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Title: The Night Visitor and Other Stories
Author: Bennett, Enoch Arnold (1867-1931)
Date of first publication: 1931
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Cassell, 1931
Date first posted: 14 April 2009
Date last updated: 14 April 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #299

This ebook was produced by: Jon Ingram
& the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe
at http://dp.rastko.net




[Transcriber's note: The list of "Works by the same author" has been
moved to the end of this file.]




THE NIGHT VISITOR

AND OTHER STORIES

By

ARNOLD BENNETT


CASSELL AND COMPANY LTD

London, Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney

_First published 1931_

_Printed in Great Britain_




CONTENTS

  THE NIGHT VISITOR                         1

  THE CORNET-PLAYER                        23

  MURDER!                                  39

  THE HAT                                  61

  UNDER THE HAMMER                         81

  THE WIND                                105

  HONOUR                                  131

  THE FIRST NIGHT                         153

  THE SEVEN POLICEMEN                     177

  MYRTLE AT SIX A.M.                      199

  STRANGE AFFAIR AT AN HOTEL              219

  THE SECOND NIGHT                        241

  THE UNDERSTUDY                          263

  THE PEACOCK                             291

  DREAM                                   313

  BACCARAT                                331

  THE MOUSE AND THE CAT                   353




THE NIGHT VISITOR

I


Marriage, said someone, is one long patience. It usually is not. But
it ought to be. Although Anthony Reels was held to be a remarkable
inventor, and by reason of his gifts held a fine and a rather free
position in an immense new, efficient manufacturing Combine which was
trying to destroy the British reputation for muddle, he was little if
anything above the average, considered as a husband. And Luce Reels
was little, if anything, above the average of wives. The twain had
their difficulties from time to time. They had also a child, which was
continuous. Rosie had reached the age of three. Some of the marital
difficulties originated in Rosie. Luce contended that Rosie was no
ordinary child. Anthony, partly in order to tease his wife, contended
that Rosie was just an ordinary child. This divergence of
view--whether genuine or assumed--about the most important subject on
earth, was apt to produce a general domestic atmosphere not entirely
favourable to peace and tranquillity, an atmosphere in which discord
and conflict flourished.

The season was winter, the weather bleak. Influenza raged. Theatres
were full of coughs. Sixty per cent of invitations were refused on
account of illness. The Reelses had decided to go South. Anthony had
done a great work, likely to lead to vast profits for his firm, and
he needed a change. Excellent! But Luce had said that the child,
complete with nurse and all impedimenta, must accompany them. Anthony
had protested with customary violence against the preposterous notion
of taking an infant on a thirty-hour journey by sea and land into an
alien clime. What Anthony wanted was a _change_. There could be no
change for him if he was to be charged with the responsibilities of a
family. A wife, yes! A family--No! Moreover, the infant would be
better and safer at home, in its fixed daily routine, with a nurse
faithful and competent. Change was bad for infants, who were all
Tories and objected to any disturbance of routine.

Luce won. All arrangements were accomplished for shutting up the flat;
tickets taken; rooms engaged. But Anthony, a wonderful comedian,
carried his dark grievance beneath a lightsome exterior. Anthony was
secretly resentful, not because he felt himself to be in the right,
but because he felt himself to be in the wrong. (Luce had handsomely
defeated him in argument.) We others, of course, are only rendered
gloomy and resentful when, being beaten, we know ourselves to be in
the right. Anthony was different. We are Anthony's moral superiors.

Anthony said to himself: "If she thinks I'm going for a very necessary
holiday with this child, this nurse, this perambulator, this special
bed, these special foods, these kettles and contraptions, she is
mistaken. I will be ill. I will be too ill to travel." So on the
morning before the planned departure he began to be ill. His acting
was brilliant and diplomatically contrived. He stayed in bed, but he
said: "It's nothing. I'm only tired. I'll get up for lunch." He
managed to give to his optimistic assurance a tone of unreality, the
tone of a brave man resisting adversity for the sake of beloved
creatures. He did not get up for lunch. He would get up for dinner.
But he did not get up for dinner. He laughed nobly at the suggestion
of a doctor.

It was an odious spectacle, this spectacle of a clever and successful
man of thirty-six, a genius perhaps, fully grown, entirely adult,
naughtily feigning to be ill when he was not ill.

Left alone for a few minutes by his attendant loving wife, he smiled
devilishly to himself:

"I'll teach her!" he thought.

Then he was startled by the unexpected arrival of the doctor whom he
had refused to see.

"There will be trouble now," thought he. "This fiend of a medico will
see through my sham."

But no! There was not the least trouble. Dr. Bain accepted seriously
Anthony's ingenious account of his symptoms. He took the false
patient's temperature, and, shaking the thermometer, pronounced it to
be a fraction under a hundred. He would not say whether or not the
patient could safely travel on the morrow; but he promised to call
very early the next morning and decide then. Luce was exceedingly
worried. However, she too was brave and optimistic on the surface, and
continued her elaborate preparations for departure on the assumption
that everything would turn out for the best.


