that she was dark and very lovely.\n\nAnother, elderly lady, was most valiantly impeding operations by clawing and striking at one of the men's arms, scolding and imploring all in one breath. Jack's gaze went from her to a still, silent figure at the side of the road in the shadow of the hedge, evidently the stage-manager. 'It seems I must take a hand in this,' he told himself, and laughed joyously as he fixed on his mask and dismounted. He tethered his mount to a young sapling, took a pistol from its holster, and ran softly and swiftly under the lea of the hedge up to the scene of disaster, just as the man who covered the unruly and vociferous pair on the box made ready to fire.\n\nJack's bullet took him neatly in the neck, and without a sound he crumpled up, one of his pistols exploding harmlessly as it fell to earth.\n\nWith an oath the silent onlooker wheeled round to face the point of my lord's gleaming blade.\n\nCarstares drew in his breath sharply in surprise as he saw the white face of his Grace of Andover.\n\n'Damn you!' said Tracy calmly, and sprang back, whipping out his own rapier.\n\n'Certainly,' agreed Jack pleasantly. 'On guard, M. le Duc!'\n\nTracy's lips curled back in a snarl. His eyes were almost shut. Over his shoulder he ordered curtly:\n\n'Keep watch over the girl. I will attend to this young jackanapes.'\n\nOn the word the blades clashed.\n\nJack's eyes danced with the sheer joy of battle, and his point snicked in and out wickedly. He knew Tracy of old for an expert swordsman, and he began warily.\n\nThe girl's persecutors retained a firm hold on either arm, but all their thoughts were centred on the duel. The men on the box got out their blunderbuss, ready to fire should the need arise, and the girl herself watched breathlessly, red lips apart, and eyes aglow with fright, indignation, and excitement. As for the old lady, she positively bobbed up and down shrieking encouragement to Carstares.\n\nThe blades hissed continuously against one another; time after time the Duke thrust viciously, and ever his point was skillfully parried. He was absolutely calm, and his lips sneered. Who it was that he was fighting, he had not the faintest idea; he only knew that his opponent had recognised him, and must be speedily silenced. Therefore he fought with deadly grimness and purpose. Carstares, on the other hand, had no intention of killing his Grace. He had never liked him in the old days, but he was far too good-natured to contemplate any serious bloodshed. He was so used to Tracy's little affairs that he had not been filled with surprise when he discovered who the silent figure was. He did not like interfering with Belmanoir, but, on the other hand, he could no more stand by and see a woman assaulted than he could fly. So he fought on with the idea of disarming his Grace, so as to have him at a disadvantage and to be able to command his withdrawal from the scene. Once he feinted cleverly, and lunged, and a little blood trickled down over the Duke's hand. No sign made Belmanoir, except that his eyelids flickered a moment and his play became more careful.\n\nOnce the Duke thrust in tierce and Jack's sword arm wavered an instant, and a splash of crimson appeared on his sleeve. He, for the most part, remained on the defensive, waiting for the Duke to tire. Soon his Grace's breath began to come unevenly and fast, and beads of moisture started on his forehead. Yet never did the sneer fade nor his temper go; he had himself well in hand, and although his face was livid, and his brain on fire with fury, no trace of it showed itself in his sword-play.\n\nThen Carstares changed his tactics, and began to put into practice all the arts and subtleties of fence that he had learnt abroad. He seemed made of steel and set on wires, so agile and untireable was he. Time after time he leapt nimbly aside, evading some wicked thrust, and all the while he was driving his Grace back and back. He was not panting, and now and again he laughed softly and happily. The blood from the wound on his arm was dripping steadily on to the ground, yet it seemed to Tracy to affect him not at all. But Jack himself knew that he was losing strength rapidly, and must make an end.\n\nSuddenly he feinted, and fell back. Tracy saw his advantage and pressed forward within the wavering sword-point.\n\nThe next instant his sword was whirled from his grasp, and he lay on the ground, unhurt but helpless, gazing up at the masked face and at the shortened rapier. How he had been thrown he did not know, but that his opponent was a past master in the art of fence he was perfectly sure.\n\nMy lord gave a little chuckle and twisted a handkerchief about his wounded arm.\n\n'I am aware, m'sieur, that this is most unusual \u2013 and, in duels \u2013 forbidden. But I am sure milor' will agree that the circumstances are also \u2013 most unusual \u2013 and the odds \u2013 almost overwhelming!' He turned his head to the two men, one of whom released his hold on the girl's arm and started forward.\n\n'Oh, no!' drawled my lord, shaking his head. 'Another step and I spit your master where he lies.'\n\n'Stand,' said his Grace calmly.\n\n'Bien! Throw your arms down here at my feet, and \u2013 ah \u2013 release Mademoiselle!'\n\nThey made no move to obey, and my lord shrugged deprecatingly, lowering his point to Tracy's throat.\n\n'Eh bien!'\n\nThey still hesitated, casting anxious glances at their master.\n\n'Obey,' ordered the Duke.\n\nEach man threw down a pistol, eyeing Jack furtively, while the girl ran to her aunt, who began to soothe and fuss over her.\n\nJack stifled a yawn.\n\n'It is not my intention to remain here all night. Neither am I a child \u2013 or a fool. D\u00e9p\u00eachez!'\n\nBelmanoir saw that the coachman had his blunderbuss ready and was only too eager to fire it, and he knew that the game was up. He turned his head towards the reluctant bullies who looked to him for orders.\n\n'Throw down everything!' he advised.\n\nTwo more pistols and two daggers joined their comrades.\n\n'A thousand thanks!' bowed my lord, running a quick eye over the men. 'M. le Duc, I pray you be still. Now, you with the large nose \u2013 yes, mon ami, you \u2013 go pick up the pistol our defunct friend dropped.'\n\nThe man indicated slouched over to the dead body and flung another pistol on to the heap.\n\nMy lord shook his head impatiently.\n\n'Mais non. Have I not said that I am not entirely a fool? The unexploded pistol, please. You will place it here, doucement. Very good.'\n\nHis eye travelled to the men on the box. The coachman touched his hat and cried:\n\n'I'm ready, sir.'\n\n'It is very well. Be so good as to keep these gentlemen covered, but do not fire until I give the order. And now, M. le Duc, have I your parole that you will return swiftly from whence you came, leaving this lady unmolested, an I permit you to rise?'\n\nTracy moved his head impatiently.\n\n'I have no choice.'\n\n'Monsieur, that is not an answer. Have I your parole?'\n\n'Yes, curse you!'\n\n'But certainly,' said Jack politely. 'Pray rise.'\n\nHe rested his sword-point on the ground, and watched Tracy struggle to his feet.\n\nFor an instant the Duke stood staring at him, with face slightly out-thrust.\n\n'I almost think I know you,' he said softly, caressingly.\n\nJack's French accent became a shade more pronounced.\n\n'It is possible. I at least have the misfortune to know monsieur by sight.'\n\nTracy ignored the insult, and continued very, very silkily:\n\n'One thing is certain: I shall know you again \u2013 if I meet you!'\n\nEven as the words left his mouth Jack saw the pistol in his hand and sprang quickly to one side, just in time to escape a shot that would have gone straight through his head. As it was, it caught him in his left shoulder.\n\n'Do not fire!' he called sharply to the coachman, and bowed to his Grace. 'As I was saying, m'sieu \u2013 do not let me detain you, I beg.'\n\nThe Duke's green eyes flashed venom for a minute, and then the heavy lids descended over them again, and he returned the bow exaggeratedly.\n\n'Au revoir, monsieur,' he smiled, and bent to pick up his sword.\n\n'It will \u2013 not be necessary for \u2013 m'sieu to \u2013 take his sword,' said Jack. 'I have a \u2013 desire to keep \u2013 it as a \u2013 souvenir. Yes.'\n\n'As you will, monsieur,' replied Tracy, carelessly, and walked away to his coach, his men following close on his heels.\n\nMy lord stood leaning heavily on his sword, watching them go, and not until the coach had swung out of sight did he give way to the weakness that was overwhelming him. Then he reeled and would have fallen, had it not been for two cool hands that caught his, steadying him.\n\nA tremulous, husky voice sounded in his ears:\n\n'You are hurt! Ah, sir, you are hurt for my sake!'\n\nWith a great effort Jack controlled the inclination to swoon, and lifted the girl's hand shakily to his lips.\n\n'It is a \u2013 pleasure \u2013 mademoiselle,' he managed to gasp. 'Now \u2013 you may \u2013 I think \u2013 proceed in safety.'\n\nDiana slipped an arm under his shoulder and cast an anxious glance at the footman, hurrying towards them.\n\n'Quick!' she commanded. 'Sir, you are faint! You must allow my servant to assist you to the coach.'\n\nJack forced a smile.\n\n'It is \u2013 nothing \u2013 I assure you \u2013 pray do not \u2013 I \u2013' and he fainted comfortably away into stout Thomas's arms.\n\n'Carry him into the coach, Thomas!' ordered the girl. 'Mind his arm, and \u2013 oh! his poor shoulder. Aunt, have you something to bind his wounds with?'\n\nMiss Betty hurried forward.\n\n'My darling child, what an escape! The dear, brave gentleman! Do have a care, Thomas! Yes, lay him on the seat.'\n\nMy lord was lowered gently on to the cushions, and Miss Betty fluttered over to him like a distracted hen. Then Diana told Thomas to take charge of my lord's horse that they could see, quietly nibbling the grass further down the road, stooped and picked up his Grace of Andover's sword, with its curiously wrought hilt, and jumped into the coach to help Miss Betty to attend to Jack's wounds.\n\nThe slash on the arm was not serious, but where the pistol had taken him was very ugly-looking. While she saw to that, Miss Betty loosened the cravat and removed my lord's mask.\n\n'Di, see what a handsome boy 'tis! The poor brave gentleman! What a lucky thing he came up! If only this bleeding would stop!' So she ran on, hunting wildly for her salts.\n\nDiana looked up as her aunt finished, and studied the pale face lying against the dark cushions. She noted the firm, beautifully carved mouth, the aristocratic nose and delicately pencilled eyebrows, with a little thrill. The duel had set her every nerve tingling; she was filled with admiration for her preserver, and the sight of his sensitive, handsome countenance did nothing to dispel that admiration.\n\nShe held the salts to his nostrils and watched eagerly for some sign of life. But none was forthcoming, and she had to be content with placing cushions beneath his injured shoulder, and guarding him as best she might from the jolts caused by the uneven surface of the road.\n\nMiss Betty bustled about and did all she could to stanch the bleeding, and when they had comfortably settled my lord, she sat down upon the seat opposite and nodded decisively.\n\n'We can do no more, my dear \u2013 but, yes \u2013 certainly bathe his forehead with your lavender water. Dear me, what an escape! I must say I would never have thought it of Mr Everard! One would say we were living in the Stone Age! The wretch!'\n\nDiana shuddered.\n\n'I knew he was dreadful, but never how dreadful! How can he have found out when we were to leave Bath \u2013 and why did he waylay us so near home? Oh, I shall never be safe again!'\n\n'Nonsense, my dear! Fiddlesticks! You saw how easily he was vanquished. Depend upon it, he will realise that he has made a bad mistake to try to abduct you, and we shall not be worried with him again.'\n\nWith this comfortable assurance, she nodded again and leant back against the cushions, watching her niece's ministrations with a professional and slightly amused air.\n\n# Twelve\n\nMy Lord Dictates a Letter and Receives a Visitor\n\nMy lord came sighing back to life. He opened his eyes wearily, and turned his head. A faint feeling of surprise stole over him. He was in a room he had never been in before, and by the window, busy with some needlework, sat a little old lady who was somehow vaguely familiar.\n\n'Who \u2013 are \u2013 you?' he asked, and was annoyed to find his voice so weak.\n\nThe little lady jumped, and came across to him.\n\n'Praise be to God!' she ejaculated. 'Likewise, bless the boy! The fever is passed.' She laid a thin hand on his brow, and smiled down into his wondering eyes.\n\n'As cool as a cucumber, dear boy. What a mercy!'\n\nIt was a long time since anyone had called Jack dear, or boy. He returned the smile feebly and closed his eyes.\n\n'I \u2013 do not \u2013 understand \u2013 anything,' he murmured drowsily.\n\n'Never trouble your head then. Just go to sleep.'\n\nHe considered this gravely for a moment. It seemed sensible enough, and he was so very, very tired. He shut his eyes with a little sigh.\n\nWhen he awoke again it was morning of the next day, and the sun streamed in the window, making him blink.\n\nSomeone rustled forward, and he saw it was the lady who had called him dear and bidden him go to sleep.\n\nHe smiled and a very thin hand came out of the bedclothes.\n\n'But who are you?' he demanded a little querulously.\n\nMiss Betty patted his hand gently.\n\n'Still worrying your poor head over that? I am Di's Aunt Betty \u2013 though, to be sure, you don't know who Di is!'\n\nRemembrance was coming back to my lord.\n\n'Why \u2013 why \u2013 you are the lady in the coach! \u2013 Tracy \u2013 I remember!'\n\n'Well, I know nought of Tracy, but I'm the lady in the coach.'\n\n'And the other \u2013'\n\n'That was Diana Beauleigh, my niece \u2013 the pet. You will see her when you are better.'\n\n'But \u2013 but \u2013 where am I, madam?'\n\n'Now don't get excited, dear boy!'\n\n'I'm thirty!' protested Jack with a wicked twinkle.\n\n'I should not have thought it, but thirty's a boy to me, in any case!' retorted Miss Betty, making him laugh. 'You are in Mr Beauleigh's house \u2013 Di's father, and my brother. And here you will stay until you are quite recovered!'\n\nJack raised himself on his elbow, grimacing at the pain the movement caused him.\n\n'Egad, madam! have I been here long?' he demanded.\n\nVery firmly was he pushed back on to his pillows.\n\n'Will you be still? A nice thing 'twould be if you were to aggravate that wound of yours! You will have been here a week to-morrow. Bless my heart, what ails the boy?' For Jack's face took on an expression of incredulous horror.\n\n'A week, madam? Never say so!'\n\n''Tis as true as I stand here. And a nice fright you have given us, what with nearly dying, and raving about your Dicks and your Jims!'\n\nMy lord glanced up sharply.\n\n'Oh! So I \u2013 talked?'\n\n'Talk? Well, yes, if you can call that mixture of foreign jargon talking. Now you must be still and wait till the doctor comes again.'\n\nFor a while Carstares lay in silence. He thought of Jim and smiled a little. 'I could not have thought of a better punishment had I tried,' he told himself, and then frowned. 'Poor fellow! He'll be off his head with fright over me. Miss \u2013 er \u2013 Betty?'\n\n'Well, and are you not asleep yet?'\n\n'Asleep, madam? Certainly not!' he said with dignity. 'I must write a letter.'\n\n''Deed, an' you shall not!'\n\n'But I must! 'Tis monstrous important, madam.'\n\nShe shook her head resolutely.\n\n'Not until Mr Jameson gives permission,' she said firmly.\n\nJack struggled up, biting his lip.\n\n'Then I shall get up!' he threatened.\n\nIn an instant she was by his side.\n\n'No, no! Now lie down and be good!'\n\n'I will not lie down and be good!'\n\n'Then I shan't let you touch a pen for weeks!'\n\nJack became very masterful and frowned direfully upon her.\n\n'Madam I insist on being allowed to write that letter!'\n\n'Sir, I insist on your lying down!'\n\nHe controlled a twitching lip.\n\n'Woe betide you unless you bring me pen and paper, Miss Betty!'\n\n'But, dear boy, reflect! You could not use your arm.'\n\n'I will use it!' replied Jack indomitably, but he sank back on to the pillows with his eyes closed and a tiny furrow of pain between his straight brows.\n\n'I told you so!' scolded Miss Betty, not without a note of triumph in her voice, and proceeded to rearrange the disorderly coverlet.\n\nThe blue eyes opened wide, pleadingly.\n\n'Madam, indeed 'tis very important.'\n\nShe could not withstand that look.\n\n'Well,' she compromised, 'I'll not let you write yourself, that's certain \u2013 but could you not dictate to me?'\n\nJack brightened, and caught her hand to his lips.\n\n'Miss Betty, you are an angel!' he told her.\n\n'Ah now, get along with you!' She hurried away to fetch paper and ink.\n\nWhen she returned she found him plucking impatiently at the sheet, and frowning.\n\n'I am ready,' she said.\n\n'Thank you, madam. 'Tis very kind in you \u2013'\n\n'Nonsense!'\n\nHe laughed weakly.\n\n'I want you to write to my servant, to bid him bring my baggage to the nearest inn \u2013'\n\n'That will I not! I shall tell him to bring it here.'\n\n'But, Miss Betty, I cannot possibly trespass upon \u2013'\n\n'Will you have done? Trespass indeed!'\n\n'I perceive I shall be much put upon,' sighed Jack, and watched her lightning smile.\n\n'You BOY! Will you dictate?'\n\n'Very well, ma'am. No, I have changed my mind. I'll have it writ to a friend, please: \"Dear Miles... True to my promise... I write to you... In case... you should be worried . . . over my disappearance... be it known... that I am at \u2013\" pray, madam, where am I?'\n\n'Horton Manor, Littledean,' she replied, writing it down.\n\n'Thank you. \"I had the misfortune to injure my shoulder in a \u2013'\"\n\n'\"And arm\",' put in the scribe, inexorably.\n\n'\"And arm, in a fight... and a certain very... kind lady \u2013\"'\n\n'I refuse to write that rubbish! \"One of the ladies whom I rescued \u2013\"'\n\n'Good heavens, madam, you've not put that?' cried Jack horrified.\n\nShe smiled reassuringly.\n\n'I have not. I have put: \"My nurse is writing this for me.\"'\n\n'Madam, you are of a teasing disposition,' reproved my lord. 'M \u2013 yes \u2013 \"When you take Jenny \u2013 over to Trencham... will you please tell Jim... to bring my baggage... here at once?\" Have you that, Miss Betty?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'\"Remember me to Lady... Molly, I beg... and accept my apologies... and thanks.\"' He paused. 'Will you sign it J.C. please, and address it to Sir Miles O'Hara, Thurze House, Malby?'\n\n'Sir Miles O'Hara! Is he your friend, Mr \u2013 Mr \u2013 I do not know your name.'\n\n'Car \u2013' began Jack, and stopped, biting his lip. 'Carr,' he continued imperturbably. 'John Carr. Do you know O'Hara, Miss Betty?'\n\n'Me? No! Will he come to see you, do you think?'\n\n'If you let him in, madam!'\n\n'Gracious! Well, well! I'll tell Thomas to ride over with this at once.'\n\n'Miss Betty, you are marvellously good. I vow I can never thank \u2013'\n\n'Bless the boy! And what about yourself, pray? I shudder to think of what might have happened to Di if you had not come up! 'Tis we can never thank you enough.'\n\nJack reddened boyishly and uncomfortably.\n\n'Indeed, you exaggerate \u2013'\n\n'Tut, tut! Well, go to sleep, and never worry about anything till I return. And you won't try and get up?'\n\nHe shook with laughter.\n\n'I swear I will not! Even an you never return, I will lie here, wasting away \u2013' But he spoke to space, for with a delighted laugh she had left the room.\n\nIt was not until late that afternoon that O'Hara arrived, and he was conducted, after a brief conversation with Diana and her father, to my lord's room, where Miss Betty received him with her cheery smile and jerky curtsey.\n\n'You'll not excite Mr Carr?' she said, but was interrupted by my lord's voice from within, weak but very gay.\n\n'Come in, Miles, and never listen to Miss Betty! She is a tyrant and denies me my wig!'\n\nO'Hara laughed in answer to Miss Betty's quizzical smile, and strode over to the bed. He gripped my lord's thin hand and frowned down at him with an assumption of anger.\n\n'Young good-for-nought! Could ye find nought better to do than to smash yourself up and well-nigh drive your man crazy with fright?'\n\n'Oh, pshaw! Did you find Jim?'\n\nO'Hara looked round and saw that Miss Betty had discreetly vanished. He sat gingerly down on the edge of the bed.\n\n'Ay. I took the mare over as soon as I had your letter \u2013 and a fine scare you gave me, Jack, I can tell you! She recognised him, and I accosted him.'\n\n'I'll swear you did not get much satisfaction from Jim!' said my lord. 'Did he look very foolish?'\n\n'To tell ye the truth, I thought the man was half daft, and wondered whether I'd been after making a mistake. But in the end I got him to believe what I was trying to tell him, and he has taken the mare, and will bring your baggage along this evening. By the way, John, I told him of our little meeting, and of your pistols being unloaded. He said 'twas his fault, and ye never saw aught to touch his face! Put out was not the word for it.'\n\n'I suppose so. Look here, Miles, this is a damned funny affair.'\n\n'What happened to you exactly?'\n\n''Tis what I am about to tell you. After I had left you, I rode on quite quietly for about an hour, and then came upon Miss Beauleigh's coach stopped by three blackguards who were trying to drag her to another coach belonging to the gentleman who conducted the affair. So, of course, I dismounted, and went to see what was to be done.'\n\n'You would be after poking your nose into what didn't concern ye. Four men, and ye had the audacity to tackle them all? 'Tis mad ye are entirely!'\n\n'Of course if you had been in my place you would have ridden off in another direction \u2013 or aided the scoundrels?' was the scathing reply.\n\nO'Hara chuckled.\n\n'Well, go on, Jack. I'm not saying I don't wish I had been with ye.'\n\n''Twould have been superb. I suppose Miss Beauleigh has told you most of the tale, but there is one thing that she could not have told you, for she did not know it: the man I fought was Belmanoir.'\n\n'Thunder and turf! Not the Duke?'\n\n'Yes. Tracy.'\n\n'Zounds! Did he know ye?'\n\n'I cannot be certain. I was masked, of course, but he said he thought he did. 'Twas at that moment he fired his pistol at me.'\n\n'The dirty scoundrel!'\n\n'M'm \u2013 yes. 'Tis that which makes me think he did not know me. Damn it all, Miles, even Tracy would not do a thing like that!'\n\n'Would he not? If ye ask me, I say that Tracy is game enough for any kind of devilry.'\n\n'But, my dear fellow, that is too black! He could not try to kill in cold blood a man he had hunted with, and fenced with \u2013 and \u2013 and \u2013 no man could!'\n\nO'Hara looked extremely sceptical.\n\n'Because ye could not yourself, is not to say that a miserable spalpeen like Belmanoir could not.'\n\n'I don't believe it of him. We were always quite friendly \u2013 if it had been Robert now \u2013 But I am not going to believe it. And don't say anything to these people, O'Hara, because they do not know Devil. I gather from what Miss Betty says, that he calls himself Everard. He met the girl \u2013 Diana \u2013 at Bath; you know his way. She'd none of him: hence the abduction.'\n\n'Heavens, but 'tis a foul mind the man's got!'\n\n'Where women are concerned, yes. Otherwise \u2013 'tis not such a bad fellow, Miles.'\n\n'I've no use for that kind of dirt myself, Jack.'\n\n'Oh, I don't know. I daresay we are none of us exactly saints.' He changed the subject abruptly. 'How is Jenny?'\n\n'Rather off her feed; missing you, I expect. I left her with your man. He should be arriving soon, I should think. I don't fancy he'll waste much time.'\n\n'Neither do I. Poor fellow, he must have worried terribly over his worthless master.'\n\n'Sure, his face was as white as your own when I told him ye were wounded!'\n\nCarstares turned his head quickly.\n\n'What's this about my face? Just be so kind as to hand me that mirror, Miles.'\n\nO'Hara laughed and obeyed, watching my lord's close scrutiny of his countenance, with some surprise.\n\n'Interesting pallor, my dear friend, interesting pallor. Nevertheless, I am glad that Jim is on his way.' He met O'Hara's eyes as he looked up, and his lips quivered irrepressibly.\n\n'You think me very vain, Miles?'\n\n'Is it a pose of yours, John? Is it Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart?'\n\n'No. I believe it is myself. You see, when one has but one's self to live for and think for \u2013 one makes the most of one's self! Hence my vanity. Take the mirror away, please \u2013 the sight of my countenance offends me!'\n\n'Sure, ye are free with your orders, me lord!' said O'Hara, putting the glass down on the table. 'And, while I think of it \u2013 what might your name be now?'\n\n'John Carr \u2013 a slip of the tongue on my part, stopped in time. I hear my mentor returning \u2013 and \u2013 Miles!'\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Come again!'\n\n'Come again! My dear boy, ye'll be sick of the sight of me soon! I shall be here every day.'\n\n'Thanks! It will take a good deal to sicken me, I think.' He bit his lip, turning his head away as Miss Betty came into the room.\n\n'I'm afraid that you ought to leave my patient now, Sir Miles,' she said. 'He has had enough excitement for one day, and should sleep.' She glanced at the averted head inquiringly. 'I doubt he is tired?'\n\nJack turned and smiled at her.\n\n'No, Miss Betty, I'm not. But I know you will refuse to believe me.'\n\n'My dear boy, do you know you have black lines beneath your eyes?'\n\n'More remarks about my face!' he sighed, and glanced at O'Hara, who had risen.\n\n'You are quite right, Miss Beauleigh, I must go. May I come again to-morrow?'\n\n'Surely,' she beamed. 'We shall be delighted to welcome you.'\n\nO'Hara bent over the bed.\n\n'Then au revoir, Jack. My lady sent her love to her \"Cousin Harry\" \u2013 the saucy puss!'\n\n'Did she? How prodigious kind of her, Miles! And you'll give her mine, and kiss her \u2013'\n\n'Yes?' said O'Hara with dangerous calm. 'I'll kiss her what?'\n\n'Her hand for me!' ended Carstares, bubbling over. 'Good-bye, and thank you \u2013'\n\n'That will suffice!' said Miles, cutting him short.\n\nHe bowed to Miss Betty and left the room.\n\nThe business-like little lady fluttered over to the bedside and rearranged the pillows.\n\n'Well, and are you satisfied?'\n\n'Madam, most extraordinarily so, I thank you. I shall be getting up soon.'\n\n'H'm!' was all she vouchsafed, and left him to his meditations.\n\nAs she had foreseen, he dozed a little, but his shoulder would not allow him to sleep. He lay in a semi-comatose condition, his eyes shut, and a deep furrow, telling of pain, between his brows.\n\nThe sound of a shutting door made him open his eyes; he turned his head slightly and saw that Jim Salter was standing in the middle of the room looking at him anxiously.\n\nMy lord returned his gaze crossly, and Jim waited for the storm to break.\n\nCarstares' heart melted, and he managed to smile.\n\n'I'm monstrously glad to see you, Jim,' he said.\n\n'You \u2013 you can't mean that. Sir! 'Twas I left your pistols unloaded.'\n\n'I know. Damned careless of you, but it's the sort of thing I should do myself, after all.'\n\n'Do you mean you forgive me, sir?'\n\n'Why, of course! I could not have fired on my best friend in any case.'\n\n'No, sir, but that don't make it any better.'\n\n'It doesn't, of course, and I was rather annoyed at the time. Oh, devil take you, Jim, don't look at me like that! I'm not dead yet!'\n\n'If \u2013 if you had been killed, sir \u2013 'twould have been my fault.'\n\n'Rubbish! I'd a sword, hadn't I? For heaven's sake don't worry about it any more! Have you brought all my baggage?'\n\n'Yes, sir. It shan't occur again, sir.'\n\n'Certainly not. Jenny is well?'\n\n'Splendid, sir. Will you trust me with your pistols, sir?'\n\nCarstares groaned.\n\n'Will you have done? 'Twas an accident, and I have forgotten it. Here's my hand on it!' He grasped Jim's as he spoke, and seemed to brush the whole subject aside.\n\n'Have you disposed of that horrible coat you tried to make me wear the other day?'\n\n'I gave it to the landlord, sir.'\n\n'I should have burned it, but perhaps he liked it.'\n\n'He did, sir. Will you try to go to sleep now?'\n\n'If you had a shoulder on fire and aching as mine does, you wouldn't ask such a ridiculous question,' answered Jack snappishly.\n\n'I'm sorry, sir. Is there aught I can do?'\n\n'You can change the bandages, if you like. These are prodigious hot and uncomfortable.'\n\nWithout another word Salter set about easing his master, and he was so painstaking and so careful not to hurt the ugly wound, and his face expressed so much concern, that Carstares controlled a desire to swear when he happened to touch a particularly tender spot, and at the end rewarded him with a smile and a sigh of content.\n\n'That is much better,' he said. 'You have such a light touch, Jim.'\n\nThe man's face reddened with pleasure, but he said nothing, and walked away to the window to draw the curtains.\n\n# Thirteen\n\nMy Lord Makes His Bow\n\nAfter Jim's arrival my lord recovered quickly, each day making great progress, much to the doctor's satisfaction, who never tired of telling Mr Beauleigh and Miss Betty that it was entirely owing to his treatment that the patient had recovered at all. As his idea of treatment mainly consisted of copiously bleeding John, which process Miss Betty very soon put an end to, he and she had many arguments on the subject, in which he was completely routed. She held that Mr Carr was well on the strength of her nursing and his own constitution \u2013 and very probably she was right. In any case, hardly a fortnight after O'Hara's first visit, my lord was standing before his mirror, surveying himself, with his head speculatively on one side and a worried look in his eyes. Salter watched him anxiously, knowing this to be a critical moment. His master was somewhat of an enigma to him; the important things in life never appeared to affect him, but over a question of two cravats as opposed to each other, or some equally trivial matter, he would become quite harassed.\n\nAfter contemplating his appearance for several moments, Carstares frowned and looked over his shoulder.\n\n'I have changed my mind, Jim. I will wear blue after all.'\n\nSalter sighed despairingly.\n\n'Ye look very well in what ye have on, sir,' he grunted.\n\nJack sat down obstinately.\n\n'I have conceived a dislike \u2013 nay, a veritable hatred \u2013 for puce. I will wear blue.'\n\n'Now, sir, do ha' done changing your clothes! Ye'll be tired out before ever ye get downstairs, and ye know what the doctor said.'\n\nMy lord consigned the doctor and his words of wisdom to a place of great heat.\n\n'Ay, sir, but \u2013'\n\n'The doctor is a worthy individual, Jim, but he knows even less of the art of dressing than you do. He does not understand the soul-agony of a man who makes his first appearance in puce.'\n\n'But \u2013'\n\n'The blue coat laced with gold.'\n\n'Sir \u2013'\n\n'I order it! I insist; the blue coat or nought!'\n\n'Very, well sir.' Resignedly Jim walked to the cupboard.\n\nWhen at length his lordship was dressed to his entire satisfaction it was midway through the hot June afternoon, and Miss Betty was tapping at the door, wishing to know whether Mr Carr was coming down, or whether he was not.\n\nCarstares shifted his sling, and taking up his hat, moved just a little shakily to the door.\n\nSalter opened it, and cast a triumphant glance at Miss Betty, as though he was showing off all my lord's graces. He proffered an arm.\n\n'Shall I help ye, sir?'\n\nMiss Betty curtsied low.\n\n'La, Mr Carr!'\n\nJohn bowed profoundly.\n\n'Give ye good ken, madam,' he said. 'I am just about to descend. Thank you, Jim.' He leaned heavily on the man's arm.\n\nMiss Betty walked round him admiringly.\n\n'Lud! 'Tis mighty elegant, I vow! But I protest, I am shy!'\n\n'Egad, Miss Betty! and why?'\n\n'You are not so young as I imagined,' she replied candidly.\n\n'Bear in mind, madam, that I never sought to deceive you. I am an aged man.'\n\n'Thirty!' she scoffed, and went on ahead. 'Come, child, and mind the first step!'\n\nAt the bottom of the staircase stood Mr Beauleigh, a man of medium height, thin-lipped and grey-eyed. He came forward with one hand outstretched.\n\n'I am delighted to see you so much better, sir. I trust your shoulder no longer pains you?'\n\nMy lord pushed Jim gently to one side and placed his hand in Mr Beauleigh's.\n\n'I thank you, sir, it is almost well. But for Miss Betty, who, I fear, has the makings of a true tyrant, I should not wear this obnoxious sling.'\n\nMr Beauleigh smiled a little.\n\n'Ah, yes, she keeps us all in order, does Betty. Pray, will you not walk a little in the garden? There are chairs on the lawn \u2013 and here is my daughter.'\n\nHe waved to the door, and Carstares, turning, beheld Diana.\n\nShe stood framed by the dark wood, gowned in amber silk, with old lace falling from her elbows and over the bosom of her dress. Her hair was dark as night, with little tendrils curling over her broad, white brow. One rolling curl fell over her shoulder, the rest were gathered up under a small lace cap, which was secured by means of a riband passed beneath her chin.\n\nJack gazed, and gazed again, and in her turn Diana studied him with wide brown eyes of almost childlike innocence. Then her lids fluttered and curling lashes veiled the glorious depths, as a slow blush mounted to her cheeks.\n\nMy lord recovered his manners and made his most approved leg as her father presented him.\n\n'My love, this is Mr Carr \u2013'\n\nDiana sank into a curtsey.\n\n'\u2013 and, Mr Carr, this is my daughter, Diana.'\n\n'I am delighted to make Miss Beauleigh's acquaintance,' said John, and raised her hand to his lips.\n\nThe delicate tapering fingers trembled a little in his hold, and tremulous lips parted in the shyest and most adorable smile that he had ever seen.\n\n'Indeed, sir, we are already acquainted. I am not like to forget my rescuer.'\n\n'I am happy to think that I was able to be of some service to you, mademoiselle. Believe me, it was an honour to fight in your cause.' His eyes were on the fascinating dimple that played about her mouth.\n\n''Tis very kind of you to say so, sir. I fear we greatly incommoded you \u2013 and \u2013' She made a gesture towards his sling.\n\n'That, mademoiselle, is less than nothing. All the obligation is on my side.'\n\nMiss Betty bustled forward.\n\n'Now that will do! I never heard such a foolish set of compliments! You are looking tired, Mr Carr; come into the garden and rest.'\n\nSalter stepped forward, but Diana stayed him with uplifted finger.\n\n'If Mr Carr will accept my arm?' she hazarded.\n\nJack flushed.\n\n'Indeed, no, Miss Beauleigh \u2013 I can \u2013'\n\n'Oh, tut-tut!' cried Miss Betty. 'Have done dilly-dallying! Take him out, Di!'\n\nMr Beauleigh had already disappeared. His world lay in his library, and he was never far from it for any length of time. Now he had seized the moment when his sister was not looking to withdraw quietly, and, when she turned round, she was only in time to see the library door close softly.\n\n'Your papa has gone again,' she remarked to her niece. 'What a trying man he is, to be sure!'\n\nShe followed the pair out on to the lawn, and helped to make Carstares seat himself in a long chair under a great elm. A cushion was placed under his wounded shoulder and another at his back.\n\n'And are you sure that you are quite comfortable?' inquired Miss Betty, anxiously bending over him.\n\nJack laughed up at her.\n\n'Quite right, thank you, madam. But where will you sit?'\n\n'I shall sit in this chair, and Di will sit on a cushion' \u2013 throwing one down \u2013 'at my feet \u2013 so.'\n\n'I see that you are all ruled with a rod of iron, mademoiselle,' he said, and watched the dimple tremble into being.\n\n'Indeed, yes, sir. 'Tis very sad.'\n\nMiss Betty chuckled, and unrolled a packet of silks which she threw into her niece's lap.\n\n'Will you have the goodness to sort those for me, love?' she asked, taking out her embroidery.\n\n'Pray allow me to assist!' pleased John.\n\nDiana rose and planted her cushion down beside his chair. She then knelt down upon it and emptied the multi-coloured strands on to his knee.\n\n'Very well! You must be very careful to separate the different pinks, though. See, we will have the rose here, the salmon here, the deeper rose here, the pale pink over there, and the reds \u2013 there is no more room \u2013 we will put the reds in this paper.'\n\n'Certainly,' agreed Carstares. 'Are we to leave the other colours until the pinks are sorted?'\n\nShe nodded and bent her head over the silks.\n\n'Is Sir Miles coming this afternoon, Mr Carr?'\n\n'Why, yes, Miss Betty \u2013 now you mention it, I remember that he is. Miss Beauleigh, I defy you to put that one on the rose pile; 'tis a shade too deep.'\n\n'I am sure 'tis not! Where is one to compare with it?'\n\nCarstares produced a long thread and held it next to hers. The two heads were bent close over it. Diana sighed.\n\n'You are right; I can just see the difference. But 'tis very slight!'\n\nMiss Betty peeped over their shoulders.\n\n'Gracious, what an eye you must have! I can detect no difference.' Her eye ran along the row of silks laid out on my lord's white satin leg.\n\n'Mr Carr,' said Diana suddenly, 'I want to ask you something \u2013 something that has been puzzling me.'\n\n'Faith, what is it, Miss Beauleigh?'\n\n'Just this: why did you call Mr Everard M. le Duc?'\n\nThere was a tiny pause. My lord looked down into the gold-flecked eyes and frowned a little.\n\n'Did I call him that?'\n\n'Yes, I remember it distinctly. Was it just \u2013 a manner of speaking?'\n\n'Just a manner of speaking... You may call it that, mademoiselle. Do you not think that he looks rather ducal?'\n\n'I tried not to think of him at all. I hate him!'\n\n'Almost I begin to pity this Mr Everard,' quoth Jack.\n\nThe dimple peeped out.\n\n'Then 'tis most ungallant of you, sir!' she reproved. 'Do you know Mr Everard?'\n\n'I have certainly seen him before, madam.'\n\nDiana sat back on her heels and eyed him wonderingly.\n\n'I believe you do not wish to answer me,' she said slowly. 'Tell me, is \"Everard\" that man's real name?'\n\nMy lord twisted the ring on his finger uneasily. He did not feel himself at liberty to expose Belmanoir, and if he should reveal his true identity, it was quite possible that Mr Beauleigh might seek him out, in which case he himself might be recognised. He looked up.\n\n'Pardon me, mademoiselle, but whence this cross-examination?'\n\nDiana nodded placidly.\n\n'I thought you would refuse, but I have discovered something that will confound you, sir!' She rose to her feet. 'I will go and get it.' She walked gracefully towards the house, and my lord watched her go.\n\n'Now I am going to ask a question,' broke in Miss Betty's voice.\n\nHe threw out an imploring hand.\n\n'Madam, I beg you will consider my feeble condition! Am I fit to bear the strain, think you?'\n\n'I do! \u2013 Is it usual for gentleman to ride masked, as you were?'\n\nAt that he laughed.\n\n'No, madam, but for the gentlemen of the High Toby, it is de r\u00e8gle.'\n\nShe paused, with her needle held in mid-air:\n\n'Now, what mean you by that?'\n\n'Just that I am a common highwayman, Miss Betty.'\n\nShe stared at him for a moment, and then resumed her work.\n\n'You look it.'\n\nJohn cast a startled glance down his slim person.\n\n'Is that so, madam? And I rather flattered myself I did not!'\n\n'I was only laughing at you. You do not expect me to believe that fabrication \u2013 surely?'\n\n'I fear I do,' he sighed. ''Tis very true, alack!'\n\n'Oh, indeed? Also a friend of Sir Miles O'Hara, J.P. \u2013 and of Mr Everard?'\n\n'At least the last-named is not an acquaintance to be proud of,' he retorted.\n\n'Perhaps not. My Di says he is some great gentleman.'\n\n'I perceive that your Di is by nature suspicious. Why does she think that?'\n\n'You will see. Di, love, here is Mr Carr trying to make me believe that he is a highwayman!'\n\nDiana came up to them smiling.\n\n'I fear he teases you, aunt. Do you remember, this, sir?' Into Jack's hands she put his Grace of Andover's sword.\n\nCarstares took it, surprised, and glanced casually at the hilt.\n\nThen he started up.\n\n'Why, 'tis his sword. And I thought 'twas left on the roadside. Can it be \u2013 did you bring it, mademoiselle?'\n\nShe dropped him a curtsey and laughed.\n\n'You are surprised, sir? You demanded the sword, so I naturally supposed that you required it. Therefore I brought it home.'\n\n''Twas monstrous thoughtful of you then. I dared not hope that it had not been forgotten. I am very grateful \u2013'\n\n'Then pray show your gratitude by sitting down again!' advised the elder Miss Beauleigh. 'Remember that this is your first day up, and have a care!'\n\nJohn subsided obediently, turning the sword over in his hands.\n\nDiana pointed to the wrought gold hilt with an accusing finger.\n\n'An I mistake not, sir, that is a coronet.'\n\nMy lord's eyes followed the pink-tipped finger and rested wrathfully upon the arms of Andover. It was like Tracy to flaunt them on his sword-hilt, he reflected.\n\n'It certainly has that appearance,' he admitted cautiously.\n\n'Also, those are not paste, but real diamonds, and that is a ruby.'\n\n'I do not dispute it, madam,' he answered meekly.\n\n'And I believe that that big stone is an emerald.'