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Python
Interviews

Discussions with Python Experts

Mike Driscoll

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Python Interviews
Copyright © 2018 Packt Publishing

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 Foreword

Welcome, all, to Python Interviews!

People often get confused about open source programming
languages, focusing merely on the technology behind the language
— be it the language itself, the libraries available for it, or the
impressive products that are built with it — and not on the
ecosystem of individuals that are responsible for the language
existing in the first place.
Python is an open source language, driven mostly by volunteer
efforts from all around the globe. It's important to focus not only
on the technology behind what makes Python great, but also the
individuals that make it great as well.
The world of Python is not one comprised merely of code, but of
a community of like-minded individuals coming together to make
the world a better place through the open source ethos. Thousands
of individuals have contributed towards the success of Python.
This book contains interviews with an excellent selection of the
individuals that power Python and its wonderful open source
community. It dives into the personal backgrounds of these
individuals and the opinions they have about the community, the
technology, and the direction we're headed in, together.
But, must importantly — it exposes that Python, the programing
language, is indeed comprised of persons, just like you, trying to
make a difference in the world, one step at a time.

Kenneth Reitz
Director at Large for the Python Software Foundation
 Contributor

About the Author

Mike Driscoll has been using Python since
April 2006. He blogs for the Python Software
Foundation. Other than blogging, he enjoys
reading novels, listening to a wide variety of
music, and learning photography. He writes
documentation for the wxPython project's wiki
page and helps wxPython users on their mailing
list. He also helps Python users on the PyWin32
list and occasionally the comp.lang.py list too.

Packt is Searching for Authors Like You

If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please
visit authors.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked
with thousands of developers and tech professionals, just like you,
to help them share their insight with the global tech community.
You can make a general application, apply for a specific hot topic
that we are recruiting an author for, or submit your own idea.
 Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Chapter 1: Brett Cannon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2: Steve Holden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3: Carol Willing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4: Glyph Lefkowitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter 5: Doug Hellmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 6: Massimo Di Pierro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Chapter 7: Alex Martelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 8: Marc-André Lemburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Chapter 9: Barry Warsaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Chapter 10: Jessica McKellar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Chapter 11: Tarek Ziadé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Chapter 12: Sebastian Raschka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter 13: Wesley Chun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Chapter 14: Steven Lott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Chapter 15: Oliver Schoenborn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 16: Al Sweigart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Chapter 17: Luciano Ramalho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Table of Contents

Chapter 18: Nick Coghlan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Chapter 19: Mike Bayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Chapter 20: Jake Vanderplas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Chapter 21: Other Books You May Enjoy . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Artificial Intelligence with Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346
Understanding Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think . . . . . . 348

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Page ii
 Preface
Near the end of 2016, I was brainstorming with my editor about
the kinds of books might be of interest. I had been doing a series
of articles on my blog called PyDev of the Week that inspired us into
crafting a book based on interviewing core members of the Python
community. I spent some time hashing out 20 names of people that
I thought would be good for the book and then I started contacting
them in 2017.

Over the course of about 8-12 months, I ended up interviewing

20 pillars of the Python community, although my list changed
several times over that period. Some people weren't available or
couldn't be reached. But I persevered and managed to pull together
a well-rounded set of representatives of the Python programming
community.

In this book, you will get interesting anecdotes about the history of
Python and its creators, such as Brett Cannon and Nick Coghlan.
You will discover why Python didn't have Unicode support in its
first release, and you'll hear from core developers about where they
think Python is going in the future. You will also hear from some
well-known Python authors, like Al Sweigart, Luciano Ramalho, and
Doug Hellman.

I also spoke with some of the creators or core developers of

popular third-party packages in Python, such as web2py (Massimo
Di Pierro), SQLAlchemy (Mike Bayer), and the Twisted Framework
(Glyph Lefkowitz), among others.
Preface

My interview with Carol Willing was a lot of fun. She is also a

core developer of the Python language itself, so learning her views
on women in technology and Python was quite enlightening. She is
also a contributor to Project Jupyter, so learning more about that
project was exciting.

I think you will find Alex Martelli and Steve Holden's interviews
to be especially compelling as they have been working with Python
for a very long time and have many interesting insights.

There is a lot to learn from all the individuals that I spoke with.
If you happen to know them, you know that even better than I
do. All of them were great to chat with and very responsive to me
even on the shortest of timelines. If you happen to meet them at
a conference, be sure to thank them for their contributions.

Special thanks go out to all the people I interviewed. They took time
out of their lives to help me with this project and I truly appreciate
it. I also want to thank my editors for keeping this project on
track. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Evangeline, for putting
up with me interviewing people at random times throughout the
summer. And finally, I want to thank you, dear reader, for checking
out this book.

Page iv
 1
Brett Cannon
Brett Cannon is a Canadian software
engineer and Python core developer.
He is a principal software developer at
Microsoft, where he works on editing
tools. Previous roles include software
engineer at Google and creator at
Oplop. Brett became a fellow of the
Python Software Foundation (PSF) in
2003 and served as a director of the
PSF between 2013 and 2014. He is a former PyCon US committee
member and was conference chair of PyData Seattle 2017. Brett
led the migration of CPython to GitHub and created importlib.
Among his open source achievements is caniusepython3 and he is the
co-author of 17 successful Python Enhancement Proposals.