II

Having wakened in the middle of the night, Anthony, for some reason
which he could not explain, began to read the Bible. He was not by
habit an ardent reader, and particularly not an ardent reader of the
Bible; but he always kept a Bible on the table by his bedside, in case
he might feel a desire to read it, and he never felt the desire. Now,
almost before being aware of the fact, lo! he was reading the
Bible,--the love-story of Amnon and Tamar.

"After all," said he to himself, "it's great stuff, the Bible is,"
implying that he was appreciating the greatness of the Book for the
first time.

All very odd! His right-hand, exposed to the air of the room, grew
cold. Then he realized that the door communicating with Luce's chamber
was being cautiously opened.

"A stroke of luck!" thought he wickedly, "that I should be awake. A
bit of convincing detail, that! What's she after?"

Out of the tail of his eye he saw her,--her auburn hair (disarranged),
her flushed girlish face, her sapphire-coloured dressing-gown (his
favourite).

"Hello!" he murmured, with an affected weakness of voice. "Anything
wrong?"

"No," answered Luce, in one of her affectionate, anxious tones. "But I
saw the light under the door and I wondered whether you were worse or
whether you'd gone to sleep and left the light on."

"I'm perfectly all right, thanks," said he, with an accent to show
that in his opinion he was far, far from perfectly all right. "I
couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd try to read a bit."

Luce was bending over him. Yes, she looked surprisingly young for
thirty-two.

"What are you reading?"

"Oh! The Bible. Now you get back to bed, and sleep, my girl."

She put her hand on his forehead.

"You're a bit hot," said she.

"My hand isn't," said he.

She was about to kiss him fondly.

"Don't kiss me," he warned her. "I'm infectious--or  contagious. You
might give it to Rosie." She withdrew her lips.

"I'll kiss the back of your neck," said she, with a celestial smile.

She inclined her long body, and she did kiss him on the back of his
neck.

"Sure you aren't worse?" she asked, apprehensive.

"Oh, no!" Again with artful unconvincingness.

Luce sighed courageously, and departed. A delicious experience for
Anthony. It proved that their hostility had vanished, that she was
still passionately attached to him. He felt ashamed of his duplicity.
Imagine deceiving so loyal and tender a creature! Still, he had begun
the fraud, and he must carry it through. Besides, she had defied and
vanquished him about the child, and she deserved some punishment. He
extinguished the light (so that it should not disturb her loving
watchfulness), but for a long period he could not sleep. Indeed, he
felt quite unwell. Curious, how the soul reacts on the body!


III

The next morning Dr. Bain arrived very early, saying brightly that he
had to start his day's work at dawn because of the epidemic of
influenza, which was running him off his feet. He was a middle-aged
man, but apparently incapable of being fatigued. His examination of
Anthony was absurdly rapid.

"Out of the question," he remarked.

"What's out of the question?" Anthony demanded.

The doctor glanced aside at Anthony's trunk which lay in a corner all
packed save for a few trifles.

"Your leaving to-day--_or_ to-morrow or the next day," said he; and,
having said it, Dr. Bain went away. Luce followed him out of the room.

"The fellow's mad!" thought Anthony. "I've a good mind to get up."

Still, the prestige of a doctor is such that, though he may be mad, he
must be obeyed. Anthony had successfully deceived the world; but he
was conscious of a regret.

"Well," said Luce, returning. "It's all off then. So that's that." She
gave her husband a smile, as if to inspire him with hope in his
illness.

"What's supposed to be the matter with me?" Anthony questioned.

"'Flu, naturally!" said Luce. "The doctor thinks you ought to have a
nurse."

"Rot!" Anthony ejaculated.

Luce calmly continued:

"He says they're difficult to get just now; but he'll get one. He'll
have her here this afternoon."

Anthony was dumbfounded. The whole world was mad.

"But how shall you manage?" he asked at length, in amaze. The
sensation of being a criminal crushed him.

"Oh!" Luce answered with spurious calm. "Mary will stay. Quite
simple."

Mary was the sole private servant in the home, which was a
service-flat.

"We can use the railway tickets later on," said Anthony. "But the
train seats to Dover and in the Blue Train will be wasted."

"Don't _worry_" Luce enjoined him masterfully. "I shall telephone
about them."

A capable little thing, she was!

Anthony slept. Upon waking he noticed that the trunk had gone from the
room.

The nurse arrived in the afternoon, according to prophecy. She struck
Anthony as hard and domineering. Within a very brief time she was
mistress of the room, and the bedside table was laden with such things
as a jug of lemonade, a box of cough-lozenges, some oranges, a bottle
of medicine, a glass, a tablespoon, and aspirin. Also, the nurse
announced that she would sit up, at least during the first part of the
night, and that she could sleep or doze quite comfortably in Anthony's
easy-chair.

All which was highly disconcerting. And an even more disconcerting
event occurred at about ten o'clock. Dr. Bain paid a second visit.