\n\n'I am very much afraid that it is.'\n\n'An expensive toy!' she said, and looked sharply at him.\n\n'Ornate, I agree, but as true a piece of steel as ever I saw,' replied my lord blandly, balancing the rapier on one finger.\n\n'A very expensive toy!' she repeated sternly.\n\nJohn sighed.\n\n'True, madam \u2013 true.' Then with a brightened air: 'Perhaps Mr Everard has expensive tastes?'\n\n'It is very possible. And I think that Mr Everard must have been more than a simple country gentleman to indulge those tastes.'\n\nCarstares bit his lip to hide a smile at the thought of Tracy in the light of a simple country gentleman, and shook his head sadly.\n\n'Do you infer that he came by this sword dishonestly, madam?'\n\nThe dimple quivered and was gone.\n\n'Sir, I believe that you are playing with me,' she said with great dignity.\n\n'Madam, I am abashed.'\n\n'I am very glad to hear it, then. I infer that Mr Everard was something more than he pretended to be.'\n\n'In truth, a sorry rogue to deceive a lady.'\n\n'And I want to know if I am right. Is he, perhaps, some grand gentleman?'\n\n'I can assure you, madam, that there is very little of the gentleman about Mr Everard.'\n\nMiss Betty began to laugh.\n\n'Have done, my dear! 'Tis of no avail, and 'tis impolite to press Mr Carr too hard.'\n\nDiana pouted.\n\n'He is monstrous provoking, I think,' she said, and eyed him reproachfully.\n\n'I am desolated,' mourned Jack, but his eyes danced.\n\n'And now you are laughing!'\n\n'But then, mademoiselle, so are you!'\n\nShe shook her head, resolutely repressing the dimple.\n\n'Then I am inconsolable.'\n\nThe brown eyes sparkled and her lips parted in spite of her efforts to keep them in a stern line.\n\n'Oh, but you are ridiculous!' she cried, and sprang to her feet. 'And here is Sir Miles!'\n\nO'Hara came across the lawn towards them, bowed to the ladies, and glanced inquiringly from one to the other.\n\n'Is it a joke ye have?' he asked.\n\nDiana answered him.\n\n'Indeed no, sir. 'Tis Mr Carr who is so provoking.'\n\n'Provoking, is it? And what has he been doing?'\n\n'I'll tell you the whole truth, Miles,' interposed the maligned one. ''Tis Mistress Diana who is so inquisitive!'\n\n'Oh!' Diana blushed furiously. 'I protest you are unkind, sir!'\n\n'Sure, 'tis no gentleman he is, at all!'\n\n''Twas on the subject of gentlemen that we \u2013'\n\n'Quarrelled,' supplied her aunt.\n\n'Disagreed,' amended his lordship.\n\n'Disagreed,' nodded Diana. 'I asked him whether Mr Everard was not some grand gentleman, and he evaded the point.'\n\n'I vow 'tis slander!' cried Jack. 'I merely said that Everard was no gentleman at all.'\n\n'There! And was not that evading the point, Sir Miles?'\n\n'Was it? Sure, I'm inclined to agree with him.'\n\n'I declare you are both in league against me!' she cried, with greater truth than she knew. 'I mean, was he perhaps a titled gentleman?'\n\n'But how should Jack know that?'\n\n'Because I am sure he knows him \u2013 or, at least, of him.'\n\n'Listen, Mistress Di,' broke in my lord, shooting a warning glance at O'Hara. 'I will tell you all about Mr Everard, and I hope you will be satisfied with my tale.' He paused and seemed to cudgel his brain. 'First he is, of course, titled \u2013 let me see \u2013 yes, he is a Duke. Oh, he is certainly a Duke \u2013 and I am not sure but what he is royal \u2013 he \u2013'\n\n'Now you are ridiculous!' cried Miss Betty.\n\n'You are very teasing,' said Diana, and tried to frown. 'First you pretend to know nothing about Mr Everard, and then you tell me foolish stories about him. A duke, indeed! I believe you really do know nothing about him!'\n\nAs Carstares had hoped, she refused to believe the truth.\n\n'He is playing with ye, child,' said O'Hara, who had listened to Jack's tale with a face of wonder. 'I warrant he knows no Everard \u2013 eh, Jack?'\n\n'No, I cannot say that I do,' laughed his lordship.\n\n'But \u2013 but \u2013 you said \u2013'\n\n'Never mind what he said, Miss Di. 'Tis a scurvy fellow he is.'\n\nShe regarded him gravely.\n\n'Indeed, I almost think so.'\n\nBut the dimple peeped out for all that! The next instant it was gone, and Diana turned a face of gloom to her aunt, pouting her red lips, adorably, so thought my lord.\n\n'Mr Bettison,' she said in accents of despair.\n\nAt these mystic words, Jack saw Miss Betty frown, and heard her impatient remark: 'Drat the man!'\n\nHe looked towards the house, and perceived a short, rather stout, young man to be walking with a peculiar strutting gait towards them. The boy was good-looking, Carstares acknowledged to himself, but his eyes were set too close. And he did not like his style. No, certainly he did not like his style, nor the proprietary way in which he kissed Diana's hand.\n\n'How agreeable it is to see you again, Mr Bettison!' said Miss Betty with much affability. 'I declare 'tis an age since we set eyes on you!'\n\n'Oh, no, Aunt,' contradicted Diana sweetly. 'Why, it was only a very short while ago that Mr Bettison was here, surely!' She withdrew the hand that the young man seemed inclined to hold fast to, and turned to John.\n\n'I think you do not know Mr Bettison, Mr Carr?' she said. 'Mr Bettison, allow me to present you to Mr Carr. Sir Miles I think you know?'\n\nThe squire bowed with a great deal of stiff hostility. Carstares returned the bow.\n\n'You will excuse my not rising, I beg,' he smiled. 'As you perceive \u2013 I have had an accident.'\n\nLight dawned on Bettison. This was the man who had rescued Diana, confound his impudence!\n\n'Ah, yes, sir! Your arm, was it not? My faith, I should be proud of such a wound!'\n\nIt seemed to Carstares that he smiled at Diana in a damned familiar fashion, devil take his impudence!\n\nDiana sank down on the cushion again, and shook some more strands out on to his knee.\n\n'How quick you have been! Now we will do the blue ones.'\n\nBettison glared. This fellow seemed prodigious intimate with Diana, devil take him! He sat down beside Miss Betty, and addressed my lord patronisingly.\n\n'Let me see \u2013 er \u2013 Mr Carr. Have I met you in town, I wonder? At Tom's perhaps?'\n\nThis country bumpkin would belong to Tom's, reflected John savagely, for no reason at all. Aloud he said:\n\n'I think it extremely unlikely, sir. I have been abroad some years.'\n\n'Oh, indeed, sir? The \"grand tour\", I suppose?'\n\nMr Bettison's tone was not the tone of one who supposes any such thing.\n\nJohn smiled.\n\n'Not this time,' he said, 'that was seven years ago.'\n\nMr Bettison had heard rumours of this fellow who, it was murmured, was nought but a common highwayman.\n\n'Really? After Cambridge, perhaps?'\n\n'Oxford,' corrected Carstares gently.\n\nCurse his audacity! thought Mr Bettison.\n\n'Seven years ago \u2013 let me think. George must have been on the tour then \u2013 Selwyn, I mean, Miss Beauleigh.'\n\nJack, who had made the tour with several other young bucks fresh down from college, accompanied as far as Paris by the famous wit himself, held his peace.\n\nMr Bettison then launched forth into anecdotes of his own tour, and seeing that his friend was entirely engrossed with Miss Diana and her silks, O'Hara felt it incumbent on him to draw the enemy's fire, and taking his own departure, to bear the squire off with him. For which he received a grateful smile from my lord, and a kiss blown from the tips of her fingers from Mistress Di, with whom he was on the best of terms.\n\n# Fourteen\n\nMistress Diana is Unmaidenly\n\nThe idyllic summer days passed quickly by, and every time that my lord spoke of leaving, the outcry was so indignant and so firm that he hastily subsided and told himself he would stay just another few days. His shoulder, having mended up to a certain point, refused quite to heal, and exertion brought the pain back very swiftly. So his time was for the most part spent with Mistress Di out of doors, helping her with her gardening and her chickens \u2013 for Diana was an enthusiastic poultry farmer on a small scale \u2013 and ministering to her various pets. If Fido had a splinter in his paw, it was to Mr Carr that he was taken; if Nellie, the spaniel, caught a live rabbit, Mr Carr would assuredly know what to do with it, and the same with all the other animals. The young pair grew closer and closer together, while Miss Betty and O'Hara watched from afar, the former filled with pride of her darling, and satisfaction, and the latter with apprehension. O'Hara knew that his friend was falling unconsciously in love, and he feared the time when John should realise it. He confided these fears to his wife, who, with young David, was staying at her mother's house in Kensington, in a long and very Irish letter. She replied that he must try and coax my lord into coming to stay with them, when her charms would at once eclipse Mistress Diana's, though to be sure, she could not understand why Miles should not wish him to fall in love, for as he well knew, 'twas a prodigious pleasant sensation. If he did not know it, then he was indeed most disagreeable. And had he ever heard of anything so wonderful? \u2013 David had drawn a picture of a horse! Yes, really, it was a horse! Was he not a clever child? Further, would her dearest Miles please come and fetch her home, for although Mamma was prodigious amiable, and wanted her to stay several weeks, she positively could not live without her husband an instant longer than was necessary!\n\nAs soon as O'Hara read the last part of the letter he brushed Carstares and his love affairs to one side, and posted straight to London to obey the welcome summons.\n\nBit by bit my lord discovered that he was very much in love with Diana. At first his heart gave a great bound, and then seemed to stop with a sickening thud. He remembered that he could not ask her to marry him, disgraced as he was, and he immediately faced the situation, realising that he must go away at once. His first move was to Mr Beauleigh, to tell him of his decision. On being asked why he must so suddenly leave Horton House, he explained that he loved Diana and could not in honour speak of love to her. At which Mr Beauleigh gasped and demanded to know the reason. Carstares told him that he was by profession a highwayman, and watched him bridle angrily. Before so agreeable and so smiling, Mr Beauleigh now became frigidly polite. He quite understood Mr Carr's position, and \u2013 er \u2013 yes, he honoured him for the course on which he had decided. But Mr Beauleigh was very, very cold. Carstares gave Jim orders to pack immediately, that he might depart next day, and reluctantly informed Miss Betty of his going. She was startled and bewildered. She had imagined that he would spend all June with them. Circumstances, he regretted, willed otherwise. He should always remember her great kindness to him, and hoped that she would forgive the brusque nature of his departure.\n\nWhen he told Diana her eyes opened very wide and she laughed, pointing an accusing finger at him.\n\n'You are teasing, Mr Carr!' she cried, and ran into the house.\n\nThat evening Miss Betty confirmed Jack's words, and seeing the hurt look in the girl's eyes, wisely held her peace.\n\nNext morning in the pleasance Diana came across my lord, and went up to him, gravely questioning.\n\n'You are really leaving us to-day, Mr Carr?'\n\n'I am afraid I must, Mistress Di.'\n\n'So suddenly? Then you were not teasing yesterday?'\n\n'No, mademoiselle \u2013 I was not. I fear I have tarried too long, taking advantage of your kindness.'\n\n'Oh, no, no!' she assured him. 'Indeed, you have not! Must you really go?'\n\nLooking down into her big eyes, John read the answering love in them, and grew pale. It was worse to think that she cared, too. If only he thought she was indifferent, parting would not seem so unbearable.\n\n'Mademoiselle \u2013 you overwhelm me \u2013 I must go.'\n\n'Oh, but I am sorry. Your being here has been such a pleasure! I \u2013' She stopped, and looked away across the flowers.\n\n'You?' prompted Jack before he could check himself.\n\nWith a tiny laugh she brought her gaze back.\n\n'I am sorry you must leave us, naturally.'\n\nShe sat down beneath an arbour of roses, and patted the place beside her invitingly, with just the same unconscious friendliness that she had always shown him. My lord stayed where he was, with one hand on a tree trunk and the other fidgeting with his quizzing glass.\n\n'Mistress Di \u2013 I think it only right that I should tell you what I have told your father, and what I told your aunt some time ago, when she refused to believe me. To some extent I am here under false pretences. I am not what you think me.'\n\nDiana laced and unlaced her fingers, and thought that she understood.\n\n'Oh, no, Mr Carr!'\n\n'I am afraid yes, mademoiselle. I am \u2013 a common felon... a highwayman!' He bit the words out, not looking at her.\n\n'But I knew that,' she said softly.\n\n'You knew it?'\n\n'Why, yes! I remember when you told Aunt Betty.'\n\n'You believed me?'\n\n'You see,' she apologised, 'I always wondered why you were masked.'\n\n'And yet you permitted me to stay \u2013'\n\n'How silly of you, Mr Carr! Of course I do not care what you are! I owe so much to you!'\n\nHe wheeled round at that, and faced her.\n\n'Madam, I can bear anything rather than gratitude! It is only that which has made you tolerate me all this time?'\n\nHer fingers gripped one another.\n\n'Why, sir \u2013 why, sir \u2013'\n\nThe flame died out of his eyes, and he drew himself up stiffly, speaking with a curtness that surprised her.\n\n'I crave your pardon. I should be whipped at the cart-tail for asking such an impertinent question. Forget it, I beg.'\n\nDiana looked up at the stern face, half amazed, half affronted.\n\n'I do not think I quite understand you, sir.'\n\n'There is nought to understand, mademoiselle,' he answered with dry lips. ''Twere merely that I was coxcomb enough to hope that you liked me a little for mine own sake.'\n\nShe glanced again at his averted head with a wistful little smile.\n\n'Oh!' she murmured. 'Oh!' \u2013 and \u2013 'It is very dreadful to be a highwayman!' she sighed.\n\n'Yes, mademoiselle.'\n\n'But surely you could cease to be one?' coaxingly.\n\nHe did not trust himself to answer.\n\n'I know you could. Please do!'\n\n'That is not all,' he forced himself to say. 'There is worse.'\n\n'Is there?' she asked wide-eyed. 'What else have you done, Mr Carr?'\n\n'I \u2013 once \u2013' heavens, how hard it was to say! 'I once... cheated... at cards.' It was out. Now she would turn from him in disgust. He shut his eyes in anticipation of her scorn, his head turned away.\n\n'Only once?' came the soft voice, filled with awed admiration.\n\nHis eyes flew open.\n\n'Mademoiselle \u2013 !'\n\nShe drooped her head mournfully.\n\n'I'm afraid I always cheat,' she confessed. 'I had no idea 'twas so wicked, although Auntie gets very cross and vows she will not play with me.'\n\nHe could not help laughing.\n\n''Tis not wicked in you, child. You do not play for money.'\n\n'Oh, did you?'\n\n'Yes, child.'\n\n'Then that was horrid of you,' she agreed.\n\nHe stood silent, fighting the longing to tell her the truth.\n\n'But \u2013 but \u2013 do not look so solemn, sir,' the pleading voice went on. 'I am sure you must have had a very strong excuse?'\n\n'None.'\n\n'And now you are letting it spoil your life?' she asked reproachfully.\n\n'It does not wait for my permission,' he answered bitterly.\n\n'Ah, but what a pity! Must one moment's indiscretion interfere with all else in life! That is ridiculous. You have \u2013 what is the word \u2013 expiated! yes, that is it \u2013 expiated it, I know.'\n\n'The past can never be undone, madam.'\n\n'That, of course, is true,' she nodded, with the air of a sage, 'but it can be forgotten.'\n\nHis hand flew out eagerly and dropped back to his side. It was hopeless. He could not tell her the truth and ask her to share his disgrace; he must bear it alone, and, above all he must not whine. He had chosen to take Richard's blame and he must abide by the consequences. It was not a burden to be cast off as soon as it became too heavy for him. It was for ever \u2013 for ever. He forced his mind to grasp that fact. All through his life he must be alone against the world; his name would never be cleared; he could never ask this sweet child who sat before him with such a wistful, pleading look on her lovely face, to wed him. He looked down at her sombrely, telling himself that she did not really care: that it was his own foolish imagination. Now she was speaking: he listened to the liquid voice that repeated:\n\n'Could it not be forgotten?'\n\n'No, mademoiselle. It will always be there.'\n\n'To all intents and purposes, might it not be forgotten?' she persisted.\n\n'It will always stand in the way, mademoiselle.'\n\nHe supposed that mechanical voice was his own. Through his brain thrummed the thought: 'It is for Dick's sake... for Dick's sake. For Dick's sake you must be silent.' Resolutely he pulled himself together.\n\n'It will stand in the way \u2013 of what?' asked Diana.\n\n'I can never ask a woman to be my wife,' he replied.\n\nDiana wantonly stripped a rose of its petals, letting each fragrant leaf flutter slowly to the ground.\n\n'I do not see why you cannot, sir.'\n\n'No woman would share my disgrace.'\n\n'No?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'You seem very certain, Mr Carr. Pray have you asked the lady?'\n\n'No, madam.' Carstares was as white as she was red, but he was holding himself well in hand.\n\n'Then \u2013' the husky voice was very low, 'then \u2013 why don't you?'\n\nThe slim hand against the tree trunk was clenched tightly, she observed. In his pale face the blue eyes burnt dark.\n\n'Because, madam, 'twere the action of a \u2013 of a \u2013'\n\n'Of a what, Mr Carr?'\n\n'A cur! A scoundrel! A blackguard!'\n\nAnother rose was sharing the fate of the first.\n\n'I have heard it said that some women like \u2013 curs, and \u2013 and \u2013 and scoundrels; even blackguards,' remarked the provocative voice. Through her lashes its owner watched my lord's knuckles gleam white against the tree-bark.\n\n'Not the lady I love, madam.'\n\n'Oh? But you are sure?'\n\n'I am sure. She must marry a man whose honour is spotless; who is not \u2013 a nameless outcast, and who lives \u2013 not \u2013 by dice \u2013 and highway robbery.'\n\nHe knew that the brown eyes were glowing and sparkling with unshed tears, but he kept his own turned inexorably the other way. There was no doubting now that she cared, and that she knew that he did also. He could not leave her to think that her love had been slighted. She must not be hurt, but made to understand that he could not declare his love. But how hard it was, with her sorrowful gaze upon him, and the pleading note in her voice. It was quivering now:\n\n'Must she, sir?'\n\n'Yes, madam.'\n\n'But supposing \u2013 supposing the lady did not care? Supposing she \u2013 loved you \u2013 and was willing share your disgrace?'\n\nThe ground at her feet was strewn with crimson petals, and all around and above her roses nodded and swayed. A tiny breeze was stirring her curls and the lace of her frock, but John would not allow himself to look, lest the temptation to catch her in his arms should prove too great for him. She was ready to give herself to him; to face anything, only to be with him. In the plainest language she offered herself to him, and he had to reject her.\n\n'It is inconceivable that the lady would sacrifice herself in such a fashion, madam,' he said.\n\n'Sacrifice!' She caught her breath. 'You call it that!'\n\n'What else?'\n\n'I... I... I do not think that you are very wise, Mr Carr. Nor... that you... understand women... very well. She might not call it by that name.'\n\n'It would make no difference what she called it, madam. She would ruin her life, and that must never be.'\n\nA white rose joined its fallen brethren, pulled to pieces by fingers that trembled pitifully.\n\n'Mr Carr, if the lady... loved you... is it quite fair to her \u2013 to say nothing?'\n\nThere was a long silence, and then my lord lied bravely.\n\n'I hope that she will \u2013 in time \u2013 forget me,' he said.\n\nDiana sat very still. No more roses were destroyed; the breeze wafted the fallen petals over her feet, lightly, almost playfully. Somewhere in the hedge a bird was singing, a full-throated sobbing plaint, and from all around came an incessant chirping and twittering. The sun sent its bright rays all over the garden, bathing it in gold and happiness; but for the two in the pleasance the light had gone out, and the world was very black.\n\n'I see,' whispered Diana at last. 'Poor lady!'\n\n'I think it was a cursed day that saw me come into her life,' he groaned.\n\n'Perhaps it was,' her hurt heart made answer.\n\nHe bowed his head.\n\n'I can only hope that she will not think too hardly of me,' he said, very low. 'And that she will find it in her heart to be sorry \u2013 for me \u2013 also.'\n\nShe rose and came up to him, her skirts brushing gently over the grass, holding out her hands imploringly.\n\n'Mr Carr...'\n\nHe would not allow himself to look into the gold-flecked eyes... He must remember Dick \u2013 his brother Dick!\n\nIn his hand he took the tips of her fingers, and bowing, kissed them. Then he turned on his heel and strode swiftly away between the hedges towards the quiet woods, with a heart aflame with passion, and with rebellion and impotent fury. He would go somewhere quite alone and fight the devil that was prompting him to cry the truth aloud and to throw aside his burden for love, forgetting duty.\n\nBut Diana remained standing among the scattered flowers, very still, very cold, with a look of hopeless longing in her eyes and a great hurt.\n\n# Fifteen\n\nO'Hara's Mind is Made Up\n\nJim Salter folded one of my lord's waistcoats and placed it carefully in an open valise; then he picked up a coat, and spread it on the bed preparatory to folding it in such wise that no crease should afterwards mar its smoothness. All about him my lord's clothing was strewn; Mechlin ruffles and cravats adorned one chair, silk hose another; gorgeous coats hung on their backs; shoes of every description, red-heeled and white, riding boots and slippers, stood in a row awaiting attention; wigs perched coquettishly on handy projections, and piles of white cambric shirts peeped out from an almost finished bag.\n\nJim laid the coat tenderly in the valise, coaxing it into decorous folds, and wondering at the same time where his master was. He had been out all the morning, and on his return had looked so ill that Jim had been worried, and wished that they were not leaving Horton House quite so soon. A little while ago my lord had been closeted with his host; Jim supposed he must be still there. He reached out his hand for another waistcoat, but before his fingers had touched it, he stopped, and lifted his head, listening. Hasty, impetuous footsteps sounded on the stairs, and came furiously along the corridor. The door was twisted open, and my lord stood on the threshold. Jim scanned the tired face anxiously, and noted with a sinking heart that the blue eyes were blazing and the fine lips set in a hard, uncompromising line. The slender hand gripping the door-handle twitched in a way that Jim knew full well; evidently my lord was in an uncertain mood.\n\n'Have you finished?' rapped out Carstares.\n\n'Not quite, sir.'\n\n'I wish to leave this year, and not next if 'tis all the same to you!'\n\n'Yes, sir. I didn't know you was in a hurry, sir.'\n\nThere was no reply to this. My lord advanced into the room and cast one glance at his scattered baggage and another all round him.\n\n'Where is my riding dress?'\n\nJim shivered in his luckless shoes.\n\n'I \u2013 er \u2013 'tis packed sir. Do ye want it?'\n\n'Of course I want it! Do you suppose that I am going to ride in what I have on?'\n\n'I rather thought ye were driving, your honour.'\n\n'I am not. The scarlet suit at once, please.'\n\nHe flung himself down in a chair before his dressing-table and picked up a nail-file.\n\nSalter eyed his reflection in the glass dismally, and made no movement to obey. After a moment my lord swung round.\n\n'Well! What are you standing there for? Didn't you hear me?'\n\n'Ay, sir, I did, but \u2013 your pardon, sir \u2013 but do ye think 'tis wise to ride to-day for \u2013 for the first time?'\n\nThe file slammed down on to the table.\n\n'I am riding to Horley this afternoon!' said his master dangerously.\n\n''Tis a matter of fifteen miles or so, your honour. Hadn't ye better \u2013'\n\n'Damn you, Jim, be quiet!'\n\nSalter gave it up.\n\n'Very well, sir,' he said, and unearthed the required dress. 'I'll see the baggage goes by coach, and saddle the mare and Peter.'\n\n'Not Peter. You go in the coach.'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'What!'\n\nMy lord stared at him. There had been a note of finality in the respectful tone. My lord became icy.\n\n'You forget yourself, Salter.'\n\n'I ask your pardon, sir.'\n\n'You will travel in charge of my things, as usual.'\n\nJim compressed his lips, and stowed a shoe away in one corner of the bag.\n\n'You understand me?'\n\n'I understand ye well enough, sir.'\n\n'Then that is settled.'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\nMy lord dropped his eye-glass.\n\n'What the devil do you mean \u2013 \"No sir?\"'\n\n'I ask your pardon, sir, an I presume, but I can't and won't let ye ride alone with your wound but just healed.' There was not a hint of defiance or impertinence in the quiet voice, but it held a great determination.\n\n'You won't, eh? Do you imagine I am a child?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Or unable to take care of myself?'\n\n'I think ye are weaker than ye know, sir.'\n\n'Oh, you do, do you?'\n\nJim came up to him.\n\n'Ye'll let me ride with ye, sir? I won't trouble ye, and I can ride behind, but I can't let ye go alone. Ye might faint \u2013 sir \u2013'\n\n'I can assure you I am not like to be a pleasant companion!' said Carstares with a savage little laugh.\n\n'Why, sir, I understand there's something troubling ye. Will ye let me come?'\n\nMy lord scowled up at him, then relented suddenly.\n\n'As you please.'\n\n'Thank ye, sir.' Salter returned to his packing, cording one bag and placing it near the door, and quickly filling another. The piles of linen grew steadily smaller until they disappeared, and he retired into a cupboard to reappear with a great armful of coats and small-clothes.\n\nFor a long while my lord sat silent staring blankly before him. He walked to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out, then he turned and came back to his chair. Jim, watching him covertly, noted that the hard glitter had died out of his eyes, and that he looked wearier than ever.\n\nCarstares studied his nails for a moment in silence. Presently he spoke:\n\n'Jim.'\n\n'Yes, sir?'\n\n'I shall be \u2013 going abroad again shortly.'\n\nIf Carstares had remarked that it was a fine day the man could not have shown less surprise.\n\n'Shall we, sir?'\n\nJohn looked across at him, smiling faintly.\n\n'You'll come, Jim?'\n\n'I would go anywhere with ye, sir.'\n\n'And what about that little girl at Fittering?'\n\nSalter blushed and stammered hopelessly.\n\n'My dear fellow, since when have I been blind? Did you think I did not know?'\n\n'Why, sir \u2013 well, sir \u2013 er \u2013 yes, sir!'\n\n'Of course I knew! Can you leave her to come with me?'\n\n'I couldn't leave ye to stay with her, sir.'\n\n'Are you sure? I do not want you to come against her inclinations.'\n\n'Women ain't everything, sir.'\n\n'Are they not? I think they are... a great deal,' said my lord wistfully.\n\n'I'm mighty fond o' Mary, but she knows I must go with you.'\n\n'Does she? But is it quite fair to her? And I believe I am not minded to drag you 'cross Continent again.'\n\n'Ye won't leave me behind, sir? Ye couldn't do that! Sir \u2013 ye're never thinking of going by yourself? I \u2013 I \u2013 I won't let ye!'\n\n'I am afraid I cannot spare you. But if you should change your mind, tell me. Is it a promise?'\n\n'Ay, sir. If I should change my mind.' Salter's smile was grimly sarcastic.\n\n'I am selfish enough to hope you'll not change. I think no one else would bear with my vile temper as you do. Help me out of this coat, will you?'\n\n'I'll never change, sir. And as to tempers \u2013 As if I minded!'\n\n'No. You are marvellous. My breeches. Thanks.'\n\nHe shed his satin small-clothes, and proceeded to enter into white buckskins. 'Not those boots, Jim, the other pair.' He leaned against the table as he spoke, drumming his fingers on a chair-back.\n\nA knock fell on the door, at which he frowned and signed to Jim, who walked across and opened it, slightly.\n\n'Is your master here?' inquired a well-known voice, and at the sound of it my lord's face lighted up, and Salter stood aside.\n\n'Come in, Miles!'\n\nThe big Irishman complied and cast a swift glance round the disordered room. He raised his eyebrows at sight of Jack's riding boots and looked inquiringly across at him.\n\nMy lord pushed a chair forward with his foot.\n\n'Sit down, man! I thought you were in London?'\n\n'I was. I brought Molly home yesterday, the darlint, and I heard that ye were leaving here this afternoon.'\n\n'Ah?'\n\n'And as I'm not going to let ye slip through me fingers again, I thought I would come and make sure of ye. Ye are a deal too slippery, Jack.'\n\n'Yet I was coming to see you again whatever happened.'\n\n'Of course. Ye are coming now \u2013 to stay.'\n\n'Oh no!'\n\nO'Hara placed his hat and whip on the table, and stretched his legs with a sigh.\n\n'Sure, 'tis stiff I am! Jim, I've a chaise outside for the baggage, so ye may take it down as soon as may be.'\n\n'Leave it where it is, Jim. Miles, 'tis monstrous good of you, but \u2013'\n\n'Keep your buts to yourself, Jack. Me mind's made up.'\n\n'And so is mine! I really cannot \u2013'\n\n'Me good boy, ye are coming to stay with us until ye are recovered, if I have to knock ye senseless and then carry ye!'\n\nThe lightning smile flashed into Jack's eyes.\n\n'How ferocious! But pray do not be ridiculous over a mere scratch! Recovered, indeed!'\n\n'Ye still look ill. Nay, Jack, take that frown off your face; 'tis of no avail, I am determined.'\n\nThe door closed softly behind Jim as Carstares shook his head.\n\n'I can't, Miles. You must see 'tis impossible.'\n\n'Pooh! No one who comes to Thurze House knows ye or anything about ye. Ye need not see a soul, but come ye must!'\n\n'But, Miles \u2013'\n\n'Jack don't be a fool! I want ye, and so does Molly. 'Tis no trap, so ye need not look so scared.'\n\n'I'm not. Indeed, I am very grateful, but \u2013 I cannot. I am going abroad almost at once.'\n\n'What?'\n\n'Yes. I mean it.'\n\nO'Hara sat up.\n\n'So it has come! I knew it would!'\n\n'What mean you?'\n\n'Ye've found out that ye love Mistress Di.'\n\n'Nonsense!'\n\n'And she you.'\n\nJack looked at him.\n\n'Oh, ay! I'm a tactless oaf, I know, and me manners are atrocious to be for trying to break through the barriers ye've put up round yourself. But, I tell ye, Jack, it hurts to be kept at the end of a pole! I don't want to force your confidence, but for God's sake don't be treating me as if I were a stranger!'\n\n'I beg your pardon, Miles. It's confoundedly hard to confide in anyone after six years' solitude.' He struggled into his coat as he spoke, and settled his cravat. 'If you want to know the whole truth, 'tis because of Diana that I am going.'\n\n'Of course. Ye are in love with her?'\n\n'It rather points that way, does it not?'\n\n'Then why the devil don't ye ask her to marry ye?'\n\n'Why don't I ask her? Because I will not offer her a smirched name! Because I love her so much that \u2013' He broke off with a shaky, furious laugh. 'How can you ask me such a question? I am a desirable parti, hein? Nom d'un nom! For what do you take me?'\n\nO'Hara looked up, calmly studying the wrathful countenance.\n\n'Chivalrous young fool,' he drawled.\n\nAgain the short, angry laugh.\n\n'Is it so likely that I should ask her to marry me, is it not? \"Mademoiselle, you see in me an improvident fool: I began life by cheating at cards, and since then \u2013\" Oh, I shall believe it myself ere long! I seem to have told it to so many people. And I lay myself open to the impertinences of \u2013' he checked himself, thinking of the interview downstairs with Mr Beauleigh.\n\n'Rubbish, Jack.'\n\n''Tis not rubbish. I have one recommendation \u2013 only one.'\n\n'Faith, have ye as much? What is it?'\n\nMy lord laughed bitterly.\n\n'I dress rather well.'\n\n'And fence better, as far as I remember.'\n\n'I have reason to. That is but another point to damn me. What women would marry a fencing-master? Oh, my God! what a mess I have made of my life.' He tried to laugh and failed miserably.\n\n'I rather fancy Mistress Di would.'\n\n'She will not be asked thus to demean herself,' was the proud answer.\n\n'My dear Jack, ye forget ye are the Earl of Wyncham.'\n\n'A pretty earl! No thank you, Miles. Richard's son will be Earl \u2013 no son of mine.'\n\nO'Hara brought his fist down on the table with a crash.\n\n'Damn Richard and his son!'\n\nMy lord picked up a jewelled pin and, walking to the glass, proceeded to fasten it in his cravat. The other followed him with smouldering eyes.\n\n'Retired into your shell again?' he growled.\n\nCarstares, with his head slightly on one side, considered the effect of the pin. Then he came back to his friend.\n\n'My dear Miles, the long and short of it is that I am an unreasonable grumbler. I made my bed, and I suppose I must \u2013 er \u2013 lie on it.'\n\n'And will ye be afther telling me who helped ye in the making of it?'\n\nCarstares sat down and started to pull on one boot.\n\n'I foresee we shall be at one another's throats ere long,' he prophesied cheerfully. 'Did I tell you that I informed Mr Beauleigh of my \u2013 er \u2013 profession to-day?'\n\nMiles forgot his anger in surprise.\n\n'Ye never told him ye were a highwayman?' he cried.\n\n'Yes, I did. Why not?'\n\n'Why not? Why not? God help us all! Are ye daft, man? Do ye intend to tell every other person ye meet what ye are? Bedad, 'tis mad ye are entirely!'\n\nCarstares sighed.\n\n'I was afraid you would not understand.'\n\n''Twould take a wizard to understand ye! Another chivalrous impulse, I doubt not?'\n\n'Chiv \u2013 ! No. It is just that I could not let him think me an honourable gentleman. He took it well, on the whole, and is now frigidly polite.'\n\n'Polite! I should hope so! The ould scarecrow, after ye'd saved his daughter on him, too! And 'twas he made ye so furious?'\n\nCarstares laughed.\n\n'He and myself. You see \u2013 he \u2013 lectured me \u2013 oh! quite kindly \u2013 on the error of my ways, and \u2013 it hurt.'\n\n''Tis as well ye are coming to me then, the way things are with ye at present.'\n\nMy lord opened his mouth to speak, encountered a fiery glance, and shut it again.\n\n'Anything to say?' inquired O'Hara with a threatening gleam in his eye.\n\n'No, sir,' replied Jack meekly.\n\n'Ye will come?'\n\n'Please.'\n\nO'Hara sprang up joyfully.\n\n'Good lad! Lud! but I was afraid at one time \u2013 Put on your other boot while I go and look for that rascal of yours!' He hurried out of the room to find Jim, who, having foreseen the result of the contest, was already stowing the luggage away on the chaise.\n\nHalf-an-hour later, his adieux made, Jim and the baggage following, my lord rode out with O'Hara on his way to Thurze House.\n\nFor some time there was silence between the two men, with only a perfunctory remark or two on the fineness of the day and the freshness of the mare to break it. Carstares' mind was, as his friend well knew, dwelling on all that he had left behind him. His parting with Diana had been quite ordinary, she at least making no sign that he was anything beyond a chance acquaintance; indeed, it had almost seemed to him that her attitude was slightly aloof, as if she had drawn a little into herself. Her hand when he had kissed it had been lifeless and cold, her smile sweetly remote. He knew that he had held the hand a fraction of a minute longer than was strictly in accordance with the rules of good manners, and he feared that he had clasped it in most unseemly wise, pressing it hard against his lips. He wondered whether she had remarked it. He little guessed that long after he had ridden out of sight, she continued to feel that pressure. If he could have seen her passionately kissing every finger separately for fear her lips might pass over the exact spot his had touched, his heart might have been lighter.\n\nIt was true that she had retired into her shell, a little hurt at what she termed his man's blind obstinacy. She had laid her heart bare for him to read; she had offered herself to him as plainly as if she had spoken in terms less general than in the pleasance; she had fought desperately for her happiness, thrusting aside all thought of maiden modesty, and when she afterwards had realised what she had done, and tried to imagine what he must think of her, she had blushed dark, and mentally flayed herself for her lack of proper pride and manners. Terrified that he might think her immodest, overwhelmed with sudden shyness, she had been colder in her attitude towards him than she had intended, even in her anxiety not to appear forward. But in spite of her coldness, how intensely had she hoped that he would sense her love and all that she wanted him to know! Incomprehensible the ways of women!\n\nNot endowed with feminine perspicacity or intuition, how could John hope to understand her dual feelings? He only knew that he had hurt her, and that she had drawn back that she might not lay herself open to more. He could not hope to understand her when she did not fully understand herself.\n\nReflecting on the swiftness with which love had come to them, he believed that with a like swiftness it might fade, at least from Diana's memory. He told himself that he hoped for that end, but he was honest enough to know that it was the last thing in the world he wanted. The mere thought of Diana indifferent to him, or worse, another man's bride, made him bite on his underlip and tighten his hold on the rein.\n\nO'Hara cast many a surreptitious glance at the stern young profile beside him, wondering whether his lordship would last out the tedious ride or no. He knew enough of Carstares' indomitable courage to believe that he would, but he feared that it would prove too great a strain on him in his present weakened condition.\n\nVery wisely he made no attempt to draw Carstares out of his abstraction, but continued to push on in silence, past fields knee-deep in grass, soon to be hay, with sorrel and poppies, growing apace, long lanes with hedges high above their heads on either side, over hill and down dale \u2013 always in silence.\n\nPresently O'Hara fell a little to the rear that he might study his friend without palpably turning to do so. He thought he had never seen Jack's face wear such a black look. The fine brows almost met over his nose with only two sharp furrows to separate them; the mouth was compressed, the chin a little prominent, and the eyes, staring ahead between Jenny's nervous ears, seemed to see all without absorbing anything. One hand at his hip was clenched on his riding-whip, the other mechanically guided the mare.\n\nO'Hara found himself admiring the lithe grace of the man, with his upright carriage and splendid seat.\n\nSuddenly, as if aware that he was being studied, my lord half turned his head and met O'Hara's eyes. He gave a tiny shrug and with it seemed to throw off his oppression. The frown vanished, and he smiled.\n\n'I beg your pardon, Miles. I am a surly fellow.'\n\n'Mayhap your shoulder troubles you,' suggested O'Hara tactfully.\n\n'N-no, I am barely conscious of it. I've no excuse beyond bad manners and a worse temper.'\n\nFrom thence onward he set himself to entertain his friend, and if his laugh was sometimes rather forced, at least his wit was enough to keep O'Hara in a pleasurable state of amusement for some miles.\n\nBy the time they arrived at Thurze House, Carstares was suspiciously white about the mouth, and there was once more a furrow \u2013 this time of pain \u2013 between his brows. But he was able to greet my Lady O'Hara with fitting elegance and to pay her at least three neat, laughing compliments before O'Hara took him firmly by the arm and marched him to his room, there to rest and recover before the dinner hour.\n\nShortly after, Jim arrived, highly contented with his new surroundings, and able to give a satisfactory verdict on Jenny's stalling. He had quite accepted O'Hara as a friend, after some jealous qualms, and was now well pleased that his master should be in his house instead of roaming the countryside.\n\nAt five o'clock, as the gong rang, my lord descended the stairs resplendent in old gold and silver trimmings, determined to be as gay and light-hearted as the occasion demanded, as though there had never been a Diana to upset the whole course of a man's life.\n\nNot for nothing had he fought against the world for six long years. Their teaching had been to hide all feeling beneath a perpetual mask of nonchalance and wit; never for an instance to betray a hurt, and never to allow it to appear that he was anything but the most care-free of men. The training stood him in good stead now, and even O'Hara wondered to see him in such spirits after all that had passed. Lady Molly was delighted with her guest, admiring his appearance, his fine, courtly manners, and falling an easy victim to his charm.\n\nO'Hara, watching them, saw with content that his capricious little wife was really attracted to my lord. It was a high honour, for she was hard to please, and many of O'Hara's acquaintances had been received, if not with actual coldness, at least not with any degree of warmth.