Discussion themes: core developers, v2.7/v3.x, Python

sprints.
Catch up with Brett Cannon here: @brettsky
Brett Cannon

Mike Driscoll: Why did you become a computer programmer?

Brett Cannon: I always found computers interesting, as far back as

I can remember. I was lucky enough to go to an elementary school
with a computer lab full of Apple IIes, back when that was the
cutting edge, so I was exposed to them relatively early on.

In the year between junior high and high school, I took a computer
class over the summer and that included a little bit of Apple BASIC.
I did it and I excelled at it, to the point that I think I finished the
entire class in the first week. It hadn't really clicked that I could do
that for a job at that point.

This continued through high school, and then when it came time
to pick courses for junior college, my mom had me promise her
two things. I agreed that I would take a course in philosophy and
I would take a course in computer programming. So that's what I
did and I loved both.

Once again, I read my introductory C book in the first two weeks,

which was supposed to last for the whole semester. I remember
the first time I finished it, I sat down and implemented tic-tac-toe
one day after class. I even forgot to eat dinner! It was just one of
those eureka moments. The feeling of boundless creativity that this
tool provided just engulfed me. That's how I got into programming.

Brett Cannon: 'The feeling of boundless

creativity that this tool provided just engulfed
me. That's how I got into programming.'

Page 2
 Brett Cannon

I knew that tic-tac-toe was a solved problem, so I thought that I

could actually write the logic so that I could play tic-tac-toe perfectly
as a program. I spent something like six hours one evening doing
it, and I was utterly blown away that I was actually able to do that.
It opened up the possibilities of what computers could do, and the
freedom of it and the ability to think about the problems just really
grabbed me. I've been doing it ever since.

Driscoll: What led you to becoming so involved with Python and

its community?

Cannon: Well, I ended up going to Berkeley and getting a degree

in philosophy, but I kept taking computer science courses. The
introductory computer science course at Berkeley had an entrance
exam, and I was worried that I didn't know object-oriented
programming, since I only knew C. So I looked around for an
object-oriented programming language. I found Python, learned it,
loved it, and kept writing personal programs in it.

At some point along the way, I needed time.strptime , the

function to take a string that represents a datetime and parse it
back into a time tuple. I was on Windows at the time, and time.
strptime wasn't available on Windows. As a result, I came up
with a way to parse it where you had to still plug in the locale
information but it would still parse it.

Page 3
Brett Cannon

Back then, ActiveState's cookbook site was still a thing, so I posted

my recipe of how to do strptime up on ActiveState. Later,
O'Reilly published the first edition of Python Cookbook, and Alex
Martelli included that recipe as the last recipe in the book, which
also happened to be the longest recipe in the book.

Brett Cannon: 'So I posted my recipe of how

to do strptime up on ActiveState.'

It still ticked me off, though, that people had to input their locale
information. I was frustrated that I couldn't solve that. So in the
back of my mind, I was continuously thinking about how I could
get that locale information out. Eventually, I solved it. It was actually
the week after graduating from Berkeley, and I gifted myself the
time to write up the solution, so that you didn't have to enter locale
information anymore.

After I did that, I emailed Alex Martelli, since we'd exchanged emails
a couple of times at that point, and I said, "Hey, I've fixed this so
it's not necessary to input the locale anymore. How do I get this
upstream?" Alex Martelli said, "Oh, well you just email this mailing
list, Python-Dev, and you can submit the patch."

Brett Cannon: 'Alex Martelli said, "Oh, well

you just email this mailing list, Python-Dev,
and you can submit the patch."'