"I happened to be in the neighbourhood," said he, playing the casual,
"so I thought I might as well look in."

Anthony, hardly a man to be deceived by any clumsy imitation of
casualness, reflected:

"This looks fishy. Doctor twice in one day! _Am_ I ill? The fellow's a
fool. Or is he cadging visits at a guinea a go?"

Just as the fool or cadger was finishing, Luce appeared in the
doorway.

"Before you go, doctor, I'd like a word."

Luce left. The doctor left.

After a quarter of an hour or so Luce reappeared.

"Nurse," said she. "Can you spare a minute?" And to Anthony: "Rosie's
not well."

Luce left. The nurse left, and as she passed out she switched off the
electric light.


IV

About an hour and a half elapsed before the burglar sneaked into the
room.

But in the meantime much had happened--in Anthony's soul. He had begun
to feel lonely, neglected, and once more the influence of the soul on
the body became evident. For, feeling lonely and neglected, he felt
ill again. He was hot. The red glow of the electric radiator seemed
like some dim glare from Hades. It produced in him a very
uncomfortable sensation, and he slipped out of bed and extinguished
the radiator. Which unconsidered action left him in complete darkness
far from the bed. He reached the bed, by a roundabout route of
groping, hurt his toe against the foot of the night-table, jarred the
table and heard something drop from it on to the floor. By the sound
of its fall on the carpet he knew that the misplaced object must be
the metal box of cough-lozenges which among other things the doctor
had prescribed for him. Yes, he had had a very slight cough.

The cough now suddenly grew worse--for no reason except that that box
was lost on the floor. But, from mere contrariness, he would not
search for the box. He inserted himself into the bed, pulled the
clothes round his neck, and coughed loudly in the hope that he would
be heard over the whole flat. He was not heard. He determined to be a
martyr. His body ached as though it had been whipped. He was conscious
of a pain behind his eyes. His lips were dry.

Then the soles of his feet discovered that the hot-water bag was
practically a cold-water bag. Monstrous! His grievance as a dying man
forsaken waxed colossal. Strange, if he was too hot, that he should
manufacture a grievance out of the coldness of the hot-water bag!
Surely illogical? Not at all! The women responsible for the
temperature of the bag did not know that he was too hot. For anything
they knew he might be shivering with cold. He was indeed being
criminally neglected.... There could be no excuse.

Ages passed. He looked at the little radio-timepiece on the table. To
his astonishment and disgust the silver-green signs on the dial
indicated that the hour was eleven thirty. He had been utterly
abandoned for some ninety minutes! Infamous! He might have died. And
why had he been abandoned? Simply because the infant was a little
unwell, or deemed to be a little unwell. The infant, then, was
everything; and he was nothing! Naught! Yet who was the more
important: the babe who might develop into a brainless and insipid
female creature, or himself, a genius of an inventor, a man who had
done marvels in the application of science to industry, a celebrity
whose name was not infrequently in the papers and whom the mightiest
chairmen and directors of enormous commercial enterprises saluted with
marked respect?... No sense of proportion in the minds of women! No
justice on earth! His resentment was righteous and acute, and he held
it at a white heat.

Now Mr. Michael Fassbrooke, who was about to be in the same room as
this resentment, had none of the characteristics of the ordinary
burglar--except the desire to possess other people's property by
stealth and without paying for it. Some Irish blood pulsated in his
veins. He 'worked' alone, eschewing all gangs or cliques. He knew a
very great deal about the police, having been a sergeant-inspector of
constabulary in an important provincial city. He had been drawn, much
against his will, into a blackmail conspiracy in the Force of that
city. The conspiracy having been exposed, Mr. Fassbrooke, partly by
reason of his pleasant manners, and partly of a certain difficulty in
establishing his guilt, had been allowed to resign. The episode had
filled him with a grievance against society. After some starvation he
had come to London, and, by the dodge of forged credentials and
answering letters of inquiry addressed to himself under a false name,
had obtained a clerical post in the West End Travel Agency.

A small but growing agency. A small but not growing salary. However,
the smallness of the salary did not trouble him; what he wanted was
the post. The post enabled him to know when people of means were
shutting up their homes. Only a week earlier Mrs. Luce Reels, across a
counter of the Agency, while receiving from him various tickets and
vouchers, had herself told him all relevant details of the Reels
family movements. He had asked her if she had an All-in insurance
policy on the Reels flat. No, she had not. In her opinion to insure
the contents--especially jewellery--of a flat on the eighth floor of a
vast block was to throw money away. True, she possessed a ruby
necklace, far too valuable to expose to the risks of trains-de-luxe.
But Mrs. Reels, as she quietly and confidentially explained to the
urbane and confidential Mr. Fassbrooke, had discovered the ideal
method of keeping jewellery from harm. Saying no word to anybody, not
even to her husband, she had just deposited it, as it was--without
cases, on the top of a wardrobe: where no burglar would ever dream of
looking. Mr. Fassbrooke had openly expressed his admiration of her
ingenuity.

