Classic Audiobook Collection - Beauty's Hour by Olivia Shakespear ~ Full Audiobook [fantasy]

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Beauty's Hour by Olivia Shakespear audiobook. Genre: fantasy In late-Victorian London, Mary Gower is clever, observant, and quietly funny, the sort of woman whose conversation lingers in a room long after she has left it. But in a society that rewards faces more than minds, Mary is dismissed as too plain to be truly seen, especially by Gerald Harman, the charming man she cannot help watching from the edges of fashionable life. Then, in a moment of uncanny discovery at her dressing-table mirror, Mary learns she can change her appearance by sheer force of will. With that single, impossible talent, she steps into the world again as Mary Hatherley, a woman of striking beauty who suddenly commands attention, invitations, and desire. Yet the new face does not erase the old self, and each transformation sharpens the story's central question: what, exactly, do people love when they claim to love you? As Mary's double life pulls her toward romance and social triumph, it also draws suspicion, obsession, and a mounting sense that the power she has awakened may demand a price. Beauty's Hour is a gothic-tinged psychological fantasy about self-image, gendered expectations, and the perilous gap between being admired and being known. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:11:12) Chapter 02 (00:21:42) Chapter 03 (00:31:49) Chapter 04 (00:42:23) Chapter 05 (00:55:16) Chapter 06 (01:05:54) Chapter 07 (01:23:46) Chapter 08 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beauty's Hour, A Fantasy By Olivia Shakespeare Chapter 1 I remember very well the first time the strange thing happened to me on a winter's day in January. I reached home tired and sat down in front of the looking glass to take off my hat and remained looking, as I so often do, at my own unsatisfactory face. Gerald Harmon had come up to his mother's study that

afternoon while I was at work after lunch, ostensibly on business. Really, because there was a frost which had driven him from Leicestershire to London, leaving him with nothing to do, and we had begun talking of irrelevant matters. A woman must be good, he said reflectively. Only a plain woman, said I, who has been behaving ill now? I was generalising, or, to be frank, I was thinking of Bella Sturgis. So am I. You surely don't expect her to possess all the virtues and that face. To be sure, the face is enough, answered he, and sat staring full at me, but thinking,

as I knew, of Bella Sturgis. Does she amuse you? I asked. Amuse me, said Gerald. I'm sure I can't say. One doesn't think about being amused when one is with her. She just exists, and that's enough, I suggested. Possibly my voice was ironical, for Gerald looked at me then, with a sort of jerk.

She's not intellectual, and she's not really sympathetic, and I don't like her one quarter as much as I do you, Mary, said he. Now, it is an understood thing that he is not to call me Mary, and so I reminded him. But he only answered that we had been over the good. ground before, and that it was time I owned myself defeated. I was beginning to remark that nothing short of death would induce me to do so, when Lady Harmon came in, and Gerald was somewhat abruptly dismissed. I wish that idle, mischievous boy would marry Bella and settle down, said she. Yes, said I, and went on writing. Why, marry, how ill you look, she cried then. Is anything the matter?

I hate being told I look ill. It only means that I look ugly, but I answered cheerfully, Nothing in the world. And she, being easily satisfied, went off on to another subject, which lasted till it was time for me to go away. The post of secretary to Lady Harmon was not altogether a bed of roses. She has a wide range of interests, and a soft heart, and her other faculties are not quite in proportion. I was generally weary by the time I reached home, with the endeavour to reconcile her promises and her practice in the eyes of the world, that most censorious of worlds, the philanthropic. I repeated Gerald's words as I sat before the glass in my bedroom. To be sure, the face is enough,

he had said. My own face, pale, with no salient points to make it even impressive. ugly, gave me back the speech as I uttered it. I have neither eyelashes nor distinction, I do not look clever, or even amiable. My figure is not worthy of the name, and my hands and feet are hopeless. The concentrated bitterness of years swept over me. I loved Gerald Harmon, as Bella Sturgis, with her perfect face, was incapable of loving. but my love was rendered grotesque by the accident of birth which had made me an unattractive woman given beauty or even the personal fascination which so often persuades one that it is beauty i could have held my own against the world in spite of my poverty my lack of friends or of social position as things were i saw myself condemned to a sordid monotony ever at a disadvantage cheated of my youth and of nearly all life sweeter possibilities i was considered clever by the harmon's it is true but the world in general had it noticed me at all would have refused to believe that such a face

as mine could harbor brains. Gerald, I knew, had proclaimed in the family that Mary Gower had wits and looked on me as his own special discovery, for though I had but a plain head on my shoulders, it was an accurate thinking machine, and could occasionally produce a phrase worthy of his laughter. I have a certain dreary sense of humor which prevents my being, as a rule, quite overwhelmed by this aspect of my life. But on the January afternoon of which I write, I was fairly mastered by it, and when Miss Waitley came up to light the gas,

which she generally did herself, she found me with my head on the dressing-table in an attitude of abject despair. Miss Waitley was my landlady and had been my governess in better days. My dear, said she, "'What's the matter?' "'Only my face,' said I.

"'Glycerin is the best thing,' said she, and began pulling the curtains. "'She knew perfectly well what I meant. "'Waitie,' said I, musingly, "'how different my life would be "'if I were a pretty woman, "'though only for a few hours out of the twenty-four.' "'Oh, yes,' she answered,

"'yet you might be. be glad sometimes when the hours were over. I only shook my head and fell to looking into my own eyes again, with the yearning stronger than it had ever been before, rising like a passion into my face. Then something unforeseen happened. Miss Waitley, standing behind me, saw it, and I saw it myself as in a dream. My reflected face grew blurred. and then faded out, and from the mist there grew a new face of wonderful beauty, the face of my desire. It looked at me from the glass, and when I tried to speak, its lips moved too. Miss Waitley uttered a sound that was hardly a cry and caught me by the shoulder.

Mary, Mary, she said. I got up then and faced her. She was white as death, and her eyes were almost vacant with terror. What has happened, said I. My voice was the same, but when I glanced down at my body, I saw that it also had undergone transformation. It struck me, in the midst of my immense surprise, as being curious that I should not be afraid. No explanation of the miracle offered itself to me.

None seemed necessary, an effort of wish. will had conquered the power of my material conditions, and I controlled them. My body fitted to my soul at last. I'm going mad, cried poor Miss Waitly. We can't both be mad, said I. Don't be afraid, tell me what I look like. You are perfectly beautiful, she gasped. I began walking up and down the room. I was much taller, and my dress hung clear of my ankles. When I noticed that, I began to laugh. Waity, I've grown, I cried out. She sat down.

Do you feel strange? she asked. Just the same, only a little larger for my clothes. What are we going to do? Will it last? I think you had better just sit down again and wish yourself back. never never if beautiful i can be beautiful i will remain let us put down the hour and the date i took up my diary and made a great cross against the day then i noticed that the sun set at twenty-seven minutes past four it was now twenty-five minutes to five I wonder what we can do to prove to ourselves that we've not been dreaming, if I go back again, I questioned. Let us first spend the evening as usual, answered Miss Waitley.