\n\nAt the end of the meal she withdrew with the warning that they were not to sit too long over their wine, and that Miles was not to fatigue his lordship.\n\nO'Hara pushed the decanter towards his friend.\n\n'I've a piece of news I daresay will interest ye!' he remarked.\n\nCarstares looked at him inquiringly.\n\n'Ay. 'Tis that his Grace of Andover has withdrawn his precious person to Paris.'\n\nCarstares raised one eyebrow.\n\n'I suppose he would naturally wish to remain in the background after our little fracas.'\n\n'Does he ever wish to be in the background?'\n\n'You probably know him better than I do. Does he?'\n\n'He does not. 'Tis always in front he is, mighty prominent. Damn him!'\n\nMy lord was faintly surprised.\n\n'Why that? Has he ever interfered with you?'\n\n'He has interfered with me best friend to some purpose.'\n\n'I fear the boot was on the other leg!'\n\n'Well, I know something of how he interferes with Dick.'\n\nCarstares put down his glass, all attention now.\n\n'With Dick? How?'\n\nO'Hara seemed to regret having spoken.\n\n'Oh, well \u2013 I've no sympathy with him.'\n\n'What has Tracy done to him?'\n\n''Tis nothing of great moment. Merely that he and that worthless brother of his seek to squeeze him dry.'\n\n'Robert?'\n\n'Andrew. I know very little of Robert.'\n\n'Andrew! But he was a child \u2013'\n\n'Well, he's grown up now, and as rakish a young spendthrift as ye could wish for. Dick seems to pay their debts.'\n\n'Devil take him! Why?'\n\n'Heaven knows! I suppose Lavinia insists. We all knew that 'twas for that reason Tracy flung you both in her way.'\n\n'Nonsense! We went of our own accord. She had but returned from school.'\n\n'Exactly. And whose doing was that but Tracy's?'\n\nCarstares opened his eyes rather wide and leant both arms on the table, crooking his fingers round the stem of his wine glass.\n\n'Do the debts amount to much?'\n\n'I can't tell ye that. 'Twas but by chance I found it out at all. The Belmanoirs were never moderate in their manner of living.'\n\n'Nor were any of us. Don't be so hard on them, Miles!... I knew, of course, that the Belmanoir estate was mortgaged, but I did not guess to what extent.'\n\n'I don't know that either, but Dick's money does not go to pay it off. 'Tis all frittered away on gambling and pretty women.'\n\nMy lord's brow darkened ominously.\n\n'Ye-s. I think I shall have a little score to settle with Tracy on that subject \u2013 some day.'\n\nMiles said nothing.\n\n'But how does Dick manage without touching my money?'\n\n'I do not know.' O'Hara's tone implied that he cared less.\n\n'I hope he is not in debt himself,' mused Carstares. ''Tis like enough he is in some muddle. I wish I might persuade him to accept the revenue.' He frowned and drummed his fingers on the table.\n\nO'Hara exploded.\n\n'Sure, 'twould be like you to be doing the same. Let the man alone for the Lord's sake, and don't be after worrying your head over a miserable spalpeen that did ye more harm than \u2013'\n\n'Miles, I cannot allow you to speak so of Dick! You do not understand.'\n\n'I understand well enough. 'Tis too Christian ye are entirely. And let us have an end of this farce of yours! I know that Dick cheated as well as you do, and I say 'tis unnatural for you to be wanting him to take your money after he's done you out of honour and all else!'\n\nCarstares sipped his wine quietly, waiting for Miles' anger to evaporate, as it presently did, leaving him to glower balefully. Then he started to laugh.\n\n'Oh Miles, let me go my own road! I'm a sore trial to you, I know.' Then suddenly sobering: 'But I want you not to think so hardly of Dick. You know enough of him to understand a little how it all came about. You know how extravagant he was and how often in debt \u2013 can you not pardon the impulse of a mad moment?'\n\n'That I could pardon. What I cannot forgive is his \u2013 unutterable meanness in letting you bear the blame.'\n\n'O'Hara, he was in love with Lavinia \u2013'\n\n'So were you.'\n\n'Not so deeply. With me 'twas a boy's passion, but with him 'twas serious.'\n\nO'Hara remained silent, his mouth unusually hard.\n\n'Put yourself in his place,' pleased Jack. 'If you \u2013'\n\n'Thank you!' O'Hara laughed unpleasantly. 'No, Jack, we shall not agree on this subject, and we had best leave it alone. I do not think you need worry about him, though. I believe he is not in debt.'\n\n'Does he have fair luck with his racing and his \u2013'\n\nO'Hara smiled grimly.\n\n'Dick is a very changed man, John. He does not keep racehorses, neither does he play cards, save for appearance's sake.'\n\n'Dick not play! What then does he do?'\n\n'Manage your estates and conducts his wife to routs. When in town,' bitterly, 'he inhabits your house.'\n\n'Well, there is none else to use it. But I cannot imagine Dick turned sober!'\n\n''Tis easy to be righteous after the evil is done, I'm thinking!'\n\nMy lord ignored this remark. A curious smile played about his mouth.\n\n'Egad, Miles, 'tis very entertaining! I, the erstwhistle sober member \u2013 what is the matter? \u2013 am now the profligate: I dice, I gamble, I rob. Dick the ne'er-do-well is a saint. He \u2013 er \u2013 lives a godly and righteous life, and \u2013 er \u2013 is robbed by his wife's relations. After all, I do not think I envy him overmuch.'\n\n'At least, you enjoy life more than he does,' said O'Hara, grinning. 'For ye have no conscience to reckon with.'\n\nCarstares' face was inscrutable. He touched his lips with his napkin and smiled.\n\n'As you say, I enjoy life the more \u2013 but as to conscience, I do not think it is that.'\n\nO'Hara glanced at him sitting sideways in his chair, one arm flung over its back.\n\n'Will ye be offended if I ask ye a question?'\n\n'Of course not.'\n\n'Then \u2013 do ye intend to go back to this highroad robbery?'\n\n'I do not.'\n\n'What then will you do?'\n\nThe shadows vanished, and my lord laughed.\n\n'To tell you the truth, Miles, I've not yet settled that point. Fate will decide \u2013 not I.'\n\n# Sixteen\n\nMr Bettison Proposes\n\nMr Bettison could make nothing of Diana of late. Her demeanour, at first so charming and so cheerful, had become listless, and even chilling. She seemed hardly to listen to some of his best tales, and twice she actually forgot to laugh at what was surely a most witty pleasantry. It struck him that she regarded him with a resentful eye, as if she objected to his presence at Horton House, and had no desire to be courted. But Mr Bettison was far too egotistic to believe such a thing, and he brushed the incredible suspicion away, deciding that her coldness was due to a very proper shyness. He continued his visits until they became so frequent that scarce a day passed without his strutting step being heard approaching the house and his voice inquiring for the Miss Beauleighs. Mr Beauleigh, who secretly hoped for Mr Bettison as a son-in-law, would not permit the ladies to deny themselves, and he further counselled Miss Betty to absent herself after the first few moments, leaving the young couple together. Thus it was that it so continually fell to Diana's lot to receive the Squire and to listen to his never-ending monologues. She persistently snubbed him, hoping to ward off the impending proposal, but either her snubs were not severe enough, or Mr Bettison's skin was too thick to feel them; for not a fortnight after my lord's departure, he begged her hand in marriage. It was refused him with great firmness, but, taking the refusal for coquettishness, he pressed his suit still more amorously, and with such a self-assured air that Mistress Di became indignant.\n\n'Sir,' she cried, 'it seems you have indeed misread my attitude towards you!'\n\nMr Bettison was struck dumb with amazement. It had never entered his brain that Diana could seriously refuse him. He could hardly believe his ears at this quite unmistakable tone of voice, and sat gaping.\n\n'I must beg,' continued Diana, 'I must beg that you will discontinue your all-too-frequent visits here. Please do not deem me unkind, but your persecution of me \u2013 I can call it nothing else \u2013 is wearying \u2013 and \u2013 you will forgive the word \u2013 tiresome. I confess I am surprised that you had not perceived your attentions to be distasteful to me.'\n\n'Distasteful!' cried Mr Bettison, recovering after two or three unsuccessful attempts from his speechlessness. 'Do you mean what you say, Miss Diana? That you will not wed me?'\n\nShe nodded.\n\n'Yes, Mr Bettison, I do.'\n\n'And that my attentions are displeasing to you! Well, Miss Beauleigh! Well, indeed!'\n\nDiana softened a little.\n\n'I am indeed sorry that you should have misconstrued \u2013'\n\n'No misconstruction, madam!' snapped the Squire, who was fast losing control over his temper. 'Do you dare aver that you did not encourage me to visit you?'\n\n'I do, most emphatically!'\n\n'Oh, I see what 'tis! You cannot hoodwink me. 'Twas never thus with you before that fellow came!'\n\n'Mr Bettison, I am entirely at a loss, but I desire you to leave this room before you say aught you may afterwards regret.'\n\nHe disregarded her.\n\n'You are infatuated by that over-dressed popinjay \u2013 that insufferable Carr, who, from all I hear, is but a shady fellow, and who \u2013'\n\nWith a sweeping movement Diana had risen and walked to the bell-rope. She now pulled it with such vigour that a great peal sounded throughout the house.\n\nShe stood perfectly still, a statue of Disdain, tall, beautiful and furious, with compressed lips and head held high. Mr Bettison broke off and mopped his brow, glaring at her.\n\nStartled Thomas appeared at the door.\n\n'Did you ring, madam?'\n\n'Show Mr Bettison out,' was the proud answer.\n\nThe Squire got up awkwardly.\n\n'I am sure I apologise if I said aught that was untrue,' he mumbled. 'I hope you will not take my words amiss \u2013'\n\n'I shall try to forget your insults, sir,' she replied. 'The door, Thomas!'\n\nMr Bettison went out, and his step had lost some of its self-confident swagger.\n\nFor a full minute after the great front door had shut behind him, Diana stood where she was, and then the colour suddenly flamed in her cheeks, and she turned and ran out of the room, up the stairs, to her own chamber, where she indulged in a luxurious fit of crying. From this enjoyable occupation she was interrupted by a rap on the door, and Miss Betty's voice desiring to know if she was within.\n\nShe instantly started up and with hasty fingers straightened her tumbled curls.\n\n'Pray enter!' she called, trying to sound jaunty. To complete the illusion, she started to hum. Her aunt entered.\n\n'I came to see if you had my broidery. I cannot find it, and I am sure 'twas you brought it in from the garden this morning.'\n\n'Yes \u2013 oh, yes \u2013 I am so sorry! 'Tis in that corner on the chair, I think,' replied Diana, keeping her face averted.\n\nMiss Betty cast a shrewd glance at her, and sat down on the sofa with the air of one who means to stay.\n\n'What is it, my love?' she demanded.\n\nDiana pretended to search for something in a cupboard.\n\n'Nothing, aunt! What should there be?'\n\n'I do not know. 'Tis what I want to find out,' answered Miss Betty placidly.\n\n'There is nought amiss, I assure you!' To prove the truth of this statement, Diana essayed a laugh. It was a poor attempt, and wavered pitifully into a sob.\n\n'My pet, don't tell me! You are crying!'\n\n'I \u2013 I'm n-not!' avowed Diana, hunting wildly for her pocket-handkerchief. ''Tis a cold in the head I have had these three days.'\n\n'Indeed, my love? Longer than that, I fear.'\n\n'Yes \u2013 perhaps so \u2013 I \u2013 What do you mean?'\n\n'I doubt but what you caught it the day that Mr Carr left us.'\n\nDiana started.\n\n'P-pray, do not be ridiculous, auntie!'\n\n'No, my dear. Come and sit beside me and tell me all about it,' coaxed Miss Betty.\n\nDiana hesitated, gave a damp sniff, and obeyed.\n\nMiss Betty drew her head down on to her shoulder soothingly.\n\n'There, there! Don't cry, my sweet! What has happened?'\n\n''Tis that odious Mr Bettison!' sobbed Diana. 'He \u2013 he had the audacity to ask me to m-marry him!'\n\n'You don't say so, my love! I thought I heard him arrive. So you sent him about his business?'\n\n'N-not before he had time to insult m-me!'\n\n'Insult you? Di!'\n\n'He \u2013 he dared to insinuate \u2013 oh no! he accused me outright of being infatuated by Mr Carr! Infatuated!'\n\nOver her head Miss Betty opened her eyes at her own reflection in the glass.\n\n'The brute! But, of course, 'tis true?'\n\nNo answer.\n\n'Is it not?'\n\nThe sobs came faster.\n\n'Of \u2013 of course 'tis true, but h-how dared he say so?'\n\n'Di, my love, you really are in love with that boy?'\n\n'I \u2013 I \u2013 I asked him to marry me \u2013 and he wouldn't!'\n\n'Good gracious heavens!' Miss Betty was genuinely horrified. 'My dear Diana!'\n\n'N-not outright \u2013 b-but he understood \u2013 and \u2013 he loves me! And I'd do it again to-morrow, if I could \u2013 immodest or no! So there!'\n\n'Yes, yes,' soothed Miss Betty hastily. 'Tell me all about it.'\n\nDiana lifted her head.\n\n'That's all. And he loves me \u2013 he does \u2013 he does!'\n\n'Did he say so?'\n\n'N-no \u2013 but I could tell. And I love him' \u2013 sob \u2013 'and I'd sooner die than live without him, and he won't ask me b-because he has not got a spotless p-past, and he'd be a cur, and horrid things, and my husband must not be an \u2013 an \u2013 outcast, and \u2013 and \u2013 and I don't care!'\n\nHer bewildered aunt unravelled this with difficulty.\n\n'He'd be a cur if he asked you to marry him?' she asked with knitted brows.\n\n'Yes. Because he's a highwayman.'\n\n'A highwayman! Then 'twas true what he said? Well, well! I should never have thought it! That nice boy!'\n\nDiana disengaged herself; in her eyes was a threatening gleam.\n\n'Don't dare say a word against him!'\n\n'No, no \u2013 of course not! I was only surprised. But I am thankfully glad he did not ask you, for all that!'\n\n'Glad? How can you be so cruel?'\n\n'My dear, you could not possibly marry \u2013 a \u2013 a \u2013'\n\n'Common felon!' sobbed Diana. 'I can \u2013 I can!'\n\n'And heaven alone knows what else he may have done! Why, child, he said himself that he had a \u2013 a spotty past!'\n\nAt this her niece gave a tearful giggle.\n\n'La! What ails you now, Di?'\n\n'H-he never said \u2013 spotty.'\n\nMiss Betty smiled reluctantly.\n\n'A doubtful past, then.'\n\n'I don't believe it!'\n\nHer aunt pursed up her lips.\n\n'I won't believe it. He couldn't be wicked. You forget he saved me!'\n\nMiss Betty relented.\n\n'No, I do not, my love; and, to be sure, I think he is a dear boy, but I also think 'twas very right of him to go away.'\n\nShe was enveloped in a rapturous embrace.\n\n'Auntie, you know you love him almost as much as I do?'\n\n'No, that I do not!' was the grim retort. 'I am not like to marry him!'\n\nThere was another watery giggle at this, and Diana went over to the dressing-table to tidy her hair.\n\n'I doubt I shall ever see him again,' she said wretchedly. 'Oh, auntie, if you could but have seen his dear, unhappy eyes!'\n\n'Stuff and nonsense! Not see him again, forsooth! He will call upon us in town. 'Tis but common politeness.'\n\n'You forget he is a highwayman, and not like to come nigh us again.'\n\n'Well, my dear, if he cares for you as you say he does, he will see to it that he takes up some decent occupation. Mayhap, he will go into the army, or what not. Then wait and see if he does not come to you.'\n\n'Do you think so?' doubtfully.\n\n'Of course I do, sweetheart! And if he does not try to mend his ways, and you see him no more \u2013 why then, snap your fingers at him, my love, for he will not be worth one tear!'\n\nDiana sighed and poured out some water to bathe her face with.\n\n'Is not that sensible?' coaxed her aunt.\n\nShe raised her head and looked unutterable scorn.\n\n'I think 'tis remarkable silly,' she answered. Then her dignity fell from her. 'Oh, are all men such big stupids?' she cried.\n\n'Most of 'em,' nodded her aunt.\n\n'But can't he tell that I shall be \u2013 oh, so miserable and that I should not ruin my life if I married him?'\n\n'My dear, once a man gets an idea into his head, 'tis the very devil to get it out of him! Not but what I think Master Jack is right, mind you. And your dear papa and I had looked higher for you. After all \u2013 what is Mr Carr?'\n\n'He is the only man I will ever marry! So you may cease looking higher for me! I suppose you want me to marry that great gaby, Sir Denis Fabian, you are for ever inviting to the house? Or, perhaps, this gallant Mr Bettison? Or Mr Everard? How can you be so unkind?'\n\n'I am not. But I could not bear to see you throw yourself away on a highwayman, my dear.'\n\nDiana ran to her, putting her arms round her neck.\n\n'Dearest auntie, forgive my rudeness! I know you did not mean to be unkind! But you do not understand \u2013 I love him.'\n\n'I always said you'd take it badly,' nodded Miss Betty gloomily.\n\n'Take what badly?'\n\n'Love. And no man is worth one tear-drop, sweet.'\n\nThe confident, tender little laugh that answered this statement made her look at her suddenly changed niece in surprise.\n\n'You don't know,' said Diana. Her eyes were soft and luminous. 'You just do not know.'\n\nBefore Miss Betty could think of a suitable retort, a knock fell on the door. It was opened, and Thomas was found to be without.\n\n'My Lady O'Hara is below, madam.'\n\nFor an instant the two ladies stared at one another. Then:\n\n'La and drat!' said Miss Betty. 'With the drawing-room in a muddle after cleaning!'\n\nDiana nodded to the man.\n\n'We will come, Thomas.' Then as soon as he had withdrawn, she stared again at her aunt. 'Lady O'Hara! But why?'\n\n'I suppose she felt she must call after Sir Miles had been here so often. But why, for goodness' sake, must she choose the one day that the drawing-room is all untidy? Drat again, I say!'\n\nDiana was powdering her little nose, and anxiously looking to see if the tear-stains had quite vanished.\n\n''Tis not untidy, Aunt Betty. Oh, I am quite eager to see her \u2013 I think she must be charming, from all Sir Miles said. Do hurry, aunt!'\n\nMiss Betty stuck a pin into her hair and smoothed out her dress.\n\n'And me in this old taffeta!' she grumbled.\n\nDiana swirled round, her own peach-coloured silk rustling fashionably.\n\n'Never mind, dear \u2013 you look very sweet. But do be quick!'\n\nMiss Betty suffered herself to be led to the door.\n\n''Tis all very fine for you, my love, with a new gown fresh on to-day! Will you just take a look at my petticoat, though?'\n\n'Nonsense, you are beautiful! Come!'\n\nTogether they descended the stairs, and went into the drawing-room.\n\nA dainty, very diminutive little lady arose from a chair at their entry, and came forward with outstretched hands, and such a fascinating smile that Miss Betty's ill-humour vanished, and she responded to her visitor's deep curtsey with one of her best jerky dips.\n\n'I am vastly delighted to welcome you, madam,' she said primly. ''Tis good in you to come this long way to see us.'\n\nShe drew a chair forward for my lady, and presented her niece. Lady O'Hara gave the girl a swift, scrutinising glance, and curtsied again.\n\n''Tis a great pleasure to me to meet you at last, Miss Beauleigh,' she smiled. 'My husband has told me so much of you, I declare I was all agog to meet you!'\n\nDiana warmed instantly to the little lady's charm.\n\n'Indeed, madam, we, too, have heard much of you from Sir Miles. We have wanted to meet you!'\n\nLady O'Hara seated herself and nodded briskly.\n\n'I expect he told you some dreadful tales of me,' she said happily. 'I must ask your pardon for not having visited you before, but, as I daresay you know, I have been away, and, gracious me, when I returned everything seemed topsy-turvy!' She laughed across at Miss Betty. 'I promise you I have had my hands full putting things to rights, Miss Beauleigh!'\n\nMiss Betty drew her chair closer, and in a minute they were deep in truly feminine conversation: the prodigious extravagance of the servants; the helplessness of men-folk when left to themselves; and then London, its shops, its parks, the newest play.\n\nLady O'Hara was begged to take a dish of Miss Betty's precious Bohea \u2013 a very high honour indeed \u2013 and when Mr Beauleigh came into the room he found his sister and daughter seated on either side of a pretty, animated little lady whom he had never before seen, talking hard, and partaking of tay and angel cakes. Whereupon he retired hastily and shut himself up in his library.\n\n# Seventeen\n\nLady O'Hara Wins Her Point\n\nLady O'Hara looked across at her sleeping husband with no little severity in her glance. He was stretched in a chair beneath a giant oak, and she was busied with some needlework a few paces from him. O'Hara's eyes were shut and his mouth open. My lady frowned and coughed. She rasped her throat considerably, but it was not without effect; her spouse shut his mouth and opened one lazy eyelid. Immediately my lady assumed an air of gentle mournfulness, and the eye regarding her twinkled a little, threatening to close. Molly looked reproachful, and began to speak in an aggrieved tone:\n\n'Indeed, and I do not think it all kind in you to go to sleep when I want to talk, sir.'\n\nO'Hara hastily opened the other eye.\n\n'Why, my love, I was not asleep! I was \u2013 er \u2013 thinking!'\n\n'Do you say so, sir? And do you usually think with your mouth open \u2013 snoring?'\n\nO'Hara started up.\n\n'I'll swear I did not snore!' he cried. 'Molly, 'tis a wicked tease ye are!'\n\n'Miles, 'tis a big baby you are!' she mimicked. 'There is a caterpillar on your wig, and 'tis on crooked.'\n\n'The caterpillar?' asked O'Hara, bewildered.\n\n'No, stupid, the wig. I had best straighten it for you, I suppose.' She rose and stooped over him, setting the wig and removing the caterpillar by means of two leaves, judiciously wielded. Then she dropped a kiss on her husband's brow and sat down at his feet.\n\n'First, you have never asked me where I was gone to all yesterday afternoon.'\n\nO'Hara had been carefully broken in, and he now knew what was expected of him, and put on an expression of great interest.\n\n'Where did ye go, my lady?'\n\n'I went to call on Miss Beauleigh and her niece, sir!'\n\nShe looked up at him triumphantly and a little challengingly.\n\n'The devil ye did!'\n\n'Certainly, sir. I knew that there was something in the air, and I remembered your letter to me saying that Jack was in love with Diana. So I thought I would go and see her for myself.'\n\nMiles looked down at her half indulgently, half vexedly.\n\n'Did you, puss?'\n\n'I did. And I found that she was in love with him as well as he with her \u2013 of course.'\n\n'Of course?'\n\n'Who could help falling in love with him? He's so monstrous captivating, I would like to marry him myself.'\n\nShe bent her head to hide the roguish smile that had sprung to her lips.\n\n'I beg your pardon?' asked O'Hara, startled.\n\nMy lady traced patterns on his knee.\n\n'Provided, of course, that I had not already married you, Miles.'\n\nBut O'Hara had seen the smile. He heaved a great sigh, and said in lugubrious tones:\n\n'There is always the river, madam.'\n\nMy lady's finger wavered and stopped, and her hand tucked itself away into his.\n\n'That is not a nice joke, Miles.'\n\nHe laughed and tweaked one of her curls.\n\n'Sure, and did ye not ask for it, asthore?'\n\n'Of course I did not. But about Jack, dear \u2013'\n\n'I thought it was about Jack?'\n\n'Miles, will you be quiet and attend?'\n\n'Yes, m'dear.'\n\n'Very well, then. As I told you, I drove over to Littledean yesterday afternoon, and made the acquaintance of the Miss Beauleighs.'\n\n'And what did ye think of them?'\n\n'I thought Diana was wonderfully beautiful \u2013 such eyes, Miles! \u2013 and such hair! Miss Beauleigh is very amiable, and so droll! I drank a dish of tay with them, and I spoke of Jack \u2013'\n\n'Madcap, never tell me ye called him Carstares?'\n\n'No, you great gaby! Of course I did not. As it chanced, Miss Beauleigh mentioned him first, and she called him Mr Carr. So I did, too. And I noticed that Diana said scarce a word about him, and when she did 'twas of the coolest. That, of course, made me all the more certain that she loved him.'\n\nO'Hara was plainly puzzled.\n\n'But why should you be certain if she did not speak of him, alanna?'\n\n''Tis what you'll never understand, my dear, because you are but a man. But no matter \u2013 I knew. I quite adored Diana, and determined to talk to her alone. So I admired the roses, and she offered to escort me round the garden, which was what I wanted. We went out together. I think Diana must have liked me, for \u2013'\n\n'Nonsense!'\n\n'Be quiet, Miles! \u2013 for she dropped her ice and became quite friendly. And I talked a lot.'\n\nShe was aware of a convulsive movement above her, and a suppressed cough. She raised inquiring eyebrows.\n\n'Well, sir?'\n\n'Nothing, asthore \u2013 nothing. Go on with the tale \u2013 you were saying \u2013'\n\n'That I talked a lot.' She paused, and her eyes dared him; then she dimpled and dropped her lashes over them. 'I shan't tell you all I said \u2013'\n\nA relieved sigh interrupted her.\n\n'And if you continue to behave in this disagreeable fashion I shall not say another word about anything!'\n\nHaving satisfied herself that he was not going to venture a retort, she continued:\n\n'We had a long chat, and I gathered, from all she said and left unsaid, that Jack, for some foolish reason, will not ask her to marry him.'\n\n'Foolish reason, asthore?' he interrupted.\n\n'Oh, I know you consider it a remarkable fine reason, but I tell you, 'tis rank cruelty to that poor child. As if she cared about highwaymen!'\n\n''Twas not so much that, I take it, as \u2013'\n\n'Yes, but he could tell her he was innocent \u2013 oh, Miles, do not look so provoking! Of course he could! I vow if you had treated me so, I would never have let you go until you had truly repented! I am of a mind to speak to Jack.'\n\n''Twould be an entertaining sight, but ye'll kindly have a care how you touch him, my lady.'\n\n'He does not understand. I know she would be proud to marry him \u2013'\n\n'And ye'd think it a fine thing in Jack to ask her, the way things are with him at present?'\n\n'I \u2013 oh, I don't know!'\n\n'No, me love. Jack is right: he must first clear his name.'\n\n'Then, gracious goodness me, why does he not?' cried Molly, exasperated.\n\nThis time it was O'Hara's turn to look superior.\n\n'Well, alanna, that's a question ye cannot hope to understand \u2013 because ye are but a woman.'\n\nLady O'Hara ignored the challenge.\n\n'But what is to be done?'\n\n'Nought. He will have to work it out himself. He bound me to secrecy some time ago, or I would be tempted to speak to Richard.'\n\n'I quite hate Richard!' she cried. 'He must be a selfish, unkind person. And now Jack swears he must go away almost at once \u2013 and, oh! you should have seen Diana's face of despair when I mentioned that he was going abroad again. Miles, we must keep him here as long as ever we can! Oh, dear! 'tis all very worrying.'\n\nShe broke off as O'Hara pressed her hand warningly. My lord was coming across the lawn towards them.\n\n'I am in dire disgrace,' he said. 'I was left with your ferocious baby, Molly, and to quiet him, I gave him a string of beads that you had left on the table.'\n\n'My precious Indian wooden beads!'\n\n'Yes \u2013 I believe so. Anyway, the paint came off, and when Jane returned, David looked as though he had some horrible disease. She was most annoyed about it.' He sat down in Molly's lately vacated chair, and carefully wiped a daub of green from his forefinger.\n\nMolly laughed.\n\n'Poor Jane! She will have such a task to clean him. But you've arrived most opportunely. We were talking of you.'\n\nO'Hara groaned inwardly, and tried to frown her down.\n\n'You were? I am flattered! May I ask what you were saying?'\n\n'Why, that we do not want you to go back to France.'\n\nO'Hara breathed again.\n\n'That is very kind of you, my lady. I regret the necessity myself.'\n\n'Are you sure it is necessary? You might just as well live in a nice place near here, with a dear old woman to keep house for you \u2013 and \u2013 and Jim \u2013 and lots of pleasant things.'\n\nMy lord shook his head.\n\n'No, thank you!'\n\n'Yes, yes! And later on you could choose a wife!' she continued audaciously.\n\n'Not at all. There would be no choice; I should be made to marry the dear old woman. You would bully me into it.'\n\nShe laughed.\n\n'Seriously, Jack, could you not settle down near here?'\n\n'Not with that old woman, Molly.'\n\n'Never mind her; won't you consider it? No one need know you \u2013 in fact, you need see no one \u2013 and \u2013 oh, Jack! don't look like that. Miles, is he not ridiculous?'\n\n'Sure, alanna, 'tis a dreary life he'd be leading,' chuckled O'Hara.\n\n'I see what it is, Molly. You have planned to make me a recluse, and to marry me to my housekeeper. I protest, 'tis great ill-usage!'\n\nMolly eyed him doubtfully.\n\n'Would you much object to the life, John?'\n\n'Madam,' he replied solemnly, 'you would find my corpse in the garden at the end of the first week.'\n\n'Of course I should not like that,' she pondered. 'But I do not see what else we can do for you. Oh, and that reminds me! I drove over to Littledean yesterday \u2013 Miles, my love, will you be so kind as to fetch my hat? I protest, the sun \u2013'\n\n'We will move more into the shade,' said her disobliging husband.\n\n'Oh, well! 'tis of no account, though I did hear that Brown was wanting to speak to you about the new cob \u2013'\n\n''Tis prodigious thoughtful of you, Molly, but I met Brown some time ago.'\n\nLady O'Hara gave it up.\n\n'Well, as I was saying, Jack, I went to call at Horton House. Dear me, what a beautiful girl Diana is, to be sure!'\n\nCarstares tried to think of something to say, and failing, made a non-committal sound.\n\n'Yes. They both sent their kind wishes, and hoped you were better. Goodness! 'tis very close here. I wonder if you would give me your arm round the garden? And would you fetch me my hat? I left it in the hall, I think. Thank you, very much!'\n\nShe waited until he was out of earshot before she turned to her husband.\n\n'Now, Miles, you must please to stay where you are. I am not going to do anything indiscreet.'\n\n'Molly, I can't have ye worry him \u2013'\n\n'No such thing! I am going to coax him to stay here instead of going abroad. I feel sure that if we can but persuade him to stay, something will happen.'\n\n'What will happen?'\n\n'Something!'\n\n'How do ye know?\"\n\n'I don't know; I only feel it.'\n\n'Very well, asthore. If you can tease Jack into staying, I'll bless ye.'\n\n'That will be most enjoyable, I make no doubt!' she answered, and stepped back out of reach.\n\n'Oh, thank you, John!' She tied the hat over her curls, and placed her hand on my lord's arm. 'Lazy Miles is going to sleep again!' she said. 'And I so dislike to hear him snore, so let's go a long way away \u2013 into the rose garden!'\n\n'Don't go so far as all that!' drawled Miles, closing his eyes. 'You will tire yourselves.'\n\n'Do you allow him to make these ribald remarks?' inquired Jack, waiting for her to extricate a stone from her shoe.\n\n'Not usually,' she answered. 'He takes advantage when you are here.' She dropped the pebble on top of O'Hara and strolled away with my lord.\n\nAs soon as they had rounded a corner in the shrubbery she commenced the attack.\n\n'I want to speak to you of Miles,' she confided. 'He is so worried.'\n\n'Is he, Molly? Faith, I hadn't noticed it!'\n\nShe reflected that neither had she, but continued, nothing daunted:\n\n'Ah, but he is!'\n\n'What worries him?'\n\n'You,' sighed the lady mournfully. ''Tis the thought of your leaving us. I feel it myself.'\n\n'Why \u2013'\n\n'He had hoped you would be with us for a long time \u2013 as I had.'\n\n''Tis monstrous good of you both, but \u2013'\n\n'I am sure I do not know what I shall do with Miles when you are gone. He was so looking forward to having you with him.'\n\n'Molly \u2013'\n\n'And, indeed, it has come as a great disappointment to both of us to hear you talk of leaving. Won't you think better of it?'\n\n'Molly, you overwhelm me... How can I remain here indefinitely?'\n\n'If only you would! You don't know how happy it would make us. I declare Miles will worry himself quite ill if you persist in being so unkind.'\n\n'Oh, Molly, you rogue!'\n\nShe could not repress a smile, but checked it almost at once.\n\n'I mean it, Jack.'\n\n'What! That Miles is worrying himself ill over me? Fie!'\n\n'Perhaps not as bad as that,' she admitted. 'But, indeed, he is much perturbed... and, oh! I wish that you would not make us so unhappy.' She dabbed at her eyes with a wispy handkerchief, but managed to watch his face all the same. 'David loves you so, the pet! And Miles is so delighted to have found you again \u2013 and I like you \u2013 and \u2013 and \u2013 and I think 'twill be indeed rude and horrid if you do go \u2013 besides being so silly!'\n\n'Do you, Molly? You make me feel I should be an ungrateful boor to refuse \u2013'\n\nThe handkerchief was whisked away.\n\n'Then, of course you won't try to refuse! You'll stay? Promise!'\n\n'I cannot thank you enough \u2013'\n\n'Oh, you nice Jack. Till the autumn? Promise!'\n\n'Molly, I really \u2013'\n\n'Promise! I shall cry if you do not!'\n\n'I cannot! How could I prey upon your hospitality for so \u2013'\n\n'What rubbish, Jack! As if Miles had not spent months and months at Wyncham when you were boys \u2013'\n\n'That was different \u2013'\n\n'\u2013 when you were boys, and now you are so proud that you refuse to stay three miserable little months with us \u2013'\n\n'No, no, Molly; indeed, 'tis not that!'\n\n'Confess, if Miles were a bachelor, you would not hesitate?'\n\nHe was silent, nonplussed.\n\n'You see! And just because he has a wife you are disagreeable and proud. You feel you cannot bear to stay with me \u2013'\n\n'I swear I do not!'\n\n'Then why do you refuse?' she triumphed.\n\n'Molly \u2013 really, I \u2013' He broke off, laughing. 'You little wretch, you leave me nothing to say!'\n\n'Then you will stay, as I ask?'\n\n'You are quite sure \u2013'\n\n'Quite.'\n\n'Thank you very much, I will stay. 'Tis monstrous good of you, I vow. When you are tired of me, say so.'\n\n'I will,' she promised. 'Oh, but we shall do famously! How pleased Miles will be! By the way,' she continued, airily, 'I asked the Miss Beauleighs to honour us on Wednesday, but, unfortunately, they could not. Still, perhaps some other d \u2013'\n\nShe stopped, a little frightened, for he was standing before her, gripping her shoulders in a very elder-brotherly fashion.\n\n'Listen to me, Molly. I know that you have discovered that I love Diana, and I know that you think to be very kind and to bring us together. But I tell you that 'twill not be kind at all, only very cruel to us both. If you worry her to come here, I must go. Do you see?'\n\nMolly looked into the stern eyes, and her lip trembled.\n\n'I'm very \u2013 sorry!' she faltered.\n\nJack drew her arm through his once more.\n\n''Tis nothing to be sorry about; and, indeed, I am very grateful to you for trying to make me happy. But please do not!'\n\n'No, I promise I will not. But \u2013 but do you think you are being quite fair to \u2013'\n\n'Molly, tell me this: do you think you are being quite good to disobey your husband?'\n\nThe blues eyes were dancing. She smiled doubtfully.\n\n'What do you mean, Jack?'\n\n'Do you tell me that Miles did not expressly forbid you to mention this subject to me?'\n\nShe pulled her hand away, her mouth forming a soundless 'Oh!'\n\n'Well \u2013 well \u2013 well, how horrid of you!' she cried, and shook her fist at him. 'I'm going now!'\n\nLater, she found her husband in the library, and ran into his arms.\n\n'Do you mind holding me tightly?' she asked. 'I've \u2013 I've been put in the corner!'\n\n'What?' O'Hara drew her on to his knee.\n\n'Yes \u2013 figuratively \u2013 by Jack. I think, perhaps, I shouldn't like to marry him after all!'\n\n'What has he done?'\n\n'N-nothing. I'm afraid,' polishing one of his buttons with an assiduous finger. 'I'm afraid that it was rather my own fault!'\n\n'Oh!'\n\n'Yes \u2013 but I only said very little about the Miss Beauleighs, and he suddenly turned into an iceberg and made me feel like a naughty little girl. But he is going to stay, all the same; so kiss me, Miles!'\n\n# Eighteen\n\nEnter Captain Harold Lovelace\n\nAt the end of August, after having spent a moderately quiet summer in the country, Lady Lavinia was again seized with a longing for town and its attractions. She would not listen to Richard's warnings of the atrocious conditions of the roads, declaring that she cared not one jot, and go to London she must. After that one protest he desisted, and promised to take her there the following week, secretly counting himself lucky to have kept her so long at Wyncham in comparative cheerfulness of spirits. Lavinia was overjoyed, kissed him again and again, scolded herself for being such a wicked tease, and set about making her preparations for the journey.\n\nThe roads proved even worse than Richard had prophesied, and twice the coach nearly upset, and times without number stuck fast in the mire, causing the inmates much inconvenience. Carstares rode by the side of the heavy vehicle, in which were his wife, her maid, her tiny dog, and countless bandboxes and small parcels. In spite of the worry the constant stoppages entailed, he quite enjoyed the journey, for Lavinia was in excellent spirits and made light of their mishaps, receiving each fresh one with roguish laughter and some witty remark. Even when the chimney of her bedchamber, at one of the inns which they hated, smoked most vilely, she did not, as Richard quite expected she would, fly into a rage and refuse to spend another moment in the house, but after looking extremely doleful, cheered up and told dear Dicky that she would have his room while he should have hers. Then in the morning she would find him all dried up and smoked! In high good humour she went down to dinner with him, voted the partridges excellent, the pasties quite French, and the wine marvellously tolerable for such an out-of-the-way place, and kept him laughing at her antics until bed-time.\n\nThe journey was, of necessity, very slow, not only on account of the bad roads, but because whenever my lady caught sight of wild roses growing on the hedges, she must stop to pluck some. Then she and Richard would stroll along for some way, he leading his horse, the coach following at a walking pace. All of which was very idyllic, and had the effect of sending Richard to the seventh heaven of content.\n\nWhen at length they arrived at Wyncham House, Mayfair, they found that the servants had arrived a week before, and had made good use of their time. Never, declared Lavinia, had the house looked so inviting \u2013 so spick and span.\n\nOne of her black pages proffered a small monkey with much bowing and grinning, and the murmur of: 'Massa's present.'\n\nLady Lavinia flew to embrace her Dicky. How did he guess that she had for so long yearned for a monkey! Surely she had but once or twice mentioned it? Oh, he was the very best of husbands! She danced off to her apartments in a state of ecstasy.\n\nThe beau monde was returning to town, and when, a few days later, Carstares conducted his wife to Ranelagh, they found the gardens fairly crowded and very gay. Lamps hung from tree branches, although it was still quite light; the fiddlers scraped away almost without a pause; fireworks shot up from one end; the summer-houses had all been freshly painted, and the Pavilion was a blaze of light.\n\nConsciousness of her beauty and the smartness of her Georgia silk gown, with its petticoat covered in gold net, considerably added to Lavinia's enjoyment. Her hair she wore powdered and elaborately curled down on both sides with dainty escalloped lace half concealing it, and a grey capuchin over all. Her tippet was gold-laced to match her petticoat and to fasten it she wore a brooch composed of clustered rubies. Rubies also hung in her earrings, which last were of such length that the other ladies turned to stare in envy, and the bracelets that she wore over her long gloves flashed also with the great red stones. She was well-pleased with Richard's appearance, and reflected that, when he chose, he could be very fashionable indeed. The claret-coloured velvet he was wearing was most distinguished, and the gold clocks to his hose quite ravishing.\n\nThey had not been in the Garden ten minutes before a little crowd of men had gathered around them, professing themselves enraptured to behold the fair Lady Lavinia once more. One of them fetched her a chair, another a glass of negus, and the rest hovered eagerly about her.\n\nBecomingly flushed with triumph, my lady gave her little hand to Mr Selwyn, who had been once a very ardent admirer, laughed at his neat compliment, and declared that he was a dreadful flattering demon, and positively she would not listen to him!\n\nSir Gregory Markham, who brought her the negus, she discovered to have just returned from Paris. On hearing this, she broke off in the middle of a conversation with an enchanted French Chevalier and turned to him, raising her china-blue eyes to his face and clasping tight-gloved hands.\n\n'Oh, Sir Gregory! Paris? Then tell me \u2013 please, tell me \u2013 have you see my darling Devil?'\n\n'Why, yes, madam,' responded Markham, handing her the glass he held.