Thus, on the night of Anthony's resentment Mr. Fassbrooke knew
positively that the Reels flat would be empty. He knew almost
everything as to the flat and its tenants. The one trifling item which
he did not know was that Mrs. Reels had telephoned to the Agency in
the morning to ask whether the train reservations could be disposed
of, and had been regretfully told that they could not be, time being
too short for so complex an operation.

Mr. Fassbrooke, in evening-dress, had reached the eighth floor of the
vast block by the simple device of going up in the lift--to the ninth
floor, and walking down the stairs to the eighth. The night-liftman,
incurious and utterly unsuspicious, had saluted him with a respect,
taking him for a friend of some tenant of the ninth floor--a friend
who knew his way about the place. The principal bedrooms of the Reels
flat gave on the North Quadrangle. The squalid service-room (for
waiters) next to the Reels flat was, as generally at that hour, empty.
Mr. Fassbrooke entered it by the door and left it by the window. In a
minute he was on one of the Reels balconies. In another minute he had
by means of an instrument easily opened a French window. The blind was
drawn; the curtains were drawn; but neither blind nor curtains can
present any serious obstacle to a determined malefactor.... Mr.
Fassbrooke stood within the room, which was as dark as a Polar night
when snow is about to fall. He used his electric torch.

Then it was that his ear caught a sound--indeed a cough.


V

Thoughts ran through Mr. Fassbrooke's head in a galloping procession.
Burglary was a mug's game, the last resource of idiots. As a member of
the Force he had been well aware of this fact; but he had forgotten
it. Now he was aware of it again. You had no peace of mind. Your
nights were disturbed. You ran fantastic risks. And the profits, even
when you could realize them with safety, were entirely insufficient to
atone for the risks, the worry, and the lack of sleep. He had never
been caught, though at least once he had escaped arrest only by the
clemency of heaven. (In any case he was caught now.) He had in store
at home a quantity of precious things which he dared not, yet,
attempt to dispose of. Once he had laid hands on a couple of hundred
pounds in old and crumpled bank-notes. He had been sure that the
owner, a lady, was unacquainted with the numbers of the notes.
Nevertheless he could never change one without horrid, nauseating
pangs of apprehension. He was an ass. And so on.

In the tenth part of a second all these reflections crowded into his
brain. He must act instantly, wisely, perfectly. He must show such
supreme self-protective sagacity as no burglar and no politician in a
mess had ever shown before. But he could not decide instantaneously
upon the perfect act.

He shut off the torch as a preliminary precaution. Futile. Anthony
Reel switched on the bed-light. The pair were face to face. Anthony
had the formidable appearance of a tousled madman, capable of
inordinate homicidal furies. And Mr. Fassbrooke, though admittedly an
idiot, was not idiot enough to carry arms in the pursuit of his
nocturnal profession.

"Are you a specialist they've sent?" Anthony asked at a loss.

"Yes," Mr. Fassbrooke replied.

"I'm supposed to be very ill," said Anthony. "Do specialists carry
torches?"

"I do," said Mr. Fassbrooke.

A pause.

"I see what it is," Anthony went on with a lunatic smile, suddenly
enlightened. "You're a cat-burglar, that's what you are! Evening-dress
and all!"

"No," said Mr. Fassbrooke, feebly and unconvincingly.

"Then what the devil are you doing here? What _are_ you?"

"I'm an ass," said Mr. Fassbrooke.

He ought to have run. But whither? Moreover, somehow his feet had
been screwed down through the carpet into the floor-boards by the
unforeseen and the unexpected.

"I daresay," Anthony agreed, glancing at the timepiece. "But you can't
come along being an ass in people's bedrooms at twelve o'clock at
night. It isn't done. Stand still." Anthony sprang up threateningly.
"I understand. I see it all," he proceeded, through his teeth. "You
thought the flat was empty. Somebody on this d--d staff in this d--d
block of flats had told you that we were leaving this morning. But we
didn't leave this morning. We're here. And I'm very ill. Stand still.
My strength is the strength of ten. Well, anyhow, I can't be bothered
with you to-night. You get out. No, not by the door. The way you got
in. By the window--must have been. And look quick!"

"I can't," said Mr. Fassbrooke.

"You'd better. My wife may be in here any minute. And _she_ won't let
you off. Women never do."

"I can't," Mr. Fassbrooke repeated.

Anthony's tone suddenly changed to the mild-inquiring.

"Now tell me why not? I've often wanted to know all about
cat-burglars. Tell me, and I'll let you go. I promise."

"It's like this," said Mr. Fassbrooke. "I took off my overcoat----"

"Oh! So you had an overcoat?"

"Yes. I was in the service-room, and I took off my overcoat and threw
it from the window there on to your balcony here, and then I just sort
of sprang from the window-sill on to the edge of the balcony, and hung
on to the rail and climbed over, and here I was. But I couldn't jump
back _from_ the balcony _to_ the window-sill. I hope I make myself
clear."

"You do! You do!" said Anthony.