Page 4
Random documents with unrelated
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eighteenpence to the bad, and all my boots showed signs of wear.
Then I decided to risk it, and I wrote saying I would call on Mr.
Gascoyne at his City address at noon the next day. I received a
telegram saying that he would prefer it should be one o’clock, from
which I deduced that he proposed to give me his luncheon hour, and
would possibly ask me to share that meal should I be presentable. I
have always had a rare instinct for deducing correct conclusions
from the faintest suggestions, and it has been invaluable in
acquainting me with the peculiarities of fields on which imminent
battles were to be fought. Evidently Mr. Gascoyne was inclined to be
friendly, therefore modesty and frankness were the weapons with
which to make the victory decisive. He was a business man, and,
considering my circumstances, nothing was to be gained by outward
display. Indeed, a plain dressing for the occasion—blue serge, blue
foulard tie with white spots, and a bowler—was absolutely right, and
did not necessarily suggest a Bond Street wardrobe in reserve,
rendered temporarily useless for lack of good boots.
I was as nervous as I have ever been when I mounted in the lift
to the second floor of the tall block of buildings in the City where Mr.
Gascoyne’s offices were situated. I could not help reflecting that
young Gascoyne must have ascended in the same lift times without
number.
It was not for me, however, to indulge in such reflections, and I
shook off any morbid cobwebs from my thoughts and stepped into
the outer office with a subtle and affected consciousness of
innocence which I was by constant practice enabling myself to
assume at will.
The clerk took my card and noted the name with a look of
intelligence.
“Oh yes, Mr. Gascoyne is expecting you, but there are two
gentlemen with him now. Please take a seat. I will tell him you are
here.”
He went to a speaking-tube and informed some one at the other
end that Mr. Rank was in the office.
“Mr. Gascoyne will see you in one minute.” And he returned to his
papers.
 In a moment Mr. Gascoyne opened the door of his inner office,
showing out two elderly men. Whilst listening to their last words he
motioned me to enter with a grave smile.
In a minute he joined me and closed the door of the office behind
him.
“Please sit down, Mr. Rank.” He seated himself on the chair
behind his desk and motioned me to the one opposite. I could not
help noticing how much he had aged in the two or three months that
had elapsed since I had seen him last.
“You are not like the Gascoynes,” he said, with a smile, “and yet
there is a something.”
“My father was a Jew, and I think I am like him.”
“To be frank with you, I have taken the trouble to find out exactly
the relationship in which we stand.”
I felt alarmed. It was distinctly unpleasant to hear that he had
been making inquiries about me.
“This is my mother’s photograph,” I said, handing him a small
likeness of her. He looked at it with interest.
“It is a very sweet face. She is dead, I believe?”
“Yes, I have no nearer relative than Henry Gascoyne.”
“Ah, poor old man, I am afraid he does not know anyone. He is
quite childish.”
“So I understand.”
“Have you ever seen the family portraits at Hammerton?”
“Never.” I was determined to deny any particular knowledge of
the family.
“Your mother is extraordinarily like some of the women. I do not
know the present Earl, but I have visited Hammerton as an
excursionist.”
“I have never been there.”
“And now will you come and have some lunch? I am a busy man
and cannot afford to waste time.”
Either he was wonderfully softened, or the letter he had written
me when I first applied to him was utterly unlike himself. I was
unable to make out which was correct, but I inclined to the former
conclusion.
 “I have been wondering,” he said, when we were seated over
some cutlets and a very good bottle of wine, “why you were so long
in answering my letter.”
I replied, with every appearance of frankness, that it had taken
some amount of thought before I could decide to put my pride in my
pocket and swallow his former snub.
“I thought it was that,” he answered. “I must frankly admit that my
reply to your application was very uncalled for, but when I wrote it I
was smarting somewhat under the ingratitude of a young man I had
taken into my office a short time before.”
“It is forgotten,” I said. “After all, men in your position must
receive a host of requests for favours that you are unable to comply
with.”
“That is true,” he said, “quite true; but still, from one claiming
relationship—however, let us forget it. Tell me about yourself.”
I was perfectly candid, and told him the story of my life. It was all
inexpressibly strange; this man bending forward with every
appearance of interest and sympathy listening to the life story of his
son’s murderer. I was amazed at the way I could pose, even to
myself, as a perfectly innocent person, and was secretly vain of a
great artistic success. I found myself filling in the picture which I was
painting for him with numerous little touches, all deliberately
designed to heighten a carefully considered effect. I told no lies,
however; indeed, it was quite unnecessary. Without that part dealing
with his own son the simple story was very effective. I did not
hesitate to hint that there was the memory of a woman troubling me.
He was sympathetic at once but did not urge further confidences at
the moment.
“Perhaps one of the other reasons why I was not particularly
drawn by your being a member of the Gascoyne family,” he said,
when I had finished, “was that I am not on friendly terms with any of
them. My wife was of humble origin, and such of them as I know
were very uncivil to her, and, to tell you the truth, the name of
Gascoyne had become somewhat distasteful to me.”
We were strolling back to the office and he had laid his hand
loosely in my arm. He had evidently taken a fancy to me. So much
for the voice of Nature. Indeed, all my life I have noticed that the
voice of Nature is a somewhat misleading guide; very apt to call the
listener to follow over all kinds of dangerous and quaking bogs.
People have a way, too, of labelling the shrill scream and tuneless
croaking of their own pet conventions and prejudices as the voice of
Nature, if the occasion suit them, and their shallow consciences do
not imperatively demand correct definitions.
“Before I make you the offer that is in my mind,” he said, when