I will tell Jane that you are out, and that a young lady is coming to supper with me. Jane was our one servant. Her powers of observation were limited, and we did not think it would be difficult to deceive her. So the stranger, whose appearance seemed to bereave her of even her usual small allowance of sense, sat that night at Miss Waitley's table. At ten o'clock we slipped up to my bedroom, and when Jane's tread was heard in the room above, we breathed freely. She's gone to bed, said I. Now we can brew tea and keep ourselves awake. We must not sleep. That is imperative. we did not sleep though to poor miss waitley who had no sense of a triumphant new personality to sustain her the task must have been difficult then suddenly at the hour of sunrise i felt a sensation as of being in darkness in thick cloud from which i emerged with my beauty fallen from me like a garment

we neither of us said anything i was conscious only of a physical craving for rest and sleep which overpowered me i think miss waitley was struck dumb in the presence of a wonder she could not understand we kissed one another silently and i went to bed and slept for a couple of hours a dreamless sleep end of chapter one chapter two of beauty's hour a A Fantasy. By Olivia Shakespeare. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2 When I reached Lady Harmon's that morning, I found the two girls, Clara and Betty, alone in their mother's study. Betty, with the face of a Romney and the manners of an engaging child, is wholly attractive. Clara is handsome, too. She rather affects a friendship with me on intellectual grounds, which bores me. Her theories are the terror of my life, being always in direct opposition to my own, for which I have to try and account. But on this particular morning, she had nothing more

momentous on her mind than a dance, which her mother was giving the next evening. You must come to it, Betty cried. It will be such fun talking it over afterwards. Onlookers always see most of the game, you know. You are very kind, Betty, I said. They had long ago insisted that I should call them by their Christian names. Has it ever struck you that onlookers would sometimes like to be in the game instead of outside it? Betty looked a little confused.

Well, somebody must look on. on, said she, and it's lucky when they see how funny things are, as you always do, Mary. Is there any particular game going on just now, I inquired? Can I be of any use? There's Bella, said both girls. I was very anxious to know the precise sum of Bella's iniquities. I shoved away my papers with an entire lack of conscience and sat expectant. Of course, Bella is very young, Clara began. she being about twenty-one herself one mustn't judge her too hardly has she been doing anything you would not have done yourself i asked betty looked at me and raised her eyebrows clara was apt to pose as an example to her younger sister well said clara if i were engaged to someone as nice as gerald and handsome and well off and all the rest of it i don't think i'd encourage a little wretch like mr trench

clara's social ethics are of a wonderful simplicity because you'd think it wrong i suggested well so silly said clara i think bella has a perfect right to do as she likes broke in betty she's not engaged to Gerald, he hasn't proposed to her, and he ought to, for she's awfully fond of him. I agree with you both, said I. Miss Sturgis is silly, but not altogether to be blamed. Am I to observe her and Mr. Trench together, and report the phases of the flirtation to you? Yes, that was what they wanted. Do you seriously think I'm coming to your dance? I went on. Why, I haven't got a dress or a face.

fit to show in a bowl room, and I've not been to a bowl for years. They fought this statement inch by inch. They would lend me a dress. My face didn't matter, and after all, I was only 28, not really old. I ended the discussion by promising to go, for an idea had flashed into my mind that made me dizzy. Supposing the other, the beautiful, Mary, renewed her existence again that evening. Might she not enjoy a strange, a brief triumph? Would there not be a perfect, though a secret, pleasure in seeing the look in Gerald Harmon's eyes, in surprising the altered tones of his voice? For, beauty drew him like a magnet. I fell into such a deep silence over this thought, that Clara and Betty grew weary and went away,

and I did not see them again till luncheon time. There were three visitors, the man who was in love with Betty, and the man with whom Betty was in love, the juxtaposition of the two always delighted me. I don't believe they hated one another, but each believing himself to be the favored lover, had a fine scorn for the other's folly. The third guest was Bella Sturgis. Gerald sat at the end of the table opposite his mother. As I have said, the frost kept him from hunting, and he was disconsolate. With him, as with many finely bred, finely-tempered Englishmen, sport was a passion, more a religion. He put into his hunting, his shooting, his cruelt. His cricket, all the ardour, all the sincerity that are necessary to achievement.

I respected this in him, even while it moved me to a kind of pity, for I felt instinctively that though he might have skill and courage to overcome physical difficulties or danger, he was totally unfitted to cope with the more subtle side of life, and would be helpless in the face of an emotional difficulty. On this day of which I arrived, he was evidently suffering from some jar to the even tenor of his life, of which the continued frost was a merely superficial aggravation. By his side sat Bella Sturgis. I looked at her with a more critical eye than usual. She had a great air of languid distinction. Everything about her was perfect, from the pose of her head to the intonation of her voice. She very rarely looked

at me, and I don't think she had ever clearly realized who I was. I felt sure Gerald had not imparted his discoveries to her, with regard to my wits. I never spoke at luncheon when she was there, but today the memory of that face and the glass the night before made me reckless and audacious. I've been constituted the girl's special reporter tomorrow night, said I to Gerald. I am to observe the faces and the flirtations. Then you may constitute yourself my special reporter too, said he, gloomily. It will be the next best thing to dancing, I went on. Why don't you dance? Miss Sturgis asked, lifting her eyes and looking at me for an instant. I confess I was a little surprised at the cleverness of her thrust. Because nobody asks me, I said, with a

smile. My candour had no effect on her. She turned to Gerald with an air that dismissed the whole subject. I noticed that he would hardly answer her, and I supposed that the breach between them had widened. So she addressed herself to the man with whom Betty was in love, thereby throwing the table into a state of suppressed agitation, with the exception of Lady Harmon, who professed to notice none of the details of domestic life. She left such things to the girls or the servants, and devoted herself to the care of people, in Billingsgate, or in the tropics,

who had need of her, she said. But she was really kind, and always had a joint for lunch, because it was Mary's dinner. And though I often yearned for the other more interesting dishes, I never dared to suggest any deviation from beef and family. mutton. Today it was mutton.

Won't you have some more? said Lady Harmon. I can't help thinking how much we waste. Some of my poor families would be so glad of this, and here's only Mary touches it. Oh, mother, said Betty, your poor people are always starving, and a leg more or less wouldn't make much difference. What's an arm or a leg, compared with a face? said the young man who was in love with Betty, with his eyes fixed on her. His remark had no direct bearing on the subject, which he had but half followed, and it sent her into a fit of suppressed laughter, with which Clara remonstrated in an undertone.

I don't care, said the rebellious Betty. It's Gerald's house, and as long as he doesn't mind my giggling, I shall giggle. I mind nothing, said the master of the house. his mood was obviously overcast. I saw Bella throw a look at him out of her deep eyes, the eyes of a woman who has always lived under emotional conditions. I began to realize dimly what such conditions might be like. He got up and pushed his chair from the table. Will you excuse me? said he. I have an engagement. Do go, said Lady Harmon. You are always late, Gerald, I'm sure you ought to go at once.