"And where's your overcoat now?"

"Hanging on the balcony rail."

"That's where you ought to be hanging," observed Anthony. "Tell me,
what made you take to burglary? Tell me confidentially. I won't repeat
it. Original sin?"

"No, sir. Original idiocy."

Mr. Fassbrooke gave a faint Irish smile. But Anthony laughed quite
loudly and at some length.

"That'll do," said Anthony. "Remove yourself. I've had enough of you.
If you meet anybody in the passage or the hall, don't argue. Just go
straight on. There are two latches on the front-door. It's the top one
that you need. Hey! One moment. I've dropped my cough-lozenges under
the bed. You might pick them up for me, there's a good fellow."

It was while Mr. Fassbrooke, with jingling burglarious master-keys in
his pocket, was obediently ferreting under the bed that Luce Reel
added herself to the scene.


VI

Mr. Fassbrooke recognized the vivacious voice of his late customer
Luce Reels, and he feigned death--an example of what is called
nature's protective mimicry. Luce inspected his moveless hinterland.
The man had put his opera-hat on the night-table. Luce's mind had been
full of another matter; but the strange spectacle of a man on his
knees, and his head beneath the bed, dislodged the other matter with a
jerk.

"Who is this gentleman?" she demanded excitedly and imperiously, for
she was hardly in a mood to be diplomatic.

The imitation corpse did not stir.

"He just looked in to pick up my cough-lozenges. They've dropped
somewhere," Anthony explained with a half-maniacal laugh.

"But who _is_ he?"

"I know everything about him except his name, my dear," Anthony
continued. "He's very interesting. Follows a remarkable profession.
Also he's capable of making himself generally useful, as you see."

"But who let him in?"

"He let himself in--by the window. He's a burglar, and the finest kind
of burglar--a cat-burglar. I've often wanted to meet a specimen. He
hasn't pinched anything. In fact I've tamed him. And as he's been so
kind about my cough-lozenges, I've promised him to let him go." And to
Mr. Fassbrooke, sternly: "Now then! Those cough-lozenges! Get _up_!"

Mr. Fassbrooke, who could devise nothing better to do, and who clearly
perceived the impossibility of remaining under the bed for ever and
ever, did get up, with what dignity he could summon, and seizing his
hat, deposited the box of cough-lozenges on its stand on the table.

Luce Reels gazed at him. He was rather a handsome fellow, and
possessed a good, slim figure. In the Force he had been somewhat
obese, for the Force has a mysterious fat-producing influence on all
its members; but the anxieties of his nocturnal profession had
diminished him considerably. Further, he was stylishly dressed, though
at the moment his clothes happened to be a bit rumpled. On the whole
he made an agreeable sight to the eye of a young, blonde woman who in
spite of a snub-nose and a plain house-frock was herself conscious of
certain claims to physical attractiveness.

"Anthony," said Luce at length, mildly reproving, and yet
humouring--as was proper to a sick man, "How absurd of you! This is
one of the gentlemen from the Travel Agency. I expect he's called
about those train-reservations. It was very kind of you, Mr.--er--I
don't quite remember your name. Please excuse my husband--he's far
from well."

"Of course, madam," said Mr. Fassbrooke.

Luce added, to nobody in particular:

"Though why Mary should have shown him in here I don't understand!"

Whereupon Anthony said crossly:

"_Do_ people call at midnight about train-reservations? And Mary
didn't show him in. Haven't I told you he came in by the window too
modestly, too unassumingly? Why can't you believe me? If you will take
the trouble to look you will see his overcoat hanging on the
balcony--unless it's fallen into the quadrangle. And I wish you'd shut
either the door or the window. Why do you always leave doors open? The
draught in this room is enough to blow the carpet off the floor."

A slight, chill current of air was indeed noticeable.

Luce went to the window and shut it, and in doing so she descried the
overcoat: which vision had the effect of changing the direction of her
ideas.

At the same instant, that is to say, simultaneously with the turning
of Luce's back, Mr. Fassbrooke shot towards the door. But with an even
greater velocity Anthony, all radiant in bright pyjamas and outraged
fury, shot from the bed, and grasped Mr. Fassbrooke's retreating arm
as in a steely vice: grip of the homicidal-insane.

"No you don't!" cried he. "No you don't! I promised I'd let you go,
and I will; but you're making mischief between me and my wife and I
won't stand it. My wife thinks I'm off my head, and you're letting her
think so. Why did you say 'Of course, madam'? Why didn't you admit
straight out what you are, you dirty rascal? Whether she saw you at
the Travel Agency or whether she didn't, I don't know and I don't
care. All I care about is that you should confess--_at_ once. Are you
a burglar or aren't you? Yes or no."

"Yes," responded Mr. Fassbrooke.

The response was very limp, like Mr. Fassbrooke's elegant bodily
structure. But who can blame him for limpness? In Mr. Fassbrooke's
place anybody else would have been limp and would have given the
answer that he gave.

"You go and stand in that corner," commanded Anthony, indicating a
corner by the window and far from the door.