\n\nShe sipped the negus, and gave it to the Chevalier to take care of.\n\n'I declare, I quite love you then!' she exclaimed. 'What is he doing, and, oh! when will he return to England?'\n\nSir Gregory smiled.\n\n'How can I say?' he drawled. 'I fear monsieur s'amuse!'\n\nShe flirted her fan before her face.\n\n'Dreadful creature!' she cried. 'How dare you say such things?'\n\n'Belmanoir?' inquired Lord D'Egmont, twirling his cane. 'Enamoured of the Pompadour, is he not \u2013 saving your presence, Lady Lavvy!'\n\nLavinia let fall her fan.\n\n'The Pompadour! He had best have a care!'\n\n'I believe there has already been some unpleasantness between his Majesty and the fair Jeanne on the subject of Devil. Since then she is supposed to have turned on him a cold shoulder.'\n\n'I heard 'twas he wearied of madame,' said Markham.\n\n'Well, whichever it was, I am glad the episode is closed,' decided Lavinia. ''Tis too dangerous a game to play with Louis' mistresses. Oh, mon cher Chevalier! if I had not forgot your presence! But I am sure you say dreadful ill-natured things of our George, now don't you? Oh, and have you held my negus all this time? How monstrous good of you! There, I will drink it, and Julian shall take the glass away... Voila!' She handed it to D'Egmont and rapped Mr Selwyn's knuckles with her fan, looking archly up at him as he stood behind her chair.\n\n'Naughty man! Will you have done whispering in my ear? I vow I will not listen to your impudences! No, nor laugh at them neither! Sir Gregory, you have given me no answer. When will Tracy return? For the Cavendish rout on Wednesday week? Ah, say yes!'\n\n'Certainly I will say yes, fair tormentor! But, to tell the truth, Tracy said no word of coming to London when I saw him.'\n\nShe pouted.\n\n'Now I hate you, Sir Gregory! And he has been absent since May! Oh, Julian, back already? You shall escort me to the fireworks then. Oh, my fan! Where is it? I know I dropped it on the ground \u2013 Selwyn, if you have taken it \u2013 Oh, Dicky, you have it! Thank you! See, I am going with Julian, and you may ogle Mrs Clive, whom I see walking over there \u2013 yes, positively you may, and I shall not be jealous! Very well, Julian, I am coming! Chevalier, I shall hope to see you at the rout on Wednesday week, but you must wait upon me before then.'\n\nThe Frenchman brightened.\n\n'Madame is too good. I may then call at Wyncham 'Ouse? Vraiment, I shall but exist until then!' In a perfectly audible whisper, he confided to Wilding that 'miladi \u00e9tait ravissante! Mais ravissante!'\n\nLady Lavinia went off on her gratified cavalier's arm, encountering many bows and much admiration as she passed down the walk, leaving her husband not to ogle the beautiful Kitty, as she had advised, but to saunter away in the direction of the Pavilion in company with Tom Wilding and Markham.\n\nD'Egmont guided my lady into one of the winding alleys, and they presently came out on a large lawn, dotted over with people of all conditions. Towards them was coming Lavinia's brother \u2013 Colonel Lord Robert Belmanoir \u2013 very richly clad and rakish in appearance. When he saw his sister, a look of surprise came into his florid face, and he made her a sweeping leg.\n\n''Pon my honour \u2013 Lavinia!'\n\nMy lady was not fond of her brother, and acknowledged the salutation with a brief nod.\n\n'I am delighted to see you, Robert,' she said primly.\n\n'The mere word \"delighted\" in no way expresses my sensations,' replied the Colonel in the drawling, rather unpleasant voice peculiar both to him and to the Duke. 'Your servant, D'Egmont. I imagined, Lavvy, that you were in the country?'\n\n'Richard brought me to town last Tuesday,' she answered.\n\n'How unwise of him!' taunted the Colonel. 'Or had he no choice?'\n\nShe tossed her head angrily.\n\n'If you are minded to be disagreeable, Robert, pray do not let me detain you!' she flashed.\n\nD'Egmont was quite unembarrassed by this interchange of civilities. He knew the Belmanoir family too well to be made uncomfortable by their bickerings.\n\n'Shall we leave him?' he asked Lavinia, smiling.\n\n'Yes,' she pouted. 'He is determined to be unpleasant.'\n\n'My dear sister! On the contrary, I believe I can offer you some amusement. Lovelace is in town.'\n\n'Captain Harold?' she cried incredulously.\n\n'The same.'\n\n'Oh, Bob!' Impulsively she withdrew her hand from Julian's arm, transferring it to the Colonel's. 'I must see him at once! To think he is returned after all these years! Quick, Julian, dear lad \u2013 go and find him \u2013 and tell him 'tis I, Lavinia, who want him! You know him, do you not? Yes \u2013 I thought you did. Send him to me at once! \u2013 at once!'\n\nD'Egmont looked very crestfallen at having his walk with the goddess thus cut short, but he had perforce to kiss her hand and to obey.\n\n'Yes. I thought you would be pleased,' remarked Lord Robert, and chuckled. 'Allow me to point out to you that there is a chair \u2013 two chairs \u2013 in fact, quite a number of chairs \u2013 immediately behind you.'\n\nShe sat down, chattering excitedly.\n\n'Why, 'tis nigh on five years since I saw Harry! Has he changed? Lud! but he will deem me an old woman? Is he likely to be in town for long, I wonder? \u2013 Dear me, Bob, look at the two ladies over behind that seat! \u2013 Gracious! what extraordinary coifs, to be sure! And cherry ribbons, too!... Tell me, Bob, where did you meet Harry Lovelace?'\n\nThe Colonel, who, far from attending to her monologue, had been sending amorous glances across to a palpably embarrassed girl, who hung on her papa's arm while that gentleman stopped to speak to a stout dowager, brought his gaze reluctantly back to his sister.\n\n'What's that you say, Lavvy?'\n\n'How provoking of you not to listen to me! I asked where you met Harold.'\n\n'Where I met him? Let me see \u2013 where did I meet him? Oh, I remember! At the Cocoa-Tree, a fortnight since.'\n\n'And he is altered?'\n\n'Not in any way, dear sister. He is the same mad, reckless rake-hell as ever. And unmarried.'\n\n'How delightful! Oh, I shall be so glad to see him again!'\n\n'You must present him to Richard,' sneered the Colonel, 'as an old flame.'\n\n'I must indeed,' she agreed, his sarcasm passing over her head. 'Oh, I see him! Look! Coming across the grass!'\n\nShe rose to meet the tall, fairly young Guardsman who came swiftly towards her, curtseying as only Lady Lavinia could curtsey, with such stateliness and coquetry.\n\n'Captain Lovelace!' she put forward both her hands.\n\nLovelace caught them in his, and bent his head over them so that the soft, powdered curls of his loose wig fell all about his face.\n\n'Lady Lavinia! \u2013 Enchantress! \u2013 I can find no words! I am dumb!'\n\n'And I!'\n\n'In that case,' drawled the Colonel, 'you are not like to be very entertaining company. Pray give me leave!' He bowed and sauntered away down the path with a peculiarly malicious smile on his lips.\n\nLavinia and Lovelace found two chairs, slightly apart from the rest, and sat down, talking eagerly.\n\n'Captain Lovelace, I believe you had forgot me?' she rallied him.\n\n'Never!' he answered promptly. 'Not though you well-nigh broke my heart!'\n\n'No, no! I did not do that. I never meant to hurt you.'\n\nHe shook his head disbelievingly.\n\n'You rejected me to marry some other man: do you say you did not mean to?'\n\n'You naughty Harry!... You never married yourself?'\n\n'I?' The delicate features expressed a species of hurt horror. 'I marry? No! I was ever faithful to my first love.'\n\nShe unfurled her fan, fluttering it delightedly.\n\n'Oh! Oh! Always, Harold? Now speak the truth!'\n\n'Nearly always,' he amended.\n\n'Disagreeable man! You admit you had lapses then?'\n\n'So very trivial, my dear,' he excused himself. 'And I swear my first action on coming to London was to call at Wyncham House. Imagine my disappointment \u2013 my incalculable gloom (on the top of having already dropped a thousand at faro) when I found the shell void, and Venus \u2013'\n\nShe stopped him, her fan held ready for chastisement.\n\n'Sir! You said your first action was to call upon me!'\n\nHe smiled, shaking back his curls.\n\n'I should have said: my first action of any importance.'\n\n'You do not deem losing a thousand guineas important?' she asked wistfully.\n\n'Well \u2013 hardly. One must enjoy life, and what's a thousand, after all? I had my pleasure out of it.'\n\n'Yes!' she breathed, her eyes sparkling. 'That is how I think! What pleasure can one get if one neither hazards nor spends one's money? Oh well!' She shrugged one shoulder, dismissing the subject.\n\n'Have you seen Tracy of late?'\n\n'He was at a court ball I attended at Versailles, but I did not have a chance of speaking to him. I heard he was very popular at Paris.'\n\n'Ay!' she said proudly. 'He has the French air... I so desire to see him again, but I fear he does not think of returning. I know he was promised for the Duchess of Devonshire's rout months ago \u2013 before even the date was fixed, she so dotes on him \u2013 but I do not expect to see him there.' She sighed and drummed on the ground with her diamond-buckle shoe. 'Harry, I am chilled! Take me to the Pavilion! I doubt they are dancing \u2013 and Dicky will be there.'\n\n'Dicky?' he repeated. 'Dicky! Lavinia, do not tell me there is another claimant to your heart?'\n\n'Wicked, indelicate creature. 'Tis my husband!'\n\n'Your husband! Enfin \u2013 !'\n\nShe cast him a sidelong glance of mingled coquetry and reproof.\n\n'Your mind is at rest again, I trust?'\n\n'Of course! A husband! Pooh, a bagatelle, no more!'\n\n'My husband is not a bagatelle!' she laughed. 'I am very fond of him.'\n\n'This grows serious,' he frowned. ''Tis very unfashionable, surely?'\n\nShe met his teasing eyes and cast down her lashes.\n\n'Captain Lovelace, you may take me to the Pavilion.'\n\n'Sweet tormentor, not until you cease so to misname me.'\n\n'Harold, I am indeed chilly!' she said plaintively, and snatched her hand from his lips. 'No, no! People will stare \u2013 look, there is my odious brother returning! I declare I will not stay to listen to his hateful, sneering remarks!... Come!'\n\nThey walked across the grass together, keeping up a running fire of raillery, punctuated on his side by extravagant compliments filled with classical allusions, all more or less erroneous, and on hers by delighted little laughs and mock scoldings. So they came to the Pavilion, where the musicians fiddled for those who wished to dance, and where most of the company had assembled now that it was growing chilly without. Down one end of the hall, card-tables were set out, where members of both sexes diced and gambled, drinking glasses of burgundy or negus, the men toasting the ladies, and very often the ladies returning the toasts with much archness and low curtseying.\n\nLavinia cast off her capuchin and plumed her feathers, giving a surreptitious shake to her ruched skirts and smoothing her ruffles. She rustled forward with great stateliness, fan unfurled, head held high, her gloved fingers lightly on Lovelace's velvet-clad arm. Richard, hearing the little stir caused by her entry, glanced up, and perceived her. He did not recognise her companion, but the sparkle in her eyes and the happy curve to her full lips, were quite enough to tell him that it was someone whom she was very contented to have met. He had ample opportunity for studying Lovelace as the good-looking pair drew near, and he could not but admire the delicate, handsome face with the grey eyes that held a laugh in them, the pleasure-loving, well-curved mouth, and the chin that spoke of determination. Here was not one of Lavinia's lisping, painted puppy-dogs, for in spite of the effeminate curls, it was easy to see that this man had character and a will of his own, and, above all, a great charm of manner. He saw Lavinia blush and rap the Captain's knuckles in answer to some remark, and his heart sank. He rose and came to meet them.\n\nLady Lavinia smiled sweetly upon him, and patted his arm with a possessive little air.\n\n'Dicky, dear, I have found an old friend \u2013 a very old friend! Is it not agreeable? Captain Lovelace \u2013 Mr Carstares.'\n\nThe two men bowed, Richard with reluctancy, the Captain with easy bonhomie.\n\n'Sir, I claim to be a worshipper at the shrine of which you, I believe, are High Priest!' he said impudently, and bowed again, this time to my lady.\n\n'You are one of many, sir,' smiled Richard.\n\nLady Devereux came tripping up to them, and kissed Lavinia with a great show of affection.\n\n'My dearest life! My sweet Lavinia!'\n\nLady Lavinia presented a powdered cheek.\n\n'Dearest Fanny, how charming to see you again!' she cooed. Through her lashes she gazed at her friend's enormous headdress, with its rolls of powdered curls and the imitation flowers perched upon the top of the erection.\n\n'But, my angel!' exclaimed Lady Fanny, stepping back to view her, 'surely you have been ill?'\n\n'How strange!' smiled Lavinia. 'I was about to ask you that same question, my dear! 'Tis age, I doubt not. Do we both look such dreadful hags?' She turned her bewitching little countenance to the men, and smiled appealingly.\n\nCompliments showered upon her, and Lady Devereux, who was conscious that her own sallow countenance, in spite of rouge and powder, must appear even more sallow beside Lavinia's pink-and-whiteness, flushed in annoyance and turned away, begging her dearest Lavvy to come to the faro with her. But Lavinia, it appeared, was going to watch the dicing at Richard's table: she vowed she should bring him monstrous good luck.\n\n'I don't doubt it, my dear,' replied her husband, 'but I am not playing to-night. Will you not take your luck to Bob?' He nodded to where the Colonel was lounging, dice-box in hand.\n\nLavinia pouted.\n\n'No, I want you to play!'\n\n''Tis of no avail, Lady Lavinia!' drawled Sir Gregory. 'Richard is the very devil to-night.'\n\nSelwyn, rattling his dice, paused, and looked round at Markham with a face of innocent surprise. Then he turned slowly and stared at Carstares' grave, almost stern countenance, with even more surprise. He started to rattle the dice again, and shifted back to face his opponent, with pursed lips.\n\n'Is he?' he inquired with studied depression.\n\nEven Lavinia joined in the general laugh, not so much at the wit's words as at his comic expression, and the extreme deliberation with which he had enacted the little scene.\n\nSomeone cried a bet to Lovelace, which was promptly accepted, and Lavinia's eyes glowed afresh as she followed the Captain to a table.\n\nRichard went to fetch her some refreshment, and on his return, found her leaning over Lovelace's chair, her hand on his shoulder, eagerly casting the dice on to the table. He was in time to see her clap her hands and to hear her cry of: 'My luck! Oh, my luck is in! I will throw again!'\n\nGlancing round she caught sight of her husband, and her face fell.\n\n'Do you mind, Dicky?' she pleaded.\n\nHe did mind, but he could not appear churlish before all these men; so he laughed and shook his head, and went to her elbow to watch her play.\n\nWhen she at length ceased, her luck had run out, and she had lost her much-prized ruby earring to Mr Selwyn, who placed it carefully in his vest pocket, vowing he should wear it next his heart for ever. Then, and then only, did she consent to leave the gaming tables for the dancing hall, and for another hour Richard had the felicity of watching her tread the minuet with various young bloods, but most often with her new-found Harry Lovelace.\n\n# Nineteen\n\nThe Reappearance of His Grace of Andover\n\nIt seemed to Richard in the days that followed, that Captain Lovelace was never out of his house. If he went to his wife's boudoir, there was Lovelace, hanging over her while she played upon the spinet or glanced through the pages of the Rambler. If Lavinia went to a ball or masquerade, the Captain was always amongst the favoured ones admitted to her chamber for the express purpose of watching her don her gown and judiciously place her patches. If Carstares begged his wife's company one morning, she was full of regrets: Harry was calling to take her to Vauxhall or to Spring Gardens. When he entered his door, the first sight that met his eyes was the Captain's amber-clouded cane and point-edged hat; and when he looked out of the window, it was more often to see a chair draw up at the house and Lovelace alight. After patiently enduring a week of his continued presence, Carstares remonstrated with his wife: she must not encourage her friend to spend all his time at Grosvenor Square. At first she had looked reproachful, and then she inquired his reason. His reluctant answer was that it was not seemly. At that her eyes had opened wide, and she demanded to know what could be more seemly than the visits of such an old friend? With a gleam of humour, Richard replied that it was not Captain Harold's age that he objected to, but, on the contrary, his youth. On which she accused him of being jealous. It was true enough, but he indignantly repudiated the suggestion. Very well, then, he was merely stupid! He must not be cross; Harry was her very good friend, and did not Richard admire the new device for her hair? Richard was not to be cajoled: did she clearly understand that Lovelace's visits must cease? She only understood one thing, and that was that Dicky was marvellous ill-tempered and ridiculous to-day. And he must not tease her! Yes, she would be very good, and so must he! And now she was going shopping, and she would require at least twenty guineas.\n\nIn spite of her promise to 'be good', she made no attempt to discourage Lovelace's attentions, always smiling charmingly upon him and beckoning him to her side.\n\nIt was the morning of the Duchess of Devonshire's rout that Carstares again broached the subject. My lady was in bed, her fair hair unpowdered and streaming all about her shoulders, her chocolate on a small table at her side and countless billets doux from admirers scattered on the sheet. In her hand she held a bouquet of white roses with a card attached bearing, in bold, sprawling characters, the initials 'H.L.' Perhaps it was the sight of these incriminating letters that roused Richard's anger. At all events, with a violence quite unlike his usual gentle politeness, he snatched the flowers from her hand, and sent them whizzing into a corner.\n\n'Let there be an end to all this folly!' he cried.\n\nLavinia raised herself on one elbow, astonished.\n\n'H-how dare you?' she gasped.\n\n'It has come to that!' he answered. 'How dare I, your husband, try to control your actions in any way? I tell you, Lavinia, I have had enough of your antics, and I will not longer put up with them!'\n\n'You \u2013 you \u2013 What in heaven's name ails you, Richard?'\n\n'This! I will not countenance that puppy's invasion of my house!' He made a furious gesture towards the wilted bouquet. 'Neither will I permit you to make yourself the talk of London through him!'\n\n'I? I? I make myself the talk of London? How dare you? Oh! how dare you?'\n\n'I beg you will cease that foolishness. There is no question of my daring. How dare you disobey me, as you have been doing all this past week?'\n\nShe cowered away from him.\n\n'Dicky!'\n\n''Tis very well to cry \"Dicky\", and to smile, but I have experienced that before. Sometimes I think you are utterly without heart! \u2013 a selfish, vain, extravagant woman!'\n\nThe childish lips trembled. Lady Lavinia buried her face in the pillows, sobbing.\n\nCarstares' face softened.\n\n'I beg your pardon, my dear. Mayhap that was unjust.'\n\n'And cruel! And cruel!'\n\n'And cruel. Forgive me.'\n\nShe twined white, satiny arms about his neck.\n\n'You did not mean it?'\n\n'No. I mean that I will not allow Lovelace to dangle after you, however.'\n\nShe flung away from him.\n\n'You have no right to speak like that. I knew Harry long before I ever set eyes on you!'\n\nHe winced.\n\n'You infer that he is more to you than I am?'\n\n'No! Though you try to make me hate you. No! I love you best. But I will not send Harry away!'\n\n'Not if I order it?'\n\n'Order it? Order it? No! No! A thousand times no!'\n\n'I do order it!'\n\n'And I refuse to listen to you!'\n\n'By God, madam, you need a lesson!' he flamed. 'I am minded to take you back to Wyncham this very day! And I promise you that, an you do not obey me in this, to Wyncham you shall go!' He stamped out of the room as he spoke, and she sank back amongst her pillows, white and trembling with fury.\n\nAs soon as she was dressed, she flounced downstairs, bent on finishing the quarrel. But Carstares had gone out some time since, and was not expected to return until late. For a moment Lavinia was furious, but the timely arrival of a box from her mantua-maker's chased away the frowns and wreathed her face in smiles.\n\nRichard did not return until it was time to prepare for the rout, and on entering the house he went straight to his chamber, putting himself into the hands of his valet. He submitted to the delicate tinting of his finger-nails, the sprinkling of his linen with rose-water and the stencilling of his brows. He was arrayed in puce and gold, rings slipped on to his fingers, his legs coaxed into hose with marvellous clocks splashed on their sides, and a diamond buckle placed above the large black bow of his tie-wig. Then, powdered, painted and patched, he went slowly across to his wife's room.\n\nLavinia, who had by now quite forgotten the morning's contretemps, greeted him with a smile. She sat before the mirror in her under-gown, with a loose d\u00e9shabill\u00e9 thrown over her shoulders. The coiffeur had departed, and her hair, thickly powdered, was dressed high above her head over cushions, twisted into curls over her ears and allowed to fall in more curls over her shoulders. On top of the creation were poised ostrich feathers, scarlet and white, and round her throat gleamed a great necklet of diamonds. The room was redolent of some heavy perfume; discarded ribbons, laces, slippers and gloves strewed the floor; over the back of a chair hung a brilliant scarlet domino, and tenderly laid out on the bed was her gown, a mass of white satin and brocade, with full ruffles over the hips and quantities of foaming lace falling from the corsage and from the short sleeves. Beside it reposed her fan, her soft lace gloves, her mask and her tiny reticule.\n\nCarstares gingerly sat down on the extreme edge of a chair and watched the maid tint his wife's already perfect cheeks.\n\n'I shall break hearts to-night, shall I not?' she asked gaily, over her shoulder.\n\n'I do not doubt it,' he answered shortly.\n\n'And you, Dicky?' She turned round to look at him. 'Puce... 'tis not the colour I should have chosen, but 'tis well enough. A new wig, surely?'\n\n'Ay.'\n\nHer eyes questioned his coldness, and she suddenly remembered the events of the morning. So he was sulky? Very well! Monsieur should see!\n\nSomeone knocked at the door; the maid went to open it.\n\n'Sir Douglas Faversham, Sir Gregory Markham, Moosso le Chevalier and Captain Lovelace are below, m'lady.'\n\nA little devil prompted Lavinia.\n\n'Oh, la-la! So many? Well, I cannot see all, 'tis certain. Admit Sir Gregory and Captain Lovelace.'\n\nLouisa communicated this to the lackey and shut the door.\n\nRichard bit his lip angrily.\n\n'Are you sure I am not de trop?' he asked, savagely sarcastic.\n\nLady Lavinia cast aside her d\u00e9shabill\u00e9 and stood up.\n\n'Oh, 'tis no matter \u2013 I am ready for my gown, Louisa.'\n\nThere came more knocking at the door, and this time it was Carstares who rose to open it.\n\nThere entered Markham, heavily handsome in crimson and gold, and Lovelace, his opposite, fair and delicately pretty in palest blue and silver. As usual, he wore his loose wig, and in it sparkled three sapphire pins.\n\nHe made my lady a marvellous leg.\n\n'I am prostrated by your beauty, fairest!'\n\nSir Gregory was eyeing Lavinia's white slippers through his quizzing glass.\n\n'Jewelled heels, 'pon my soul!' he drawled.\n\nShe pirouetted gracefully, her feet flashing as they caught the light.\n\n'Was it not well thought on?' she demanded. 'But I must not waste time \u2013 the dress! Now, Markham \u2013 now Harry \u2013 you will see the creation!'\n\nLovelace sat down on a chair, straddle-wise, his arms over the back, and his chin sunk in his hands. Markham leant against the garde-robe and watched through his glass.\n\nWhen the dress was at last arranged, the suggested improvements in the matter of lace, ribbons, and the adjustment of a brooch thoroughly discussed, bracelets fixed on her arms and the flaming domino draped about her, it was full three-quarters of an hour later, and Carstares was becoming impatient. It was not in his nature to join with the two men in making fulsome compliments, and their presence at the toilette filled him with annoyance. He hated that Lavinia should admit them, but it was the mode, and he knew he must bow the head under it.\n\nMy lady was at last ready to start; her gilded chair awaited her in the light of the flambeaux at the door, and with great difficulty she managed to enter it, taking absurd pains that her silks should not crush, nor the nodding plumes of her huge head-dress become disordered by unseemly contact with the roof. Then she found that she had left her fan in her room, and Lovelace and Markham must needs vie with one another in the fetching of it. While they wrangled wittily for the honour, Richard went quietly indoors and presently emerged with the painted chicken-skin, just as Lovelace was preparing to ascend the steps. At last Lavinia was shut in and the bearers picked up the poles. Off went the little cavalcade down the long square, the chair in the middle. Lovelace walked close beside it on the right, and Richard and Markham on the left. So they proceeded through the uneven streets, carefully picking their way through the dirtier parts, passing other chairs and pedestrians, all coming from various quarters into South Audley Street. They were remarkably silent: Markham from habitual laziness, Lovelace because he sensed Richard's antagonism, and Richard himself on account of his extremely worried state of mind. In fact, until they reached Curzon Street no one spoke, and then it was only Markham, who, glancing behind him at the shuttered windows of the great corner house, casually remarked that Chesterfield was still at Wells. An absent assent came from Carstares, and the conversation came to an end.\n\nIn Clarges Streets they were joined by Sir John Fortescue, an austere patrician, and although some years his senior, a close friend of Richard's. They fell behind the chair, and Fortescue took Richard's proffered arm.\n\n'I did not see you at White's to-day, John?'\n\n'No. I had some business with my lawyer. I suppose you did not stumble across my poor brother?'\n\n'Frank? I did not \u2013 but why the \"poor\"?'\n\nFortescue shrugged slightly.\n\n'I think the lad is demented,' he said. 'He was to have made one of March's supper-party last night, but at four o'clock received a communication from heaven knows whom which threw him into a state of unrest. What must he do but hurry off without a word of explanation. Since then I have not set eyes on him, but his man tells me he went to meet a friend. Damned unusual of him is all I have to say.'\n\n'Very strange. Do you expect to see him to-night?'\n\n'I should hope so \u2013 ! My dear Carstares, who is the man walking by your lady's chair?'\n\n'Markham?'\n\n'The other.'\n\n'Lovelace.'\n\n'Lovelace? And who the devil is he?'\n\n'I cannot tell you \u2013 beyond a captain in the Guards.'\n\n'That even is news to me. I saw him at Goosetree's the other night, and wondered. Somewhat of a rake-hell, I surmise.'\n\n'I daresay. I do not like him.'\n\nThey were entering the gates of Devonshire House now, and had to part company, for the crush was so great that it was almost impossible to keep together. Carstares stayed by Lavinia's chair, and the other men melted away into the crowd. Chairs jostled one another in the effort to get to the door, town coaches rolled up, and having let down their fair burdens, passed out again slowly pushing through the throng.\n\nWhen the Carstares' chair at last drew near the house, it was quite a quarter of an hour later. The ball-room was already full and a blaze of riotous colour. Lavinia was almost immediately borne off by an infatuated youth for whom she cherished a motherly affection that would have caused the unfortunate to tear his elegant locks, had he known it.\n\nRichard distinguished Lord Andrew Belmanoir, one of a group of bucks gathered about the newest beauty, Miss Gunning, who, with her sister Elizabeth, had taken fashionable London by storm. Andrew wore a mask, but he was quite unmistakable by his length of limb and carelessly rakish appearance.\n\nWilding, across the room, beckoned to Richard, and on his approach, dragged him to the card-room to play at lansquenet with March, Selwyn and himself.\n\nCarstares found the Earl in great good-humour, due, so Selwyn remarked, to the finding of an opera singer even more lovely than the last. From lansquenet they very soon passed to dice and betting, with others who strolled up to the table. Then Carstares excused himself and went back to the ball-room. He presently found himself by the side of one Isabella Fanshawe, a sprightly widow, greatly famed for her wittiness and good looks. Carstares had met her but once before, and was now rather surprised that she motioned him to her side, patting the couch with an inviting, much be-ringed hand.\n\n'Come and sit by me, Mr Carstares. I have wanted to speak with you this long time.' She lowered her mask as she spoke and closely scrutinised his face with her bright, humorous eyes.\n\n'Why, madam, I am flattered,' bowed Richard.\n\nShe cut him short.\n\n'I am not in the mood for compliments, sir. Nor am I desirous of making or hearing clever speeches. You are worrying me.'\n\nRichard sat down, intrigued and attracted by this downright little woman.\n\n'I, madam?'\n\n'You, sir. That is, your face worries me.' Seeing his surprise, she laughed, fanning herself. ''Tis comely enough, I grant you! I mean there is such a strong likeness to \u2013 a friend of mine.'\n\nRichard smiled politely and relieved her of the fan.\n\n'Indeed, madam?'\n\n'Yes. I knew \u2013 this other gentleman in Vienna, three years ago. I should judge him younger than you, I think. His eyes were blue, but very similar to yours. His nose was almost identical with yours, but the mouth \u2013 n-no. Yet the whole expression \u2013' She broke off, noticing her companion's sudden pallor. 'But you are unwell, sir?'\n\n'No, madam, no! What was your friend's name?'\n\n'Ferndale,' she answered. 'Anthony Ferndale.'\n\nThe fan stopped its swaying for a moment.\n\n'Ah!' said Richard.\n\n'Do you know him?' she inquired eagerly.\n\n'Many years ago, madam, I was \u2013 acquainted with him. Can you tell me \u2013 was he in good spirits when last you saw him?'\n\nShe pursed her lips thoughtfully.\n\n'If you mean was he gay, was he witty \u2013 yes. But sometimes I thought \u2013 Mr Carstares, when he was silent, his eyes were sad \u2013 Indeed, I do not know why I tell you this.'\n\n'You may be sure, madam, your confidence is safe with me. I had \u2013 a great regard for this gentleman.' He opened and shut her fan as he spoke, fidgeting with the slender sticks. 'You, too, were interested in him, madam?'\n\n'I do not think ever anyone knew him and was not, sir. It was something in his manner, his personality \u2013 I cannot explain \u2013 that endeared him to one. And he once \u2013 aided me \u2013 when I was in difficulties.'\n\nRichard remembering scraps of gossip concerning the widow's past, merely bowed his head.\n\nShe was silent for a time, staring down at her hands, but presently she looked up smiling, and took her fan away from him.\n\n'I cannot abide a fidget, sir!' she told him. 'And I see Lord Fotheringham approaching. I am promised to him this dance.' She rose, but Richard detained her.\n\n'Mrs Fanshawe, will you permit me to call upon you? I would hear more of \u2013 your friend. You, mayhap, think it strange \u2013 but \u2013'\n\n'No,' she answered. 'I do not. Certainly call upon me, sir. I lodge in Mount Street with my sister \u2013 No. 16.'\n\n'I protest, madam, you are too good \u2013'\n\n'Again, no. I have told you, I like a man to talk as a man and not as an affected woman. I shall be pleased to welcome you.'\n\nShe curtsied and went away on the Viscount's arm.\n\nAt the same moment a voice at Richard's elbow drawled:\n\n'Do I see you at the vivacious widow's feet, my good Dick!'\n\nCarstares turned to face his brother-in-law, Colonel Belmanoir.\n\n'Is not all London?' he smiled.\n\n'Oh, no! Not since the beautiful Gunnings' arrival. But I admit she is a dainty piece. And Lavinia? Will she break her heart, I wonder?' He laughed beneath his breath as he saw Richard's eyes flash.\n\n'I trust not,' replied Carstares. 'Are you all here to-night?'\n\n'Our illustrious head is absent, I believe. Andrew is flirting with the Fletcher girl in the Blue Salon; I am here, and Lavinia is amusing herself with Lovelace. Yes, Richard, Lovelace! Be careful!' With another sneering laugh he walked on, bowing to Elizabeth Gunning, who passed by on the arm of her partner, his Grace of Hamilton, most palpably \u00e9pris.\n\nAt that moment two late-comers entered the room and made their way towards their hostess, who appeared delighted to see them, especially the taller of the two, whose hand she slapped with good-humoured raillery. The shorter gentleman wore no mask, and the Colonel recognised Frank Fortescue. His eyes travelled to the other, who, unlike most of the men who only held their masks, had fastened his across his eyes, and they widened in surprise. The purple domino, worn carelessly open, revealed black satin encrusted with silver and diamonds. The natural hair was raven-black, the nostrils were pinched and the lips thin.\n\n'The Devil!' ejaculated Robert, and strolled over to him.\n\nFortescue walked away when he saw who approached, and his Grace of Andover turned slowly towards his brother.\n\n'I rather thought you were in Paris,' yawned the Colonel.\n\n'I am always sorry to disillusion you,' bowed his Grace.\n\n'Not at all; I am transported with joy at seeing you. As is Lavinia, it appears.'\n\nLady Lavinia, on recognising his Grace, had dropped her partner's hand and fled incontinent towards him.\n\n'You, Tracy!' She clasped delighted hands on his arm.\n\n'This is very touching,' sneered Robert. 'It only needs Andrew to complete the happy reunion. Pray excuse me!'\n\n'With pleasure,' replied the Duke gently, and bowed as if to a stranger.\n\n'He grows tedious,' he remarked, as soon as the Colonel was out of earshot.\n\n'Oh, Bob! I take no account of him! But, Tracy, how is it you have come to-day? I thought \u2013'\n\n'My dear Lavinia, do I wear an air of mystery? I imagined you knew I was promised to Dolly Cavendish to-night?'\n\n'Yes, but \u2013 oh, what matters it? I am so charmed to see you again, dear!'\n\n'You flatter me, Lavinia.'\n\n'And now that you have come, I want to hear why you ever went! Tracy, take me into the room behind us. I know 'tis empty.'\n\n'Very well, child, as you will.' He held back the curtain for her and followed her into the deserted chamber.\n\n'You want to know why I went?' he began, seating himself at her side. 'I counsel you, my dear, to cast your mind back to the spring \u2013 at Bath.'\n\n'Your affaire! Of course! So the lady proved unkind?'\n\n'No. But I bungled it.'\n\n'You? Tell me at once! \u2013 at once!'\n\nHis Grace stretched out his leg and surveyed his shoe-buckle through half-closed lids.\n\n'I had arranged everything,' he said, 'and all would have been well but for an interfering young jackanapes who chanced along the track and saw fit to espouse Madam Diana's cause.' He paused. 'He tripped me up by some trick, and then \u2013 que veux-tu?'\n\n'Who was it?'\n\n'How should I know? At first he seemed familiar. At all events, he knew me. He may be dead by now. I hope he is.'\n\n'Gracious. Did you wound him?'\n\n'I managed to fire at him, but he was too quick, and the bullet took him in the shoulder. It may, however, have been mortal.'\n\n'And so you went to Paris?'\n\n'Ay. To forget her.'\n\n'And have you forgotten?'\n\n'I have not. She is never out of my thoughts. I plan again.'\n\nHis sister sighed.\n\n'She is then more beautiful than the Pompadour?' she asked meaningly.\n\nTracy turned his head.\n\n'The Pompadour?'\n\n'Ay! We heard you contrived to amuse yourself in a pretty fashion, Tracy!'\n\n'Really? I had no idea people were so interested in my affairs. But \"amuse\" is an apt word.'\n\n'Ah? You were not then \u00e9pris?'\n\n'I? With that low-born cocotte? My dear Lavinia!'\n\nShe laughed at his haughty tone.\n\n'You've not always been so nice, Tracy! But what of your Diana? An you are so infatuated, you had best wed her.'\n\n'Why, so I think.'\n\nLady Lavinia gasped.\n\n'Tracy! You do not mean it? Goodness me, but a marriage!'\n\n'Why not, Lavinia?'\n\n'Oh, a respectable married man, forsooth! And how long will the passion last?'\n\n'I cannot be expected to foretell that, surely? I hope, for ever.'\n\n'And you'll tie yourself up for the sake of one chit? Lud!'\n\n'I can conceive a worse fate for a man.'\n\n'Can you? Well, tell me more! 'Tis monstrous exciting. Do you intend to court her?'\n\n'At this stage of the proceedings? That were somewhat tactless, my dear. I must abduct her, but I must be more careful. Once I have her, I can propitiate Papa.'\n\n'Tracy, 'tis the maddest scheme ever I heard! What will the others say?'\n\n'Do you really suppose I care?'\n\n'No, I suppose not. Oh, will not Bob be furious, though!'\n\n'It were almost worth while \u2013 just for the sake of foiling him. He would so like to succeed me. But I really do not think he must.' His elbow was on his knee, his chin in his hand, and a peculiar smile on his lips. 'Can you imagine him stepping into my ducal shoes, Lavinia?'\n\n'Very easily!' she cried. 'Oh, yes, yes, Tracy! Marry the girl!'\n\n'If she will.'\n\n'Why, 'tis not like you to underrate your persuasive powers!'\n\nHis Grace's thin nostrils wrinkled up in a curious grimace.\n\n'I believe one cannot force a girl to the altar,' he said.\n\n'Unless she is a fool, she'll have you.'\n\n'Her parent would be influenced by my dukedom, but she, no. Not even if she knew of it.'\n\n'Does she not know?'\n\n'Certainly not. I am Mr Everard.'\n\n'How wise of you, Tracy! So you've nought to fear?'\n\n'Fear?' He snapped his fingers. 'I?'\n\nThe heavy curtain swung noiselessly aside. Richard Carstares stood in the opening.\n\nTracy turned his head and scrutinised him languidly. Then he put up his hand and removed his mask.\n\n'Is it possible the husband scented an intrigue? It seems I am doomed to disappoint to-night.'\n\nLavinia, smarting from her morning's wrongs, laughed savagely.\n\n'More probable he mistook me for someone else!' she snapped.\n\nRichard bowed, his hand on the curtain. He had shown no surprise at seeing the Duke.\n\n'Far more probable, my dear. I thought you Lady Charlwood! Pray give me leave.' He was gone on the word.\n\nTracy replaced his mask, chuckling.\n\n'Honest Dick grows cold, eh? But what a snub, Lavinia!'\n\nHer little hand clenched.\n\n'Oh, how dare he! How dare he insult me so?'\n\n'My dear sister, in all justice to him, you must admit the boot was rather on the other leg.'\n\n'Oh, I know \u2013 I know! But he is so provoking! \u2013 so jealous! \u2013 so unreasonable.'\n\n'Jealous? And why?'\n\nWith an impatient twitch at her petticoat she made answer, not looking at him.\n\n'Oh, I do not know! Nor he! Take me back to the ball-room.'\n\n'Certainly, my dear.' He rose and led her out. 'I shall do myself the honour of waiting on you \u2013 to-morrow.'\n\n'Yes? How delightful 'twill be! Come to dine, Tracy! Richard is promised to the Fortescues.'\n\n'In that case, I have much pleasure in accepting your invitation... In heaven's name, who is this?'\n\nLovelace was bearing down upon them.\n\n'Lavinia! I have been seeking you everywhere! \u2013 ah \u2013 your servant, sir!' He bowed to his Grace, and took Lavinia's hand.\n\n'Oh \u2013 oh, Harold! \u2013 you remember Tracy?' she said nervously.\n\n'Tracy. I did not know you masked! I saw you last in Paris.'\n\n'Really? I regret I was not aware of your presence. It is a good many years since I had the honour of seeing you.'\n\n'Five,' nodded Lovelace, and sent a smiling, amorous glance at Lavinia.\n\n'Exactly,' bowed his Grace. 'You have, I perceive, renewed your acquaintance with my sister.'\n\nWhen they were gone he caressed his chin, thoughtfully.\n\n'Lovelace... and Richard is so jealous, so unreasonable. Now I do hope Lavinia will do nothing indiscreet \u2013 Yes, Frank, I was talking to myself; a bad habit.'\n\nFortescue, who had come up behind him, took his arm.\n\n'A sign of lunacy, my dear. Jim Cavendish demands you.'\n\n'Does he? May I ask why?'\n\n'He is in the card-room. There is some bet on, I believe.'\n\n'In that case I shall have to go. You had best accompany me, Frank.'\n\n'Very well. You have seen Lady Lavinia?'\n\nBeneath the mask his Grace's eyes narrowed.\n\n'I have seen Lavinia. Also I have seen an old friend \u2013 Lovelace by name.'\n\n'The captain with the full-bottomed wig? Your friend, you say?'\n\n'Did I say so? I should correct myself: a friend of my sister's.'\n\n'Indeed? Yes, I believe I have seen him in her company.'\n\nTracy smiled enigmatically.\n\n'I daresay.'\n\n'And what of you, Tracy?'\n\n'Well? What of me?'\n\n'You told me this morning that you had at last fallen in love. Is it true? You are honestly in love?'