we again reached his office and I was once more seated opposite to
him, “I wish to ask you whether you heard that I lost my only son a
few months ago under somewhat tragic—circumstances.”
“I was at Lowhaven,” I said gently.
He looked at me in unfeigned surprise.
“You were at Lowhaven?”
“I did not mention it before, but I was staying in the same hotel.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“I kept out of your way. I was naturally unwilling to intrude at such
a time.”
He buried his face in his hands, and something between a groan
and a sigh escaped him. It was evident that the memory of his
bereavement was inexpressibly poignant.
“I am glad you knew him, if only by sight. Did you ever speak to
him?”
“A few words in the hotel smoking-room, that is all. He was a
splendid looking fellow.”
“He was. It has broken his mother’s heart. It was strange that you
should have been there.”
“I did not even know his name, till——” I paused.
He uncovered a haggard face.
“Well, it is over; the past cannot be recalled. Would you care to
come into my firm?”
He made the offer hurriedly, as if anxious to escape from painful
thoughts.
He then laid his plan before me. I was to come into the firm and
learn the business of stockbroking. Further than that he was not
prepared to go, and he made no promises.
He looked at me steadily as he said this, and I gathered that if I
were satisfactory I might hope for all things. A glance at his face
convinced me that he was not the man to recede from any promise,
no matter how much his sympathy with me became a diminishing
quantity, providing my abilities were sufficient. I accepted his offer. It
might be possible to use the situation as a lever. It certainly put an
end to the obscurity which I had considered so strong an asset. I
have often wondered before and since the trial whether my original
plans might not have been more successful. I believe that they would
have furnished more adventure and excitement. At the same time,
the difficulties would have been almost insurmountable, and—well, I
chose my methods and I failed, although I have consolation in the
brilliance of the failure.
I was to have two hundred and fifty pounds a year to begin with.
It was decidedly a princely offer, considering that he would be paying
for the trouble of teaching me.
“Later on, Mr. Rank, it would give me pleasure to present you to
my wife. At present I am afraid that you, in the plenitude of your
youth and manhood, might rouse sad thoughts.”
He drew me a cheque for twenty pounds, and, taking me into the
outer office, introduced me to his manager, chief clerk, and the staff
generally, and, asking me to be at the office at ten o’clock the next
morning, dismissed me.
I walked all the way back to Clapham thinking deeply. Financially
I was evidently out of danger for life, and I had good warrant for
dreaming of myself at the head of Mr. Gascoyne’s firm. It was proof
of how entirely the Gascoyne coronet had become an obsession with
me, that the prospect of a permanent income, with wealth, even, in
the perspective of middle life, did not in any way suggest that I
should relinquish the glittering prize on which I had set my heart.
Perhaps if Mr. Gascoyne’s offer had come before my first success I
might have abandoned my purpose, but it would have been
obviously absurd to burden I had almost said my conscience—so
strong is the habit of conventional thought—with a murder abortively.
I could not help smiling ironically on recalling Mr. Gascoyne’s evident
liking for me. According to all rules of accepted psychology I should
have had something unpleasant in my personality which he should at
once have detected. It was extraordinarily remiss on the part of
instinct that it should not have been so.
 Grahame Hallward came in to see me that evening and was
overjoyed at my news. He was evidently impressed when he learned
that it was my relationship to the Gascoyne family which had
secured me such an advantageous situation.
“So after all, Israel, what you used to tell me was true.”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
“Not since the day you gave me your word of honour that it was
so.”
It may appear strange, but I have always been singularly
fastidious about my word of honour.
Grahame then broke to me some news which came as a
staggering blow. Sibella was engaged to Lionel Holland.
“The one thing I really like about Holland,” he concluded, “is the
way he has stuck to Sibella.”
I could not simulate indifference, and Grahame saw that his
announcement had been a shock to me.
I stood looking out on the little garden with its soot-begrimed
walls which the sunset had drenched in scarlet, trying to control the
tempest of feeling which surged within me.
Grahame understood, and came over, putting his arm round my
neck.
“I am so sorry, Israel. I quite understand. Really, I’d sooner it were
you.”
I smiled somewhat bitterly.
Grahame’s preference for me was hardly a consolation, fond as I
was of him.
“I’ll come over on Sunday,” I said.
“Do.” He understood my anxiety to impress Sibella with the idea
that I did not care. I wondered whether things would have been
different had Sibella known of my altered prospects. I was convinced
that I held at least an equal place with Lionel Holland in such
affection as Sibella was capable of. It was Thursday; by Sunday I
might possibly have conquered the first sting of chagrin sufficiently to
conceal my feelings. The excitement of my new venture in life was
entirely lost in the night of despair I passed. Equally with the
Gascoyne earldom, Sibella was my ambition. She was the kind of
girl to whom the position of Countess Gascoyne would have come
quite naturally. In common with her brothers and sisters she had that
which would have enabled her to carry off any dignity, frivolous and
superficial as her real nature was. I had dreamed of the joy of
placing her in a position so very much above anything she could
have expected.
Still, the battle was not over. I believed in my power to conquer
her in competition with Lionel Holland, if I were given equal worldly
advantages, and it seemed as if such advantages were coming my
way.
The fact that I was unable to idealise Sibella never cooled my
love. I burned for her, and frankly confessed it. For the rest, she had
spirits and special magnetism enough to make her a delightful
companion. A great many of her faults matched my own
weaknesses. I sympathised with her desire for beautiful clothes at
any cost, as well as with her yearning for the right of entry to that