Bella held out her hand to him. It's au revoir, not goodbye, said he, and did not take it. That evening my transformation took place again, under the same conditions of ardent desire on my part. Tomorrow, said I to Miss Waitley, I shall go to the Harmon's ball in the character of Mary Haverley. Haverley had been my mother's maiden name. But you have no dress, said Miss Waitley.

And how can you account for yourself? I must do it, I cried. You must think of some plan. Let us go, said she, to Dr. Trefusus. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Beauty's Hour of Fantasy by Olivia Shakespeare. This Librovox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. Dr. Trofusus was the only man who had ever loved me. He was my father's great friend,

but I feel sure he must once have been in love with my mother. At least, I can only account for his great affection for myself on some such sentimental hypothesis. When my father died, four years ago, and I was involved in money difficulties. It was Dr. Trafusus who took me in, and eventually got me my secretorship with Lady Harmon. He wanted me to share his home, but this I refused to do, believing that his affection for me would not stand the test of losing his liberty and his solitude. When we reached his house, he was out, and we waited some time in the library. He won't believe us, Miss Waitley kept saying, and this seemed so likely that I was shivering with nervousness when he at last came in. You won't believe it, said Miss Waitley, but this is Mary Gower. He looked very blank, but recovering his presence of mind, turned to me and said,

a cousin, I presume, of my old friend, Mary Gower. Oh, Dr. Trefusis, cried I, we have come to you with the most extraordinary story. Don't you know my voice? I am Mary, but I have got into another body. The voice is Marys, said he, in the tone of one balancing evidence. Then Miss Waitley began telling him what had happened. happened while I sat in silence watching the mixture of wonder and scepticism on his face.

I noticed also another look when his eyes met mine, a look that was almost devout. He had always been a worshipper of beauty. When the story was done, he began asking questions. My answers seemed unsatisfactory. We sat at last without speaking, while he looked at me and drummed on the table. You are very plausible people, he said at length, but you can't expect me to believe all this, though I'm at a loss to imagine why you should take the trouble to play such a practical joke

on a poor old fellow like myself. Still, I'll not be ungracious and grumble, for it has given me a great deal of pleasure to see anything so charming in this dull place. He got up as though he was, wished to end the interview. I was in despair. His determination not to recognize me struck like a blow at my sense of identity. Then the thought came, could I, by a supreme effort of will, induce a transformation under his very eyes? I held out my right hand, long and beautiful, with delicate

fingers that yet were full of nervous strength. That, said I, is not the hand of Mary Gower. He shrugged his shoulders. It is not, said he. Look at it, I cried. Then came an awful moment during which I concentrated my whole will in a passion of energy. The room went black. I was dimly closed. conscious that Dr. Trefusis had fallen on his knees by the table, and was watching the hand I held under the lamp, with suspended breath, for it had begun to change. Some subtle difference passed over it, like a cloud over the face of the sun. Its beauty of line and color faded, the long fingers shrunk and widened, the blue-veined whitened, the blue-veined whiteness darkened

into a coarser tint, the fine nails lost their shape and grew ugly, stunted, and opaque. Dr. Trafusus spoke no word. I felt his fingers were ice-cold. As he turned up my sleeve, and noted how the coarsened wrist grew into the perfect arm. He held my hand and swung it to and fro. Then he left the room abruptly, saying, Don't move. I sat still at the table. Miss Waitley came and stood by me. Mary, she said, it must be wrong. It is playing with some terrible power you don't understand. Probably we've all got it, I answered dreamily. It is perhaps a spark of the creative force. But Dr. Trofusus and all his science won't be able to explain it. Then the doctor came back

with instruments and microscopes, and I know not what, and began to examine the miracle. At last he looked up at me. I can make nothing of it, said he. But it is the hand of Mary Gower. That is beyond dispute. Now let it. go back. He held it in his own. This time the change was quicker and he dropped it with a shudder. Now do you believe me? I asked. He answered, yes, and sat lost in thought. You had better go home now, he said presently. I must think over all this. There must be some hypothesis. Miracles don't happen, you must let me see you every day. I never have understood and never shall understand the scientific theories which he had first built up in order to account for what had happened to me.

I was grateful for the curiosity and interest that my case roused in him, because they led him to help me in practical ways, but any attempt at a scientific explanation of the mystery struck me as being irrelevant and not particularly interesting. This attitude on my part at once amused and irritated him. He gave up trying to make me understand the meaning of his investigations and of the experiments which he made me try, for it was not till later that he came to look upon the matter as beyond any scientific solution,

and only to be accounted for on grounds which he would at first have rejected with scorn. I pass these things over, because I could not write of them intelligibly, and I might be doing Dr. Trefusis some injustice by an imperfect exposition. On this occasion I burst in suddenly and scattered his reflections by declaring that I must go to the Harmon's ball the next night in my new character. The idea seemed to divert him. Ha, said he. Mary Gower wants to taste the sweets of success, does she?

Upon my soul, it would be worth seeing you, my dear, but it would be difficult to account for the sudden rising of such a star. Not if you took me and chaperoned and uncalled me, I said. He took a turn or two in the room. Why not? He said then, with a laugh. Oh, Dr. Trophier. Fusus, would you really? I cried out and seized him by both hands. He held them and looked at me oddly.

He is a man of nearly sixty, and my old friend, so I could not be angry when he bent down and kissed me. I would do anything for a pretty woman, said he. I felt a sudden pang. This was the first tribute offered to my beauty, and it hurt, was Mary Gower beginning already to be jealous of Mary Hatherly? We settled the matter, with jests and laughter. Dr. Trefusis has the spirit of a child, and the capacity for making abrupt transitions from Lyserius to the absurd, and he now entered into the plot as though it were a game, as though nothing had happened to unnerve and startle him, but a short time before. I was to be his niece, a niece from the country. If further inquiries were made and my non-appearance during the day had to be accounted for, I was to be a devoted art student,

an eccentric, who gave her days to painting and her evenings to pleasure. Miss Waitley's faint objections were soon silenced. We parted with a promise to meet the next morning, when the Harmon household would be upset, and I should not be wanted, to choose a bowl dress. Not that that face of yours needs any artificial setting, were his last words. I only hope you won't repent all this, were Miss Waitleys, as we went up to bed. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Beauty's Hour, A Fantasy, by Olivia Shakespeare. This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. My father had taken me as a young girl to Boles. I had sat out unnoticed, but observant,

and it had seemed to me that, under apparently artificial conditions, women grouped themselves into three distinct types, which were almost primitive in their lack of complexity. The beauty, the woman whose claims to beauty are not universally acknowledged, and the plain woman. The beauty always pleased me the most. She was unconscious, using her divine right of sovereignty with a carelessness only possible to one born in the purple. Experience had bred in her a certainty of pleasing that made her indifferent to the effect she produced, which indifference made her the more effective. That she had her secret moments of scorn, I never doubted, a scorn of that lust of the eye which held her beauty too dear, and I wondered whether any such woman had ever felt tempted, in some