\n\n'Honestly? How do I know? I only know that I have felt this passion for four months, and now it is stronger than ever. It sounds like love.'\n\n'Then, if she is a good woman, I hope she will consent to take you, such as you are, and make of you such as she can!'\n\n'Now that is very neat, Frank. I congratulate you. Of course she will take me; as to the rest \u2013 I think not.'\n\n'Tare an' ouns, Tracy! but an that is the tone you take with her, she'll have none of you!'\n\n'I have never found it unsuccessful.'\n\n'With your common trollops, no! But if your Diana is a lady, she will dispatch you about your business! Woo her, man! Forget your own damned importance, for I think you will need to humble yourself to the dust if all that you tell me has passed between you is true!'\n\nThey had paused outside the card-room. A curtain shut it off from the ball-room, and with his hand on it, Tracy stared arrogantly down his friend.\n\n'Humble myself? 'Fore Gad, you must be mad!'\n\n'Belike I am; but I tell you, Tracy, that if your passion is love, 'tis a strange one that puts yourself first. I would not give the snap of a finger for it! You want this girl, not for her happiness, but for your own pleasure. That is not the love I once told you would save you from yourself. When it comes, you will count yourself as nought; you will realise your own insignificance, and above all, be ready to make any sacrifice for her sake. Yes, even to the point of losing her!'\n\nHis Grace's lips sneered.\n\n'Your eloquence is marvellous,' he remarked. 'I have not been so amused since I left Paris.'\n\n# Twenty\n\nHis Grace of Andover Takes a Hand in the Game\n\nWhen the Duke of Andover dined next day at Grosvenor Square, he contrived, by subtle means, to make his sister feel inexplicably ill at ease. He let fall pleasant little remarks concerning her friendship with Captain Lovelace, in which she read disapproval and a sinister warning. She was afraid of him, as she was not of her husband, and she knew that if he ever guessed at the depths of her affection for the old flame, he would take very effective measures towards stopping her intercourse with him. It was, then, entirely owing to his return that she told Lovelace that he must not so palpably adore her. Neither must he visit her so frequently. They were both in her boudoir at the time, one morning, and no doubt Lavinia looked very lovely and very tempting in her wrapper, with her golden curls free from powder and loosely dressed beneath her escalloped lace ruffle. At all events, Lovelace abandoned his daintily bantering pose and seized her in his arms, nearly smothering her with fierce, passionate caresses.\n\nHer ladyship struggled, gave a faint shriek, and started to cry. As his kisses seemed to aggravate her tears, he picked her up, and carrying her to a chair, lowered her gently into it. Then, having first dusted the floor with his handkerchief he knelt down beside her and possessed himself of both her hands.\n\n'Lavinia! Goddess! I adore you!'\n\nBethinking herself that tears were ruinous to her complexion, Lady Lavinia pulled her hands away and dabbed at her eyes.\n\n'Oh, Harold!' she reproached him.\n\n'I have offended you! Wretch that I am \u2013'\n\n'Oh, no, no!' Lady Lavinia gave him her hand again. 'But 'twas wicked of you, Harry! You must never, never do it again!'\n\nHis arm crept round her waist.\n\n'But I love you, sweetheart!'\n\n'Oh! Oh! Think of Dicky!'\n\nHe released her at that, and sprang to his feet.\n\n'Why should I think of him! 'Tis of you and myself I think! Only a week ago you vowed he was unkind \u2013'\n\n'You are monstrous wicked to remind me of that! We were both cross \u2013 and then we were both sorry. I am very fond of poor Dicky.'\n\n'Fond of him! Ay, so you may be, but you do not love him! Not as a woman loves a man \u2013 do you?'\n\n'Harold!'\n\n'Of course you do not! You used to love me \u2013 no, do not shake your head, 'tis true! You would have married me had it not been for Tracy.'\n\n'Oh, Harry! How can you say so? What had he to do with it?'\n\n'What indeed! Whose fault was it that I was time after time refused admittance at Andover? Whose fault was it that you were induced to marry Carstares?'\n\n'Not Tracy's. 'Twas my own wish.'\n\n'Fostered by his influence?'\n\n'Oh, no!'\n\n'You never loved Carstares \u2013'\n\n'I did! I do!'\n\n'You may think so, but I know better. Why he is not even suited to you! You were made for life and pleasure and hazard! With me you would have had all that; with him \u2013'\n\nShe had risen to her feet and drawn nearer to him, her eyes sparkling, but now she covered her ears with her hands and stamped pettishly.\n\n'I will not listen! I will not, I tell you! Oh, you are unkind to plague me so!'\n\nLovelace took her into his arms once more, and drawing down her hands, kissed her again and again. She resisted, trying to thrust him off, but she was crushed against him, and he would have kissed her again, had not there come an interruption.\n\nA knock fell on the door, and the footman announced:\n\n'His Grace of Andover, m'lady!'\n\nThe guilty pair sprang apart in the nick of time, she fiery red, he pale, but composed.\n\nHis Grace stood in the doorway, his quizzing glass raised inquiringly. His eyes went swiftly from one to the other and widened. He bowed elaborately.\n\n'My dear Lavinia! Captain Lovelace, your very obedient!'\n\nLovelace returned the bow with much flourish.\n\n'Your Grace!'\n\n'Dear me, Tracy!' cried Lavinia, advancing. 'What an unexpected visit!'\n\n'I trust I have not arrived at an inopportune moment, my dear?'\n\n'Oh, no!' she assured him. 'I am quite charmed to see you! But at such an early hour \u2013 ! I confess, it quite astonishes me!' She brought him to a chair, chattering like a child, and so innocent was his expression, so smiling his attitude towards the Captain, that she imagined that he suspected nothing, and had not noticed her blushes.\n\nIt was only when Lovelace had departed that she was undeceived. Then, when his Grace moved to a chair opposite her, she saw that he was frowning slightly.\n\n'You \u2013 you are put out over something, Tracy?' she asked nervously.\n\nThe frown deepened.\n\n'N-no. I am not \"put out\". I merely anticipate the sensation.'\n\n'I \u2013 I don't understand. What mean you?'\n\n'At present, nothing.'\n\n'Tracy, please do not be mysterious! Are you like to be put out?'\n\n'I trust not, Lavinia.'\n\n'But what annoys you?'\n\nInstead of answering, he put a question:\n\n'I hope you amused yourself well \u2013 last night, my dear sister?'\n\nShe flushed. Last night had been Lady Davenant's masquerade, to which Lord Robert had conducted her. She had danced almost exclusively with Lovelace the whole evening, but as they were both masked, she was rather surprised at the question.\n\n'I enjoyed myself quite tolerably, thank you. You were there?'\n\n'No, Lavinia, I was not there.'\n\n'Then how do you kn \u2013' She stopped in confusion, biting her lips. For an instant she caught a glimpse of his eyes, piercing and cold.\n\n'How do I know?' smoothly finished his Grace. 'One hears things, Lavinia. Also \u2013' he glanced round the room, 'one sees things.'\n\n'I \u2013 I don't understand you!' she shot out, twisting the lace of her gown with restless, uneasy fingers.\n\n'No? Must I then be more explicit?'\n\n'Yes! Yes! I should be glad!'\n\n'Then let me beg of you, my dear Lavinia, that you will commit no indiscretion.'\n\nHer cheeks flamed.\n\n'You mean \u2013'\n\n'I mean that you have grown too friendly with Harold Lovelace.'\n\n'Well! What of it?'\n\nHis Grace put up his eye-glass, faintly astonished.\n\n'What of it? Pray think a moment, Lavinia!'\n\n''Tis not likely that I shall be the one to disgrace the name, Tracy!'\n\n'I sincerely hope not. I give you my word I should do all in my power to prevent any foolhardy action on your part. Pray do not forget it.'\n\nShe sat silent, biting her lips.\n\n'It is, my child, unwise to play with fire. Sooner or later one gets burnt. And remember that your gallant captain has not half of Richard's wealth.'\n\nUp she sprang, kicking her skirts as she always did when angered.\n\n'Money! money! \u2013 always money!' she cried. 'I do not care one rap for it! And Richard is not wealthy!'\n\n'Richard is heir to wealth,' replied his Grace calmly. 'And even an you are so impervious to its charms, I, my dear, am not. Richard is extremely useful to me. I beg you will not leave him for any such mad rake as Lovelace, who would be faithful to you for perhaps three months, certainly not longer.'\n\n'Tracy, I will not have you speak to me like this! How dare you insult me so? I have given you no cause! I did not say I had any desire to run away with him \u2013 and he would be faithful to me! He has been faithful all these years!'\n\nHis Grace smiled provokingly.\n\n'My dear \u2013 !'\n\n'Oh, I know there have been episodes \u2013 indiscretions. Do you think I count him the worse for that?'\n\n'Evidently not.'\n\n'There has never been another serious love with him! I hate you!'\n\n'You are overfree with your emotions, my dear. So you do indeed contemplate an elopement?'\n\n'No, no, no! I do not! I am fond of Dicky!'\n\n'Dear me!'\n\n'Of course I shall not leave him!'\n\n'Why then, I am satisfied,' he answered, and rose to his feet. 'I shall look to see Captain Lovelace more out of your company.' He picked up his hat and cane and stood directly in front of her. One dead white hand, on which blazed a great ruby seal ring, took her little pointed chin in a firm clasp and tilted her head up until she was forced to meet his eyes. They held hers inexorably, scorchingly.\n\n'You understand me?' he asked harshly.\n\nLavinia's eyes filled with tears and her soft underlip trembled.\n\n'Yes,' she fluttered, and gave a tiny sob. 'Oh, yes, Tracy!'\n\nThe eyes lost something of their menacing gleam, and he smiled, for once without a sneer, and releasing her chin, patted her cheek indulgently.\n\n'Bear in mind, child, that I am fifteen years your senior, and I have more worldly wisdom in my little finger than you have in the whole of your composition. I do not wish to witness your ruin.'\n\nThe tears brimmed over, and she caught his handkerchief from him, dabbing at her eyes with one heavily-laced corner.\n\n'You do love me, Tracy?'\n\n'In the recesses of my mind I believe I cherish some affection for you,' he replied coolly, rescuing his handkerchief. 'I used to class you with your deplorable brothers, but I think perhaps I was wrong.'\n\nShe gave a hysterical laugh.\n\n'Tracy, how can you be so disagreeable. Lud! but I pity Diana an she marries you!'\n\nTo her surprise he flushed a little.\n\n'Diana, an she marries me, will have all that her heart could desire,' he answered stiffly, and took his leave.\n\nOnce outside in the square he looked for a sedan, and not seeing one, walked away towards Audley Street. He went quickly, but his progress was somewhat retarded by two ladies, who, passing in their chairs down the street, perceived him and beckoned him to their sides. Escaping presently from them, he turned into Curzon Street, and from thence down Half Moon Street, where he literally fell into the arms of Tom Wilding, who had much to say on the subject of March's last bet with Edgecumbe. His Grace affected interest, politely declined Wilding's proffered escort, and hurried down into Piccadilly, walking eastwards towards St James's Square, where was the Andover town house. He was fated to be again detained, for as he walked along Arlington Street, Mr Walpole was on the point of descending the steps of No. 5. He also had much to say to his Grace. He had no idea that Belmanoir had returned from Paris. A week ago he had arrived? Well, he, Walpole, had been out of town all the week \u2013 at Twickenham. He hoped Bel. would honour him with his company at the small card-party he was giving there on Thursday. George was coming, and Dick Edgecumbe; he had asked March and Gilly Williams, but the Lord knew whether both would be induced to appear! Bel. had heard of Gilly's absurd jealousy? Wilding was promised, and Markham; several other answers he was awaiting.\n\nAndover accepted gracefully and parted from Mr Walpole. He made the rest of his journey in peace, and on arriving at his house, went straight to the library, where sat a sleek, eminently respectable-looking individual, dressed like a groom. He stood up as his Grace entered, and bowed.\n\nBelmanoir nodded shortly and sat down at his desk.\n\n'I have work for you Harper.'\n\n'Yes, sir \u2013 your Grace, I should say.'\n\n'Do you know Sussex?'\n\n'Well, your Grace, I don't know as how \u2013'\n\n'Do you know Sussex?'\n\n'No, your Grace \u2013 er \u2013 yes, your Grace! I should say, not well, your Grace!'\n\n'Have you heard of a place called Littledean?'\n\n'No, s \u2013 your Grace.'\n\n'Midhurst?'\n\n'Oh, yes, your Grace.'\n\n'Good. Littledean is seven miles west of it. You will find that out \u2013 also an inn called, I think, \"The Pointing Finger\". There you will lodge.'\n\n'Yes, your Grace, certainly.'\n\n'At a very little distance from there is a house \u2013 Horton House, where lives a certain Mr Beauleigh, with his sister and daughter. You are to watch the comings and goings of these people with the utmost care. Eventually you will become groom to Mr Beauleigh.'\n\n'B-but, your Grace!' feebly protested the astonished Harper.\n\n'You will approach their present groom, and you will insinuate that I, Andover, am in need of a second groom. You will tell him that I pay handsomely \u2013 treble what Mr Beauleigh gives him. If I know human nature, he will apply for the post. You then step in. If Mr Beauleigh asks for some recommendation, you are to refer him to Sir Hugh Grandison, White's Chocolate House, St James's Street. When you are engaged I will send further instructions.'\n\nThe man gaped, shut his mouth, and gaped again.\n\n'Do you fully understand me?' asked Belmanoir calmly.\n\n'Er \u2013 er \u2013 yes, your Grace!'\n\n'Repeat what I have said, then.'\n\nHarper stumbled through it and mopped his brow unhappily.\n\n'Very well. In addition, I pay you twice as much as Mr Beauleigh gives you, and, at the end, if you serve me well \u2013 fifty guineas. Are you satisfied?'\n\nHarper brightened considerably.\n\n'Yes, your Grace! Thank you, sir!'\n\nTracy laid twenty guineas before him.\n\n'That is for your expenses. Remember this: the sooner the thing is done, the more certain are your fifty guineas. That is all. Have you any questions to ask?'\n\nHarper cudgelled his still dazed brain, and finding none, shook his head.\n\n'No, your Grace.'\n\n'Then you may go.'\n\nThe man bowed himself out, clutching his guineas. He was comparatively a newcomer in his Grace's service, and he was by no means accustomed to the Duke's lightning method of conducting his affairs. He was not sure that he quite appreciated it. But fifty guineas were fifty guineas.\n\n# Twenty-one\n\nMrs Fanshawe Lights a Fire and O'Hara Fans the Flame\n\nRichard Carstares very soon availed himself of Mrs Fanshawe's permission to call upon her, and duly put in an appearance at No. 16, Mount Street. He found the house very tastefully appointed, the sister elderly and good-natured, and the widow herself an excellent hostess. The first time he called he was not the only visitor; two ladies whom he did not know and a young cousin were already there, and later, a bowing acquaintance, Mr Standish, also arrived. Seeing that he would have no opportunity to talk with the widow on the subject of his brother, he very soon took his leave, promising to wait upon her again at no very distant date. When, three days later, he again sent in his name and was admitted, he found the lady alone, and was gratified to hear her order the servant to deny her to all other visitors.\n\nHe bowed over her hand and hoped she was well.\n\nMrs Fanshawe drew him down beside her on the settee.\n\n'I am very well, Mr Carstares. And you?'\n\n'Also,' he smiled, but his looks belied his words.\n\nShe told him so, laughing, and he pleaded a worried week.\n\n'Well, sir, I presume you did not come to talk to me about your health, but about my friend \u2013 eh?'\n\n'I assure \u2013'\n\n'Remember, no vapid compliments!' she besought.\n\n'Then, madam, yes. I want to hear about \u2013 Ferndale. You see, I \u2013 like you \u2013 took a great interest in him.'\n\nShe sent him a shrewd glance, and nodded.\n\n'Of course. I will tell you all I know, Mr Carstares, but it is not very much, and maybe you will be disappointed. But I only knew him the short time we were both in Vienna, and \u2013 he was not very communicative.'\n\n'Ah! \u2013 he did not confide in you, madam?'\n\n'No. If one attempted to draw his confidence, he became a polite iceberg.'\n\n'Nevertheless, madam, please tell me all that you know.'\n\n'It will not take long, I fear. I met him in '48 at Vienna, in the Prater, where I was walking with my husband, who had come to Vienna for his health. I chanced to let fall my reticule when Sir Anthony was passing us, and he picked it up, speaking the most execrable German.' She smiled a little at the remembrance. 'Mr Fanshawe, who had the greatest dislike for all foreigners, was overjoyed to hear the English accent. He induced Sir Anthony to continue his walk with us, and afterwards he called at our lodgings. I think he, too, was glad to meet a fellow-countryman, for he came often, and once when I had been talking with him for some time he let fall \u2013 what shall I say? \u2013 his reserve \u2013 his guard \u2013 and told me that he had scarcely spoken his own language for four years. Afterwards he seemed to regret having said even that much, and turned the subject.' She paused and looked up to see if her auditor was interested.\n\n'Yes, yes?' urged Richard. 'And then?'\n\n'I do not remember. He came, as I said, often, mostly to talk to my husband, who was a great invalid, but sometimes to see me. He would hardly ever speak of England \u2013 I think he did not trust himself. He never mentioned any relations or any English friends, and when I spoke of home, he would shut his mouth very tightly, and look terribly sad. I saw that for some reason the subject pained him, so I never spoke of it if I could help it.\n\n'He was a most entertaining companion, Mr Carstares; he used to tell my husband tales that made him laugh as I had not heard him laugh for months. He was very lively, very witty, and almost finickingly well dressed, but what his occupation was I could not quite ascertain. He said he was a gentleman of leisure, but I do not think he was at all wealthy. He frequented all the gaming houses, and I heard tales of his marvellous luck, so one day I taxed him with it, and he laughed and said he lived by Chance \u2013 he meant dice. Yet I know, for I once had conversation with his servant, that his purse was at times very, very slender.'\n\n'The time he aided you, Mrs Fanshawe, when was that?'\n\nShe flushed.\n\n'That was a few months after we first met him. I was \u2013 foolish; my married life was not \u2013 very happy, and I was \u2013 or, rather, I fancied myself \u2013 in love with an Austrian nobleman, who \u2013 who \u2013 well, sir, suffice it that I consented to dine with him one evening. I found then that he was not the galant homme I had thought him, but something quite different. I do not know what I should have done had not Sir Anthony arrived.'\n\n'He did arrive then?'\n\n'Yes. You see, he knew that this Austrian had asked me to dine \u2013 I told him \u2013 and he counselled me to refuse. But I \u2013 well, sir, I have told you, I was young and very foolish \u2013 I would not listen. When he called at our house and found that I was out, he at once guessed where I had gone, and he followed me to the Count's house, gave an Austrian name, and was announced just as the Count tried to \u2013 tried to \u2013 kiss me. I think I shall never forget the relief of that moment! He was so safe, and so English! The Count was furious, and at first I thought he would have his lackeys throw Sir Anthony out. But when he heard all that Anthony had to say, he realised that it was useless to try to detain me \u2013 and I was taken home. Anthony was very kind \u2013 he did not scold, neither had he told my husband. Two days after, he and the Count fought a duel, and the Count was wounded in the lung. That was all. But it made me very grateful to him and interested in his affairs. Mr Fanshawe left Vienna a few weeks after that, and I have never seen my preux chevalier since.' She sighed and looked steadily across at Carstares. 'And you \u2013 you are so like him!'\n\n'You think so, madam?' was all he could find to say.\n\n'I do, sir. And something more, which, perhaps, you will deem an impertinence. Is Anthony your brother?'\n\nThe suddenness of the attack threw Carstares off his guard. He went white.\n\n'Madam!'\n\n'Please be not afraid that mine is the proverbial woman's tongue, sir. It does not run away with me, I assure you. When I saw you the other night for the first time, I was struck by the resemblance, and I asked my partner, Mr Stapely, who you were. He told me, and much more beside, which I was not at the time desirous of hearing.'\n\n'Trust Will Stapely!' exclaimed Richard, and mentally cursed the amiable gossip-monger.\n\n'Among other things he told me of your elder brother \u2013 who \u2013 who \u2013 in fact, he told me the whole story. Of course, my mind instantly leapt to my poor Sir Anthony, despite that in appearance he is younger than you. Was I right?'\n\nRichard rose to his feet and walked away to the window, standing with his back to her.\n\n'Ay!'\n\n'I was sure of it,' she nodded. 'So that was why he would not speak of England? Poor boy!'\n\nRichard's soul writhed under the lash of her pity.\n\n'So he will always be outcast,' she continued. 'Alone, unhappy, without friends \u2013'\n\n'No!' he cried, turning. ''Fore Gad, no, madam!'\n\n'Will society \u2013 cruel, hard society \u2013 receive him, then?' she asked.\n\n'Society will \u2013 one day \u2013 receive him, Mrs Fanshawe. You will see.'\n\n'I long for that day,' she sighed. 'I wish I had it in my power to help him \u2013 to repay in part the debt I owe him.'\n\nAt that he lifted his head.\n\n'My brother, madam, would count it not a debt, but an honour,' he answered proudly.\n\n'Yes,' she smiled. 'You are like him; when you speak like that you might almost be he.'\n\n'He is worth a thousand of me, Mrs Fanshawe!' he replied vehemently, and broke off, staring down at the table.\n\n'And his name?' she asked softly.\n\n'John Anthony St Ervine Delaney Carstares,' he said, 'Earl of Wyncham.'\n\n'So the Anthony was real! I am so glad, for he would always be Anthony to me.'\n\nThere was a long silence, broken at last by the lady.\n\n'I fear I have made you sad, Mr Carstares. You will drink a dish of Bohea with me, before you go? And we will not speak of this again.'\n\n'You are very good, madam. Believe me, I am grateful to you for telling me all that you have. I beg you will allow me to wait on you again ere long?'\n\n'I shall be honoured, sir. I am nearly always at home to my friends.'\n\nHer sister entered the room soon after, and private conversation came to an end.\n\nCarstares lay awake long that night, hearing the hours toll by and the owls screech in the square. The widow's words had sunk deep into his ever-uneasy conscience, and he could not sleep for the thought of John, 'alone, unhappy, without friends'... Time after time had he argued this question with himself: John or Lavinia?... He fell to wondering where his brother now was; whether he was still roaming the South Country, a highwayman. No one would even know how he, Richard, dreaded each fresh capture made by the military. Every time he expected John to be among the prisoners, and he visited Newgate so often that his friends twitted him on it, vowing he had Selwyn's love of horrors.\n\nHe would argue that the matter rested in John's own hands: if he were minded to come back to society, he would do so; but deep within himself he knew that such a decision was unworthy of one even so debased as was he. Then his mind went to Lavinia, who alternately enchanted and exasperated him. Only a week ago she had defied him openly in the matter of her friendship with Lovelace, yet had she not afterwards apologised, and thrust the Captain aside for his sake? She was so sweetly naughty, so childishly unreasonable. Selfish? Yes, he supposed so, but he loved her! loved her so greatly that it were a pleasure to him to die for her sake. Yet John \u2013 John was his brother \u2013 the adored elder brother, and by obeying Lavinia he was wronging him, hurting him. If only Lavinia would consent to the truth being told! It always came back to that point: if only she would consent. And she never would. She insisted that, having married her under false pretences, he had no right to disgrace her now. She was right, he knew, but he wished she could be for once unselfish.\n\nSo he worried on through the night, tossing to and fro in his great bed, a weight on his mind, a ceaseless ache in his heart.\n\nTowards dawn he fell asleep and did not wake again until his chocolate was brought to him. Bitterly he reflected that at least John had no conscience to prey upon him; he did not fall asleep with his brain seething with conflicting arguments, and awake with the decision as far off as ever. To-day his head ached unbearably, and he stayed in bed for some time contemplating the grey morning. A fog hung over the square, and through it the trees, with their withered autumn leaves, loomed dismally before the windows. There was something infinitely depressing about the dull outlook, and presently he rose and allowed his valet to dress him, not able to stand the inaction any longer. His headache was better by the time he had visited his wife in her room, and listened to her enthusiastic account of last night's rout, and, going out into the square, he called a chair, ordering the men to carry him to White's, where he intended to write two letters. Somehow, Wyncham House was too poignantly full of memories of John to-day, and he was thankful to be out of it.\n\nWhite's was crowded even at that hour of the morning, and the noise seemed to cut through his head. Men hailed him from all sides, offering him bets; someone tried to tell him some piece of scandal; they would not let him alone, and at last his jagged nerves would no longer support it, and he left the house to go further down the street to his other club, the Cocoa-Tree, which he hoped to find less rowdy. It was fuller than he expected, but many of the men had come as he had, to write letters and to be quiet. Very little gaming was as yet in swing.\n\nRichard wrote steadily for perhaps an hour, and sealed his last letter preparatory to leaving. As he affixed the wafer, he was conscious of a stir behind him, and heard exclamations of:\n\n'Where in thunder did you spring from?'\n\n'Gad, 'tis an age since I've seen you!'\n\n'Lord, 'tis O'Hara!'\n\nThen came the soft Irish voice in answer, and he slewed round in his chair to face them all. Miles O'Hara was the centre of a little group of interested and welcoming clubmen, explaining his arrival.\n\n'Sure, I was in town on a matter of business, and I thought I must come to the club to see ye all while I was here, for 'tis not often I get the chance \u2013'\n\nRichard rose, gathering up his letters and stared across at this man who had been Jack's greatest friend. He took a step towards him. Richard was about to hail him, when he suddenly noticed the change in his expression. The good humour died out of the Irishman's eyes and left them hard and scornful. His pleasant mouth curved into a disdainful line. Carstares stood still, one hand on the back of a chair, his eyes riveted to O'Hara's face, reading all the reproach, the red-hot anger that Miles was trying to convey to him. O'Hara achieved a sneer and turned his shoulder, continuing to address his friends.\n\nRichard's head swam. O'Hara was ignoring him, would not speak to him... O'Hara knew the truth! He walked blindly to the door, and groped for the handle... O'Hara knew! He was in the passage, on the front steps, in the road, shuddering. O'Hara knew, and he had looked at him as if \u2013 as if \u2013 again he shuddered, and seeing an empty chair, hailed it, bidding the men carry him to Grosvenor Square... O'Hara despised him! \u2013 reproached him! Then Jack was in trouble? He had seen him and learnt the truth? God, but his brain was reeling!...\n\n# Twenty-two\n\nDevelopments\n\nAfter the encounter with O'Hara, whatever peace of mind Richard had had, left him. He knew not a moment's quiet; all day, and sometimes all night, his brain worried round and round the everlasting question: John or Lavinia? He had quite decided that it must be either the one or the other; the idea that he might conceivably retain his wife and confess the truth, never occurred to him. So often had Lavinia assured him that he had no right to expect her to share his disgrace, that now he believed it. He thought that she would elope with Lovelace, whom, his tortured mind decided, she really loved. Any attempt to frustrate such an action would, he supposed wretchedly, be the essence of selfishness. Of course he was not himself, and his brain was not working normally or rationally; had he but known it, he was mentally ill, and if Lavinia had thought to examine him closely she could not have failed to observe the fever spots on each cheek, the unnaturally bright eyes and the dark rings encircling them. Richard wore the look of one goaded beyond endurance, and utterly tired and overwrought. As he told Mrs Fanshawe, when she exclaimed at his appearance \u2013 he could not rest; he must always be moving, thinking. She saw that he was not entirely himself, and counselled him to consult a doctor. His half-angry repudiation of all illness did not surprise her, but she was considerably startled when, in answer to her pleading that he should have a care for himself, he vehemently said: 'If I could die, I should be glad!' She wondered what his wife was about not to see his condition, and wished that she might do something. But she was not acquainted with Lady Lavinia, and she felt it would be a piece of gross presumption on her part to speak to her of Richard. If she had thought his malady to be physical, she reflected, she might venture a word, but as she perceived it to be mental, she could only hope that it would pass in time, and that he would recover from his run-down condition.\n\nLady Lavinia was pursuing her butterfly existence, heeding nothing but her own pleasure, bent on enjoying herself. She succeeded very well, on the whole, but she could not help wishing that Dicky were a little more cheerful and wishful to join in her gaiety. Of late he was worse that ever, and although he supplied her wants uncomplainingly, she would almost rather he had refused her and shown a little life, than give way to her with his dreadful apathy.\n\nLovelace was out of town for a week, and Lavinia was surprised to find how little she missed him. To be sure, playing with fire was very pleasant, but when it was removed out of her reach, it really made no odds. She missed Harry's adulation and his passionate love-making, for she was one of those women who must always have admiration and excitement, but she was not made miserable by his absence. She continued to flutter round to all the entertainments of the season with one or other of her brothers, and when Lovelace returned he was disturbed by her casual welcome. However, she was undoubtedly pleased to see him, and soon fell more or less under his spell, allowing him to be by her side when Tracy was not near, and to charm her ears with compliments and gallantry.\n\nTo do him justice, Captain Harold was really in love with her and was quite ready to relinquish his commission if only she would run away with him. He had private means of his own, and promised her that her every whim should be satisfied. But Lavinia scolded him, and shook her head. Apart from any ulterior consideration, Richard was, after all, her husband; he, too, loved her, and she was very, very fond of him, although she did plague him dreadfully.\n\nLovelace assured her that her husband did not love her nearly as much as he, and when she smiled her disbelief, lost his temper and cried that all the town knew Carstares to be at Mrs Fanshawe's feet!\n\nLavinia stiffened.\n\n'Harold!'\n\n'I am only surprised that you have been blind to it,' he continued. 'Where do you think he goes every day for so long? White's? No. To 16, Mount Street! Stapely called there and met him; another day Lady Davenant saw him with her; Wilding has also met him at her house. He spends nearly every afternoon with her!'\n\nLavinia was a Belmanoir, and she had all the Belmanoir pride. Rising to her feet she drew her cloak about her with her most queenly air.\n\n'You forget yourself, Harold,' she said haughtily. 'Never dare to speak to me of my husband again in that tone! You may take me at once to my brother.'\n\nHe was very penitent, wording his apology most cleverly, smoothing her ruffled plumage, withdrawing his words, but at the same time contriving to leave their sting behind. She forgave him, yes, but he must never offend her so again.\n\nAlthough she had indignantly refused to believe the scandal, it nevertheless rankled, and she found herself watching her husband with jealous eyes, noticing his seeming indifference towards her and his many absences from home. Then came a day when she caused her chair to be borne down Mount Street at the very moment when Richard was coming out of No. 16.\n\nThat was enough for Lavinia. So he was indeed tired of her! He loved another woman! \u2013 some wretched widow! For the first time a real worry plagued her. She stayed at home that evening and exerted all her arts to captivate her husband. But Richard, seeing John unhappy, reproachful, every way he turned, his head on fire, his brain seething with conflicting arguments, hardly noticed her, and as soon as he might politely do so, left her, to pace up and down the library floor, trying to make up his mind what to do.\n\nLady Lavinia was stricken with horror. She had sickened him by her megrims, as Tracy had prophesied she would! He no longer cared for her! This was why he continually excused himself from accompanying her when she went out! For once in her life she faced facts, and the prospect alarmed her. If it was not already too late, she must try to win back his love, and to do this she realised she must cease to tease him for money, and also cease to snap at him whenever he felt at all out of sorts. She must charm him back to her. She had no idea how much she cared for him until now that she thought he did not care for her. It was dreadful: she had always been so sure of Dicky! Whatever she did, however exasperating she might be he would always adore her.\n\nAnd all the time, Richard, far from making love to Mrs Fanshawe, was hearing anecdotes of his brother from her, little details of his appearance, things he had said. He drank in all the information, clutching eagerly at each fresh scrap of gossip, greedy to hear it if it in any way concerned John. His brain was absorbed with this one subject, and he never saw when Lavinia smiled upon him, nor did he seem to hear her coaxing speeches. When she remarked, as she presently did, on his pallor, he almost snapped at her, and left the room. Once she put her arms about him and kissed him on the lips; he put her gently aside, too worried to respond to the caress, but, had she known it \u2013 grateful for it.\n\nHis Grace of Andover meeting his sister at Ranelagh Gardens, thought her face looked pinched, and her eyes unhappy. He enquired the reason, but Lady Lavinia refused to confide even in him, and pleaded a headache. Andover, knowing her, imagined that she had been refused some kickshaw, and thought no more about it.\n\nHe himself was very busy. Only two days before a groom had presented himself at St James's Square, bearing a missive from Harper, very illegible and illspelt, but to the point:\n\nYr. Grace,\n\nI have took the liberty of engageing this Man, Douglas, in Yr. Name. I hope I shall soon be Able to have carried out the Rest of yr. Grace's Instructions, and trust my Connduct will met Yr. Grace's Approvall.\n\nVery Obed'tly,\n\nM. Harper\n\nTracy confirmed the engagement and straightway dispatched the man to Andover, where the head groom would undoubtedly find work for him to do. He was amused at the blind way in which the man had walked into his trap, and meditated cynically on the frailty of human nature, which will always follow the great god of Mammon.\n\nNot three days later came another letter, this time from Mr Beauleigh, addressed to him at White's, under the name of Sir Hugh Grandison. It asked for the man Harper's character.\n\nHis Grace of Andover answered it in the library of his own home, and smiled sarcastically as he wrote Harper down 'exceeding honest and trustworthy, as I have always found'.\n\nHe was in the middle of the letter when the door was unceremoniously pushed open and Andrew lounged into the room.\n\nHis Grace looked up frowning. Not a bit dismayed by the coolness of his reception, his brother kicked the door to and lowered his long limbs into a chair.\n\n'May I ask to what I owe the honour of this intrusion?' smiled Tracy dangerously.\n\n'Richard,' was the cheerful reply, 'Richard.'\n\n'As I am not interested in either him or his affairs \u2013'\n\n'How truly amiable you are to-day! But I think you'll be interested in this, 'tis so vastly mysterious.'\n\n'Indeed? What is the matter?'\n\n'Just what I want to know!'\n\nTracy sighed wearily.\n\n'Pray come to the point, Andrew \u2013 if point there be. I have no time to waste.'\n\n'Lord! Busy? Working? God ha' mercy!' The young rake stretched his legs out before him and cast his eyes down their shapeliness. Then he stiffened and sat up, staring at one white-stockinged ankle.\n\n'Now, damn and curse it! where did that come from?' he expostulated mildly.\n\n'Where did what come from?'\n\n'That great splash of mud on my leg. Brand new on this morning, and I've scarce set my nose without doors. Damn it, I say! A brand new \u2013'\n\n'Leg?'\n\n'Hey? What's that you say?'\n\n'Nought. When you have quite finished your eulogy, perhaps you would consent to tell me your errand?'\n\n'Oh, ay! but twenty shillings the pair! Think of it!... Well, the point \u2013 there is one, you see \u2013 is this: it is Richard's desire that you honour him with your presence at Wyncham on Friday week, at three in the afternoon exactly. To which effect he sends you this.' He tossed a letter on to the desk. 'You are like to have the felicity of meeting me there.'\n\nTracy ripped open the packet and spread the single sheet on the desk before him. He read it through very deliberately, turned it over, as if in search of more, re-read it, folded it, and dropped it into the waste-paper basket at his side. He then picked up his quill and dipped it in the ink again.\n\n'What think you?' demanded Andrew, impatiently.\n\nHis Grace wrote tranquilly on to the end of the line.\n\n'What think I of what?'\n\n'Why, the letter, of course! What ails the man? \"Something of great import to impart to us,\" forsooth! What means he?'\n\n'Yes, I noticed 'twas very badly worded,' commented Tracy. 'I have not the vaguest notion as to his meaning.'\n\n'But what do you make of it? Lord, Tracy, don't be such a fish! Dick is summoning quite a party!'\n\n'You appear to be in his confidence, my dear Andrew. Allow me to congratulate you. No doubt we shall know more \u2013 ah \u2013 on Friday week, at three o'clock.'\n\n'Oh, you'll go, then?'\n\n'Quite possibly.' He went on writing unconcernedly.\n\n'And you've no idea of what 'tis about? Dick is very strange. He hardly listens to what one has to say, and fidget \u2013 Lord!'\n\n'Ah!'\n\n'I think he looks ill, an' 'pon my soul, so does Lavvy! Do you suppose there is aught amiss?'\n\n'I really have no idea. Pray do not let me detain you.'\n\nAndrew hoisted himself out of his chair.\n\n'Oh, I'm not staying, never fear!... I suppose you cannot oblige me with \u2013 say \u2013 fifty guineas?'\n\n'I should be loth to upset your suppositions,' replied his Grace sweetly.\n\n'You will not? Well, I didn't think you would somehow! But I wish you might contrive to let me have it, Tracy. I've had prodigious ill-luck of late, and the Lord knows 'tis not much I get from you! I don't want to ask Dick again.'\n\n'I should not let the performance grow monotonous, certainly,' agreed the other. 'Fifty, you said?'\n\n'Forty-five would suffice.'\n\n'Oh, you may have it!' shrugged his Grace. 'At once?'\n\n'Blister me, but that's devilish good of you, Tracy! At once would be convenient to me!'\n\nHis Grace produced a key from his vest pocket and unlocked a drawer in the desk. From it he took a small box. He counted out fifty guineas, and added another to the pile. Andrew stared at it.\n\n'What's that for?' he inquired.\n\n'The stockings,' replied Tracy, with a ghost of a smile.\n\nAndrew burst out laughing.\n\n'That's good! Gad! but you're devilish amusing, 'pon rep. you are!' He thanked his Grace profusely and gathering up the money, left the room.\n\nOutside he gave vent to a low whistle of astonishment. 'Tare an' ouns! he must be monstrous well-pleased over something!' he marvelled. 'I shall awaken soon, I doubt not.' He chuckled a little as he descended the staircase, but his face was full of wonderment.\n\nLovelace called nearly every day at Wyncham House, but was always refused admittance, as Lady Lavinia deemed it prudent not to see him. There came a day, however, when he would not be gainsaid, and was ushered into her drawing-room. He kissed her hands lingeringly, holding them for a long while in his.