society which the middle classes exalt by envying and imitating.
I made up my mind to fight, and went for the first time to Mr.
Gascoyne’s office somewhat comforted by the mere determination to
give battle to my rival.
I discovered very speedily that the work suited me admirably. The
rest of the clerks evidently gathered that my being taken into the firm
had been made a special feature of, for they treated me almost with
deference.
I had by this time fixed on the next member of the Gascoyne
family whom I intended to remove. It was Henry Gascoyne, the
orphan son of Patrick Gascoyne. He had a sister, but all intervening
females yielded precedence to my mother, as heiress to her father. It
was therefore not necessary to consider her. Her brother was about
twenty-two years of age, and by a little inquiry I learned that he was
at Oxford, where he had already gained a reputation as one of those
who might do wonderful things if he chose to apply himself, but who
preferred to be content with the reputation of his potentialities and
the cultivation of as much muscle as was consistent with nights
spent in hard drinking. I inspected his father’s will at Somerset
House, and learned that he and his sister had been left some fifteen
thousand pounds apiece, which capital, however, they could not
touch till Henry Gascoyne was twenty-five. His sister was entirely
devoted to him, and spent her own income in keeping up a small
house in the New Forest which he had inherited from his father. He
would have been content to let the whole place go to rack and ruin,
but devotion to her father’s memory, and a desire to have a place
which her brother might look upon as home, induced her to support
the establishment entirely out of her own resources. So much I had
learned from two or three visits paid at irregular intervals to the
neighbourhood.
 Chapter VIII
The Sunday after Grahame had brought me the news of Sibella’s
engagement I visited the Hallwards. I managed to get through a
conventional speech of congratulation, stung to self-possession by a
certain radiance and exhilaration in Sibella’s bearing. Grahame had
told them of my good fortune, and there was a distinct change of
manner towards me on the part of the other members of the family.
They had never wholly believed that I was related to the Gascoynes,
or had thought that if it were true I was making the most of a very
remote connection. To them I had been the object for as much
patronage as they dared display towards one not prone to endure
condescension. I could see that Sibella looked at me with a new
interest. She was growing into a truly beautiful woman, and all trace
of the slightly suburban minx was becoming rapidly obliterated by a
crescendo of style and distinction. It was quite evident that she
would have the manners and self-possession of a thoroughly well-
bred beauty, and she had acquired a facility for putting on her
clothes with an altogether overpowering effect of distinction. It
seemed to me a little curious that a character which I knew to be
somewhat small should have achieved a certain impression of
breadth and ease in her personality. Probably it was the result of the
unquestionable fact of her extreme beauty. At any rate, she was
rapidly learning the secret of predominance, and she showed,
captivating and delicious, in distinct relief to her surroundings.
Mr. Gascoyne’s twenty pounds had enabled me, through the
purchase of decent boots, gloves, etc., to bring my wardrobe into
play again. I had dressed as rakishly as possible, determined that
Sibella should have no satisfaction in the dejection of an
unsuccessful lover. I knew her character and the pleasure she would
have derived from it. I simulated the best of spirits, and Grahame
loyally helped me to sustain the illusion. I was inwardly consumed
with jealousy whenever my hungry eyes fell upon her, but I roused
myself for a tour de force in acting and succeeded. Lionel Holland
came in later. I saw him through the large drawing-room windows
coming up the path, supremely confident and jaunty. He was
evidently surprised to see me. We had not met since the evening of
my humiliation. I greeted him cordially, however, and he was obliged
to be civil, but I had the satisfaction of feeling that he was by no
means at his ease. He was so perfectly assured that, being poor, I
was an interloper in a well-to-do house, that he would have liked, I
am sure, to ask me what the devil I meant by intruding. I on my part
was galled by the attitude of superior intimacy he assumed in a
house where I had been intimate when he was a stranger to it. I was
perfectly determined that he should not dislodge me, and that
nothing he said or did should interfere with my visits to the Hallward
establishment. He was staying to supper as a matter of course, and I
detected a shade of annoyance on his face when Mrs. Hallward, in
consequence of an aside from Grahame, extended an invitation to
me to do likewise. I accepted, although I was compelled to submit to
the disappearance of the lovers to the schoolroom for fully an hour
previous to the meal. I sang and played to the others as I had been
in the habit of doing, and worked hard to make myself agreeable. I
was so far successful that Mrs. Hallward asked me why I came so
seldom, and discussed the Gascoyne family in a corner of the
drawing-room with me after supper. She was herself the great-grand-
daughter of a Nova Scotian baronet and never forgot it, although she
had saving perception enough not to allude to it directly. As a rule
she brought it in with some such remark as—“There is I believe a
baronetcy knocking about in our own family somewhere—where
exactly I don’t know—but it is there,” a remark subtly framed, so as
to convey the impression that, being no snob, she forbore to mention
how very near the said baronetcy was, in fact, that it was knocking
about so very near that it was quite possible a collision might occur
at any moment.
She was most decidedly a snob, but not of an objectionable kind.
As a matter of fact, I have always considered well-bred snobs rather
pleasant people, and have often wondered whether they would have
been as well bred if they had not been snobs. People who love the
pleasantly decorative in life have at least taste, and the preference
for titles, fine surroundings and social paraphernalia may be a form
of art.
“Do you and Lionel ever see each other in the City?” asked
Sibella, who, I had already remarked, was not so much in love that
