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  GRAY YOUTH

  OLIVER ONIONS




  NOVELS BY OLIVER ONIONS

  IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EVIDENCE
  THE DEBIT ACCOUNT
  THE STORY OF LOUIE
  GRAY YOUTH

  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
  NEW YORK




  GRAY YOUTH

  THE STORY OF A VERY MODERN COURTSHIP
  AND A VERY MODERN MARRIAGE


  BY

  OLIVER ONIONS

  Author of "In Accordance with the Evidence,"
  "The Debit Account."


  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
  NEW YORK

  _Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton_




  Copyright, 1913,
  BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

  Copyright, 1914,
  BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY




  TO
  MARY STEWART




PUBLISHER'S NOTE


Gray Youth is published in England in two volumes under the titles:
The Two Kisses and A Crooked Mile.




CONTENTS


BOOK ONE: A VERY MODERN COURTSHIP--THE TWO KISSES

PART I

  CHAPTER                               PAGE
      ARGUMENT                            11
    I CHEYNE WALK                         18
   II THE SURPRISE PARTY                  33
  III THE FASHION STUDIO                  52
   IV THE MCGRATH                         67
    V POUNDS AND SHILLINGS                83
   VI WOMAN'S WHOLE EXISTENCE             99
  VII THE VOICE THAT BREATHED O'ER EDEN  120

PART II

    I PENCE                              142
   II A DAMSEL ERRANT                    160
  III "BUSINESS AS USUAL"                176
   IV "IL FAUT QU' UNE PORTE--"          191
    V BOND AND FREE                      215

PART III

    I THE LEAGUE                         243
   II "BARRAGE"                          263
  III EPITHALAMIUM                       287
      ENTR' ACTE                         314


BOOK TWO: A VERY MODERN MARRIAGE--A CROOKED MILE

PART I

  CHAPTER                               PAGE
    I THE WITAN                          321
   II THE POND-ROOM                      337
  III THE "NOVUM"                        352
   IV THE STONE WALL                     369
    V THREE SHIPS                        393
   VI POLICY                             414

PART II

    I THE PIGEON PAIR                    435
   II THE 'VERT                          447
  III THE IMPERIALISTS                   463
   IV THE OUTSIDERS                      485
    V "HOUSE FULL"                       503
   VI THE SOUL STORM                     524

PART III

    I LITMUS                             553
   II BY THE WAY                         568
  III DE TROP                            588
   IV GRAY YOUTH                         598
    V TAILPIECE                          620




BOOK ONE

A VERY MODERN COURTSHIP




PART I

ARGUMENT


A girl of seventeen, with a knitted tam-o'-shanter cap and a thick
cable of red-bronze hair hanging down her back, walked along a gallery
of the Louvre, looking for her aunt. The eyes that turned whenever she
heard a footfall or, passing a statue or case, saw a fresh vista before
her, were of a light brown, with just such a hint of gold in their
irises as you see when some opals are turned and catch a different
light; and they were confused and overfilled with the treasures on
which they had rested. She was an art-student, and must return to
London on the morrow in order to resume her studies at the McGrath.

It was her first visit to Paris, and she had spent the whole of
her three weeks at the Cluny and the Luxembourg, at the Louvre and
Versailles. Now, drenched and sated with beauty, she still could not
bear to leave it all. A few minutes before, passing through the Salon
Carre, where an elderly lady had been copying the Entombment, she had
wished that she too might be old and white-haired if only age might so
enlarge her capacity for loveliness, that even youth would be well lost
for it. Already she loved the highest when she saw it, and, being an
artist, she needs must attempt it too.

The girl found her aunt near the spot where the Antinoeus stands on its
pedestal, and walked along by her side, neither speaking nor listening
to the elder lady's remarks on the objects they passed. They did not
seem to her to be worth listening to. She knew that for her aunt art
had reached its _comble_ on the day when the late Sir Noel Paton had
affixed his signature to "The Man with the Muckrake," and she had got
out of the way of trying to explain that much water had flowed under
London Bridge and many students flowed through the McGrath since that
time. Besides, she did not want to talk. She wanted this last high hour
in the Louvre as much as might be to herself. She wanted to taste the
full emotion of it, not even analysing it, if only for once analysis
would cry a truce. At the end of the gallery they turned and walked
back again.

It was as they passed the Antinoeus for the second time that the girl
felt her young bosom rise almost painfully. She could not have told
why, without premeditation, she suddenly lingered, so that her aunt
passed a little ahead. She watched her disappear behind some plinth or
pedestal or other, and then stopped opposite the marble bust.

There was no knowing when she might find herself in this wonderful
place again, and it seemed to her that her farewell of it now required
some symbol. She gave a furtive glance round. Neither visitor nor
_g