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    LOVE AMONG THE LIONS

    A MATRIMONIAL EXPERIENCE

    BY F. ANSTEY
    AUTHOR OF "VICE VERSA," ETC.


    LONDON
    J. M. DENT & CO.
    29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.




    List of Illustrations


                                                         Page

    The exquisite face looking out over the wire blind      4

    AEneas Polkinghorne                                      5

    Still I persevered                                      9

    The Introduction of Mr Blenkinsop to Miss
        Lurana de Castro                                   12

    "And whom should I marry, Mr Blenkinsop?"              18

    "Let us be married in the Lion's Cage"                 26

    "Yes, papa, we are a little late"                      31

    "First-rate idea of yours, Blenkinsop"                 33

    "Well, if the lady's as game as she seems, and
        the gentleman likewise, I don't see any
        objection"                                         41

    We were still chatting when Laurana returned           43

    A Cleric of the broad-minded school                    51

    "If you go on like that I shall begin to think
        you want to frighten me"                           55

    Mademoiselle                                           63

    "A de Castro can never marry a Craven"                 73

    "If them two got together, there'd be the doose's
    delight"                                               79

    I was forlornly mopping when Niono returned            82

    My wedding toilette was complete                       87

    It's a swindle                                         91

    A kind of small procession entered the arena           95

    Then he addressed the audience                        101

    "If only you had been firmer, Theodore"               113




Love among the Lions




PART I


In the following pages will be found the only authentic account of an
affair which provided London, and indeed all England, with material
for speculation and excitement for a period of at least nine days.

So many inaccurate versions have been circulated, so many ill-natured
and unjust aspersions have been freely cast, that it seemed advisable
for the sake of those principally concerned to make a plain
unvarnished statement of the actual facts. And when I mention that I
who write this am the Theodore Blenkinsop whose name was, not long
since, as familiar in the public mouth as household words, I venture
to think that I shall at once recall the matter to the shortest
memory, and establish my right to speak with authority on the
subject.

At the time I refer to I was--and for the matter of that still
am--employed at a lucrative salary as taster to a well-known firm of
tea-merchants in the City. I occupied furnished apartments, a
sitting-room and bedroom, over a dairy establishment in Tadmor
Terrace, near Baalbec Road, in the pleasant and salubrious district of
Highbury.

Arrived at the age of twenty-eight, I was still a bachelor and had
felt no serious inclination to change my condition until the memorable
afternoon on which the universe became transformed for me in the
course of a quiet stroll round Canonbury Square.

For the information of those who may be unacquainted with it, I may
state that Canonbury Square is in Islington; the houses, though
undeniably dingy as to their exteriors, are highly respectable, and
mostly tenanted by members of the medical, musical, or scholastic
professions; some have balconies and verandahs which make it
difficult to believe that one has not met them, like their occupiers,
at some watering place in the summer.

The square is divided into two by a road on which frequent tramcars
run to the City, and the two central enclosures are neatly laid out
with gravelled paths and garden seats; in the one there is a dovecot,
in the other there are large terra-cotta oil-jars, bringing
recollections of the Arabian Nights and the devoted Morgiana.

All this, I know, is not strictly to the point, but I am anxious to
make it clear that the locality, though not perhaps a chosen haunt of
Rank and Fashion, possesses compensations of its own.

Strolling round Canonbury Square, then, I happened to glance at a
certain ground floor window in which an art-pot, in the form of a
chipped egg hanging in gilded chains and enamelled shrimp-pink, gave a
note of femininity that softened the dusty severity of a wire blind.

Under the chipped egg, and above the top of the blind, gazing out with
an air of listless disdain and utter weariness, was a lovely