she could refrain from teasing her lover.
“Never,” said Lionel shortly.
“For eighteen months I hardly went near the City,” I answered.
“Doing other things?” asked Lionel, in an unpleasant tone.
“Living on my capital,” I answered airily, giving him a keen, steady
glance of daring. “It was the most beautiful time I have ever had, and
I don’t regret it. It will never come again, and I might have spent it in
a dingy City office.”
“Earning your living,” put in Lionel.
“There was no necessity,” I laughed.
Grahame gazed at Lionel in haughty inquiry as if desirous of
knowing what he meant by being rude to his guest.
In fact, Lionel’s airs of intimacy and general at-homeness
obviously irritated Grahame not less than the constant use of his
Christian name.
I declined to be drawn into displaying the least sign of
annoyance, although Holland seized every opportunity to deliver
innuendo or satire, the latter weapon in his hands becoming more
often than not mere clumsy facetiousness. I made a point of being
gay, and without talking of my prospects in Mr. Gascoyne’s firm took
very good care to leave the impression that it was their promising
nature that accounted for my good-humour. I managed by judicious
circumlocution and tact to bring the conversation round to
reminiscences, throwing them far enough back to prevent his joining
in, and slyly flattering Sibella on the subject of her childish
achievements so that she revived memories with zest, and became
engrossed with the recapitulation of events and bygone adventures
in which I, and not Lionel Holland, appeared as her cavalier.
“I believe Lionel is getting jealous,” she remarked towards the
end of supper, noticing her lover’s sulky taciturnity.
I had been secretly sure of that fact for the last twenty minutes,
and had been enjoying a discomfiture which the rest of the company
had not appreciated. He had also, as I perceived, grasped that
whenever I chose I was quick and dexterous enough to leave him
conversationally a laggard every time.
Not that I relied on these qualities to pass him in the race for
Sibella’s appreciation. My instinct in female psychology was too
sure. Certainly, if such superficial qualities could have dazzled any
woman, they would have dazzled Sibella, whose mind was prone to
skim airily and gracefully the surface of things. Even the most
transparent of women, however—if there be such things as
transparent women—elude analysis when the exact qualities which
attract them in their lovers come under consideration.
Sibella was hardly the character one would have imagined
overlooking the pinchbeck in Lionel Holland, and yet she had
accepted it with a most surprising ease. Such a surrender seemed to
negative all her leanings, at any rate in surface matters, to the well-
bred and socially ascending scale. True, he would be rich, but
Sibella had other admirers who would be richer. He had personality,
and perhaps this wins with women more than anything. With all his
faults he was not insignificant, and he was undeniably a very
beautiful young man, notwithstanding his obvious veneer.
I had taken my courage in my hands and stayed and smoked
with Grahame in the library, knowing full well that Lionel and Sibella
were in each other’s arms in the schoolroom. It is strange how we
manage to endure the things which in anticipation were to slay us
with their mere agony.
Mr. and Mrs. Hallward were lax in their supervision of the
engaged couple, as they had been about everything else in
connection with their children. Sibella and her lover remained
undisturbed when her father and mother retired for the night, and it
was passably late for a young woman of respectable family to be
letting her lover out when the front door closed behind him. She
evidently heard our voices, for she came into the library.
“You two still here?”
She seated herself on the club-fender. She was wide awake, and
I remembered that as a child she had never betrayed sleepiness at
children’s parties—she always expressed her capacity to stay up to
any hour. Her family complained that she never could be induced to
rise in proper time in the morning.
“Isn’t it lovely, Israel, for you to have had such a piece of luck!”
“Oh, I shall always fall on my feet,” I answered, easily. “You see, I
was born lucky, and that is better than being born rich.”
“How do you know you were born lucky?” she asked with interest.
I was not to be questioned out of my pose. “It’s like genius. An
instinct teaches the genius to know himself, and something of the
same thought instructs the lucky man.”
I spoke with such perfect good spirits and conviction that I could
see she found herself believing me. She perched herself on the edge
of the great desk which occupied the centre of the library and asked
for a cigarette.
“Don’t smoke, Sibella,” said Grahame. He was the sort of man
who would not have objected to the female belongings of anyone
else smoking, but who objected to his own doing so, on the ground
that it was his business to see that they suffered no material damage
in the eyes of the world.
“What nonsense, Grahame! Of course I shall smoke—as much
as I like—well no, not quite as much as I like because that would
spoil my teeth, and I don’t intend to do anything that would injure my
personal appearance.”
“That is a very patriotic resolve,” I laughed. “There is some
beauty so striking that it becomes a national property.”
Sibella made a face.
“Thank you. I’m nothing of the kind.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t flatter Sibella,” said Grahame. “She is
vain enough already.”
“So long as she is vain and not conceited it does not matter.”
“The difference?”
“Well, vanity is a determination to make the best of our
superiorities whilst frankly admitting them; conceit is a morbid desire
to enforce the fact on other people.”
“Subtle,” murmured Grahame, who never spoke above his middle
tones, “but I am not convinced. Sibella thinks a great deal too much
of herself.”
 “It is better than thinking too little of one’s self,” said Sibella,
blowing rings of smoke and pursing up her lips deliciously, till I could
have cried out on her for heartlessness.
“Very much better,” I assented. “People who think too little of
themselves generally end by a mock humility which is a form of
conceit infinitely tedious. No, believe me, the vanity you decry has in
it something of virtue.”
Grahame turned to Sibella.
“Haven’t you noticed, Sibella, how much older Israel has grown of
late?”
