: THE GLORY OF :
CLEMENTINA WING
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IDOLS
SEPTIMUS
DERELICTS
THE USURPER
WHERE LOVE IS
THE WHITE DOVE
SIMON THE JESTER
A STUDY IN SHADOWS
THE BELOVED VAGABOND
AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA
THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE
THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE
:: THE GLORY OF ::
CLEMENTINA WING
BY
WILLIAM J. LOCKE
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXI
THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON
: THE GLORY OF :
CLEMENTINA WING
CHAPTER I
Unless you knew that by taking a few turningsin any direction and walking for fiveminutes you would inevitably come into oneof the great, clashing, shrieking thoroughfares of London,you might think that Romney Place, Chelsea, wassituated in some world-forgotten cathedral city. Whyit is called a “place,” history does not record. It issimply a street, or double terrace, the quietest, sedatest,most unruffled, most old-maidish street you can imagine.Its primness is painful. It is rigorously closed toorgan-grinders and German bands; and itinerantvendors of coal would have as much hope of sellingtheir wares inside the British Museum as of attractingcustom in Romney Place by their raucous appeal.Little dogs on leads and lazy Persian cats are its geniiloci. It consists of a double row of little Early Victorianhouses, each having a basement protected byarea railings, an entrance floor reached by a primlittle flight of steps, and an upper floor. Three littlehouses close one end of the street, a sleepy littlemodern church masks the other. Each house has atiny back garden which, on the south side, owingto the gradual slope of the ground riverwards, is on alevel with the basement floor and thus on a lowerlevel than the street. Some of the houses on thissouth side are constructed with a studio on the gardenlevel running the whole height of the house. Asloping skylight in the roof admits the precious northlight, and a French window leads on to the garden.A gallery runs round the studio, on a level and incommunication with the entrance floor; and from thisto the ground is a spiral staircase.
From such a gallery did To