Mr. Fassbrooke obeyed.

"I see it all!" Luce burst out.

And she did see it all.

"You'd better get back into bed," she said to her husband.

"I _am_ getting back into bed," said Anthony bitterly.

And he did get back into bed--coughed, and took a cough-lozenge.

"To think," said Luce, "that a so-called Travel Agency should
deliberately employ a man like you--worming things out of their
customers, and----"

"Don't be silly!" Anthony stopped her. "Deliberately'? You surely
don't suppose they had the slightest idea what kind of a man the man
was. The Travel Agency is perfectly innocent!"

Ignoring this reproof, Luce Reels said, with a new excitement:

"Has he been into my bedroom. My rubies----"

"He hasn't," Anthony stopped her again.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Anthony shouted, nearly beside himself with rage
at her doubts. "Why can't you believe me? You wouldn't believe me when
I told you the fellow was a cat-burglar, and now for the second time
you aren't believing me. Why is it that women will believe anybody
sooner than their husbands?"

Ignoring this reproof also, Luce said:

"I shall go round to the Agency first thing to-morrow morning and tell
them. You'll see--"

"Unnecessary, madam. I shall not be there any more," Mr. Fassbrooke
put in.

"No," said Luce with liveliness. "You won't be there. You'll be in the
lock-up."


VII

"Come here, my girl! Come here, I say!" Anthony ordered his wife, in
such a savage tone as no decent husband would use to his wife--unless
of course he were alone with her.

Luce, an independent enough wife of the latest modern pattern, obeyed
him, to her own astonishment. Perhaps it was only her legs that were
frightened, not herself. She stood defiant by the sick-bed.

"Didn't I tell you," said Anthony, "that I've given the man my word
that he may go free?"

"If you did, you were very silly," said Luce, suddenly enheartened by
the sound of her own voice.

"That's neither here nor there," said Anthony. "The point is that I
gave him my word. And permit me to say that it's very bad manners for
you to call me silly in front of a complete stranger--especially a
burglar. What will the criminal classes think of the intellectual
classes?"

"If you don't want to be called silly," Luce retorted. "You shouldn't
_be_ silly. I say it was very silly of you, and I stick to it. And
anyhow I've not given _my_ word, and I won't. As for your word, it
isn't worth anything, and it isn't going to be worth anything. You
can't be responsible for me. Nobody can be responsible for me except
me. I mean to telephone to the police, and neither you nor anyone else
can stop me."

Her accents had been quietly firm. She was showing, and she prided
herself on showing, the most marvellous self-control in a most
incredibly exasperating situation. Her self-control, however, seemed
to be powerless to induce self-control in her husband.

He seized her innocent wrist in a grip even crueller than that which
he had employed on the guilty shoulder of Mr. Fassbrooke. Then he
seized her other wrist in a similar grip. Then he shook her. The
victimized wife was being subjected to physical violence. She had an
impulse to cry out; but she nobly restrained it. As for Anthony, he
felt happy; he felt masculine; he felt that he was revenging upon the
person of Luce the innumerable grievances of the whole splendid,
too-patient tribe of husbands against all wives. He exulted in the
infliction of pain on the defenceless weak woman. It was the greatest
moment of his life. But it was also one of the most painful,
humiliating episodes in the annals of intellectual wedlock.

"Don't forget you're ill," said Luce, grimly setting her teeth.
"You'll only make yourself worse by these goings on."

"Oh!" cried Anthony. "So at last you've remembered that I'm ill, have
you? Here am I, ill, and I have a nurse and a doctor, and you take
them both away from me--together. I'm left alone, for hours and hours.
Nobody cares. I might have died. I might be a perfect nobody in this
flat that you made me take, though I don't want it.

"Who's the most important person in this flat? Possibly you think it's
yourself. Well, it isn't. Who are you, after all? What do you do?
Nothing but spend, spend, spend. Did you ever earn a penny in your
life? Not you! And you never will. You couldn't! You haven't got the
brains to earn anything, nor the application, nor the concentration.
You're nobody, nobody! And you think you're everybody. Every woman
thinks she's everybody. That's what's the matter with women, and the
matter with men is that they stand it, because they're so cursedly
good-natured. The harem ought to be introduced into this country. It's
needed. And the worst sign of civilization is that the Turks are doing
away with the harem. The Turks had some sense--once. Now they've lost
it. Everything's going to the dogs. And I suppose this is what I
fought for in the war.

"Am I one of the hopes of applied science or am I not? Am I a
first-rate inventor or am I not?" His voice rose higher. "Am I
superior to Edison or am I not? Has there ever been any inventor equal
to me, or has there not? Am I the youngest member of the Royal Society
or am I not? Everyone knows the answer. And here I'm lying dangerously
ill, shamefully neglected, left you may say to die like a dog in a
ditch. And my wife has the infernal cheek to tell me I'm very silly.
That's all she can think of--naturally--being a woman!"