\n\n'Lavinia! Cruel fair one!'\n\nShe drew her hands away, not too well pleased at his intrusion.\n\n'How silly, Harold! I cannot have you tease me every day!'\n\nShe allowed him to sit by her on the window seat, and he again possessed himself of her hands. Did she love him? She hoped he was not going to be foolish. Of course not. He did not believe her, and started to plead his suit, imploring her to come away with him. In vain Lady Lavinia begged him to be quiet; she had stirred up a blaze, and it threatened to consume her. He was so insistent that, expecting Richard at any moment, and terrified lest there should be a disturbance, she promised to give him an answer next evening, at the theatre. She managed to be rid of him in this way, and, with a relieved sigh, watched him walk down the square. She was very fond of dear Harry, but really, he was dreadfully tiresome at times.\n\nShe brought her tiny mirror out from her pocket and surveyed her reflection critically, giving a tweak to one curl, and smoothing another back. She was afraid she was looking rather old this evening, and hoped that Richard would not think so. She glanced up at the clock, wondering where he was; surely he should be in by now? Then she arranged a chair invitingly, pushed a stool up to it and sat down opposite. With a sigh, she reflected that it was an entirely new departure for her to strive to please and captivate her husband, and she fell a-thinking of how he must have waited on her in the old days, waiting as she was waiting now \u2013 hoping for her arrival. Lady Lavinia was beginning to realise that perhaps Dick's life had not been all roses with her as wife.\n\nThe door opened and Richard came into the room. Deep lines were between his brows, but his mouth was for once set firmly. He looked sombrely down at her, thinking how very beautiful she was.\n\nLady Lavinia smiled and nodded towards the chair she had prepared.\n\n'Sit down, Dicky! I am so glad you have come! I was monstrous dull and lonely, I assure you!'\n\n'Were you?' he said, fidgeting with her scissors. 'No, I will not sit down. I have something to say to you, Lavinia. Something to tell you.'\n\n'Oh, have you?' she asked. 'Something nice, Dicky?'\n\n'I fear you will hardly think so. I am about to make an end.'\n\n'Oh \u2013 oh, are you? Of what?'\n\n'Of this \u2013 this deceitful life I am leading \u2013 have been leading. I \u2013 I \u2013 I am going to confess the whole truth.'\n\n'Rich-ard!'\n\nHe let fall the scissors and paced restlessly away down the room.\n\n'I \u2013 I tell you, Lavinia, I cannot endure it! I cannot! I cannot! The thought of what John may be bearing is driving me crazy! I must speak!'\n\n'You \u2013 you can't!' she gasped. 'After seven years! Dicky, for heaven's sake \u2013 !' The colour ebbed and flowed in her cheeks.\n\n'I cannot continue any longer this living of a lie \u2013 I have been feeling it more and more ever since \u2013 ever since I met \u2013 Jack \u2013 that time on the road. And now I can no longer stand it. Everywhere I go I seem to see him \u2013 looking at me \u2013 you don't understand \u2013'\n\nLavinia cast aside her work.\n\n'No! No! I do not! 'Pon rep., but you should have thought of this before, Dick!'\n\n'I know it. Nothing can excuse my cowardice \u2013 my weakness. I know all that, but it is not too late even now to make amends. In a week they will all know the truth.'\n\n'What \u2013 what do you mean?'\n\n'I have requested all whom it concerns to come to Wyncham the Friday after this.'\n\n'Good heavens! Dick, Dick, think!'\n\n'I have thought. God! how I have thought!'\n\n'It is not fair to me! Oh, think of your honour \u2013 Wyncham!'\n\n'My honour is less than nothing. 'Tis of his that I think.'\n\nShe sprang up, clutching at his arm, shaking him.\n\n'Richard, you are mad! You must not do this! You must not, I say!'\n\n'I implore you, Lavinia, not to try to make me change my decision. It is of no use. Nothing you can say will make any difference.'\n\nShe flew into a passion, flinging away from him, her good resolutions forgotten.\n\n'You have no right to disgrace me! If you do it, I will never forgive you! I won't stay with you \u2013 I \u2013'\n\nHe broke in \u2013 this was what he had expected; he must not whine; this was retribution.\n\n'I know. I have faced that.'\n\nShe was breathless for a moment. He knew! He had faced it! He had taken her seriously \u2013 he always expected her to leave him! Oh, he must indeed be tired of her, and wanted her to go. What was he saying?\n\n'I know that you love Lovelace. I \u2013 I have known it for some time.'\n\nLavinia sank into the nearest chair. To what depths had her folly led her?\n\n'I shall put no obstacle in the way of your flight, of course...'\n\nThis was dreadful! Lady Lavinia buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. It was true then \u2013 he did not love her \u2013 he loved Mrs Fanshawe \u2013 she was to elope. She sobbed pitifully as the full horror of the situation struck her.\n\nThe temptation to gather her into his arms almost over-mastered Richard, but he managed to choke it down. If he allowed himself to kiss her, she would try to break his resolution \u2013 mayhap, she would succeed. So he looked away from her, tortured by the sound of her crying.\n\nLavinia wept on, longing to feel his arms about her, ready to consent to anything if only he would show that he loved her. But when he made no movement towards her, pride came back, and flicking her handkerchief across her eyes, she rose to her feet.\n\n'You are cruel! \u2013 cruel! \u2013 cruel! If you do this thing I shall leave you!'\n\nNow surely he would say something \u2013 contradict her!\n\nWith an immense effort, Richard controlled himself.\n\n'I am \u2013 sorry \u2013 Lavinia,' he said in a queer, constrained voice.\n\nIt was of no avail. She had killed his love, and he was longing to be rid of her. She walked to the door, and turned.\n\n'I see that you do not love me,' she said, with deadly calmness. 'I understand perfectly.' Then, as she wrenched the handle round: 'I hate you!' she cried, and fled, her silken skirts rustling furiously down the corridor. A door slammed in the distance, and there was silence.\n\nCarstares stood very still, staring down at her crumpled broidery. Presently he stooped to pick it up, and her violet scent was wafted up to him. He carried it to his lips, passionately.\n\nIf Lavinia had been able to see him, it would have changed the whole state of affairs; as it was she locked herself into her room and continued her cry in private. When she had no more tears to shed, she sat up and tried to think that she wanted to elope. Harold would be very good to her, she was sure, and she would doubtless lead a very exciting life, but \u2013 somehow the more she thought of it, the less she wanted to elope. Then she remembered Dicky \u2013 why had she never realised how much she cared for him? \u2013 was in love with some horrid widow, and did not want her to remain with him. The idea was not to be borne, she was not going to be the unwanted wife. She would have to go away, though not with Lovelace. Dicky should not force her to elope with another man. She would go somewhere alone \u2013 she had forgotten \u2013 she had no money. The dowry that had been hers was spent years ago. She was utterly dependent on her husband. That settled it: she must elope with Harry!\n\n'Oh, was anyone ever so beset!' she sobbed as her misery swept in upon her with full force. 'Why should I run away if I don't want to?'\n\n# Twenty-three\n\nLady Lavinia Goes to the Play\n\nRichard was away from home all next day, and his wife had plenty of time in which to meditate upon her situation. She had quite come to the conclusion that she must elope with Lovelace, and was only waiting for to-night to tell him so. She would never, never ask Richard to let her stay with him now that she knew he loved another. Truly a most trying predicament. The Carstares were going to-night to Drury Lane to see Garrick play one of his most successful comedies: the Beaux' Stratagem. The monde that would flock to see the inimitable Archer was likely to be a very distinguished one, especially as the cast held the added attraction of Mrs Clive, and ordinarily Lady Lavinia would have looked forward with much excitement to seeing the piece. To-day, however, she felt that she would far rather go to bed and cry. But Lovelace had to be answered, and besides that, she had invited two cousins, new come from Scotland, to accompany her, and she could not fail them.\n\nSo that evening saw her seated in her box, wonderfully gowned as usual, scanning the house. Behind her stood her husband \u2013 when she thought that this was the last time she would ever go with him to the theatre she had much ado to keep from bursting into tears before them all \u2013 and in the chair at her side was the cousin, Mrs Fleming. Mr Fleming stood with his hands behind his back, exclaiming every now and then as his kinsman, young Charles Holt, pointed out each newcomer of note. He was a short, tubby little man, dressed in sober brown, very neat as regards his wrists and neckband, but attired, so thought Lavinia, for the country, and not for town. His dark suit contrasted strangely with Mr Holt's rather garish mixture of apple-green and pink, with waistcoat of yellow, and Richard's quieter, but far more handsome apricot and silver. His wig, too, was not at all modish, being of the scratch type that country gentlemen affected. His wife was the reverse of smart, but she was loud in her admiration of her more affluent cousin's stiff silks and laces.\n\nShe had married beneath them, had Mrs Fleming, and the Belmanoirs had never quite forgiven the shocking m\u00e9salliance. William Fleming was nought but a simple Scotsman, whose father \u2013 even now the family shuddered at the thought \u2013 had been a farmer!\n\nLavinia was not over-pleased that they should have elected to visit London, and still less pleased that they should evince such an affection for the Hon Richard and his wife.\n\n'Well, to be sure, Lavvy, 'tis pleasant to sit here and admire all the people!' exclaimed Mrs Fleming, for perhaps the twentieth time. 'I declare I am grown positively old-fashioned from having lived for so long in the country! \u2013 yes, my dear, positively old-fashioned!... I cannot but marvel at the great hoops everyone is wearing! I am sure mine is not half the size of yours, and the lady down there in the stage-box has one even larger!'\n\nLavinia directed her gaze towards the box in question. At any other time she would have been annoyed to see that the occupant was Lady Carlyle, her pet rival in all matters of fashion. Now she felt that nothing signified, and merely remarked that she considered those absurd garlands of roses on the dress quite grotesque.\n\nBehind, Holt was directing Mr Fleming's attention to a box at the back of the house.\n\n''Pon my soul, William! 'Tis the Duchess of Queensbury and her son \u2013 March, you know. I assure you there is no one more amiable in town. When I last visited her \u2013'\n\n'Charles knows well-nigh everyone here,' remarked Mrs Fleming ingenuously, and wondered why her cousin laughed.\n\nWhen the curtain rose on the first act, Lovelace was nowhere to be seen, and Lavinia tried to interest herself in the play. But it is difficult to be interested in anything when one's whole mind is occupied with something else far more overwhelming. She was not the only one of the party that Garrick failed to amuse. Richard sat wretchedly in the shadow of the box, thinking how, in a short while, he would never again conduct his wife to the theatre and never again sit at her side watching her every change of expression.\n\nIn the first interval Lovelace had still not arrived, but many other acquaintances had arrived and called to see the Carstares. Markham, Wilding, Devereux, Sir John Fortescue \u2013 all came into the box at different times, paid homage to Lavinia, were introduced to Mrs Fleming, laughed and cracked jokes with the men, and drifted away again.\n\nHow was it that she had never before realised how much she enjoyed her life? wondered Lavinia. She settled down to listen to the second act, and Garrick's skill caught her interest and held it. For a moment she forgot her woes and clapped as heartily as anyone, laughing as gaily.\n\nThe next instant she remembered again, and sank back into unutterable gloom.\n\nBut Richard had heard her merry laugh, and his heart was even gloomier than hers. There was no help for it: Lavinia was delighted at the thought of leaving him.\n\nAs the curtain fell, Mrs Fleming suddenly demanded if it was not Tracy seated in the box over on the other side. Lavinia turned to look. In the box alone, sat his Grace, seemingly unaware of her presence.\n\n'Is it not Tracy?' persisted Mrs Fleming. 'I remember his face so well.'\n\n'Yes,' nodded Lavinia, and waved to him.\n\nAndover rose, bowed, and left his box. In a few moments he was in their own kissing his cousin's hand.\n\nLavinia now caught sight of Lovelace standing on the floor of the theatre looking up at her. He, too, disappeared from view, and she guessed that he was coming to speak with her. He had evidently failed to perceive the Duke, who was just a little behind her in the shadow.\n\nRichard and Mr Fleming had left the box, and only Charles Holt remained, engaging Mrs Fleming's whole attention. If only Tracy would go! How was she ever to give Lovelace her answer with him sitting there so provokingly.\n\nCaptain Lovelace knocked at the door. Carelessly she bade him enter, and affected surprise on seeing him. His Grace looked at her through narrowed lids, and shot a swift glance at Lovelace, whose discomfiture at finding him there was palpable. Not a trace of emotion was visible on that impassive countenance, but Lavinia felt her brother's attitude to be sinister, as if he divined her wishes and was determined to frustrate them. She watched him smile on Lovelace and beg him to be seated. Whether by accident or design, she was not sure which, he had so placed the chairs that he himself was between her and the captain. Skillfully he drew Mrs Fleming into the conversation, and rearranged his stage.\n\nLavinia found herself listening to the amiable Mr Holt, and out of the tail of her eye observed that Lovelace had fallen a victim to her cousin. She could find no way of speaking to him, and dared not even signal, so adroitly was his Grace stage-managing the scene. Lavinia was now quite certain that he was managing it. Somehow he had guessed that she had arranged to speak to Lovelace to-night, and was determined to prevent her. How he had found out, she could not imagine, but she was too well acquainted with him to be surprised. He would never let her disgrace herself if he could help it \u2013 she knew that. In whatever manner he himself might behave, his sister's conduct must be above reproach; he would find some means of separating them until he could cause Lovelace to be removed. She did not in the least know how he would contrive to do this, but she never doubted that he could and would. And then she would have to stay with Richard \u2013 Richard, who did not want her. If only Tracy would go! Ah! he was rising!\n\nHis Grace of Andover begged Captain Lovelace to bear him company in his box. He would brook no refusal. He bore his captive off in triumph.\n\nA minute later Mr Fleming re-entered the box. The third act had just begun when Richard re-appeared, and softly took his seat. On went the play. Neither Tracy nor Lovelace came to the box during the next interval, and from her point of vantage Lavinia could see that Andrew had been introduced to the latter. She could guess how cleverly his Grace was keeping the Captain by him...\n\nLord Avon, who had only a week ago returned from Bath, came to pay his respects. He had much to tell dear Lady Lavinia. How Cholmondely and Falmouth had dared to fight a duel in Crescent Fields, and had been arrested. How furious the Beau was, but how his age was beginning to tell on him, and how it was whispered that his power was waning. All of which at any ordinary time would have interested my lady quite prodigiously, but now bored and even annoyed her.\n\nOn went the play. Scrub and Boniface kept the house in a roar; all but Richard and his wife were enthralled. The incomparable Kitty failed to hold Lavinia's attention. Would Lovelace manage to speak to her in the last interval? A solicitous enquiry from Mrs Fleming roused her, and she had perforce to smile \u2013 to own to a slight headache, and to evince some interest in the play. One more interval: would he come? She became aware of a hand laid on her shoulder. Richard's voice, gravely courteous, sounded in her ears.\n\n'You are heated, my dear. Will you walk outside a little?'\n\nShe felt a mad desire to cling to his hand, and suppressed it forcibly. She rose, hesitating. Mrs Fleming decided the point.\n\n'The very thing. How considerate of you, Mr Carstares! I shall like to walk amongst all the people, to be sure! Here is Charles offering to escort us, too! What say you, Lavvy?'\n\n'I \u2013 oh, I shall be pleased to do what suits you best, cousin,' she answered.\n\n'Then let us go, my love. Charles has an arm for each, so we may leave our husbands to chat.'\n\nThey went out into the broad passage and walked towards the foyer. There Lord March espied Lavinia, who was always a favourite with him, and came forward, offering his arm. Lavinia took it, thankful to escape from Mr Holt's vapid conversation. She let March conduct her to where his mother was sitting, with Mr Selwyn at her elbow. Someone fetched her a glass of ratafie, and Montagu came to talk to her.\n\nStepping out of his box, Richard fell into the arms of his Grace of Andover.\n\n'Ah! Dick!'\n\nRichard eyed him coldly.\n\n'You wanted me?'\n\nTracy saw Mr Fleming approaching.\n\n'Only to ask if I may return with you to Grosvenor Square. I have something important to say.'\n\n'Certainly,' bowed Richard, and turned aside.\n\nLovelace who had succeeded in escaping from the Belmanoir claws, hurried in search of Lavinia. Not finding her in her box, he gathered she must be in the foyer, and made his way towards it. As soon as she saw him coming she set down her glass and rose to her feet.\n\n'Oh, Captain Lovelace! Have you come to fetch me back to my seat? I have scarce set eyes on you this evening. No, Markham, you may not come! No, nor you, my lord! Madam \u2013' She curtsied low to the old Duchess and walked away on Harold's arm.\n\nWhen they were once in the deserted passage behind the boxes, he turned eagerly towards her.\n\n'Well, my dearest? Well?'\n\nLady Lavinia's mouth drooped miserably.\n\n'Yes,' she said, 'I shall have to come with you.'\n\nThe tone was damping, to say the least of it, but he did not seem to notice it.\n\n'Lavinia! You mean it?'\n\n'Yes,' she assented, still more dejectedly.\n\n'My beautiful love! You will really come? When? At once?'\n\n'At \u2013 Oh, no, no!'\n\n'Darling, the sooner the better. I understand 'tis a great step to expect you to take in a hurry, but I assure you 'tis wisest. Can you come to-morrow?'\n\nHer big eyes dilated.\n\n'No! No! I \u2013 oh, I cannot leave Dicky so soon!' She ended with a sob.\n\n'But, Lavinia, my dearest! You surely do not want to stay with him?' he cried.\n\n'Yes I do!' she answered. 'I \u2013 I don't want ever to leave him!'\n\nThis blighting speech left him gasping.\n\n'You \u2013 but \u2013 heavens! what are you saying? You love me!'\n\n'No, I don't!' she contradicted. 'I always s-said I d-didn't. I love my husband!'\n\n'You are distraught!' he exclaimed. 'If you love him, why do you consent to elope with me?'\n\nShe looked at him reproachfully.\n\n'There is no one else,' she said mournfully.\n\n'Good Lord! What \u2013'\n\n'I have to elope with someone \u2013 because \u2013 Dick \u2013 d-doesn't love me any more \u2013 you see. I will come with you, and I will try to be good.'\n\nHe kissed her hand quickly.\n\n'Sweetheart!... I still think you are not yourself. You will think differently to-morrow \u2013 you do not really love Carstares.'\n\nShe shut her mouth obstinately, tilting her regal little head.\n\nHe watched her anxiously.\n\n'If you really do love him, 'tis ridiculous to elope with me,' he said.\n\nHer fingers tightened on his wrist.\n\n'But I must! You don't understand, Harry! You must take me! Don't you want me?'\n\n'Of course I do, but not if you are longing to be somewhere else all the time. The whole thing seems preposterous!'\n\n''Tis all dreadful \u2013 dreadful! I have never been so unhappy in my life! I \u2013 oh, I wish I had not been so heedless and selfish!'\n\nLovelace pondered for a moment, as they stood outside her box; then, seeing that people were returning to their seats, he opened the door and took her in.\n\n'Listen, dear! This is the maddest scheme ever I heard; but if you are determined, you shall carry it through. Come to my lodgings to-morrow evening! Bring as little baggage as possible; I will have all ready, and we will post at once to Dover. Then in time I hope you will forget Richard and come to care for me a little.'\n\n'You are very, very good, Harry! Yes, I will do just as you say \u2013 and, oh, I am sorry to put you out like this! I am nought but a plague to everyone, and I wish I were dead! You don't really love me, and I shall be a burden!'\n\n'I do indeed love you!' he assured her, but within himself he could not help wishing that he had not fallen quite so passionately in love with her. 'I'll leave you now, sweet, for your husband will be returning at any moment.' He kissed her hands lightly. 'A demain, fairest!'\n\nHow she sat through the last act Lavinia could never afterwards imagine. She was longing to be at home \u2013 so soon to be home no longer \u2013 and quiet. Her head ached now as Richard's had ached for weeks. More than anything did she want to rest it against her husband's shoulder, so temptingly near, and to feel his sheltering arms about her. But Dick was in love with Isabella Fanshawe, and she must sit straight and stiff in her chair and smile at the proper places.\n\nAt last the play was ended! The curtain descended on the bowing Archer, and the house stamped and clapped its appreciation. The curtain rose again \u2013 what! not finished yet? Ah, no! it was but Garrick leading Mrs Clive forward. Would they never have done?\n\nMrs Fleming was standing; she supposed they were going, and got up. Someone put her cloak about her shoulders; Richard \u2013 for the last time. Mr Holt escorted her to her coach, and put her and her cousin into it. He and Mr Fleming had their chairs, so only Richard and Tracy went with the ladies. The Flemings were staying with friends in Brook Street, just off Grosvenor Square, so that when they had put Harriet down, only a few more yards remained to be covered.\n\nLavinia wondered dully why Tracy had elected to come with them. What did he want? Was he going to warn Dick of her intended flight? He little knew the true state of affairs!\n\nAt the foot of the staircase at Wyncham House she turned to say good-night.\n\nShe merely nodded to Tracy, but to Dick she extended her hand. He took it in his, kissing it, and she noticed how cold were his fingers, how burning hot his lips. Then he released her, and she went slowly up the stairs to her room.\n\nHis Grace watched her through his eyeglass. When she was out of sight he turned and surveyed Richard critically.\n\n'If that is the way you kiss a woman, Lavinia has my sympathies,' he remarked.\n\nRichard's lips tightened. He picked up a stand of lighted candles and ushered his Grace into the drawing-room.\n\n'I presume you did not come to tell me that?' he asked.\n\n'Your presumption is correct, Richard. I have come to open your eyes.'\n\n'You are too kind.'\n\nHis Grace laid his hat on the table, and sat down on the arm of a chair.\n\n'I think perhaps I am. It may interest you to hear that Lavinia intends to elope with our gallant friend the Captain.'\n\nRichard bowed.\n\n'You knew it?'\n\n'Certainly.'\n\nAndover looked him over.\n\n'May I ask what steps you are taking to prevent her?'\n\n'None.'\n\nHis Grace's expression was quite indescribable. For a moment he was speechless, and then he reverted to heavy sarcasm.\n\n'Pray remember to be at hand \u2013 to conduct her to her chair!' he drawled. 'Upon my soul, you sicken me!'\n\n'I am grieved. There is a remedy,' replied Carstares significantly.\n\nTracy ignored the suggestion.\n\n'I suppose it is nothing to you that you lose her? No. It is nothing to you that she disgraces her name? Oh, no!'\n\n'My name, I think.'\n\n'Our name! Is it possible for her to disgrace yours?'\n\nRichard went white and his hand flew instinctively to his sword hilt.\n\nTracy looked at him.\n\n'Do you think I would soil my blade with you?' he asked very softly.\n\nRichard's hand fell from the hilt: his eyes searched the other's face.\n\n'You know?' he asked at last, quite calmly.\n\n'You fool,' answered his Grace gently. 'You fool, do you think I have not always known?'\n\nRichard leaned against the mantel-shelf.\n\n'You never thought I was innocent? You knew that night? You guessed?'\n\nThe Duke sneered.\n\n'Knowing both, could I suspect other than you?' he asked insultingly.\n\n'Oh, my God!' cried Carstares suddenly. 'Why could you not have said so before?'\n\nThe Duke's eyes opened wide.\n\n'It has chafed you \u2013 eh? I knew it would. I've watched you.' He chuckled beneath his breath. 'And those fools never looked beneath the surface. One and all, they believed that John would cheat. John! They swallowed it tamely and never even guessed at the truth.'\n\n'You, at least, did not believe?'\n\n'I? Hardly. Knowing you for a weak fool and him for a quixotic fool, I rather jumped to conclusions.'\n\n'Instead, you tried to throw the blame on him. I would to God you had exposed me!'\n\n'So you have remarked. I confess I do not understand this heroic attitude. Why should I interfere in what was none of my business? What proof had I?'\n\n'Why did you raise no demur? What motive had you?'\n\n'I should have thought it fairly obvious.'\n\nRichard stared at him, puzzled.\n\n'Gad, Richard! But you are singularly obtuse. Have I not pointed out that John was a quixotic fool? When did I say he was a weak one?'\n\n'You mean \u2013 you mean you wanted Lavinia to marry me \u2013 because you thought to squeeze me as you willed?' asked Carstares slowly.\n\nHis Grace's thin nostrils wrinkled up.\n\n'You are so crude,' he complained.\n\n'It suited you that Jack should be disgraced? You thought I should seize his money. You \u2013 You \u2013'\n\n'Rogue? But you will admit that I at least am an honest rogue. You are \u2013 er \u2013 a dishonest saint. I would sooner be what I am.'\n\n'I know there is nothing on God's earth more vile than I am!' replied Carstares violently.\n\nHis Grace sneered openly.\n\n'Very pretty, Richard, but a little tardy, methinks.' He paused, and something seemed to occur to him. ''Tis why you purpose to let Lavinia go, I suppose? You confess the truth on Friday \u2013 eh?'\n\nRichard bowed his head.\n\n'I have not the right to stop her. She \u2013 chooses her own road.'\n\n'She knows?' sharply.\n\n'She has always known.'\n\n'The jade! And I never guessed it!' He paused. 'Yes, I understand your heroic attitude. I am sorry I cannot pander to it. In spite of all this, I cannot permit my sister to ruin herself.'\n\n'She was as effectually ruined when she stayed with me.'\n\n'Pshaw! After seven years, who is like to care one way or the other which of you cheated? Play the man for once and stop her!'\n\n'She loves Lovelace, I tell you!'\n\n'What of it? She will recover from that.'\n\n'No \u2013 I cannot ask her to stay with me \u2013 'twould be damnably selfish.'\n\nHis Grace appeared exasperated.\n\n''Fore Gad, you are a fool! Ask her! Ask her! Force her! Kick Lovelace from your house and abandon the heroic pose, I beg of you!'\n\n'Do you suppose I want to lose her?' cried Carstares. ''Tis because I love her so much that I will not stand in the way of her happiness!'\n\nThe Duke flung round and picked up his hat.\n\n'I am sorry I cannot join with you in your heroics. I must take the matter into my own hands, as usual, it seems. Lord, but you should have learnt to make her obey you, my good Dick! She has led you by the nose ever since she married you, and she was a woman who wanted mastering!' He went over to the door and opened it. 'I will call upon you to-morrow, when I shall hope to find you more sane. They do not propose to leave until late, I know, for Lovelace is promised to Mallaby at three o'clock. There is time in which to act.'\n\n'I shall not interfere,' repeated Richard.\n\nHis Grace sneered.\n\n'So you have remarked. It remains for me to do. Good-night.'\n\n# Twenty-four\n\nRichard Plays the Man\n\nLady Lavinia's frame of mind when she awoke next morning was hardly befitting one who contemplated an elopement. A weight seemed to rest on her chest, hopeless misery was gathered about her head. She could not bring herself to drink her chocolate, and feeling that inaction was the worst of all, she very soon crawled out of bed and allowed her maid to dress her. Then she went with dragging steps to her boudoir, wondering all the time where Richard was and what he was doing. She seated herself at her window and looked out on to the square, biting the edge of her handkerchief in the effort to keep back her tears.\n\nRichard was in no more cheerful mood. He, too, left his chocolate untouched, and went presently down to the breakfast table and looked at the red sirloin with a feeling of acute nausea. He managed to drink a cup of coffee, and immediately afterwards left the room and made his way to his wife's boudoir. He told himself he was acting weakly, and had far better avoid her, but in the end he gave way to his longing to see her, and knocked on one white panel.\n\nLavinia's heart leapt. How well she knew that knock!\n\n'Come in!' she called, and tried to compose her features.\n\nRichard entered and shut the door behind him.\n\n'Oh \u2013 oh \u2013 good-morning!' she smiled. 'You \u2013 wanted to speak with me \u2013 Dick?'\n\n'I \u2013 yes \u2013 that is \u2013 er \u2013 have you the Carlyles' invitation?'\n\nIt was perhaps, an unlucky excuse. Lavinia turned and fought against her tears.\n\n'I \u2013 I believe \u2013 'tis in my \u2013 escritoire,' she managed to say. 'I \u2013 I will look for it.'\n\nShe rose and unlocked the bureau, standing with her back to him.\n\n''Tis no matter,' stammered Carstares. 'I \u2013 only \u2013 'twas but that I could not find it. Pray do not disturb yourself!'\n\n'Oh \u2013 not \u2013 at all,' she answered, scattering a handful of letters before her. 'Yes \u2013 here 'tis.' She came up to him with the note in her hand, extending it.\n\nCarstares looked down at the golden head, and at the little face with its eyes cast down, and red mouth set so wistfully. Heavens, how could he bear to live without her! Mechanically he took the letter.\n\nLavinia turned away, and as she stepped from him something snapped in Richard's brain. The luckless invitation was flung down.\n\n'No, by God you shall not!' he cried suddenly.\n\nLavinia stopped, trembling.\n\n'Oh \u2013 oh, what do you mean?' she fluttered.\n\nThe mists were gone from his mind now, everything was clear. Lavinia should not elope with Lovelace. In two strides he was at her side, had caught her by the shoulders and swung her to face him.\n\n'You shall not leave me! Do you understand? I cannot live without you!'\n\nLavinia gave a little cry of relief, joy and wonderment, and shrank against him.\n\n'Oh, please, please forgive me and keep me with you!' she cried, and clung to the lapels of his coat.\n\nCarstares swept her right off the ground in the violence of his embrace, but she did not mind, although the crushing was ruinous to her silks. Silks were no longer uppermost in her brain. She returned his kisses eagerly, sobbing a little.\n\nWhen Carstares was able to say anything beyond how he loved her, he demanded if she did not love him?\n\n'Of course I do!' she cooed. 'I always, always did, only I was so selfish and so careless!'\n\nHe carried her to the sofa and sat down with her on his knee, trying to look into her face. But she had somehow contrived to hide it on his shoulder, and he did not succeed.\n\n'Then you never loved that puppy?' he asked, amazed.\n\nOne hand crept up to his other shoulder.\n\n'Oh, Dicky, no! And \u2013 and you \u2013 you don't love that horrid Mrs Fanshawe, do you?'\n\nHe was still more amazed.\n\n'Mrs Fanshawe? Great heavens, no! You never thought that, surely?'\n\n'I did \u2013 I did! Since you were always at her house, and so cold to me \u2013 how could I help it?'\n\n'Cold to you? My dearest, surely not?'\n\n'You were \u2013 you truly were \u2013 and I was so miserable \u2013 I \u2013 thought I had been so unreasonable and so horrid that you had ceased to l-love me \u2013 and I did not know what to do. And \u2013 and then you told me that you were going to \u2013 to confess \u2013 and I lost my temper and said I would n-not stay with you \u2013 But I never, never meant it \u2013 and when you seemed to expect me to go \u2013 I \u2013 I did not know what to do again!'\n\nHe patted her shoulder comfortingly.\n\n'Sweetheart, don't cry! I had no idea of all this \u2013 why, I was sure that you loved Lovelace \u2013 I never doubted it \u2013 why in the world did you not tell me the truth?'\n\nShe sat up at that, and looked at him.\n\n'Why, how could I?' she demanded. 'I was quite certain that you loved Isabella Fanshawe. I felt I had to go away, and I could not do it alone \u2013 so \u2013 so \u2013 so, of course I had to elope. And I told Harold last night that I would go with him \u2013 and I'm afraid he didn't quite want me when he heard that I loved you. Oh, Dicky darling, you'll tell him that I won't go with him, won't you?'\n\nHe could not help laughing.\n\n'Ay, I'll tell him. 'Pon rep., sweetheart, I can find it in me to be sorry for him!'\n\n'Oh, he will not mind for long,' she said philosophically. 'He loves so easily, you see! But you, Dick \u2013 why did you go so often \u2013 so very often to see Mrs Fanshawe?'\n\nHis face grew solemn.\n\n'She knew \u2013 Jack \u2013 in Vienna \u2013 I \u2013 I wanted to hear all she could tell me of him \u2013 I could think of nothing else.'\n\n'Oh, Dicky! How \u2013 how wickedly foolish I have been! And 'twas that that made you so cold \u2013 and I thought \u2013 oh, dear!'\n\nHe drew her head down on to his shoulder again.\n\n'My poor love! Why 'tis the kindest lady imaginable, but as to loving her \u2013 !' He kissed her hand lingeringly. 'I love \u2013 and always have loved \u2013 a far different being: a naughty, wilful, captivating little person, who \u2013'\n\nLady Lavinia clasped her arms about his neck.\n\n'You make me feel so very, very dreadful! I have indeed been naughty \u2013 I \u2013'\n\n'And you'll be so many times again,' he told her, laughing.\n\n'No, no! I \u2013 will \u2013 try to be good!'\n\n'I do not want you good!' Richard assured her. 'I want you to be your own dear self!'... Lady Lavinia disengaged herself with a contented little sigh, and stood up.\n\n'How charming it is to be happy again, to be sure!' she remarked na\u00efvely. 'To think that only half an hour ago I was wishing to be dead!' She went over to the glass and straightened her hair.\n\nRichard looked at her rather anxiously.\n\n'Lavinia \u2013 you \u2013 you quite understand, I am going to tell everyone the truth \u2013 next Friday?' he asked.\n\n'Yes, I do, of course \u2013 'tis dreadfully disagreeable of you, but I suppose you will do it. I do hope people will not refuse to recognise us, though.'\n\n'No one would ever refuse to recognise you, dearest.'\n\nShe brightened.\n\n'Do you really think so? Well, perhaps after all, 'twill not be so very horrid. And \u2013 and you will like to have Jack again, won't you? Yes \u2013 I knew you would. Oh, 'twill all be quite comfortable after a little while, I make no doubt!'\n\nHis Grace of Andover arose betimes, and early sallied forth into the street. He called a chair, and drove to an address in the Strand, where lodged a certain Colonel Shepherd. Half-an-hour did he spend with the Colonel, and when he at length emerged from the house the curl of his lip betokened satisfaction. He did not at once hail a chair, but walked along in the direction of St James's, entering the Park in company with one Dare, who, seven years before had given a certain memorable card-party.\n\nDare was pleasantly intrigued over Richard's latest oddity.\n\n'Have you an idea what 'tis about, Belmanoir?' he inquired. 'Has he written you to come as well?'\n\n'I believe I did receive some communication from Carstares; yes \u2013 I remember, Andrew brought it.'\n\n'Well, what does it mean? Fortescue is bidden, and Davenant. 'Tis very curious.'\n\n'My dear Dare, I am not in Richard's confidence. We shall doubtless hear all that there is to hear at the given time. Mysteries do not interest me. But 'twill be a pleasant reunion... Fortescue and Davenant, you say? Strange! I have heard that Evans and Milward have also received their sum \u2013 invitations. It should be most entertaining.'\n\n''Tis prodigious curious,' repeated Dare. 'No one can imagine what 'tis all about!'\n\n'Ah?' His Grace's thin lips twitched.\n\nMidway through the afternoon he repaired to Wyncham House and was ushered into the library.\n\nRichard sat writing, but rose on seeing him, and came forward.\n\nIt struck his Grace that Carstares was looking quite happy.\n\n'You seem cheerful, Richard!'\n\n'I am,' smiled his brother-in-law.\n\n'I am much relieved to hear it. I have seen Shepherd.'\n\n'Shepherd?' interrogated Carstares.\n\n'Lovelace's colonel, my dear Richard. You may count on Captain Harold's departure \u2013 on an important mission \u2013 in, say, forty-eight hours.'\n\n'You may count on Captain Harold's departure in very much less, Tracy,' said Carstares, a twinkle in his eye.\n\nThe Duke started forward.\n\n'She has gone?' he almost hissed.\n\n'Gone? No! She is in the drawing-room with him.'\n\n'With Lovelace! And you permit it? You stand by and watch another man \u2013'\n\n'Say farewell to my wife. But I am not watching it, as you see.'\n\nThe anger died out of his Grace's eyes.\n\n'Farewell? Do you tell me you at last came to your senses?'\n\n'We found that we both laboured under a delusion,' replied Carstares pleasantly.\n\n'I am delighted to hear you say so. I hope you will for the future keep a stricter hold over Lavinia.'\n\n'Do you?'\n\n'I do. I think I will not undo what I have done; Lovelace were perhaps better out of the way for a time.'\n\n'Why, I have no objection to that,' bowed Richard.\n\nHis Grace nodded shortly and picked up his hat.\n\n'Then there remains nothing more to be done in the matter.'\n\nHe looked piercingly across at Carstares. 'She did not love him?'\n\nRichard gave a happy little sigh.\n\n'She loves me.'\n\nThe heavy lids drooped again.\n\n'You cannot conceive my delight. If she indeed loves you, she is safe. I thought she had not got it in her. Pray bear my respects to her.' His hand was on the door-knob, when something seemed to occur to him.\n\n'I take it my presence at Wyncham on Friday will not be necessary?' he said cynically.\n\nRichard flushed.\n\n'It will not be necessary.'\n\n'Then I am sure you will excuse me an I do not appear. I have other, more important affairs on hand... But I shall be loth to miss the heroics,' he added pensively, and chuckled. 'Au revoir, my good Richard!'\n\nRichard bowed him out thankfully.\n\nPresently the front door opened and shut again, and looking out of the window he saw that Captain Harold Lovelace had taken his departure.\n\nHe was now awaiting Mr Warburton, whom he had sent in search of John some days ago. He should have been here by now, he thought, but perhaps he had been detained. Richard was aching to hear news of his brother, longing to see him once more. But at the same time he was dreading the meeting; he shrank from the thought of looking into Jack's eyes, cold \u2013 even scornful. It was not possible, so he reasoned, that Jack should feel no resentment...\n\n'Mr Warburton, sir.'\n\nCarstares turned and came eagerly forward to greet the newcomer.\n\n'Well? Well?'\n\n'Mr Warburton spread out deprecating hands.\n\n'Alas! Mr Carstares.'\n\nRichard caught his arm.\n\n'What mean you? He is not \u2013 dead?'\n\n'I do not know, sir.'\n\n'You could not find him? Quick! Tell me?'\n\n'Alas! no, sir.'\n\n'But the Chequers \u2013 he said \u2013 Surely they knew something?'\n\n'Nought, Mr Carstares.' Out came Mr Warburton's snuff-box. Very deliberately he took a pinch, shaking the remains from his finger-tips. 'The host, Chadber \u2013 an honest man, though lacking in humour \u2013 has not set eyes on my lord for well-nigh six months. Not since I went to advise my lord of the Earl's death.'\n\n'But Warburton, he cannot be far? He is not dead! Oh, surely not that?'\n\n'No, no, Master Dick,' soothed the lawyer. 'We should have heard of it had he been killed. I fear he has gone abroad once more. It seems he often spoke of travelling again.'\n\n'Abroad? God! don't let me lose him again!' He sank into a chair, his head in his arms.\n\n'Tut! I implore you, Mr Carstares! Do not despair yet. We have no proof that he has left the country. I daresay we shall find him almost at once. Chadber thinks it likely he will visit the inn again ere long. Calm yourself, Master Dick!' He walked up to the man and laid a hand on one heaving shoulder. 