moment of outraged emotion, to curse the loveliness that men loved, careless of the heart or head. The woman with disputable claims annoyed me. She seemed to me like a queen dependent on humour of the mob, from whose brows the uneasy crown might be torn and trampled underfoot, and then replaced at a caprice. She was uncertain of herself, too much affected by the opinions of others to be easy or unconscious. I was sorry for her too. I felt sure that she often married the man who thought her beautiful, out of gratitude, for she was always unduly grateful. Her attitude towards the world, being one of mingled deprecation and assertion. As for the plain woman, had I not stood hand in hand with her outside the gates of paradise

all my life, the angel with the two-edged sword looking on us, with eyes that held both pity and satire. Oh, kind angel, stand aside and let us look through the bars and see gracious figures going to, and fro, and listen to strange music, and to the sound of voices moved by a keen, sweet passion. We look, we fall back, and know the angel by his several names. Fate, injustice, mercy. I had always recognised the subtle emotional intoxicant that is distilled from the atmosphere of a ballroom. It seemed to come in great waves about me as I walked up the Harmon's ballroom, followed by Dr. Trefusis. He had written for permission to bring his niece, and they were prepared

to see me. No, I am wrong. They were not prepared. Lady Harmon was visibly taken aback, and Clara and Betty had something deferential in their manner, which showed a desire to be unusually pleasing. Then Gerald came forward. His eyes met mine, with the look of one who sees something he has long sought and despaired of finding. Can you spare me a dance? He asked, pausing at the name. My name is Hathalie, said I. My voice struck him. He glanced at me with a puzzled expression and hesitated. For a... moment. I must have more than one, he said. That was so like Gerald, I nearly laughed. The page is blank, you see, I answered. He took advantage of my remark and wrote his name several

times in my program. I have the program still. Dancing had begun again. A crowd had emerged from the stairs and the ante-rooms. A number of men were introduced to me, some of whom I I had already seen at the house. The first with whom I danced was a Colonel Weston. I knew him, on Betty's authority, to be a beautiful dancer, but he was a head shorter than I, and I smiled involuntarily when he said, shall we dance? He caught my smile. Why are you so divinely tall, O daughter of the gods, said he? And from what a limp and height have you descended this evening? why have I never met you before? I will answer no questions, said I,

till we have danced, my feet ache to begin. Then they don't dance on Olympus? The gods must come among the mortals to make merry, I said. For which thing let us be thankful, he answered. Then we moved away. I had been hitherto a bad dancer, but to-night I felt a spirit in my feet and realized, for the first time, the mysterious joy of perfect motion.

As we paused near the door, I saw Belisurgis coming slowly up the stairs. She did not take her eyes off me. I saw her question the man on whose arm she was leaning, but he looked at me without answering. It was a revelation, that look in their eyes. I saw it repeated in other faces. over and over again as I walked slowly across the ballroom after the dance was over. The next was with Gerald.

My pulses beat thickly, and I was hardly conscious of the outside world till we stopped dancing, and he led me into a little room, which I did not at the moment recognise as Lady Harmon's study. And so I have met you at last, he said, and I asked him what he meant. yours is the face i have been looking for all my life he answered there was a strange simplicity in his voice and words as though he spoke on an impulse that overruled all conventions all fear of offence but what of the woman behind the face i questioned can i ever hope to know her if you know her you will be disappointed she is like any other woman. He shook his head. I don't believe it. Tell me what she is really like. I looked round vaguely, my thoughts intent on what I should say to him. Then I suddenly noticed the pictures on the walls and remembered that this was the room in which Mary Gower sat every day. She is not without heart,

and she has a head that can think, said I. That is not like every other woman. Would you credit her with either if she had another face? I asked him. Something in my voice struck him, for the second time. He looked at me with a quickened attention. The face is an indication of the soul, surely, he answered. That is a lie, said I.

A lie invented to cover the injustice done alike to the beautiful woman and the woman who is not beautiful. Injustice? he echoed. The thing is so simple, said I, with a bitterness I could not hide. You place beauty on a pedestal. Her face is an index to her soul, you say. What happens if you find she does not possess the soul, which she never claimed to have, but which you insisted on crediting her with. You dethrone her with ignominy.

The case of the other woman is as hard. She has a face that does not attract you, so you deny her the soul that you forced on the other one. She goes through life, branded, not by individuals, I allow, but by public opinion. The Vox Populi is the voice of nature, tis true, but nature is very hard, very ruthless. I stopped. Gerald sat looking at me with a rapt gaze, but I saw he had not listened to a word I said.

The Hungarian band had begun playing again in the ballroom. As I listened and watched the fantastic whirl of the dancers through the open door, they seemed to me to symbolize the burden of all the ages, desire and satiety, illusion and reality, dancing hand in hand to a music wild and tender as love, sad and stern as life, partners that look ever in one another's eyes and dance on in despite of what they see. Let us go and dance too, said Gerald. I have no very clear recollection of the rest of that evening. there was unreality in the air and a glamour and an aching pain.

Men and women said gracious things to me, yet seemed to watch me with cruel faces. I was only conscious, at the last, of an imperative desire to fly, to hide myself, to escape even from Gerald's presence, and to be alone. End of Chapter 4 Beauty's Hour of Fantasy By Olivia Shakespeare This Librevox recording is in the public domain Chapter 5

There was confusion in the Harmon's house the next day I did no work but sat idly with the girls in their sitting-room while they talked over the ball They were full of the new beauty, Miss Hatherley And such an odd thing, Mary Gerald says she reminds him of you. Quite impossible, said I, but I thank him. Something in her voice and way of talking, Betty went on.

You have a nice voice, you know. Gerald says she is very original, and goodness knows he had opportunity enough of finding out he danced with no one else. I nearly contradicted that statement, but saved myself in time. "'I'm so sorry I couldn't go,' I said instead. "'Did Miss Sturgis enjoy herself?'

"'And are you really better?' said Betty. "'You didn't seem ill in the afternoon. "'As for Bella—' "'Oh, Bella!' interrupted Clara. "'Bella had best look to her laurels. "'No one noticed her while Miss Hatherley was in the room.' "'I went on with my questions. "'Do you suppose Miss Hatherly enjoyed her success?

They laughed. Why, yes, if she's like other girls? Perhaps she isn't. Do all girls enjoy being admired at the expense of someone else? Chora looked out of the window with an assumption of unconsciousness. Betty, who is more candid, answered at once, one can't help liking it. I laughed outright. Does Miss Haverley seem nice? I asked next. Charming, said Clara. We have taken quite a fancy to her. Mother is writing today to ask her to dine and go to the theatre with us tomorrow. That was Gerald's idea. I received this piece of news in silence. Everyone wants to know her, Clara went on.

