FICTION.
A ROGUE'S MARCH.*
THE appearance of a new novel by the writer of The ifc.Ardle Peerage induses a mood of exacting expectancy. We count upon something so much above the average that any lapse from the high standard of her earlier work is regarded as defrauding us of our due. Judged by the test of past achieve. ment, there is no falling-off in A Rogue's March. It is extremely clever, excellently written, and of engrossing
interest ; its moral is unimpeachable and its taste above reproach. Primarily a study of moral obliquity, it is never dis-
figured by the modern pose of glorifying unconventionality as necessarily a fine thing and disparaging orthodoxy as necessarily contemptible. The author practises a complete self-effacement throughout. There is no avowed or obvious endeavour to edify, yet we have seldom read a more con-
vincing modern illustration of the old proverb that honesty is the beet policy than the life-history of Percy Lanstone. Though Percy developed disquieting qualities, quite inexplic-
able on the basis of heredity, while still a child, his failure to distinguish between meum and taunt was condoned by his
fond father in virtue of his intellectual agility. The strange ingenuity he displayed as a small boy in gratifying his bent for acquisitiveness, though highly reprehensible, was not without its humorous side. His sisters overlooked these lapses, while his admirable brother John, the only member of the family who might have kept him straight, was drowned in early youth. We regret the removal of John, on artistic as well as moral grounds, for it is abruptly contrived, and he promised well Thenceforward Percy was free to pursue his " march " unchecked, and when after the lapse of a few years we meet him again, a captain in an Indian native regiment, and married to a charming girl, his talents for roguery have reached a high pitch of development, fortified, moreover, by a formidable equipment of accomplishments social and athletic. )'or Percy was no brutal villain. He had many engaging quali- ties. He bad a wonderful gift of disguising his selfishness under the mask of considerateness. He had beautiful appealing eyes and a quiet manner. He was one of the best gentleman-riders and polo-players in India, and his skill in parlour tricks was altogether exceptional. We regret her choice, but we perfectly understand why Mildred Dupont, a charming but trustful young woman, preferred him to Arnold Craven. The experience of life entirely confirms her preference, since nice women only .too often prefer sleek, wheedling flatterers to honest, three- cornered but devout lovers. Anyhow, Arnold Craven seemed ridiculous in love, and that settled it; and Mildred was left to the slow misery of disillusionment which began in amusement IA Percy's waggishness and ended in unmitigated horror and contempt. The tragedy of their estrangement is all the greater because Mildred would have stuck to him through thick and thin if he had only confessed. But that he never 3ould bring himself to do. With all his gifts and resourcefulness he was strangely lacking in common sense. He made the mistake of keeping secrets from his wife, and wouldn't own up until he had been shown up. It took years to open her eyes, for he *was wonderfully clever in covering up his tracks, and her first -experience of his crookedness left her quite unconvinced.
"He took cards very seriously, and with reason, for play con- tributed to their income something, fluctuating, but quite worthy .of consideration. People said he played like a book. Mildred blamed herself for the growth of this habit of going out at night 'to play cards. Soon after they arrived at Shigrata he began to teach her whist and bridge, as he did not like her to sit out by herself when he asked men in to dinner; and, besides, he said, look at the advantage they two would have-as partners who thoroughly understood each other's game, playing against strangers ! They must play double dummy every night for practice. They played regularly for two or three weeks, and she was growing quite good when she made that silly mistake, taking him seriously when he began to talk nonsense. He professed to have invented a complete code of private signals, by which when she had mastered it, they could tell one another what card to lead or return, without their opponents knowing. He showed her, in that comically solemn- way of his, a few of the signals. If he tapped his teeth with his forefinger, it meant this ; if with two fingers, that ; if with three, something else—and she, like a fool, thought he was in earnest and told him she was not a cheat. He looked at her for one moment in. surprise ; then, with a gravity very different from that with which he bad been • d Bogue s March. By Evelyn Tempest. London : Hodder and Stoughton. lee.] explaining his code, said: ' Of course, if you think I was serious we had better not play any more.' She had been terribly vexed with herself. He could not possibly know how distressed she was for having, even for a moment, supposed he would be guilty of any- thing underhand ; but he was so hurt that for a long time she did not venture to suggest double dummy again. When she screwed up her courage to do it he made excuses ; and- every time she repeated the suggestion he had some reason for not playing. So in course of time she ceased to propose cards altogether ; and he began to run over to the mess' after dinner to see what was going on. They lived close to the mess-house at Shigrata and it soon becahie a habit with him. She had paid the price for that mistake in long and lonely evenings. Sometimes she thought he had been rather hard upon her."
But Percy was never actively unkind ; his prowess as a sports- man appealed to Mildred's hero-worshipping instincts, and it was long before she realized that the high standard of conduct which he set for other people had never guided his own actions.
The scene in the earlier chapters is laid at a station in the plains, and Miss Tempest gives us a vivid picture of the social activities of Auglo-Indian life. Percy's talents are many-sided, but it fi with his exploits SA '.11. maker of
wagers and, above all, as a horse-coper that the narrative is chiefly concerned. Subtle rather than astute, he is found out in a shady gamble over a horse and obliged to leave his regiment. He returns home with his wife, and works success- fully upon the feelings of his sisters when they are unstrung by their mother's death ; but their generosity is powerless to keep him straight, and he finances himself for his last venture —a treasure hunt in Norway—by a peculiarly mean theft from a weak-minded aunt. This time, however, he fails to cover up his tracks, and his wife at last recognizes him in his true colours. The excursion to Norway ends in tragedy, heightened by the irony of a success that dawns on him in the last hours of his life. The kindest view of his career is that of Craven —that the ingenious always appealed to him ; but the author makes no attempt to exculpate his wrong-doings or to enlist undue sympathy with him in the closing scenes of his life. The story justifies the title; it is a dispassionate study of a man of great gifts, considerable charm, and no character, and it is in correspondence with the facts of life that he should never have been popular with men while retaining the affection of the women who most clearly recognized his worthlessness.
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