'We shall find him, never fear! But do not \u2013 I know 'twould grieve him to see you so upset, Master Dick \u2013 pray, do not \u2013 !'\n\n'If I could only make amends!' groaned Richard.\n\n'Well, sir, are you not about to? He would not wish you to distress yourself like this! He was so fond of you! Pray, pray do not!'\n\nCarstares rose unsteadily and walked to the window.\n\n'I crave your pardon, Mr Warburton \u2013 you must excuse me \u2013 I have been \u2013 living in hell \u2013 this last week.'\n\nWarburton came over to his side.\n\n'Master Dick \u2013 I \u2013 you know I have never cared for you \u2013 as \u2013 well \u2013 as \u2013'\n\n'You cared for him.'\n\n'Er \u2013 yes, sir, exactly! \u2013 and of late years I may, perhaps, have been hard. I would desire to \u2013 er apologise for any unjust \u2013 er \u2013 thoughts I may have harboured against you. I \u2013 I \u2013 possibly, I never quite understood. That is all, sir.'\n\nHe blew his nose rather violently, and then his hand found Richard's.\n\nRichard Carstares had plenty to occupy him for the rest of the week. Arrangements had to be made, a house acquired for Lavinia, Wyncham House to be thoroughly cleaned and put in order, awaiting its rightful owner. Once she had made up her mind to face the inevitable, Lavinia quite enjoyed all the preparations. The new house in Great Jermyn Street she voted charming, and she straightway set to work to buy very expensive furniture for it, and to superintend all the alterations. In her present penitent mood she would even have accompanied her husband to Wyncham on Monday, to stand by him on the fateful Friday; but this he would not allow, insisting that she remain in town until his return. So she fluttered contentedly from Grosvenor Square to Jermyn Street, very busy and quite happy.\n\nCarstares was to travel to Wyncham on Monday, arriving there the following evening in company with Andrew, whom he was taking as far as Andover. His lordship had lately embroiled himself in a quarrel over a lady when deep in his cups, and owing to the subsequent duel at Barn Elms and the almost overpowering nature of his debts, he deemed it prudent to go into seclusion for a spell. Tracy disappeared from town in the middle of the week, whither no one knew, but it was universally believed that he had gone to Scotland on a visit.\n\nMonday at length dawned fair and promising. After bidding his wife a very tender farewell, and gently drying her wet eyelashes with his own handkerchief, Richard set out with his brother-in-law in the big travelling chaise soon after noon. Andrew had quite recovered his hitherto rather dampened spirits, and produced a dice-box from one pocket and a pack of cards from the other wherewith to beguile the tedium of the journey.\n\n# Twenty-five\n\nHis Grace of Andover Captures the Queen\n\nDiana stood in the old oak porch, riding-whip in hand, and the folds of her voluminous gown over her arm. Miss Betty stood beside her, surveying her with secret pride.\n\nDiana's eyes seemed darker than ever, she thought, and the mouth more tragic. She knew that the girl was, to use her own expression, 'moping quite prodigiously for that Mr Carr'. Not all that she could do to entertain Diana entirely chased away the haunting sadness in her face; for a time she would be gay, but afterwards the laughter died away and she was silent. Many times had Miss Betty shaken her fist at the absent John.\n\nPresently Diana gave a tiny sigh, and looked down at her aunt, smiling.\n\n'You would be surprised how excellently well Harper manages the horses,' she said. 'He is quite a godsend. So much nicer than that stupid William.'\n\n'Indeed, yes,' agreed Miss Betty. 'Only think, my dear, he was groom to Sir Hugh Grandison \u2013 I saw the letter Sir Hugh writ your Papa \u2013 a remarkable elegant epistle, I assure you, my love.'\n\nDiana nodded and watched the new groom ride up, leading her mount. He jumped down, and, touching his hat, stood awaiting his mistress's pleasure.\n\nDiana went up to the cob, patting his glossy neck.\n\n'We are going towards Ashley to-day, aunt,' she said. 'I am so anxious to find some berries, and Harper tells me they grow in profusion not far from here.'\n\n'Now, my dear, pray do not tire yourself by going too far \u2013 I doubt it will rain before long and you will catch your death of cold!'\n\nDiana laughed at her.\n\n'Oh, no, aunt! Why, the sky is almost cloudless! But we shall not be long, I promise you. Only as far as Crossdown Woods and back again.'\n\nShe gave her foot to the groom just as Mr Beauleigh came out to watch her start.\n\n'Really, my dear, I must ride with you to-morrow,' he told her. ''Tis an age since we have been out together.'\n\n'Why, Papa, will you not accompany me this afternoon?' cried Diana eagerly. 'I should so like it!'\n\nIt struck her aunt that Harper awaited the answer to this question rather anxiously. She watched him, puzzled. However, when Mr Beauleigh had refused she could not see any change in his expression, and concluded that she must have been mistaken.\n\nSo with a wave of her hand, Diana rode away, the groom following at a respectful distance. Yet somehow Miss Betty was uneasy. A presentiment of evil seemed to touch her, and when the riders had disappeared round a bend in the road she felt an inane desire to run after them and call her niece back. She gave herself a little shake, saying that she was a fond old woman, over-anxious about Diana.\n\nNevertheless, she laid a detaining hand on her brother's arm as he was about to go indoors.\n\n'Wait, Horace! You \u2013 you will ride with Di more frequently, will you not?'\n\nHe looked surprised.\n\n'You are uneasy, Betty?'\n\n'Oh \u2013 uneasy \u2013 ! Well, yes \u2013 a little. I do not like her to go alone with a groom, and we do not know this man.'\n\n'My dear! I had the very highest references from Sir Hugh Grandison, who, I am sure, would never recommend anyone untrustworthy. Why, you saw the letter yourself!'\n\n'Yes, yes. Doubtless I am very stupid. But you will ride with her after to-day, will you not?'\n\n'Certainly I will accompany my daughter when I can spare the time,' he replied with dignity, and with that she had to be content.\n\nDiana rode leisurely along the lane, beside great trees and hedges that were a blaze of riotous colour. Autumn had turned the leaves dull gold and flame, mellow brown and deepest red, with flaming orange intermingled, and touches of copper here and there where some beech tree stood. The lane was like a fairy picture, too gorgeous to be real; the trees, meeting overhead, but let the sunlight through in patches, so that the dusty road beneath was mottled with gold.\n\nThe hedges retained their greenness, and where there was a gap a vista of fields presented itself. And then they came upon a clump of berries, black and red, growing the other side of the little stream that meandered along the lane in a ditch. Diana drew up and addressed her companion.\n\n'See, Harper \u2013 there are berries! We need go no further.' She changed the reins to her right hand and made as if to spring down.\n\n'The place I spoke of is but a short way on, miss,' ventured the man, keeping his seat.\n\nShe paused.\n\n'But why will these not suffice?'\n\n'Well, miss, if you like. But those others were a deal finer. It seems a pity not to get some.'\n\nDiana looked doubtfully along the road.\n\n''Tis not far?'\n\n'No, miss; but another quarter of a mile, and then down the track by the wood.'\n\nStill she hesitated.\n\n'I do not want to be late,' she demurred.\n\n'No, miss, of course not. I only thought as how we might come back by way of Chorly Fields.'\n\n'Round by the mill? H'm...'\n\n'Yes, miss. Then as soon as we get past it there is a clear stretch of turf almost up to the house.'\n\nHer eye brightened.\n\n'A gallop? Very well! But let us hurry on.'\n\nShe touched her cob with her heel, and they trotted on briskly out of the leafy canopy along the road with blue sky above and pasture land around. After a little while the wood came in sight, and in a minute they were riding down the track at right angles to the road. Harper was at Diana's heels, drawing nearer. Half unconsciously she quickened her pace. There was not a soul in sight.\n\nThey were coming to a bend in the road, and now Harper was alongside.\n\nChoking a ridiculous feeling of frightened apprehension, Diana drew rein.\n\n'I do not perceive those berries!' she said lightly.\n\n'No, miss,' was the immediate response. 'They are just a step into the wood. If you care to dismount here I can show you.'\n\nNothing could be more respectful than the man's tone. Diana shook off her nervous qualms and slipped down. Harper, already on the ground, took the cob's rein and tied both horses to a tree.\n\nDiana gathered her skirts over her arm and picked her way through the brambles to where he had pointed.\n\nThe blackberry hedges he held back for her entrance swung back after they had passed, completely shutting out all view of the road. There were no berries.\n\nDiana's heart was beating very fast, all her suspicions springing to life again, but she showed no sign of fear as she desired him to hold the brambles back again for her to pass out.\n\n'For there are no berries here, as you can see for yourself.'\n\nShe swept round and walked calmly towards the bushes.\n\nThen, how she could never quite remember, she was seized from behind, and before she had time to move, a long piece of silk was flung over her head and drawn tight across her mouth, while an arm, as of steel, held and controlled her.\n\nFighting madly, she managed to get one arm free, and struck out furiously with her slender crop. There was a brief struggle, and it was twisted from her grasp, and her hands tied behind her, despite all her efforts to be free.\n\nThen her captor swung her writhing into his arms, and strode away through the wood without a word.\n\nDiana was passive now, reserving her strength for when it might avail her something, but above the gag her eyes blazed with mingled fright and fury. She noticed that she was being carried not into the wood, but along it, and was not surprised when they emerged on to the road where it had rounded the bend.\n\nWith a sick feeling of terror, she saw a coach standing in the road, and guessed, even before she knew, what was her fate. Through a haze she saw a man standing at the door, and then she was thrust into the coach and made to sit down on the softly-cushioned seat. All her energies were concentrated in fighting against the faintness that threatened to overcome her. She won gradually, and strained her ears to catch what was being said outside.\n\nShe caught one sentence in a familiar, purring voice:\n\n'Set them loose and tie this to the pummel.' Then there was silence.\n\nPresently she heard footsteps returning. An indistinguishable murmur from Harper, and the door opened to allow his Grace of Andover to enter the coach. It gave a lurch and rumbled on.\n\nTracy looked down with a slight smile into the gold-flecked eyes that blazed so indignantly into his.\n\n'A thousand apologies, Miss Beauleigh! Allow me to remove this scarf.'\n\nAs he spoke he untied the knot, and the silk fell away from her face.\n\nFor a moment she was silent, struggling for words wherewith to give vent to her fury; then the red lips parted and the small, white teeth showed, clenched tightly together.\n\n'You cur!' she flung at him in a panting undertone. 'Oh, you cur! \u2013 you coward! Undo my hands!'\n\n'With pleasure.' He bowed and busied himself with this tighter knot.\n\n'Pray accept my heartfelt apologies for incommoding you so grievously. I am sure that you will admit the necessity.'\n\n'Oh, that there were a man here to avenge me!' she raged.\n\nHis Grace tugged at the stubborn knot.\n\n'There are three outside,' he answered blandly. 'But I do not think they are like to oblige you.'\n\nHe removed her bonds and sat back in the corner, enjoying her. His eyes fell on her bruised wrists, and at once his expression changed, and he frowned, leaning forward.\n\n'Believe me, I did not mean that,' he said, and touched her hands.\n\nShe flung him off.\n\n'Do not touch me!'\n\n'I beg your pardon, my dear.' He leaned back again nonchalantly.\n\n'Where are you taking me?' she demanded, trying to conceal the fear in her voice.\n\n'Home,' replied his Grace.\n\n'Home!' Incredulously she turned to look at him, hope in her eyes.\n\n'Home,' he reiterated. 'Our home.'\n\nThe hope died out.\n\n'You are ridiculous, sir.'\n\n''Tis an art, my dear, most difficult to acquire.'\n\n'Sir \u2013 Mr Everard \u2013 whoever you are \u2013 if you have any spark of manliness in you, of chivalry, if you care for me at all, you will this instant set me down!'\n\nNever had she seemed more beautiful, more desirable. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, soft and luminous, and the tragic mouth pleased, even trying to smile.\n\n'It would appear that none of these attributes belongs to me,' murmured his Grace, and wondered if she would weep. He had never a taste for a weeping woman.\n\nBut Diana was proud. She realised that tears, prayers and all would avail her nothing, and she was determined not to break down, at least in his presence. Tracy was surprised to see her arrange her skirts and settle back against the cushions in the most unconcerned manner possible.\n\n'Then, since you are so ungallant, sir, pray tell me what you purpose doing with me?' The tone was light, even bantering, but with his marvellous, almost uncanny perspicacity, he sensed the breathless terror behind it.\n\n'Why, my dear, I had planned to marry you,' he answered, bowing.\n\nThe knuckles gleamed white on her clenched hand.\n\n'And if I refuse?'\n\n'I do not think you will refuse, my dear.'\n\nShe could not repress a shiver.\n\n'I do refuse!' she cried sharply.\n\nThe smile with which he received this statement drove the blood cold in her veins.\n\n'Wait. I think you will be glad to marry me \u2013 in the end,' he drawled.\n\nHer great eyes were hunted, desperate, and her face was very white. The dry lips parted.\n\n'I think \u2013 you will be \u2013 very sorry \u2013 when my father \u2013 comes.'\n\nThe indulgent sneer brought the blood racing back to her cheeks.\n\n'And he will come!'\n\nHis Grace was politely interested.\n\n'Really? But I do not doubt it, Diana, an he knows where to come.'\n\n'He will find a way, never fear!'\n\nShe laughed with a confidence she was far from feeling.\n\n'I do not fear \u2013 not in the least \u2013 I shall be delighted to welcome him,' promised his Grace. 'I do not anticipate a refusal of your hand from him.'\n\n'No?' Diana, too, could sneer.\n\n'No, my dear. Not after a little \u2013 persuasion.'\n\n'Who are you?' she shot at him.\n\nHis shoulders shook in the soundless laugh peculiar to him.\n\n'I am several people, child.'\n\n'So I apprehend,' she retorted smoothly. 'Sir Hugh Grandison amongst them?'\n\n'Ah, you have guessed that?'\n\n'It rather leaps to the eye, sir.' She spoke in what was almost an exact imitation of his sarcastic tone.\n\n'True. It was neatly done, I flatter myself.'\n\n'Quite marvellous, indeed.'\n\nHe was enjoying her as he had rarely enjoyed a woman before. Others had sobbed and implored, railed and raved; he had never till now met one who returned him word for word, using his own weapons against him.\n\n'Who else have you the honour to be?' she asked, stifling a yawn.\n\n'I am Mr Everard, child, and Duke of Andover.'\n\nThen she turned her head and looked at him with glittering eyes.\n\n'I have heard of you, sir,' she said, evenly.\n\n'You are like to hear more, my dear.'\n\n'That is as may be, your Grace.'\n\nNow she understood the elaborate hilt of the mysterious sword with the coronet on it, wrought in jewels. She wondered whether Jack had it still, wherever he was. If only some wonderful providence would bring him to her now in her dire need! There was no one to strike a blow for her; she was entirely at the mercy of a ruthless libertine, whose reputation she knew well, and whose presence filled her with dread and a speechless loathing. She felt very doubtful that her father would succeed in finding her. If only Jack were in England! He would come to her, she knew.\n\nHis Grace leaned towards her, laying a thin, white hand on her knee.\n\n'My dear, be reasonable. I am not such a bad bargain after all.'\n\nThe tenderness in his voice filled her with horror. He felt her shrink away.\n\n'Take your hand away!' she commanded throbbingly. 'Do not touch me!' He laughed softly, and at the sound of it she controlled her terrors and dropped again to the mocking tone she had adopted. 'What? Ungallant still, your Grace? Pray keep your distance!'\n\nThe pistol holster on the wall at her side caught her attention. Instantly she looked away, hoping he had not observed her. Very little escaped his Grace.\n\n'I am desolated to have to disappoint you, my dear. It is empty.'\n\nShe laid a careless hand on the holster, verifying his statement.\n\n'This? Oh, I guessed it, your Grace!'\n\nHe admired her spirit more and more. Was there ever such a girl?\n\n'My name is Tracy,' he remarked.\n\nShe considered it with her head tilted to one side.\n\n'I do not like your name, sir,' she answered.\n\n'\"There was no thought of pleasing you when I was christened,\"' he quoted lazily.\n\n'Hardly, sir,' she said. 'You might be my father.'\n\nIt was a master stroke, and for an instant his brows drew together. Then he laughed.\n\n'Merci du compliment, mademoiselle! I admire your wit.'\n\n'I protest I am overwhelmed. May I ask when we are like to arrive at our destination?'\n\n'We should reach Andover soon after eight, my dear.'\n\nSo it was some distance he was taking her?\n\n'I suppose you had the wit to provide food for the journey?' she yawned. 'You will not wish to exhibit me at an inn, I take it?'\n\nHe marvelled at her indomitable courage.\n\n'We shall halt at an inn certainly, and my servant will bring you refreshment. That will be in about an hour.'\n\n'So long?' she frowned. 'Then, pray excuse me an I compose myself to sleep a little. I am like to find the journey somewhat tedious, I fear.'\n\nShe shifted farther into the corner, leaned her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes.\n\nThus outwitting his Grace. For it is impossible to be passionate with a girl who feigns sleep when she should be struggling to escape from you. So Tracy, who, whatever else he might lack, possessed a keen sense of humour, settled himself in his corner and followed her example. So they jogged on...\n\nArriving at length at the inn, the coach pulled up slowly. Diana opened her eyes with a great assumption of sleepiness.\n\n'Already?' she marvelled.\n\n'I trust you have slept well,' said his Grace suavely.\n\n'Excellently well, I thank you, sir,' was the unblushing reply.\n\n'I am relieved to hear you say so, my dear. I had thought you unable to \u2013 your mouth kept shut so admirably. Doubtless you have schooled your jaw not to drop when you sleep sitting up? I wish I might do the same.'\n\nThe triumph in his voice was thinly veiled. She found nothing to say.\n\nHe rose.\n\n'With your leave, I will go to procure you some refreshment, child. Do not think me uncivil if I remind you that a servant stands without either door.'\n\n'I thank you for the kind thought,' she smiled, but her heart was sick within her.\n\nHe disappeared, returning a few moments later with a glass of wine and some little cakes.\n\n'I deplore the scanty nature of your repast,' he said. 'But I do not wish to waste time. You shall be more fittingly entertained when we reach Andover.'\n\nDiana drank the wine gratefully and it seemed to put new life into her. The food almost choked her, but rather than let him see it, she broke a cake in half and started to eat it, playing to gain time: time in which to allow her father a chance of overtaking them before it was too late. She affected to dislike the cake, and rather petulantly demanded a 'maid of honour'.\n\nTracy's eyes gleamed.\n\n'I fear I cannot oblige you, my dear. When we are married you can go to Richmond, and you shall have maids of honour in plenty.'\n\nHe relieved her of her glass, taking it from hands that trembled pitifully.\n\nThe rest of the journey was as some terrible nightmare. She felt that she dared no longer feign sleep. She was terrified at what his Grace might do, and kept him at arm's length by means of her tongue and all her woman's wit. As a matter of fact, Andover had himself well in hand, and had no intention of letting his passion run away with him. But as the time went on and the light went, some of Diana's control seemed to slip from her, and she became a little less the self-possessed woman, and a little more the trapped and frightened child. When they at last reached Andover Court, and his Grace assisted her to alight, her legs would barely carry her up the steps to the great iron-clamped door. She trembled anew as he took her hand.\n\nOn the threshold he paused and bowed very low. 'Welcome to your future home, my queen,' he murmured, and led her in, past wooden-faced footmen, who stared over her head, to his private room, where a table was set for two. He would have taken her in his arms then, but she evaded him and slipped wearily into a chair.\n\n'I protest,' she managed to say, 'I protest, I am faint through want of food.'\n\nAndover, looking at her white lips, believed her. He took a seat opposite.\n\nTwo footmen came to wait on them, and although her very soul was shamed that they should see her there, she was thankful for their restraining presence.\n\n# Twenty-six\n\nMy Lord Rides to Frustrate His Grace\n\nMy lord yawned most prodigiously and let fall the Spectator. His eyes roved towards the clock, and noted with disgust that the hands pointed to half after five. He sighed and picked up the Rambler.\n\nHis host and hostess were visiting some miles distant, and were not likely to be back until late, so my lord had a long dull evening in front of him, which he relished not at all. Lady O'Hara had tried to induce him to accompany them, promising that he would meet no one he knew, but he had for once been prudent and refused steadfastly. So my lady, after pouting crossly at him and assuring him that he was by far the most obstinate and disagreeable man that she had ever come across, not excepting her husband, who, to be sure, had been quite prodigiously annoying all day, relented, told him she understood perfectly, and even offered to kiss him to make up for her monstrous ill-humour. Jack accepted the offer promptly, waved farewell to her from the porch, and returned to the empty drawing-room to while away the time with two numbers of the Spectator and his own thoughts till dinner, which was to be later than usual to-day, on account of an attack of vapours which had seized the cook.\n\nHis thoughts were too unpleasant to be dwelt on; everything in his world seemed to have gone awry. So he occupied himself with what seemed to him a particularly uninteresting number of the Spectator. The sun had almost disappeared, and very soon it became too dark to read; no candles having been brought as yet, my lord, very unromantically, went to sleep in his chair. Whether he would have eventually snored is not known, for not more than a quarter of an hour afterwards the butler roused him with the magic words:\n\n'Dinner is served, sir.'\n\nCarstares turned his head lazily.\n\n'What's that you say, James?'\n\n'Dinner is served, sir,' repeated the man, and held the door wide for him to pass out.\n\n'Faith! I'm glad to hear it!'\n\nMy lord rose leisurely and pulled his cravat more precisely into position. Although he was to be alone, he gave his costume a touch here and there, and flicked a speck of dust from one great cuff with his elegant lace handkerchief.\n\nHe strolled across the old panelled hall to the dining-room, and sat down at the table.\n\nThe curtains were drawn across the windows, and clusters of candles in graceful silver holders were arranged on the table, shedding a warm light on to the white damask and the shining covers. The footmen presented a fish, and my lord permitted a little to be put on his plate. The butler desired to know if Mr Carr would drink claret or burgundy, or ale? Mr Carr would drink claret. A sirloin of beef next made its appearance, and went away considerably smaller. Then before my lord was spread an array of dishes. Partridges flanked one end, a pastry stood next, a cream, two chickens, a duck, and a ham of noble proportions.\n\nMy lord went gently through.\n\nThe butler desired to know if Mr Carr would drink a glass of burgundy? He exhibited a dusty bottle. My lord considered it through his eyeglass and decided in favour. He sipped reflectively and waved the ham away.\n\nSweetmeats appeared before him and a soup, while plump pigeons were uncovered at his elbow.\n\nOne was whipped deftly on to his plate, and as he took up his knife and fork to carve it, a great scuffling sounded without, angry voices being raised in expostulation, and, above all, a breathless, insistent appeal for Mr Carr or Sir Miles. My lord laid down the knife and fork and came to his feet.\n\n'It appears I am demanded,' he said, and went to the door. It was opened for him at once, and he stepped out into the hall to find Mr Beauleigh trying to dodge the younger footman, who was refusing to let him pass. At the sight of Carstares he stepped back respectfully. Mr Beauleigh, hot, distraught, breathless, fell upon my lord.\n\n'Thank God you are here, sir!' he cried.\n\nCarstares observed him with some surprise. Mr Beauleigh had been so very frigid when last they had met.\n\n'I am glad to be at your service, sir,' he bowed. 'You have commands for me?'\n\n'We are in terrible trouble,' almost moaned the other. 'Betty bade me come to find you, or failing you, Sir Miles, for none other can help us!'\n\nCarstares' glance grew sharper.\n\n'Trouble? Not \u2013 But I forget my manners \u2013 we shall talk more at ease in here.' He led Mr Beauleigh into the morning room. Beauleigh thrust a paper into his hands.\n\n'Diana went riding this afternoon, and only her horse returned \u2013 with this attached to the pommel! Read it, sir! Read it!'\n\n'Diana!' Carstares strode over to the light, and devoured the contents of the single sheet, with eager eyes.\n\nThey were not long, and they were much to the point:\n\nMr Beauleigh may haply recall to mind a certain 'Mr Everard', of Bath, whose Addresses to Miss Beauleigh were cruelly repulsed. He regrets having now to take the matter into his Own Hands, and trusts to further his Acquaintance with Mr Beauleigh at some Future Date, when Miss Beauleigh shall, He trusts, have become 'Mrs Everard'.\n\nJack crumpled the paper furiously in his hand, grinding out a startling oath.\n\n'\u2013 insolent cur!'\n\n'Yes, yes, sir! But what will that avail my daughter? I have come straight to you, for my sister is convinced you know this Everard, and can tell me where to seek them!'\n\nCarstares clapped a hand on his shoulder.\n\n'Never fear, Mr Beauleigh! I pledge you my word she shall be found this very night!'\n\n'You know where he has taken her? You do? You are sure?'\n\n'Back to his earth, I'll lay my life; 'tis ever his custom.' He strode to the door, flung it wide and shot clear, crisp directions at the footman. 'See to it that my mare is saddled in ten minutes and Blue Devil harnessed to your master's curricle! Don't stand staring \u2013 go! And send Salter to me!'\n\nThe footman scuttled away, pausing only to inform my lord that Salter was not in.\n\nCarstares remembered that he had given Jim leave to visit his Mary at Fittering, and crushed out another oath. He sprang up the stairs, Mr Beauleigh following breathlessly.\n\nIn his room, struggling with his boots, he put a few questions.\n\nMr Beauleigh related the whole tale, dwelling mournfully on the excellent references for Harper he had received from Sir Hugh Grandison.\n\nJack hauled at his second boot.\n\n'Tracy himself, of course!' he fumed, adjusting his spurs.\n\n'Pray, Mr Carr, who is this scoundrel? It is true that you know him?'\n\n'Andover,' answered Jack from the depths of the garde-robe. 'Damn the fellow, where has he put my cloak?' This to the absent Jim, and not the Duke.\n\n'Andover! Not \u2013 surely not the Duke!' cried Mr Beauleigh.\n\n'I know of none other. At last!'\n\nHe emerged and tossed a heavy, many-caped coat on to the bed.\n\n'Now, sir, your attention for one moment.'\n\nHe was buckling on his sword as he spoke, and not looking at the other man.\n\n'Tracy will have borne Di \u2013 Miss Beauleigh off to Andover Court, seven miles beyond Wyncham, to the south-west. Your horse, I take it, is not fresh' (he knew Mr Beauleigh's horse). 'I have ordered the curricle for you. I will ride on at once by short cuts, for there is not a moment to be lost \u2013'\n\n'The Duke of Andover!' interrupted Mr Beauleigh. 'The Duke of Andover! Why, do you think he purposes to marry my daughter?'\n\nJack gave a short, furious laugh.\n\n'Ay! As he married all the others!'\n\nMr Beauleigh winced.\n\n'Sir! Pray why should you say so?'\n\n'I perceive you do not know his Grace. Perchance you have heard of Devil Belmanoir?'\n\nThen the little man paled.\n\n'Good God, Mr Carr, 'tis not he?'\n\nCarstares caught up his hat and whip.\n\n'Ay, Mr Beauleigh, 'tis indeed he. Now perhaps you appreciate the necessity for haste?'\n\nMr Beauleigh's eyes were open at last.\n\n'For God's sake, Mr Carr, after them!'\n\n''Tis what I intend sir. You will follow as swiftly as possible?'\n\n'Yes, yes, but do not wait for anything! Can you reach Andover \u2013 in time?'\n\n'I reach Andover to-night,' was the grim answer. 'And you, sir? You know the road?'\n\n'I will find out. Only go, Mr Carr! Do not waste time, I implore you!'\n\nJack struggled into his riding coat, clapped his hat on to his head, and with his Grace of Andover's sword tucked beneath his arm, went down the stairs three and four at a time, and hurried out on to the drive, where the groom stood waiting with Jenny's bridle over his arm. Carstares cast a hasty glance at the girths and sprang up. The mare sidled and fidgeted, fretting to be gone, but was held in with a hand of iron while her master spoke to the groom.\n\n'You must drive Mr Beauleigh to Andover Court as fast as you can. It is a matter of life and death. You know the way?'\n\nThe amazed groom collected his wits with difficulty.\n\n'Roughly, sir.'\n\n'That will do \u2013 Mr Beauleigh will know. Drive your damnedest, man \u2013 Sir Miles won't mind. You understand?'\n\nJack's word was law in the O'Hara household.\n\n'Yes, sir,' answered the man, and touched his hat.\n\nOn the word, he saw the beautiful straining mare leap forward, and the next moment both horse and rider were swallowed in the gloom.\n\n'Well I'm \u2013 darned,' exploded the groom, and turned to fetch the curricle.\n\nAcross the stretch of moorland went Jack at a gallop, Jenny speeding under him like the wind, and seeming to catch something of her master's excitement. Low over her neck he bent, holding the Duke's sword across his saddle-bows with one hand and with the other guiding her. So he covered some three miles. He reined in then, and forced her to a canter, saving her strength for the long distance ahead of them. She was in splendid condition, glorying in the unrestrained gallop across the turf, and although she was too well-mannered to pull on the rein, Carstares could see by the eager twitching of her ears how she longed to be gone over the ground. He spoke soothingly to her and guided her on to the very lane where Diana had ridden that afternoon. She fell into a long, easy stride that seemed to eat up the ground. Now they were off the lane, riding over a field to join another road, leading west. A hedge cut them off, but the mare gathered her legs beneath her and soared over, alighting as gracefully as a bird, and skimming on again up the road.\n\nHer responsive ears flickered as he praised her, and pulled her up.\n\n'Easy now, Jenny, easy!'\n\nShe was trembling with excitement, but she yielded to his will and trotted quietly for perhaps another half-hour.\n\nCarstares rose and fell rhythmically in the saddle, taking care to keep his spurred heels from her glossy sides. He guessed the time to be about seven o'clock and his brows drew together worriedly. Jenny was made of steel and lightning, but would she manage it? He had never tested her powers as he was about to now, and he dared not allow her much breathing space. Every minute was precious if he were to reach Andover before it was too late.\n\nAssuming that Tracy had captured Diana at four, or thereabouts, he reckoned that it should take a heavy coach four hours or more to reach Andover. Jenny might manage it in two and a half hours, allowing for short cuts, in which case he ought to arrive not long after the others.\n\nHe was tortured by the thought of Diana at the mercy of a man of Tracy's calibre; Diana in terror; Diana despairing. Unconsciously he pressed his knees against the smooth flank and once more Jenny fell into that long, swift stride. She seemed to glide over the ground with never a jar nor a stumble. Carstares was careful not to irk her in any way, only keeping a guiding, restraining hand on the rein, and for the rest letting her go as she willed. On and on they sped, as the time lagged by, sometimes through leafy lanes, at others over fields and rough tracks. Not for nothing had Carstares roamed this country for two years; almost every path was familiar to him; he never took a wrong turn, never swerved, never hesitated. On and on, past sleeping villages and lonely homesteads, skirting woods, riding up hill and down dale, never slackening his hold on the rein, never taking his eyes off the road before him, except now and then to throw a glance to the side on the look-out for some hidden by-path. After the first hour a dull pain in his shoulder reminded him of his wound, still troublesome. He set his teeth and pressed on still faster,\n\nThe mare caught her foot on a loose stone and stumbled. His hand held her together, the muscles standing out like ribbed steel, his voice encouraged her, and he made her walk again. This time she did not fret against the restraint. He shifted the sword under his bridle hand, and passed the right down her steaming neck, crooning to her softly beneath his breath.\n\nShe answered with a low, throbbing whinny. She could not understand why he desired her to gallop on, braving unknown terrors in the dark; all she could know was that it was his wish. It seemed also that he was pleased with her. She would have cantered on again, but he made her walk for, perhaps, another five minutes, until they were come to a stretch of common he knew well. It was getting late, and he pressed her with his knee, adjuring her to do her best, and urging her to a gallop, leaning right forward, the better to pierce the darkness ahead. A gorse bush loomed before them, and Jenny shied at it, redoubling her pace.\n\nWith hand and voice he soothed her, and on they sped. He judged the time to be now about half-past eight, and knew that they must make the remaining miles in an hour. Even now the coach might have arrived, and beyond that he dared not think.\n\nAnother half-hour crept by, and he could feel the mare's breath coming short and fast, and reined in again, this time to a canter. He was off the moor now, on a road he remembered well, and knew himself to be not ten miles from Wyncham. Five more miles as the crow flies... He knew he must give Jenny another rest, and pulled up, dismounting and going to her head.\n\nHer legs were trembling, and the sweat rolled off her satin skin. She dropped her nose into his hand, sobbingly. He rubbed her ears and patted her, and she lipped his cheek lovingly, breathing more easily.\n\nUp again then, and forward once more, skimming over the ground.\n\nLeaving Wyncham on his right, Carstares cut west and then north-west, on the high road now, leading to Andover. Only two more miles to go...\n\nJenny stumbled again and broke into a walk. Her master tapped her shoulder, and she picked up her stride again.\n\nShe was almost winded, and he knew it, but he had to force her onwards. She responded gallantly to his hand, although her breath came sobbingly and her great, soft eyes were blurred.\n\nAt last the great iron gates were in view; he could see them through the dusk, firmly shut. He pulled up and walked on, looking for a place in the hedge where Jenny might push through.\n\n# Twenty-seven\n\nMy Lord Enters by the Window\n\nHis Grace of Andover made a sign to the footmen, and with a sinking heart Diana watched them leave the room, discreetly closing the door behind them. She affected to eat a peach, skinning it with fingers that were stiff and wooden. Tracy leaned back in his chair, surveying her through half-shut eyelids. He watched her eat her peach and rise to her feet, standing with her hand on the back of the high, carved chair. She addressed him nervously and with would-be lightness.\n\n'Well, sir, I have eaten, and I protest I am fatigued. Pray have the goodness to conduct me to your housekeeper.'\n\n'My dear,' he drawled, 'nothing would give me greater pleasure \u2013 always supposing that I possessed one.'\n\nShe raised her eyebrows haughtily.\n\n'I presume you have at least a maidservant,' she inquired. 'If I am to remain here, I would retire.'\n\n'You shall, child, all in good time. But do not be in a hurry to deprive me of your fair company.' He rose as he spoke, and taking her hand, led her dumbly to a low-backed settee at the other end of the great room.\n\n'If you have aught to say to me, your Grace, I beg that you will reserve it until to-morrow. I am not in the humour to-night.'\n\nHe laughed at her.\n\n'Still so cold, child?'\n\n'I am not like to be different, sir.'\n\nHis eyes glinted.\n\n'You think so? I shall show you that you are wrong, my dear. You may loathe me, you may love me, but I think you will lose something of that icy indifference. Allow me to point out to you that there is a couch behind you.'\n\n'I perceive it, sir.'\n\n'Then be seated.'\n\n'It is not worth the while, sir. I am not staying.'\n\nHe advanced one step towards her with that in his face that made her sink hurriedly on to the couch.\n\nHe nodded smiling.\n\n'You are wise, Diana.'\n\n'Why so free with my name, sir?' This with icy sweetness.\n\nTracy flung himself down beside her, his arms over the back of the settee and the fingers of his drooping hand just touching her shoulder. It was all the girl could do to keep from screaming. She felt trapped and helpless, and her nerve was in pieces.\n\n'Nay, sweet! An end to this quibbling. Bethink you, is it worth your while to anger me?'\n\nShe sat rigid and silent.\n\n'I love you \u2013 ay, you shudder. One day you will not do that.'\n\n'You call this love, your Grace?' she cried out, between scorn and misery.\n\n'Something near it,' he answered imperturbably.\n\n'God help you then!' she shivered, thinking of one other who had loved her so differently.\n\n'Belike He will,' was the pleasant rejoinder. 'But we wander from the point. It is this: you shall retire to your chamber at once \u2013 er \u2013 armed with the key \u2013 an you will swear to marry me to-morrow.'\n\nVery white she made as if to rise. The thin fingers closed over her shoulders, forcing her to remain.\n\n'No, my dear. Sit still.'\n\nHer self-control was slipping away from her; she struggled to be free from that hateful hand.\n\n'Oh, you brute, you brute! Let me go!'\n\n'When you have given me your answer, sweetheart.'\n\n'It is no!' she cried. 'A thousand times no!'\n\n'Think...'\n\n'I have thought! I would rather die than wed you!'\n\n'Very possibly. But death will not be your lot, my pretty one,' purred the sinister voice in her ear. 'Think carefully before you answer; were it not better to marry me with all honour than to \u2013'\n\n'You devil!' she panted, and looked wildly round for some means of escape. The long window was open, she knew, for the curtain blew out of the room. But his Grace was between it and her.\n\n'You begin to think better of it, child? Remember, tomorrow will be too late. This is your chance, now. In truth,' he took a pinch of snuff, 'in truth, it matters not to me whether you will be a bride or no.'\n\nWith a sudden movement she wrenched herself free and darted to the window. In a flash he was up and had caught her as she reached it, swinging her round to face him.\n\n'Not so fast, my dear. You do not escape me so.'\n\nHis arm was about her waist, drawing her irresistibly towards him. Sick with fear, she struck madly at the face bent close to hers.\n\n'Let me go! How dare you insult me so? Oh, for God's sake let me go!'\n\nHe was pressing her against him, one hand holding her wrists behind her in a grip of iron, his other arm about her shoulders.\n\n'For my own sake I will keep you,' he smiled, and looked gloatingly down at her beautiful, agonised countenance, with its wonderful eyes gazing imploringly at him, and the sensitive mouth a-quiver. For one instant he held her so, and then swiftly bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.\n\nShe could neither struggle nor cry out. A deadly faintness assailed her, and she could scarcely breathe.\n\n'By God, it is too late!' he swore. 'You had best give in, madam \u2013 nought can avail you now.'\n\nAnd then the unexpected happened. Even as in her last desperate effort to free herself she moaned the name of him whom she deemed hundreds of miles away across the sea, a crisp voice, vibrating with a species of cold fury, sounded directly behind them.\n\n'You delude yourself, Belmanoir,' it said with deadly quiet.\n\nWith an oath Tracy released the girl and wheeled to face the intruder.