Dr. Trafus was overwhelmed with questions and inquiries as to whether people might call and so on. she paints all day through works quite hard as though she had to do it odd isn't it why odd said i i suppose she likes it but a passion for art is unnecessary in a pretty woman no doubt and betty broke in with oh there you go again mary always finding fault with pretty women not with them my dear but with the world i said laughing you can't say i find fault for with you, Betty. Oh, I'm not pretty, said she, by Miss Hatherley. I was touched by her speech. You're a generous creature, I said. I have always supposed it a mistake to think that one pretty girl is jealous of another. Betty put her head on one side, and with an odd mixture of wisdom and drollery, answered, well, we like beauty, and we don't. We like it because it's interesting and exciting and successful, and a pretty girl gives one's house a certain reputation.

We don't approve when she annexes people who belong to us, naturally. All the same. We can't help feeling she must do as she pleases. She's privileged. I had no idea you were so profound, said Clara, a little sharply, and I wondered whether it is possible that women are more tenacious of an intellectual than of a physical superfluous. superiority. Betty only laughed. I'm off, said she. I promised to meet the Sturgesses in the park, but Gerald won't come, and I'm half afraid to face Bella alone. Goodbye, Mary. We'll ask you to meet Miss Hatherly when we know her better. When I got home, I found that Dr. Trefusis had sent on Lady Harmon's letter. I sat over it for some time, thinking, then I wrote and said I would go.

Miss Waitley looked at me wistfully when I told her. I'm afraid you will get into some trouble, Mary, she said, and you can't possibly wear the ball dress. I must go, I retorted. I am at last seeing life as a woman ought to see it. I can't give up the privilege, at least not yet. You won't give it up till you have paid the penalty, Miss Waitley answered.

I shrugged my shoulders as though I did not believe her. I must have another dress, I cried. Miss Waitley would have given me the clothes off her back, she said, but as that would not avail me much, she offered to lend me some money. I accepted the offer with a recklessness born of my strange position, and we went out shopping after sunset, marry Hatherley and Miss Waitley. The people in the shops seemed anxious to please me,

even when they found that I could afford to pay but little for what I wanted. They probably looked upon me as a good advertisement, and I enjoyed the novelty of being treated with a deferential consideration. It was a very cold night. As we passed along the freezing, gas-lit streets, we met but few people.

We had to cross the square in which Dr. Trafusus lived on our way home. I noticed, before we reached his door, that a man in a fur overcoat was pacing slowly up and down the pavement. Why did he linger in such weather? I wondered vaguely. Then I saw it was Gerald Harmon. I put my muff up to my face and passed him by. I knew, too well, that he was waiting, on the chance of seeing Mary Hatherley, on her way home from a day's work at the studio.

You do not work very late these foggy days, I suppose. He asked me, tentatively, the next evening at dinner. I make gaslight studies, said I shortly. Is it permitted to anybody to go and see you at work? Oh no, I answered with a smile. I paint in earnest. i waited an hour in dorchester square last night he went on very low in the hope of seeing you that was misplaced heroism said i in such weather i should advise you not to do it again i shall do it every evening he declared and i only laughed a little as though the subject were not of the remotest interest and turned to my neighbour gerald sat by me at the play i went so seldom to the theatre that i was always arrested by the interest of the piece and of the actors i sat in the front of the box by lady harmon who i was certain suffered under the uneasy sensation that she was taking a leap in the dark in england encouraging a young, unknown woman, with nothing to recommend her but her looks. Though, on the other hand, she was upheld by the authoritative voice of society,

which had pronounced a favourable verdict on me. Behind us were Gerald and Betty. It was such an intimate family party that I had great difficulty in not using the familiar tone of every day. When I had only just saved myself from calling Betty by her cruelly, Christian name, and pointing out an acquaintance of Gerald's, whom I knew by sight, in the stalls, I was sobered. Silence fell upon me. I was so acutely aware of Gerald's presence, which seemed like a light at which I could not

bear to look, that I tried to distract myself by noting the faces of the other people in the house till the curtain should rise. Here and there I caught glimpses of a pretty head. the graceful turn of a neck, an expression of happiness or of vivacity. But the audience was mostly ugly, dull, and uninteresting. Yet I felt sorry for all these people, for their inarticulate, dumb way of going through life, untouched by passion, save in its baser aspects, nor only apprehending the ideal through some conventionalized form of religion,

or some dim discontent. The play was Romeo and Juliet. The Juliet was beautiful, but she could only look the part, and the young man who acted Romeo was no ideal lover. Yet the immortal golden play of youth and passion drew tears and quickened heartbeats, for each woman in the house was Juliet,

tasting summer rapture, perhaps lost, perhaps never realized, of first love. The curtain dropped. I sat in a dream, and Lady Harmon's voice seemed to come from very far away. It's a pretty play, she said, but don't you think it's rather a muddle? I never can make out who is who. It doesn't matter, answered Betty. Don't trouble, Mother dear. What a lovely thing it would be for private theatricals, parts of it, that is. Gerald, wouldn't Bella make a good Juliet? Her remark might, or might not have been malicious, but Gerald started.

Bella, he ejaculated and looked at me. His look said plainly what his lips had not yet dared. No man had ever looked at me with entreaty, passion, humility. in his eyes i looked back at him the soul of mary gower speaking through the eyes of mary haverley he flushed and went pale again and i regretted what i had done for the rest of the evening i devoted myself to lady harmon gerald seemed lost in thought and only roused himself when the carriage stopped at dr trefusis's door i shall never see you alone, said he as we stood on the doorstep. I cannot talk to you. I must write to you. He ended with a sort of despairing impatience. Do not write, said I. And then the door was opened by the doctor in person. Gerald seemed hardly able to speak to him. When a few words had passed,

he went back abruptly to the carriage. Mary, said Dr. Trafusus, you are a great trouble to me. Now I've got to take you home, and interrupt my studies in Rosencrantz, and the Pope Honorius, most absorbing old impostors. No, I won't say that, for I'm beginning to think there may be some method in their madness. You have led me into devious paths, Mary Haverley. By the way, who's that good-looking young fellow? That's Gerald Harmon, said I. The doctor looked at me with a sort of inquisitive sympathy and shrugged his shoulders. When he left me at my own house, you are playing with fire, my dear, he said, and I'm an old fool to help you. You are helping me to buy the experience that teaches, I said, and it teaches bitter lessons

enough. Don't fear for me. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Beauty's Hour, A Fife. A Feline by Olivia Shakespeare. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6. I had never received a love letter, and the only scrap of Gerald Harmon's writing that I possessed was a little note, which said, Dear Miss Gower, my mother asks me to write and tell you that she will be back tomorrow and expects you on Thursday as usual. Yours very truly, Gerald Harmon. I sat comparing this letter with the letter he had written to marry Hatherly, and I do not think I have ever known a more miserable moment. I ought to begin by asking you to forgive me, the letter ran. I am afraid of your thinking me too bold in writing, yet you must know

that love comes sometimes in a sort of flash that makes one see life quite differently in a moment That is what happened to me the first time I ever saw you. Since then I have thought of nothing else. If you would be kind, if you would care what becomes of me, I might be able to make a better thing of life. I have been very idle and useless always, and now I feel ashamed of it. I dare not ask you if you could ever care for me.