“Not in looks,” cried Sibella. “To-night he looks like a boy.”
This idea pleased me. The author of the secret that lay in young
Gascoyne’s grave looking almost a boy savoured of the
incongruous, for which I had developed an appetite.
“I didn’t mean in appearance,” said Grahame. “Israel looks as if
he had never had a trouble.”
The idea pleased me even more. Grahame’s criticism showed
that I was playing my game with the right effect, and that the weeks
of prostration following on the successful coup at Lowhaven had left
no effect. Sibella, from her very nature, could not forbear giving me
one or two glances with just enough of feeling in them to fill the
atmosphere with a vague suggestion of sentimentality, but I behaved
as if the very air she breathed was not to me love’s own narcotic. I
fought fiercely against myself lest I should give the least sign that her
power over me was supreme as ever.
“What lovely chocolates you used to bring me, Israel!”
I laughed buoyantly.
“Ah, but you remember the first Lionel brought you. They cost
more.”
“As if I cared for that!”
Grahame laughed in his turn.
“As if, Sibella dear, you ever cared for anything else.”
Grahame had the most incomparable way of pointing out
people’s faults to their faces without offence.
Sibella, however, looked angry.
“No one can say that I am mercenary.”
 I was at some pains not to join Grahame in the roar of laughter
provoked by this remark. Sibella knew of old how impossible it was
for her to cope with Grahame, so she turned the batteries of her
anger on me.
“I believe you quite agree with Grahame.”
“What about?”
“About my being mercenary.”
“I am sure I don’t.”
“Then why did you laugh?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, I’m not mercenary, am I?”
“Of course not.” I smiled.
She detected the irony.
“Lionel never says such things to me.” For one instant I felt the
lash and smarted. I was half inclined to retort “Lionel is the prince of
good manners,” but that would have given her the satisfaction she
was waiting for, and most likely she would have gone to bed.
Grahame at heart was very proud of Sibella, but he, like myself,
was under no delusions about her. His special fondness was also
partly a result of their having been so much together as children. Mr.
and Mrs. Hallward’s other children were much older, and with the
exception of Miss Hallward, an unmarried spinster verging on forty,
were either married or out in the world. Miss Hallward, who must
have been singularly handsome in her youth, and who as a matter of
fact was so still, had devoted her whole life to her brothers and
sisters, and was particularly fond of Sibella, who made use of her in
every possible way. Miss Hallward had always been singularly kind
to me, and I liked her.
I could well remember an incident which occurred on the
occasion of one of my first visits to the house. Sibella had been
asked to do something by Miss Hallward and had refused, and,
working herself into a rage, had told her sister, who at that time could
not have been more than thirty, that she was a disappointed old maid
and that nobody had wanted to marry her because she was so
unattractive. Miss Hallward had grown very white, and had turned on
Sibella with a fierceness I never saw her display before or after. The
occurrence was unimportant, except that it served to frame her, as it
were, in the past of an unhappy love story, and she was always the
more interesting to me because of it.
When I said good-bye to Sibella I felt sure that she was more
interested in me than she had been since as a boy of sixteen I had
declared my passion and had been granted the privilege of kissing
her when opportunity offered, little love passages of which Grahame
had remained in entire ignorance. I also saw that I had succeeded in
giving her the impression I was aiming at—that I was wholly freed
from her spell. To a girl of Sibella’s temperament this is at all times
amazing, and so far from being glad at her rejected lover being in
spirits she was at pains to detect the unhealed wound. Still, she was
in her way really in love with Lionel Holland, and was not prepared to
invest more than the smallest superfluity of coquetry and fascination
in bringing me again into her net. I verily believe it would have given
her some pleasure to see Holland and myself at each other’s throats.
Then she would probably have been content to leave me to some
other woman. Had she known how near I was at times to seizing her
in my arms and kissing her, with or without her will, she would have
been satisfied—more, I think she would have been frightened.
She had a peculiar and unexpected effect on me. I found myself
wavering in my purpose, and returning once more to the question
which I had thought decided as to whether the risk I ran was worth
the prize. I even found myself troubled with scruples as to the taking
of life, and for some weeks was in serious danger of abandoning my
undertaking.
And yet I cannot say that Sibella had any direct influence for
good upon me, and it would have been hard to define why she
should have exercised a restraining influence upon me at all.
I continued my visits to the Hallwards and saw that her pique at
my apparent indifference to her engagement grew.
She might have been content with the number of admirers to
whom it had obviously been a matter of some moment, but Sibella
wanted the one admirer to care who was apparently indifferent.
I evidently pleased Mr. Gascoyne at the office, for his cordiality
towards me increased daily. I threw into my manner towards him just
as much of the filial attitude as I could without suggesting the least
desire to usurp the place of his dead son.
 After a few weeks he asked me to come and dine and meet his
wife.
“By the way, Rank, my wife does not know that you are a relative
of mine, and for certain reasons I would sooner you did not mention
it—at least yet.”
He was evidently nervous lest his wife might think he had been
quick to fill their dead son’s place.
“I have my reasons, and I am asking you to oblige me,” he added
cordially, noting the faint look of surprise I thought it policy to
assume; it would never have done to let him think I could be treated
unceremoniously.
I dined at the house in South Kensington, outside which I had so
often watched. It seemed a quiet and sad household. Mrs. Gascoyne
possessed the feminine capacity for filling the house with the
presence of her dead, and turning a home into a tomb. Mr.
Gascoyne was pleased that I managed to make her smile once or