\n\nFramed by the dark curtains, drawn sword in hand, murder in his blue eyes, stood my lord.\n\nTracy's snarl died slowly away as he stared, and a look of blank amazement took its place.\n\nDiana, almost unable to believe her eyes, dizzy with the suddenness of it all, stumbled blindly towards him, crying:\n\n'Thank God! Thank God! Oh, Jack!'\n\nHe caught her in his arms, drawing her gently to the couch.\n\n'Dear heart, you never doubted I should come?'\n\n'I thought you in France!' she sobbed, and sank down amongst the cushions.\n\nCarstares turned to meet his Grace.\n\nTracy had recovered from the first shock of surprise and was eyeing him through his quizzing glass.\n\n'This is an unexpected pleasure, my lord,' he drawled with easy insolence.\n\nDiana stared at the mode of address and looked up at Carstares, bewildered.\n\n'I perceive your sword in the corner behind you, your Grace!' snapped Jack, and flung over to the door, twisting the key round in the lock and slipping it into his breeches pocket.\n\nTo Diana he was as a stranger, with no laugh in the glittering blue eyes, and none of the almost finicking politeness that usually characterised his bearing. He was very white, with lips set in a hard straight line, and his nostrils slightly expanded.\n\nHis Grace shrugged a careless refusal.\n\n'My dear Carstares, why should I fight you?' he inquired, seemingly not in the least annoyed by the other's intrusion.\n\n'I had anticipated that answer, your Grace. So I brought this!'\n\nAs he spoke Jack drove the sword he held into the wood floor, where it stayed, quivering.\n\nNonchalantly Tracy took it in his hand and glanced at the hilt.\n\nHis fingers tightened on it convulsively, and he shot a piercing glance at Jack.\n\n'I am entirely at your service,' he said very smoothly, and laid the sword on the table.\n\nSome of the glare died out of my lord's eyes, and a little triumphant smile curved the corners of his mouth. Quickly he divested himself of his fine velvet coat, his waistcoat and his scabbard, and pulled off the heavy riding boots, caked with mud. He proceeded to tuck up his ruffles, awaiting his Grace's convenience.\n\nAs one in a dream, Diana saw the table pushed back, the paces measures, and heard the ring of steel against steel.\n\nMy lord opened the attack after a few moments' cautious circling, lunging swiftly and recovering, even as the Duke countered and delivered a lightning riposte en quinte. My lord parried gracefully in tierce, and chuckled softly to himself.\n\nWith parted lips and wide eyes the girl on the couch watched each fresh lunge. A dozen times it seemed as though Carstares must be run through, but each time, by some miraculous means, he regained his opposition, and the Duke's blade met steel.\n\nOnce, indeed, thrusting in quarte, Tracy's point, aimed too high, flashed above the other's guard and ripped the cambric shirt at the sleeve. My lord retired his foot nimbly, parried, and risposted with a straight thrust, wrist held high, before Tracy could recover his opposition. The blades crashed as forte met foible, and my lord lunged straight at his opponent's breast.\n\nDiana shut her eyes, expecting every moment to hear the dull thud of Tracy's body as it should fall to the ground. It did not come, but instead there sounded a confused stamping and scraping of blades, and she looked again to find the Duke disengaging over my lord's supple wrist and being parried with the utmost ease and dexterity.\n\nCarstares knew that he would not be able to last long, however. His shoulder, fretted by the long ride, was aching intolerably, and his wrist seemed to have lost some of its cunning. He was conscious of a singing in his head which he tried, in vain, to ignore. But his eyes glowed and sparkled with the light of battle and the primitive lust to kill.\n\nThe Duke was fencing with almost superhuman skill, moving heavily and deliberately, seemingly tireless.\n\nCarstares, on the other hand, was as swift and light as a panther, grave in every turn of his slim body.\n\nHe feinted suddenly inside the arm, deceiving the parade of tierce. His Grace fell back a pace, parrying in quarte and as John with a quick twist changed to quarte also and the blades crossed, Tracy lunged forward the length of his arm, and a deep red splash stained the whiteness of my lord's sleeve at the shoulder.\n\nDiana gave a choked cry, knowing it to be the old wound, and the Duke's blade came to rest upon the ground.\n\n'You are \u2013 satisfied?' he asked coolly, but panting a little.\n\nMy lord reeled slightly, controlled himself and brushed his left hand across his eyes.\n\n'On guard!' was all he replied, ignoring a pleading murmur from the girl.\n\nTracy shrugged, meeting Carstares' blade with his, and the fight went on.\n\nTracy's eyes were almost shut, it appeared to Diana, his chin thrust forward, his teeth gripping the thin lower lip.\n\nTo her horror she saw that Carstares was breathing in gasps, and that his face was ashen in hue. It was torture to her to sit impotent, but she held herself in readiness to fly to his rescue should the need arise. Suddenly my lord feinted on both sides of the arm and ripped open the Duke's sleeve, causing a steady trickle of blood to drip down on to the floor.\n\nTracy took no notice, but countered so deftly that John's blade wavered, and he staggered back. For an instant it seemed as though the end had come, but somehow he steadied himself, recovering his guard.\n\nDiana was on her feet now, nearly as white as her lover, her hands pressed to her breast. She saw that John's point was no longer so purposeful, and the smile had gone from his lips. They were parted now, the upper one rigid, and a deep furrow cut into his brow.\n\nThen, startling in the stillness of the great house, came the clanging of a bell, pulled with some violence.\n\nCarstares' white lips moved soundlessly, and Diana, guessing it to be her father, moved, clinging to the wall, towards the door.\n\nA moment later along the passage came the sound of steps; a gay, boisterous voice was raised, followed by a deeper, graver one.\n\nHis Grace's face became devilish in its expression, but Carstares took no notice, seeming not to hear. Only he thrust with such skill that his Grace was forced to fall back a pace. The loud voices demanded to know what was toward in the locked room, and Diana, knowing that my lord was nearly spent, beat upon the panels.\n\n'Quickly, quickly!' she cried. 'Break through, for heaven's sake, whoever you are! 'Tis locked!'\n\n'Good Gad! 'tis a woman!' exclaimed the voice. 'Listen, Dick! \u2013 why \u2013 why \u2013 'tis a fight!'\n\n'Oh, be quick!' implored poor Diana.\n\nAnd then came the deeper voice: 'Stand away, madam, we will burst the lock.'\n\nShe moved quickly aside, turning her attention once more to the duel by the window, as Andrew flung his shoulder against the stout wood. At the third blow the lock gave, the door few wide, and Lord Andrew was precipitated into the room.\n\nAnd the two by the window fought on unheeding, faster and faster.\n\n'Well, I'm damned!' said Andrew, surveying them. He walked forward interestedly, and at the same moment caught sight of Jack's face. He stared in amazement, and called to Richard.\n\n'Good Lord! Here! Dick! Come here! Surely it's \u2013 who is that man?'\n\nDiana saw the tall gentleman, so like her lover in appearance, step forward to the young rake's side. The next events happened in a flash. She heard a great cry, and before she had time to know what he was doing, Richard had whipped his sword from its scabbard and had struck up the two blades. In that moment the years rolled back, and, recognising his brother, Jack gasped furiously.\n\n'Damn \u2013 you \u2013 Dick! Out \u2013 of \u2013 the way!'\n\nTracy stood leaning on his sword, watching, his breath coming in gasps, but still with that cynical smile on his lips.\n\nRichard, seeing that his brother would fly at the Duke again, closed with him, struggling to wrest the rapier from his weakened grasp.\n\n'You fool, John, leave go! Leave go, I say!'\n\nWith a twist he had the sword in his hand and sent it spinning across the room as without a sound my lord crumpled up and fell with a thud to the floor.\n\n# Twenty-eight\n\nIn Which What Threatened to be Tragedy Turns to Comedy\n\nWith a smothered cry Diana flew across the room to where my lord lay in a pitiful little heap, but before her was Richard. He fell on his knees beside the still figure, feeling for the wound.\n\nDiana, on the other side, looked across at him.\n\n''Tis his shoulder, sir \u2013 an old wound. Oh, he is not \u2013 he cannot be dead?'\n\nRichard shook his head dumbly and gently laid bare the white shoulder. The wound was bleeding very slightly, and they bound it deftly betwixt them, with their united handkerchiefs and a napkin seized from the table.\n\n''Tis exhaustion, I take it,' frowned Richard, his hand before the pale lips. 'He is breathing still.'\n\nOver her shoulder Diana shot an order:\n\n'One of you men, please fetch water and cognac!'\n\n'At once madam!' responded Andrew promptly, and hurried out.\n\nShe bent once more over my lord, gazing anxiously into his face.\n\n'He will live? You \u2013 are sure? He \u2013 he must have rid all the way from Maltby \u2013 for me!' She caught her breath on a sob, pressing one lifeless hand to her lips.\n\n'For you, madam?' Richard looked an inquiry.\n\nShe blushed.\n\n'Yes \u2013 he \u2013 we \u2013 I \u2013'\n\n'I see,' said Richard gravely.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n'Yes, and \u2013 and the Duke \u2013 caught me, and \u2013 brought me here \u2013 and \u2013 and then he came \u2013 and saved me!'\n\nThe air blowing in from the window stirred the ruffles of my lord's shirt, and blew a strand of her dark hair across Diana's face. She caught it back and stared at Richard with a puzzled air.\n\n'Pardon me, sir \u2013 but you are so like him!'\n\n'I am his brother,' answered Richard shortly.\n\nHer eyes grew round with surprise.\n\n'His brother, sir? I never knew. Mr Carr had a brother!'\n\n'Mr \u2013 who?' asked Richard.\n\n'Carr. It is not his name, is it? I heard the Duke call him Carstares \u2013 and \u2013 my lord.'\n\n'He is the Earl of Wyncham,' answered Richard, stretching out a hand to relieve Andrew of the jug of water he was proffering.\n\n'Good \u2013 gracious!' gasped Diana. 'B-but he said he was a highwayman!'\n\n'Quite true, madam.'\n\n'True? But how \u2013 how ridiculous \u2013 and how like him!'\n\nShe soaked a handkerchief in the water, and bathed my lord's forehead.\n\n'He is not coming to in the least,' she said nervously. 'You are sure 'tis not \u2013 not \u2013'\n\n'Quite. He'll come round presently. You said he had ridden far?'\n\n'He must have, sir \u2013 I wish he were not so pale \u2013 he was staying with the O'Hara's at Maltby.'\n\n'What? The O'Hara's?'\n\n'Yes \u2013 and he must have ridden from there \u2013 and his wound still so tender!' Again she kissed the limp hand.\n\nOver by the window his Grace, his breath recovered, was eyeing Andrew through his quizzing-glass.\n\n'May I inquire what brings you here?' he asked sweetly. 'And why you saw fit to bring the saintly Richard?'\n\n'I came because it suited me to do so. I never dreamed you were here \u2013 'Pon my soul, I did not!'\n\n'Where then did you think I was?'\n\n'Never thought about you at all, my dear fellow. I'm not your squire.'\n\n'Why is Richard here?'\n\n'Lord, what a catechism! He is here because he brought me with him on his way to Wyncham. Have you any objection?'\n\n'It would be useless,' shrugged Tracy. 'Have I killed that young fool?'\n\nAndrew looked him over in disgust.\n\n'No, you have not. You have barely touched him, thanks be.'\n\n'Dear me! Why this sudden affection for Carstares?'\n\nAndrew swung round on his heel, remarking over his shoulder:\n\n'He may be a cheat, but he's a damned fine fellow. By Gad! he nearly pinked you as I entered!' He chuckled at the memory of that glorious moment.\n\n'He nearly pinked me a dozen times,' replied Tracy, binding his arm round more tightly. 'He fights like ten devils. But he was fatigued.'\n\nHe followed Andrew across the room and stood looking down at his unconscious foe.\n\nDiana's eyes challenged him.\n\n'Stand back, your Grace! You have no more to do here!'\n\nHe drew out his snuff-box and took a pinch.\n\n'So that is how the matter lies, my dear. I did not know that.'\n\n'You pretend that it would have made a difference in your treatment of me?'\n\n'Not the slightest, child,' he replied, shutting the box with a snap. 'It has merely come as a slight surprise to me. It seems he has the luck this round.' He walked away again as another great bell-peal sounded through the house.\n\nAndrew, pouring cognac into a glass, paused with bottle held in mid-air.\n\n'Thunder and turf! We are like to be a party! Who now?' He set the glass down and lounged out of the room bottle in hand. They heard him give an astonished cry and a loud laugh, and the next moment O'Hara strode into the room, booted and spurred and enveloped in a heavy surcoat. He came swiftly upon the little group about my lord and went down on one knee beside him. His eyes seemed to take in everyone at a glance. Then he looked across at Richard.\n\n'Is he alive?'\n\nRichard nodded, not meeting the hard, anxious gaze.\n\nO'Hara bent over his friend.\n\n'He has been wounded?'\n\nDiana answered this.\n\n'Only slightly, Sir Miles, but 'twas his shoulder again. He was tired after the ride \u2013 Mr Carstares thinks he has fainted from exhaustion.'\n\nO'Hara very gently slipped one arm beneath my lord's shoulders and the other under his knees, rising with him as easily as if he were carrying a baby. He walked over to the couch, lowering his burden on to the cushions that Diana placed to receive him.\n\n'He will be easier there,' he said, and looked across at her.\n\n'Ye are quite safe, child?'\n\n'Quite \u2013 quite \u2013 He came just in time \u2013 and fought for me.' She dabbed openly at her eyes. 'I \u2013 I love him so, Sir Miles \u2013 and now I hear that he is an Earl!' she sighed.\n\n'Well, child, 'twill make no difference, I take it. I hope he'll make ye happy.'\n\nShe smiled through her tears very confidently.\n\nO'Hara turned and faced Richard, who was standing a little in the rear, watching his brother's face. He met O'Hara's scathing look squarely.\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Nought,' answered the Irishman cuttingly, and walked over to where Lord Andrew was arguing hotly with his brother.\n\nCarstares returned to my lord's side and stood looking silently down at him.\n\nDiana suddenly gave a little joyful cry.\n\n'He is coming round! He moved his head! Oh, Jack, my dear one, look at me!' She bent over him with eyes alight with love.\n\nMy lord's eyelids flickered and opened. For a moment he stared at her.\n\n'Why \u2013 Diana!'\n\nShe took his head between her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. Then she raised his head to look into the blue eyes.\n\nMy lord's arm crept round her and held her tight against him. After a moment she disengaged herself and stood aside. Jack's eyes, still a little bewildered, fell upon his brother. He struggled up on his below.\n\n'Am I dreaming? Dick!' His voice was full of a great joy.\n\nRichard went quickly to him, trying to put him back on the cushions.\n\n'My dear Jack \u2013 no, no \u2013 lie still!'\n\n'Lie still?' cried my lord, swinging his feet to the ground. 'Not a bit of it! I am well enough; but a trifle dizzy. How in thunder did you come here? Surely 'twas you knocked up my sword? Yes? Interfering young cub! Give me your arm a minute!'\n\n'But why do you want to get up?' pleaded a soft voice in his ear.\n\n'So that I can take you in my arms, sweetheart,' he answered, and proceeded to do so.\n\nThen his glance, wandering round the room, alighted on the heated group by the table; Andrew vociferously indignant, Tracy coolly sarcastic, and O'Hara furious.\n\n'Tare an' ouns!' ejaculated my lord. 'Where did they all spring from?'\n\n'I don't know!' laughed Diana. 'Sir Miles came a few minutes ago \u2013 the other gentleman came with Mr Carstares.'\n\n'Ay, I remember him \u2013 'tis Andrew, eh, Dick? Zounds! how he has grown! But what in the world are they all fighting over? Miles! Miles, I say!'\n\nO'Hara wheeled round, surprised.\n\n'Oho! Ye are up, are ye.' He crossed to his side. 'Then sit down!'\n\n'Since you are all so insistent, I will. How did you come here?'\n\nO'Hara went round to the back of the couch to arrange a cushion beneath the hurt shoulder, and leaned his arms upon the back, looking down with a laugh in his eyes.\n\n'Faith, I rode!'\n\n'But how did you know? Where \u2013'\n\n''Twas all on account of that young rascal David,' he said. 'Molly fretted and fumed all the way to the Frasers, vowing the child would be neglected, and what not, and we'd not been in the house above an hour or so, when up she jumps and say she knows that something has happened at home, and nothing will suffice but that I must drive her back. We arrived just as Beauleigh was setting out. He told us the whole tale, and of course I had Blue Peter saddled in the twinkling of an eye and was off after ye. But, what with taking wrong turns and me horse not happening to be made of lightning, I couldn't arrive until now.'\n\n'You cannot have been so long after me,' said Jack. 'For I wasted full half-an-hour outside here, trying to find an opening in the hedge for Jenny to get through. She is now stalled in a shed at the bottom of the lawn with my cloak over her. I'll swear she's thirsty, too.'\n\n'I'll see to that,' promised O'Hara.\n\nAndrew came across the room and bowed awkwardly to my lord, stammering a little. Carstares held out his hand.\n\n'Lord, Andy! I scarce knew you!'\n\nAfter a moment's hesitation, Andrew took the out-stretched hand and answered, laughingly. But my lord had not failed to notice the hesitation, short though it had been.\n\n'I \u2013 beg your pardon. I had forgot,' he said stiffly.\n\nAndrew sat down beside him, rather red about the ears.\n\n'Oh, stuff, Jack! I'm a clumsy fool, but I did not mean that!'\n\nRichard stepped forward into the full light of the candles.\n\n'If you will all listen to me one moment, I shall be greatly obliged,' he said steadily.\n\nLord John started forward.\n\n'Dick!' he cried warningly, and would have gone to him, but for O'Hara's hand on his shoulder, dragging him back.\n\n'Ah, now, be aisy,' growled Miles. 'Let the man say it!'\n\n'Hold your tongue, O'Hara! Dick, wait one moment! I want to speak to you!'\n\nRichard never glanced at him.\n\n'I am about to tell you something that should have been told \u2013 seven years ago \u2013'\n\n'Once and for all, I forbid it!' snapped my lord, trying to disengage himself from O'Hara's grip.\n\nMiles leant over him.\n\n'See here, my boy, if ye don't keep a still tongue in your head, it's meself that'll be gagging you, and that's that!'\n\nMy lord swore at him.\n\nDiana laid a gentle hand on his arm.\n\n'Please, John! Please be still! Why should not Mr Carstares speak?'\n\n'You don't know what he would do!' fumed Jack.\n\n'In fact, Miss Beauleigh, Sir Miles and Andrew are completely in the dark,' drawled the Duke. 'Shall I tell the tale, Richard?'\n\n'Thank you, I shall not require your assistance,' was the cold rejoinder. 'But I must ask you to be quiet, John.'\n\n'I will not! You must n \u2013'\n\n'That will do,' decided O'Hara, and placed a relentless hand over his mouth. 'Go on, Carstares!'\n\n'For the sake of Miss Beauleigh, I will tell you that seven years ago my brother and I went to a card-party. I cheated. He took the blame. He has borne it ever since because I was too much a coward to confess. That is all I have to say.'\n\n''Twas for that ye wanted to see me on Friday?' shot out O'Hara.\n\nRichard nodded, dully.\n\n'Yes, I was going to tell you then.'\n\n'H'm! I'm glad ye had decided to play the man's part for once!'\n\nWith a furious oath Jack wrenched himself free and rounded on his friend.\n\n'You take too much upon yourself, O'Hara!'\n\nHe rose unsteadily and walked to Richard's side.\n\n'Dick has told you much, but not all. You none of you know the reasons we had for acting as we did. But you know him well enough to believe that it needed very strong reasons to induce him to allow me to take the blame. If anyone has aught to say in the matter, I shall be glad if he will say it to me \u2013 now!' His eyes flashed menacingly as they swept the company, and rested for an instant on O'Hara's unyielding countenance. Then he turned and held out his hand to his brother with his own peculiarly wistful smile.\n\n'Can you bear to speak to me?' muttered Richard, with face averted.\n\n'Gad, Dick, don't be ridiculous!' He grasped the unwilling hand. 'You would have done the same for me!'\n\nAndrew pressed forward.\n\n'Well, I can see no use in raking up old scores! After all, what does it matter? It's buried and finished. Here's my hand on it, Dick! Lord! I couldn't turn my back on the man I've lived on for years!' He laughed irrepressibly, and wrung Richard's hand.\n\nMy lord's eyes were on O'Hara, pleading. Reluctantly the Irishman came forward.\n\n''Tis only fair to tell you, Richard, that I can't see eye to eye with Andrew, here. However, I'm not denying that I think a good deal better of ye now than I did \u2013 seven years ago.'\n\nRichard looked up eagerly.\n\n'You never believed him guilty?'\n\nO'Hara laughed.\n\n'Hardly!'\n\n'You knew 'twas I?'\n\n'I had me suspicions, of course.'\n\n'I wish \u2013 oh, how I wish you had voiced them!'\n\nO'Hara raised his eyebrows, and there fell a little silence. His Grace of Andover broke it coming forward in his inimitable way. He looked round the room at each member of the company.\n\n'One, two, three \u2013 four, five \u2013 ' he counted. 'Andrew, tell them to lay covers for five in the dining-room.'\n\n'Aren't you staying?' asked his brother, surprised.\n\n'I have supped,' replied Tracy coolly.\n\nFor a moment O'Hara's mouth twitched, and then he burst out laughing. Everyone looked at him inquiringly.\n\n'Ecod!' he gasped. 'Oh, sink me as I ever came across a more amusing villain! \"Lay covers for five!\" Oh, damme!'\n\n'Or should I have said six?' continued his Grace imperturbably. 'Am I not to have the honour of Mr Beauleigh's company?'\n\nO'Hara checked his mirth.\n\n'No, ye are not! He was content to let me manage the business, and went back to Littledean.'\n\n'I am sorry,' bowed his Grace, and turned to my lord, who, with his arm about Diana's waist, was watching him arrogantly.\n\n'I see how the land lies,' he remarked. 'I congratulate you, John. I cannot help wishing that I had finished you that day in the road. Permit me to say that you fence rather creditably.'\n\nMy lord bowed stiffly.\n\n'Of course,' continued his Grace smoothly, 'you also wish you had disposed of me. I sympathise. But, however much you may inwardly despise and loathe me, you cannot show it \u2013 unless you choose to make yourself and me the talk of town \u2013 not forgetting Mistress Diana. Also I abhor bad tragedy. So I trust you will remain here to-night as my guest \u2013 er, Andrew, pray do not omit to order bed-chambers to be prepared \u2013 Afterwards you need never come near me again \u2013 in fact, I hope that you will not.'\n\nMy lord could not entirely repress a smile.\n\n'I thank your Grace for your hospitality, which I fear,' he glanced down at Diana's tired face, 'I shall be compelled to accept. As to the rest \u2013 I agree. Like you, I dislike bad tragedy.'\n\nDiana gave a tiny laugh.\n\n'You are all so stiff!' she said. 'I shall go to bed!'\n\n'I will take you to the stairs then,' said Jack promptly, and led her forward.\n\nShe stopped as they were about to pass his Grace, and faced him.\n\nTracy bowed very low.\n\n'Good-night, madam. Carstares will know which room I had assigned to you. You will find a servant there.'\n\n'Thank you,' she said steadily. 'I shall try to forget the happenings of this day, your Grace. I see the truth in what you say \u2013 we cannot afford to let the world see that we are at enmity, lest it should talk. And, I confess it freely, I find it less hard to forgive you the insults of \u2013 of to-day, since they brought \u2013 Jack \u2013 to me. An I had not been in such dire straits, I might never have seen him again.'\n\n'In fact,' bowed his Grace, 'everything has been for the best!'\n\n'I would not say that, sir,' she replied, and went out.\n\nFor a moment there was silence in the room. No one quite knew what to say. As usual, it was Tracy who came to the rescue, breaking an uncomfortable pause.\n\n'I suggest that we adjourn to the dining-room,' he said. 'I gather we may have to wait some time before his lordship reappears. O'Hara, after you!'\n\n'One moment,' replied Miles. 'Jack's mare is in a shed somewhere. I said I would see to her.'\n\n'Andrew!' called his Grace. 'When you have finished superintending the laying of the supper, give orders concerning Carstares' mare!'\n\nA casual assent came from outside, and immediately afterwards Lord Andrew's voice was heard shouting instructions to someone, evidently some way off.\n\nOn the whole, the supper-party passed off quite smoothly. His Grace was smilingly urbane, Andrew boisterous and amusing, and O'Hara bent on keeping the conversation up. Richard sat rather silent, but my lord, already deliriously happy, soon let fall his armour and joined in the talk, anxious to hear all the news of town for the last six years.\n\nO'Hara was several times hard put to it to keep from laughing out loud at his thoughts. The humour of the situation struck him forcibly. After fighting as grimly as these men fought, and after all that had transpired, that they should both sit down to supper as they were doing, appealed to him strongly. He had quite thought that my lord would incline to tragedy and refuse to stay an instant longer in the Duke's house.\n\nIt was not until midnight, when everyone else had gone to bed, that the brothers came face to face, alone. The dining-room was very quiet now, and the table bore a dissipated look with the remains of supper left on it. My lord stood absently playing with the long-handled punch spoon, idly stirring the golden dregs at the bottom of the bowl. The candles shed their light full on his face, and Richard, standing opposite in the shadow, had ample opportunity of studying it.\n\nIt seemed to him that he could not look long enough. Unconsciously his eyes devoured every detail of the loved countenance and watched each movement of the slender hand. He found John subtly changed, but quite how he could not define. He had not aged much, and he was still the same laughter-loving Jack of the old days, with just that intangible difference. O'Hara had felt it, too: a slight impenetrability, a reserve.\n\nIt was my lord who broke the uncomfortable silence. As if he felt the other's eyes upon him, he looked up with his appealing, whimsical smile.\n\n'Devil take it, Dick, we're as shy as two schoolboys!'\n\nRichard did not smile, and his brother came round the table to his side.\n\n'There's nought to be said betwixt us two, Dick. 'Twould be so damned unnecessary. After all \u2013 we always shared in one another's scrapes!'\n\nHe stood a moment with his hand on Richard's shoulder; then Richard turned to him.\n\n'What you must think of me!' he burst out. 'My God, when I realise \u2013'\n\n'I know. Believe me, Dick, I know just what you must have felt. But pray forget it! It's over now, and buried.'\n\nThere was another long silence. Lord John withdrew his hand at last, and perched on the edge of the table, smiling across at Richard.\n\n'I'd well-nigh forgot that you were a middle-aged papa! A son?'\n\n'Ay \u2013 John \u2013 after you.'\n\n'I protest I am flattered. Lord, to think of you with a boy of your own!' He laughed, twirling his eyeglass.\n\nAt last Richard smiled.\n\n'To think of you an uncle!' he retorted, and suddenly all vestige of stiffness had fled.\n\nNext morning Richard went on to Wyncham, and Diana, Jack and O'Hara travelled back to Sussex. Jack would not go home yet. He protested that he was going to be married first, and would then bring home his Countess. But he had several instructions to give his brother concerning the preparation of his house. The last thing he requested Richard to do was to seek out a certain city merchant, Fudby by name, and to rescue a clerk, Chilter, from him, bearing him off to Wyncham. All this he called from the coach window, just before they set off.\n\nRichard led Jenny, whom he was to ride home, up to the door of the vehicle, and expostulated.\n\n'But what in thunder am I to do with the man?'\n\n'Give him to Warburton,' advised Jack flippantly. 'I know he needs a clerk \u2013 he always did!'\n\n'But perhaps he will not desire to come \u2013'\n\n'You do as I tell you!' laughed his brother. 'I shall expect to find him at Wyncham when I arrive! Au revoir!' He drew his head in, and the coach rumbled off.\n\n# Twenty-nine\n\nLady O'Hara is Triumphant\n\nAfter spending a restless night, starting at every sound, and hearing the hours strike slowly away, Lady O'Hara arose not a whit refreshed and considerably more ill at ease than she had been before.\n\nDuring the night she had imagined all sorts of impossible horrors to have befallen her husband, and if, when the reassuring daylight had come, the horrors had somewhat dispersed, enough remained to cause her an anxious morning as she alternated between the hall window and the gate.\n\nNo less worried was Jim Salter. He had returned from Fittering last night to find his master and Sir Miles gone, Lady O'Hara in a state of frightened bewilderment, and the house in a whirl. No one, least of all poor Molly, seemed to know exactly where the two men had gone. All she knew was that they had come back upon a scene of turmoil, with Mr Beauleigh in the midst of a small crowd of excited servants. Her husband had elbowed his way through, and into his ears had Mr Beauleigh poured his story. Then O'Hara seemed to catch the excitement, and she had been hurried into the house with the hasty explanation that Jack was off after Devil, who had caught Diana, and he must to the rescue. Ten minutes after, she had an alarming vision of him galloping off down the drive, his sword at his side and pistols in the saddle-holsters. The poor little lady had sent an imploring cry after him, checked almost before it had left her lips. Afterwards she wished it had never been uttered, and rather hoped that it had escaped O'Hara's ears.\n\nSalter arrived not half-an-hour later, and his feelings when told that his beloved master had ridden off in search of a fight, may be more easily imagined than described. He was all for setting out in his wake, but her ladyship strongly vetoed the plan, declaring that Sir Miles would be rescue enough, and she was not going to be left entirely without protectors. Jim was far too respectful to point out there were five able-bodied men, not counting himself, in the house, but as his master had left no instructions for him, he capitulated.\n\nHe proved nought but a Job's comforter next day, for when my lady pessimistically premised that both Carstares and her husband were undoubtedly hurt, he did not, as she expected he would, strive to reassure her, but gave a gloomy assent. Whereupon she cast an indignant glance in his direction, and turned her back.\n\nAt four in the afternoon they were both in the hall, anxiously watching the drive.\n\n'To be sure, 'tis monstrous late!' remarked Molly, with wide, apprehensive eyes.\n\n'Yes, my lady.'\n\n'If \u2013 if nought were amiss, they should have been back by now, surely?'\n\n'Yes indeed, my lady.'\n\nLady O'Hara stamped her foot.\n\n'Don't say yes!' she cried.\n\nJim was startled.\n\n'I beg pardon, m'lady?'\n\n'You are not to say yes! After all, they may have gone a long way \u2013 they \u2013 er \u2013 they may be tired! Jenny may have gone lame \u2013 anything \u2013 anything may have happened!'\n\n'Yes, m' \u2013 I mean certainly, your ladyship!' hastily amended Jim.\n\n'In fact I should not be surprised an they were not at all hurt!'\n\nHe shook his head despondently, but luckily for him the lady failed to notice it, and continued with airy cheerfulness:\n\n'For my husband has often told me what an excellent swordsman Mr Carstares is, and \u2013'\n\n'Your ladyship forgets his wound.'\n\nWhat she might have been constrained to reply to this is not known, for at that moment came the sound of coach-wheels on the gravel. With one accord she and Salter flew to the door, and between them, wrenched it open, just as a gentleman's travelling coach, postillioned by men in gold and black, and emblazoned with the Wyncham arms, drew up at the door.\n\nMy lady was down the steps in the twinkling of an eye, almost before one of the grooms had opened the door to offer an arm to my lord. Carstares sprang lightly out followed by O'Hara, seemingly none the worse for wear.\n\nMolly ran straight into her husband's arms, regardless of the servants, hugging him.\n\nJim Salter hurried up to my lord.\n\n'Ye are not hurt, sir?' he cried.\n\nCarstares handed him his hat and cloak.\n\n'Nought to speak of, Jim. But \"Everard\" well-nigh finished me for all that!' He laughed at Jim's face of horror, and turned to Molly, who, having satisfied herself that her husband was quite uninjured and had never once been in danger of his life, had come towards him, full of solicitude for his shoulder.\n\n'Oh, my dear Jack! Miles tells me you have hurt your poor shoulder again! And pray what has been done for it? I dare swear not one of you great men had the wit to summon a doctor, as indeed you should have, for \u2013'\n\n'Whist now, asthore!' adjured her husband. ''Tis but a clean scratch after all. Take him into the house and give him something to drink! I'll swear 'tis what he needs most!'\n\nMolly pouted, laughed and complied.\n\nOver the ale Jack related the whole escapade up to the moment when he had parted from Diana at Littledean. Then O'Hara took up the tale with a delightful chuckle.\n\n'Sure, Molly, ye never saw anything to equal poor old Beauleigh when his daughter told him Jack's name! Faith, he didn't know what to do at all, he was so excited! And Miss Betty I thought would have the vapours from the way she flew from Di to Jack and back again, in such a state of mind as ye can't imagine!'\n\nMolly, who had listened with round eyes, drew a deep ecstatic breath. Then she bounced up, clapping her hands, and proclaiming that she was right after all!\n\n'What will ye be meaning, alanna?' inquired O'Hara.\n\n'Pray, sir, did I not say over and over again that if I could induce Jack to stay with us everything would come right? Now, Miles, you know I did!'\n\n'I remember ye said something like it once,' admitted her spouse.\n\n'Once, indeed! I was always sure of it. And I did coax you to stay, did I not, Jack?' she appealed.\n\n'You did,' he agreed. 'You assured me that if I was churlish enough to leave, Miles would slowly sicken and pine away!'\n\nShe ignored her husband's ribald appreciation of this.\n\n'Then you see that 'tis all owing to me that \u2013' She broke off to shake O'Hara, and the meeting ended in riotous hilarity.\n\nWhen he went to change his clothes, Carstares found Jim already in his room awaiting him. He hailed him gaily, and sat down before his dressing-table.\n\n'I require a very festive costume to-night, Jim. Rose velvet and cream brocade, I think.'\n\n'Very good, your lordship,' was the prim reply.\n\nJack slewed round.\n\n'What's that?'\n\n'I understand your lordship is an Earl,' said poor Jim.\n\n'Now who was the tactless idiot who told you that? I had intended to break the news myself. I suppose now, you know my \u2013 story?'\n\n'Yes, si \u2013 my lord. I \u2013 I suppose ye won't be requiring my services any longer?'\n\n'In heaven's name, why not? Do you wish to leave me?'\n\n'Wish to \u2013 ! No, sir \u2013 my lord \u2013 I \u2013 I thought ye'd maybe want a smarter valet \u2013 and \u2013 not me.'\n\nMy lord turned back to the mirror and withdrew the pin from his cravat.\n\n'Don't be a fool.'\n\nThis cryptic remark seemed greatly to reassure Jim.\n\n'Ye mean it, sir?'\n\n'Of course I do. I should be lost without you after all this time. Marry that nice girl at Fittering and she shall maid my lady. For I'm to be married as soon as may be!'\n\n'Ay, si \u2013 my lord! I'm sure I'm very glad, s \u2013 your lordship. Rose, sir? With the silver lacing?'\n\n'I think so, Jim. And a cream \u2013 very pale cream waistcoat, broidered in with rose. There is one, I know.'\n\n'Yes, sir \u2013 your lordship.'\n\nMy lord eyed him despondently.\n\n'Er \u2013 Jim!'\n\n'Yes \u2013 your lordship?'\n\n'I'm sorry, but I cannot endure it.'\n\n'I beg pardon, my lord?'\n\n'I can't have you call me \"your lordship\", after every second word \u2013 I really cannot.'\n\n'Why, sir \u2013 may I still call you \"sir\"?'\n\n'I would much rather you did.'\n\n'Ah, sir, thank you.'...\n\nIn the middle of tying the bow to his master's wig, Jim paused, and in the mirror Jack saw his face fall.\n\n'What's amiss now? And what have you done with my patches?'\n\n'In that little box, sir \u2013 yes \u2013 that one. I was just thinking \u2013 here's the haresfoot, sir \u2013 that I shall never be able to see ye hold up a coach now!'\n\nMy lord, striving to affix the patch in just the right spot at the corner of his mouth, tried to control his features, failed, and went off into a peal of laughter that reached O'Hara in the room across the landing, and caused him to grin delightedly. He had not heard that laugh for many a long day.\n\n# Epilogue\n\nHis Grace of Andover sat at the window of his lodgings at Venice, looking down at a letter in his hand. The writing was his sister's. After a moment he drew a deep breath and broke the seal, spreading the sheets out upon the broad sill.\n\nMy very dear Tracy,\n\nSo you have gone again with no Farewell to yr. poor Sister, sir! I am indeed very offended, but I understand yr. Reason. As soon as I set mine eyes on Diana I knew the Truth and recognised yr. dark Beauty. I am monstrous grieved for you, dear. I quite love her myself, altho' she is very tiresomely lovely, but perhaps as she is dark and I am fair, we shall not clash.\n\nThe Home-coming was prodigious exciting. Andrew was present, Dicky, of course, and me. Mrs Fanshawe, too, was there, for she knew Jack Abroad, and a monstrous queer Old Man, who was vastly fidgety and overcome to see Jack. Then Sir Miles and his wife came, who I thought quite agreeable nice People, and Diana's Father and Aunt, rather Bourgeois, but, on the whole, presentable.\n\nEveryone knows the truth now, but most People have been prodigious kind and I scarce notice a difference in our Reception. Dearest Dicky is gayer than he was wont to be and more darling, and I almost enjoy being a Social Outcast.\n\nWhen Diana is properly gowned, as should suit her position (but I grieve to say that she prefers to dress plainly), she will make a prodigious Elegant Countess. I have promised to conduct her to my own Mantua Maker, which is very sacrificing, as I am sure You will agree. I know London will go Crazy about her, and, indeed, those who have already seen her, which is Avon and Falmouth, are positively Foolish. I make no doubt 'twill be very mortifying, but I suppose it must be borne.\n\nShe and Jack are prodigious happy together; it is most Unfashionable, but so am I happy with Dick, so there are a Pair of us, and we had best set Fashion.\n\nPray, return soon, my dear Tracy, you cannot conceive how I miss you. I was surprised you went away with Mr Fortescue, I had no Notion you were so friendly.\n\nWith dearest Love,\n\nYr. Sister,\n\nLavinia\n\nP.S. \u2013 Twill interest you to hear that Miss Gunning is to marry Coventry. 'Tis all over Town this last Week.\n\nSlowly his Grace put the sheets together and handed them to Fortescue, who had come into the room.\n\n'These, from my sister, may possibly interest you, Frank.'\n\nFortescue read the letter through, and at the end folded it and handed it back in silence. Tracy laid it down on the table at his elbow.\n\n'I began \u2013 wrongly,' he said.\n\n'Yes,' assented his friend. 'She was not \u2013 that kind of girl.'\n\n'But having begun wrongly \u2013 I could not undo the wrong.'\n\n'So you made it worse,' said Fortescue gently.\n\n'I would have married her in all honour \u2013'\n\n'In your own arrogant fashion, Tracy.'\n\n'As you say \u2013 in my own arrogant fashion, Frank. If I could go back a year \u2013 but where's the use? I am not whining. Presently I shall return to England and make my bow to \u2013 the Countess of Wyncham. Possibly, I shall not feel one jealous qualm. One never knows. At all events \u2013 I'll make that bow.'\n\n'You will?' Frank looked sharply down at him.\n\n'Nothing more, Tracy! You do not purpose \u2013'\n\n'Nothing more. You see, Frank \u2013 I love her.'\n\n'I crave your pardon. Yes \u2013 she would not take you, but she has, I think, made you. As I once told you, when love came you would count yourself as nought, and her happiness as everything.'\n\nFor a moment his Grace was silent, and then back came the old smile, still cynical, yet with less of the sneer in it.\n\n'How very pleasant it must be, Frank, to have one's prophecies so happily verified!' he purred. 'Allow me to felicitate you!'\n\n# About the Author\n\nAuthor of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is one of the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote twelve detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.\n\n#  \n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}