Not yet. You know how I love you, and am ever yours. Gerald Harmon. i was sitting in my bedroom at the little dressing-table which did duty for a writing-table too i looked again into my own eyes in the glass as i had done on that memorable evening that seemed such a very long while ago we knew one another's bitterness my reflection and i and laughed aloud man's love said i to the face in the glass man's humility, man's cry of, trample on me and remold me. What does it all amount to? Here am I the same woman with two faces. The woman counts for nothing. The face determines my life. A man can only see inspiration in eyes that are beautiful. Words can only influence him when the lips that say them

have curves, and a smile that delight. I, Mary Gower, could love him, could help him, as far as my soul and will go, but he cannot see this. A man sees only with the outer, never with the inner eye. Perhaps we are unjust, I went on again presently. There are no doubt men to whom the outside of a woman is not the, whole, but they must have learnt discernment, either through some special suffering, or they are perhaps lacking in sensuous instincts, and care but little for women at all, either from the intellectual or the emotional side. Gerald is not one of these. He is like other men. His point of view may be fairly taken as representing a normal one. And he loves Mary.

Hatherley. Come in, I went on, in answer to a knock at the door. There's going to be no transformation tonight, Waity. I'm tired of masquerading. I am very tired of life. I was born too serious. I can't live in the passing hour and enjoy it. I think of yesterday and of tomorrow.

Why can't I fling all care to the winds and make merry? with the other Mary's beautiful face and all it brings me. Miss Waitley put her hands on my shoulder, and I turned to her and wept. I did not answer Gerald's letter, nor did I see him till a few days later, when he strolled into Lady Harmon's study in his usual careless way. I'm out of sorts, Mary, said he.

Let me sit here while you talk to me. I like the sound of your voice. I knew why he liked the sound of my voice, and it hardened me against him. Why out of sorts, said I, haven't you eaten, drunk, and been merry? What more does a man want? I've eaten less, drunk considerably more,

and not been, in the least merry, he answered. Just now I wish that I might die, tomorrow or even today. I looked at him with a sudden pity mixed with my anger, that pity which is at once the root and the flower of love.

You are unhappy, really, I asked, knowing that Mary Havily had not answered his letter. I'm miserable, he cried out. Then he began walking up and down the room, and I felt, with a quickening of fear and interest, that he was going to speak to me of her. I yielded then to a strange impulse,

which was almost like jealousy of myself. What has Bella Sturgis been doing? said I. He stopped dead. Bella, she seems to have drifted a thousand miles away. She belongs to the old life, from which I am cut off. There's a gulf opened between me and it. She is on the other side. i don't understand then said i oh mary gerald cried i'm hit very hard this time haven't you heard of mary haverley tell me about her i said

there was a great fire in the room and i sat close to it but my hands were like ice gerald leant against the mantelpiece and looked down on me he was full of that intoxicating spirit of that intoxicating spirit of youth and enthusiasm, which carries such an irresistible appeal to those whose own youth is clouded, and who cannot rise above a resigned cheerfulness. Even now, when he declared himself to be miserable, there was an ardour in his discouragement which made it almost a desirable emotion. Mary Haverley, he began, reminds me in some strange way of you. She says things so like what you say, and the very voice is like. But she's very lovely, I interposed, and you've fallen seriously in love at last. He did not resent my remark.

Seriously, at last, he answered with a smile. Why have you never fallen in love with me? I asked then. He began to laugh with genuine amusement. You're an amusing person, said he. I shall, if you're not careful. Well, but why not? I persisted. It's true that I am only your mother's secretary, but you say I'm like Miss Havily in my ideas and way of talking. Is it the face that makes the difference? I know you are following up something infernally abstruse, said he, that has no relation to the facts of life.

that's so like you. I dare say the face does make a difference. It makes a difference in the whole personality. I wanted to find out the facts, said I, and you have given me a fairly direct answer, which can serve as a premise from which I shall draw my conclusions. And your conclusions are that justice is an ironical goddess whose eyes are never really bandaged. Your vein is too deep for me today. I wanted to tell you all my troubles, and you talked to me as though I were a professor. I didn't mean to be unkind, said I. If you are really serious, I'm sorry. Sorry, why sorry? He asked quickly. It's such an old story. You fall in love with a girl's beautiful face. It's not the first time you've done it. You endow her with all sorts of qualities.

You make her into an idol, and the whole thing only means that your aesthetic sense is gratified. That's a poor way of loving. It's a very real way, said Gerald with some warmth. I think you are horribly unsympathetic. I am in earnest, I answered. A very short while ago you were quite taken up with Bella Sturgis. You don't care the least for her feelings. You simply follow your impulses, and desert her for a more attractive woman. I do not know what made me espouse Bella's cause. Perhaps I was hurt, more than I had time to realize, and seized on the first weapon to my hand. You don't spare my feelings, Gerald said, in a low voice.

All I can say is that if Mary Heavenly won't have anything to do with me, I shall go away. I shall go and shoot big game, anything to get out of this horrible place. i am in earnest i wasn't in earnest about bella i admired her very much and all that and mother is always urging me to marry i should probably have drifted into marrying her he broke off i felt an unreasoning anger against him poor bella i cried you may drift into marrying her yet that finished our conversation he went away without another word leaving me alone with my anger and my heartache. End of Chapter 6. Beauty's Hour of Fantasy by Olivia Shakespeare. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 7. I confess that about this time I was led astray and overmastered by conflicting emotions. My work and my battles with Lady Harmon's peculiarities became unutterably irksome. I forgot how to efface myself. I spoke at the wrong moment and on the wrong subject. I did not remember to be sympathetic, and I expected sympathy. In fact, I confused what was permitted to marry Hatherly with what was permitted to marry Gower, with the result that I drank the cup of bitterness each day, the cup of triumph each night. At this time I was much sought after. My devotion to art was supposed to denote genius, though it was hardly respectable and wholly unnecessary. But people forgave me my persistent refusal to see anyone or to go anywhere during the day, and asked me to their houses in the evening. I was often chaperoned by Lady Harmon, sometimes by Dr. Truffus himself. I had many admired. I had many admires. but I only remember them vaguely, like figures in a dream. The golden key that opened their hearts led me into strange places.

Some had never been tenanted, and were so cold and bare that I felt they could never be really warm or pleasant. Others had been swept and garnished, and I was asked to believe that all traces of their former occupants were gone. Others were full of rust and cobwebs, and old toys broken and thrust away. There was no room even for a new plaything. The key unlocked no sanctuary, with altar lights and incense burning, waiting for the one divinity that was to fill its empty shrine. Those who loved me had loved before, and would love again. Women, whose idol is success, worshipped me too in their curious fashion. it became desirable in their eyes to be known as the friend of Mary Haverley.