At this point in his enormous and shocking tirade, Anthony paused, not
for want of breath, but apparently because he could not think of
anything more effective to say and wished to avoid an anticlimax.

Luce thought, horror-struck:

"This is the end of the world for me! This is what he really thinks
about me in his heart. At last I know the truth and my life is ruined.
All is over with our marriage. We shall have to separate. Will he take
the child from me?"

But Luce, like every woman, was an astounding person, capable in a
supreme crisis of feats of self-mastery and heroic duplicity which no
male could hope to rival. Aloud, she merely remarked, with
breath-taking calmness:

"Mr. Burglar, will you please fetch the doctor. He's in the room
opposite, across the passage."

There was no answer. She looked round. The burglar had vanished. The
door was open.

Luce's first thought was, not: "He has escaped me after all"; but,
"How much did he hear?"

She then addressed Anthony:

"I should like you to know that poor Rosie has got influenza. A rather
high temperature. That's why I fetched both the nurse and the doctor."

Any reasonable husband would have subsided at these tidings. But not
Anthony, who was thereby roused to an even more formidable fury.

"Ah!" he yelled. "I knew it. I knew it was that horrible spoilt child
of yours!" ('Yours,' not 'Ours'!) "And so I'm nobody! If you have to
choose between me and the child, you choose the child, who'll grow up
into a woman as selfish and futile as you are. Didn't I always say
that that brat was born to make some good man unhappy? A nice thing! I
tell you once for all----"

The doctor entered, and at sight of the excellent, middle-aged,
conscientious Dr. Bain, Anthony did subside, relinquishing Luce's
reddened wrist and falling back on the pillows.

"Did you hear him?" Luce murmured.

"Yes," replied the doctor. "He's delirious, that's all." He pushed a
thermometer into Anthony's lax and unresisting mouth, and there was
silence. "Yes. Hm! Excited. It's nothing. I'll give him a dose.
Rosie'll be all right. The nurse is really A.1."

"I never thought of delirium," Luce muttered.

"What do you say?" said the doctor.

"Nothing."

She began to cry. She bent down, and kissed and kissed the unofficial
representative of the great trade union of husbands, and stroked his
damp hair; and kissed and kissed him again.

"Poor neglected darling!" she whispered.

"You know you're simply _asking_ for 'flu, kissing the patient like
that!" remarked the doctor.

"I don't care," said Luce.

And she didn't care. More, she utterly forgot about Mr. Fassbrooke.




THE CORNET-PLAYER

I


I sat in the Palais de Th--the most characteristic London inn of the
epoch. Six floors; marble everywhere; two thousand employees, mostly
girl; three orchestras and several vocalists; the finest, richest
barber's saloon in the whole world; cakes and ribboned chocolates and
other sweets on the ground-floor; tea with operatic selections on the
first floor; tea with orchestral selections on the second floor; tea
unaccompanied on the third floor and the fourth floor and the fifth
floor; lifts always ascending and descending; entering multitudes and
departing multitudes always jostling each other in the grand entrance
and bon-bon hall; not a drop of beer in the entire establishment. I
was in a corner on the fifth floor, which is dedicated to chess,
draughts, newspapers and meditation.

The enormous, quiet room was very full; that is to say, nearly every
marble table was taken, though at many tables only one person was
seated; all the solitaries, of whom I was one, were men, in various
ages of youth or maturity, prosperity or decay, cheerfulness or gloom.

Over the top edge of my newspaper I saw a little man enter and look
round rather vaguely for a seat. At the same instant the occupant of
the table next to mine shut his book, snatched up his check and left.
The new arrival, who was carrying a leather case, took his place by
my side. He appeared to be about fifty. We had our backs to the gilded
wall, and the distance between us was not more than a couple of feet.

Dressed in a worn grey suit, with neat collar and grey tie, he had
abundant greying brown hair, a sharp, refined nose, restless eyes,
thin lips, and a chin that indicated both obstinacy and sensitiveness.
Because the haughty tripping waitress did not rush at him instantly to
receive his order, he tapped impatiently on the table; when she came,
however, he asked for a black coffee and hot toast in tones of marked
urbanity and with a very agreeable, wistful smile. The haughty
waitress relaxed the austerity of her demeanour and returned the smile
with interest: which attention he seemed to take quite as a matter of
course; evidently he was well-used to the unbending of waitresses.

In the street below a cornet began to play. The strident sound of it
rose clearly into the room, stilling, as it were, the traffic-roar of
the centre of the metropolis. The tune was 'The Lost Chord.' Now and
then a note trembled in uncertainty, and now and then the intonation
was noticeably faulty. My neighbour was soon fidgeting on his chair,
and making little noises of protest between his teeth. He scattered
salt savagely on his toast, blew his coffee as though it had wilfully
sinned against him in being too hot, and glanced once or twice at
myself. I felt that he wanted to relieve his pain by speech, and so I
slowly folded up my paper.

He said, smiling his sudden, wistful smile:

"That fellow hasn't a notion how to play the cornet."