twice, and said as much as we sat over our wine.
“I am afraid there is very little to amuse you here, but I should be
glad if you would dine with us now and then. I think my wife likes
you. You have dignity, and she always likes people with dignity.”
I laughed.
“You have been very good to me, sir,” I said.
“I see in you excellent qualities, Israel.” It was the first time he
had ever called me by my Christian name. I was obviously
progressing in his esteem.
He was right. I had excellent qualities. I always had. I am
affectionate, naturally truthful and kind-hearted. My secret deeds
have been an abstraction, in no way in tune with the middle tones of
my character.
Mr. Gascoyne was essentially a business man, and it was my
business qualities which appealed to him most. I had a natural gift
for order and method, and although he was not given to praise, I
detected a look of pleased surprise when I displayed some unusual
perception of what was wanted in a particular situation. Lionel
Holland, who at least seemed to have imbibed a wholesome fear of
irritating me when we were together, could not witness my progress
in the scale of prosperity without making an attempt to injure me in
the eyes of my employer.
It appeared that he knew a fellow-clerk of mine, a youth who
considered that I had ousted him from the place which should in time
have been his. I had not been in the office a couple of hours before I
grasped this fact. He was a pleasant fellow enough in an ordinary
way, but his disappointment had brought out—as far as his relations
towards me were concerned—his worst points. He had a slight
acquaintance with Lionel Holland. This acquaintance the latter
improved upon, and I was not a little surprised to find Harry Cust one
Sunday afternoon sitting in the Hallwards’ drawing-room. He was
staying with Lionel from Saturday till Monday, and I think it gave his
host infinite pleasure to introduce him where I had been known from
childhood—though what particular satisfaction it was to him I could
not quite see.
I soon realised that my life’s history was in the possession of my
fellow-clerks. I was too much in favour with Mr. Gascoyne for them to
venture to show the contempt they felt because my mother had let
lodgings. I would have been glad if one of them had had the temerity
to throw it in my teeth, for an insult to my dead mother would have
found me a perfectly normal person with an absolutely primal sense
of loyalty.
 Chapter IX
I missed no opportunity of finding out every detail of young Henry
Gascoyne’s college career. From all accounts he must have been
surprisingly lazy, for no one ever spoke of him without giving him
credit for great abilities. He was at Magdalen, had just scraped
through his Mods at the end of his second year, and had then
apparently given up any idea of serious work, for in a few months his
devotion to pleasure and his defiance of college rules became so
acute that he was ignominiously sent down. A few days after this
auspicious ending to his career as a student, I met him riding in the
neighbourhood of his New Forest home with a most cheerful
countenance, and humming a tune. I was on my bicycle, and later I
came across him again in a by-lane down which I had turned with
the object of smoking a pipe. My appearance was quite unexpected
and a little awkward. His horse was tethered to a gate, and folded in
his arms was a remarkably pretty girl of the cottager class. I
wondered if all the human obstacles between myself and the
Gascoyne earldom were engaged in surreptitious love affairs.
The girl drew back hastily and hid her face, but not before I
detected that she had been crying. I was walking my bicycle, and
was a little annoyed that Henry Gascoyne had had such a good
opportunity of seeing me. He was evidently thoroughly wasting his
time from the worldly point of view, though I should probably have
agreed—had he put the matter to me—that he was making the best
of his youth.
He was not exactly handsome, but he had a colouring which,
despite his dissipated life, gave assurance of clean blood. He was
well made, and had hair the colour of ripe corn. Notwithstanding,
however, his eminently healthy appearance his self-indulgence had
absolutely no limitations except such as were prescribed by good
form, and he was prepared to leap even this boundary if he could do
so without danger of being seen.
He had the misfortune to be cursed until seventy times seven
with the forgiveness of his friends; Harry Gascoyne was not a person
they could be angry with for long. He had been known to steal a
man’s mistress and yet retain his friendship, and as I saw him that
summer morning, booted and spurred, playing with the little cottage
maiden as a cat might have done with a mouse, the indulgence he
managed to secure for himself from his fellow-men was not difficult
to understand.
I knew that his next move would be London. A young man with
means and no one to control his actions is as sure to gravitate
towards London as the lizard is to seek the sun. His sister, who
should have been the man, urged a profession, suggesting the army,
but Harry Gascoyne kicked at the mere idea of a life of routine and
discipline. This much I had gathered at the tiny little inn half a mile
from the Gascoynes’ house, which was much frequented by the old
man who combined for them the office of indoor and outdoor
factotum. The keeper of the public-house itself had been placed in
his present position by Harry Gascoyne’s father, so that the
establishment quite partook of the character of a feudal outpost. In
addition, the landlady had been cook at the Grange.
“ ’E’ll never do no work, won’t Mr. ’Arry,” said the old factotum, as
he smoked his pipe on the wooden seat by the doorway and
surveyed the pines etched black against the crimson flush of the
setting sun.
“Not ’e, not ’e,” agreed the landlord, taking in the prospect with as
little poetical refreshment as his companion.
They were very proud of being able to converse with intimate
knowledge of the gentlefolk living hard by, and conducted their
conversation like inferior actors, casting side glances at their
audience to watch the effect of the performance. Their audience was
myself, seated on the wooden bench on the other side of the
doorway and regaling myself with cold beef and pickles. Vanity has
always kept me from drinking alcohol in any form, otherwise I verily
believe I might have been a drunkard. I think, perhaps, that being
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