A note of distinction was thus sounded. They were proud to demonstrate the fact that they were above jealousy or fear of rivalry. I liked many of them, with a liking tempered by amusement. I am glad to think now that I did not interfere wantonly with their lovers, their husbands, or their sons. I was discreet to the verge of being disagreeable. Indeed, had it not been for my face, I think they might almost have resented my indifference to their male belongings, and taken it as a personal affront. I saw a great deal of Gerald in the character of Mary Hatherley. The frost held, and he remained in London without a murmur.

He was not much at home during the day, and Mary Gower had no speech with him alone. Something has happened to Gerald, Betty said one day. I mean, besides this business about Mary. They called her Mary by this time. He wanders about picture galleries, I've found out, and someone saw him the other day in the British Museum. Isn't that somewhere in the city? Not quite so bad, said I.

The city had been Betty's terror, ever since she had been taken to the tower as a child. But isn't Mr. Harmon merely improving his mind? "'Yes, but why?' cried his sister. "'He's done very well all these years without it. "'It isn't as though he were the sort of man who could do nothing else. "'He can ride and shoot better than any man, I know. "'Why should he want to improve his mind?'

"'Her somewhat incoherent speech amused me, and it was true. "'A superficial culture would have sat oddly on Gerald Harmon, "'whose charm lay in his simplicity, "'and a certain gallant bearing, that might have fitted him to be the hero of a romance of the Elizabethan age, in which men were either knights or shepherds, full of a natural bravery and keenly susceptible to the influence of women's beauty. Miss Hatherley is an artist, I suggested in answer to Betty's remarks.

She shrugged her shoulders. Miss Havilley's just flirting with him, said she. This was true. i had answered his letter not in writing nor indeed by any explicit word of mouth but i had been kind and had let him see that the letter had not displeased me i had also led him to understand that the time was not yet come for any more open speech on his part i was capricious i used my power with but little mercy these were days when i made him miserable and days when i knew the world was recreated for him by my kindness. Yet I was more wretched than I had ever been when I was only Mary Gower. I grew to hate the other Mary's beautiful face, her smile, the gracious turn of her head, her shapely hands. I grew to hate all this with a passionate intensity that frightened me.

I seemed to have realized Mary Havily in a strange, objective way, as distinctly. As distinctly from myself. She was the woman Gerald Harmon loved. She was the woman I should have been, and was not. And then came a heart-stricken moment when I knew she was the woman who had done both Gerald and another a wrong that might never be undone. It happened in this wise. I had gone down one day to the girl's sitting-room to fetch a book I had left there when I met Gerald on the stairs. He passed me by with the briefest possible word, and with a look of annoyance on his face, that I was at a loss to account for, till I reached the sitting-room, and found Bella Sturgis there. She was sitting with her face on her arms by the writing-table, and I could

see that she was crying. My instinct was to leave her, but I was not quick enough to escape her notice, and she turned upon me with an angry movement. Why didn't you knock? said she. In her confusion and distress, she mistook me for a servant. I should have laughed, had I not been overcome by the conviction that Gerald had just left her, and that something had passed between them, which was connected with Mary Haverley. I am sorry if I disturbed you, said I. I have come for a book I left here. then she saw her mistake and flushed red i beg your pardon i really didn't see she said and then as though bowed down by the weight of her own distress she dropped her head again on her hands

i did not know what to do it seemed an intrusion to remain and impossible to go forgive me i said at last you are in some trouble i have intruded upon you unknowingly i can't go away without saying, I wish I could do something for you. She looked up at me with manifest surprise, tears shone still upon her face and in her eyes. I wondered that Gerald had left her, even for Mary Hatherley. Why should you care? she asked. I'm always sorry for another woman, I said. She looked at me again with a miserable, uncertain air. Her haughty self-confidence had gone from her, and I felt emboldened to speak again. You may not know that I am Lady Harmon's secretary. I have been in the house all day for a long while, and I can't help seeing a great deal of what goes on in it.

I know your trouble, Miss Sturgis. She got up at that and looked for a moment as though she would have struck me. Then she suddenly lost herself control and burst into tears. Those tears were dreadful to me. I took her hand and soothed her as though she had been a child, and presently she sat down beside me. How do you know, she said. You can't know. I've heard them talk of Mary Hatherly, said I. And I suppose they say I'm breaking my heart, cried she, with a desperate attempt at scorn. They would not be far wrong, I answered. She gave a long sigh.

It hurts, she said quite simply. Shame and an aching remorse seized me. I had taken him from her and had roused in him a love which must be always barren. I had surely put a knife into Bella's heart, and her simple words stabbed me back. Did I not know it hurt? I carried the self-same wound. do you care for him so much i said at first she would not answer and frowned while the tears came into her eyes then she said brokenly yes we used to quarrel and now it's all over do you think i went on that if mary haverley were to go away you could win him back she pondered i watched her beautiful feet

face and thought that I had hitherto misjudged her. Her pride, the insolence of her beauty, her caprices, had been but the superficial manifestation of a passionate spirit, led astray by a world which cared only for the outer woman. Now that these things had been flung back in her face, her heart spoke. She lost the sense of her beauty and its rights, and was more lovely than she had ever been, and did not know it. He used to love me, I'm sure, she said. I believe he would again. I would not be so unkind.

Oh, but what's the use of talking? I hardly heard the sound of my own voice as I answered her. There was a singing in my ears. I think he has been led away by a pretty face. I dare say he does not care for the real, marry Havily, he may return. Be kind to him when he does. Oh, I will, I will, said she. You have made me feel happier. I was so unhappy. She bent forward impulsively and kissed me. I kissed her back. I am so glad, I said, and left the room hurriedly to hide my emotion.

On my way home I went to see Dr. Trafusus. I found him alone, sitting over a pile of great folio volumes. His study, where I had so often found a refuge from the ills of life, looked warm and cheerful, with its shelves of books from floor to ceiling and great open hearth. He appeared to rouse himself with some difficulty, and I noticed he looked older and very wearied. I'm not come to disturb you, said I. Let me sit by the fire whilst you read. I have something I want to think out.

It will do me good to talk, child, he answered. I've been pouring over these books for too long. What is it you have to think over, Mary? Only the old thing. He looked at me with a quickened attention. I've been thinking over it too. he said then he sat down on the other side of the fireplace the room was aglow with the flames and the bright light of two lamps there seemed also to be a strange light on dr trefusis's face you know mary he began solemnly that this case of yours has led me into strange studies and strange speculations they are all wicked i am going to put away my books for i begin to fear lest they should take me into places where madness lies

outside the phenomenal where we were never meant to penetrate you have shown me how human longing if it be powerful enough is nearly omnipotent for evil as well as for good here in these old books in the magia naturales of johannus faust in this old latin of cornelius agrippa and many others i learn how spirits can be dragged down of the air, how alchemy can turn metal to gold. These things have a terrible fascination, but it is of the devil. I shall put them all away. Your longing turned Mary Gower, whom God made, into Mary Haverley, in whom he has no part. He looked at me with a shudder. The church put the alchemists to death for a less sin, he said. This power you have brings you nothing but trouble. It may bring trouble to those you do not wish to injure. Mary, I implore you to stop before it is too late.

All this in the mouth of Dr. Truces, the keen scientist, the ardent advocate of materialism, surprised me much. The gravity of his tone, so far removed from his ordinary carelessness, carried authority. All he said was my own inward, but on. unformulated conviction, put into words. I asked him why he thought it might bring trouble to others. I have seen enough, he answered, to understand your relations with the Harmon's. It won't do, Mary. That young Harmon ought not to be sacrificed to your love of experimentalising. At that I got up and walked about the room. You do me an injustice, said I. I may have given way to a curiosity which, taken alone, would not be legitimate, but my heart was concerned in this matter.

Ah, said he, I feared so. I sat down on a stool at his feet and gave him all my confidence. He did not interrupt me, and when I had finished, we were both silent for a long while. Do you not feel yourself that such a state of things cannot go on? He said at last, I am determined to give it up, I answered. Tomorrow night shall be Mary Haverley's last appearance. Why let her appear again at all? he asked. Because I'm a woman, and I want to say goodbye to Gerald Harmon.

The doctor laughed, I think, to cover some emotion. Well, well, well, he said, Have it so, if you will, but be done with the thing, it's unholy, it's a work of the devil. There are more things in heaven and earth than I ever dreamt of in my philosophy, things I dare not tamper with. Now, Mary, will you climb to the top of the ladder, and put away Faustus, and a gripper, and the rest, I've had enough of them. We spent some time putting away the books, strange volumes, full of odd, symbolical drawings,

and with wonderful titles such as The Golden Tripod, the Glory of the World or the Gate of Paradise, the all-wise doorkeeper. The doctor crossed himself as I put the last one in its place, and I laughed in spite of my trouble. I've one thing more to say, he called, cried, turning suddenly on me. I'm getting old, Mary, and I want a housekeeper and a daughter. You refused me these once, you shall not refuse again. You and Miss Waitley must come and take charge of me. I promise you I'll age rapidly, and then you'll feel you are fulfilling a duty, the sensation dear to the soul of woman, I know. We sat there over the fire for another hour. Before I left him, my promise had been given.

End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Beauty's Hour, a Fantasy, by Olivia Shakespeare. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8. I woke the next morning with something of that indifference to life, which is the secret of so many peaceful deaths. Mary Hatherly was condemned. She had but a brief hour left,

and I knew not how she was to spend it, I only knew that she had to bid goodbye to Gerald Harmon. The present hung before me like a veil. I could see the dim future moving behind it, a spectral army of figures all in grey, but they marched, this colourless procession of the years, with a monotony that grew into peace.

The thought of Mary Hatherley hardly troubled me. I did not care. I had passed through many deaths, since that night when she had been born in all her beauty. For, is not every step we take in life a death in the imagination? I had held beauty's sceptre, and had seen men's slaves beneath it. I knew the isolation, the penalty of this greatness. Yet I owned that it was an empire for which it might well be worth paying.

I held no theories based on mere senders, I owned that beauty might not possess all things, yet the woman who has not beauty neither has nor pays. To this philosophy or cynicism I know not which to call it, had Mary Hatherley's experiences brought me. I spent a strange day at Lady Harmon's. The familiar place seemed unreal. In a week or two I should be gone and all my days there would fade into the past, for I knew that. I had no real hold on the lives of any of them, having come only as it were by accident into their midst, when they had treated me with as much kindness as was consistent with their education, their traditions, and the world in which they lived. Betty would marry one of her many lovers,

and Clara someone who fed her intellectual vanity. And Gerald? I held my heart in check at the thought of Gerald. I had met him first, as Mary Haverley, in a crowd. It seemed like the logic of fate that I should take leave of him in a crowd, for our relations belonged to no world of peace and quietness, but to an order of life where beauty, with her attendant pomp and circumstance, moved to the sound of music and under the glare of a revealing light. That evening we did not dance, There was singing and stringed instruments. We moved about white stately rooms where the music followed us like a memory. I spoke to many people and knew nothing of what I said. At my heart was torture, in my soul, peace. The rest of the world was blotted out when I saw Gerald coming to me. At first he spoke but little.

He had the desperate air of a man who was determined to know his fate and his sight. violence was charged with suggestion. We stood for a long while near the musicians, and the aching sweetness of one of Schubert's melodies pierced me with the sword of pain and pleasure, wherewith music wounds her lovers. The whole measure of my grief seem contained in that searching, divine air, in the human, passionate note of the strings, in the purer, more radiant tone of the flutes and hoboys. Then Gerald looked into my eyes and said, Let us come away, and I went blindly with him through the rooms till we reached a door that opened into a garden. The night was hardly cold and very still. Only a faint throbbing

from the faraway streets lay at the heart of the silence and troubled it. I could see the outline of Gerald's face in the starlight. He said nothing, but took me suddenly in his arms and kissed me, and in that moment I tasted the essence of life. Then he let me go. Now send me from you, if you can, if you dare, said he. Tis I who am going, I said. I am in earnest, answered he, and I must have your answer. Oh, my answer! I cried, is easily given. I do not love you. I can add something to that which you will not acknowledge. You have never loved me. You loved my face, but of my heart and soul. You have known nothing. I had not meant to say such words to him. I had meant to let him go with something like a benediction, but my bitterness rose up and made me speak. It is true I love your face. He said quite gently, but more than that, why are you so unkind to me? Then there came a wild moment in which I was near telling him all,

and asking him if he could not love the soul of me and take no thought for my body. But I paused, and remembered I had resolved never to let him know. I am not as unkind as I seem, I said. It is kinder to tell you the truth. I am not made for love or to be happy and have children. I must live apart. Do not ask me why. I cannot tell you.

I shall not forget you. I hope you will forget me. At least think of me without pain. And now, goodbye. I moved away. Is this your last word? Are you going to leave me so? He cried out.

I stopped then and looked, back at him. The notes of a violin came through the silence like a shaft and struck at my heart. They mingled with a woman's voice in a love-song. I went to his side. I have one last word to leave you, I said to him. You will forget me. When I am only a memory, go back to Bella, for you loved her. He said nothing, and I was glad of the darkness which covered my face. I turned back into the house, leaving him standing there, and went away bidding no farewells. I sat through that long night and waited for the dawn, and when the dawn came, I kissed the wonderful, reflected face of Mary Hathalie, and wished her a long goodbye.

Oh, face of my dreams, I said, it is well that you should go back into nothing Your hour is over. Each moment held a possible joy, a surer pain, a brief triumph, a long regret. Let me decline into the lesser ways of life, where beauty's flying feet have never passed, but where peace may be seen stealing, a shadowy figure, with eyes looking towards the sun. End of Chapter 8 And End of Beauty's Hour A Fantasy

by Olivia Shakespeare Thank you for listening