"I should think not," I replied. "But has anybody? I never yet heard a
cornet that didn't make me curse the criminal who invented cornets."

I had thought to soothe him, but I immediately saw that I was going
the wrong way to work.

"My dear sir! My dear sir!" he corrected me in a manner of intimacy.
"The cornet is a very fine instrument. Perhaps the finest of all
instruments. And let me tell you that it was not invented--it has
slowly grown out of the old horns--in the course of two or three
centuries. The latest form of it is as perfect as anything can be; but
that fellow is using an old-fashioned _C_ instrument--and moreover he
is merely fumbling at it. You see----" The man's face had become
animated; but he suddenly stopped, and, speaking coldly, almost
disdainfully, he demanded: "Do you understand music?"

"Well----"

"Because if you don't it's no good me explaining to you."

"I play the piano--for my own amusement," I said apologetically.

"Pooh! _I_ play the piano. Everybody plays the piano. That's nothing.
Still, it's something perhaps. You see--the cornet stands before the
trumpet and the bugle; it has the qualities of both. It has a vocal
quality--if it's played right. Only it's nearly always vulgarized.
Listen to that fellow. See how he's altering the tune because he can't
fetch the top notes. I tell you there isn't a cornet-player in a
hundred who can fetch the four top notes, _d, e, f_, and _g_, of the
cornet. I'll tell you. Now listen."

He went off into a technical description of the marvels of the cornet
and the unrighteousness of incompetent players, and talked about
shanks and crooks and valves, and transpositions, and minor thirds. He
was now excited, and very pleasantly excited; he even managed to
communicate some of his enthusiasm to me. His eager, sharp-featured
face shone with joy as he chattered onwards further and further into
his theme.

"Of course the greatest composers used the cornet freely. Balfe, for
instance. Balfe was a great composer. You've heard _The Bohemian
Girl_. Great work, but not appreciated because it's British." (I had
never heard _The Bohemian Girl_.) "'When Other Lips.' Do you remember
the wonderful part for a cornet in that immortal song? Berlioz was
always using the cornet. So was Tchaikowsky."

"Really!" I exclaimed; for this was news to me, despite a long
experience as a concert-goer.

"Well, naturally!" he exploded crossly. "Naturally!"

Then his face became contorted as if in agony. The cornet-player in
the street below was approaching the climax of 'The Lost Chord,' and
the raucous, brassy din of the outrage was hideous and excruciating.
The cornet-player ceased. My acquaintance's face relaxed; he wiped
perspiration from his forehead, and bit a piece of toast and drank
coffee.

"My God!" he murmured. "If he begins again.... And to think what it
might have been.... Waitress!" Raps on the table, and then a sweet
smile to the waitress. "Another coffee, please, my dear." His fingers
were twitching with nervousness.

"You love the cornet?" I suggested.

He nodded.

"You play it?"

"I have lived for it."

"That's a cornet you've got there, isn't it?" I indicated the leather
case on the table.

He opened the case with a dramatic gesture. It was empty. I was rather
startled by his burning glance.

"What a pity!" I murmured, not being able to think of anything else to
say. Somehow the revelation of the emptiness of the case seemed to
shock me. "And how came you first to be so keen on the cornet?" I
asked.

"Ah!" said he. "That's a long story."

"I should be very interested to hear it," said I. And I spoke truly.
In my mind the man had transformed the cornet from an instrument of
barbarous torture into something distinguished and fine, thrilling,
something with intensely human associations.


II

"Of course," he said, "it wasn't until after I'd been playing the
cornet for a bit----"

"But the beginning?" I interrupted him. "The beginning. How came you
to begin?"

"Well you see, sir, it was like this. I lived in the country with my
father--mother dead. I'd just left school, and we were discussing, my
father and I, what I was to do with myself in the world. I don't think
we ever agreed about anything. He was always very quiet and polite
over it, but we couldn't hit it off. He had to go up to
London--somewhere--about something, and I was left alone for the day,
without a thing to do. I walked into the village--a mile or two--to
buy my first cigarettes openly--I was sixteen or seventeen, probably
seventeen, yes, seventeen; and there came a big gilt wagonette through
the village, drawn by four white horses. There was a brass band in the
wagonette, but only one man was playing; he was standing up and
playing a cornet. I didn't know it was a cornet. I'd never seen a
cornet before, much less heard one. You see, living right out on the
South Downs--it isn't like the north of England, where every village
has cornet-players and brass bands. Well, I tell you I'd never had
such a feeling as I had when I heard that cornet. Something so rich
and big and grand about it--shall I say golden? No, I've never had
such a feeling."

His eyes were moist.

"A revelation!" I suggested, moved by his demeanour.

"Yes. I ran after the wagonette three miles--into Lewes. It was a
circus band, and they were making a round of the villages to advertise
the show. I expect I didn't know quite what I was doing. Instinct.
This was in the afternoon, and the performance didn't begin till seven
o'clock. I hung about. D'you know, I'd never seen a circus before. It
was all terribly romantic to me--all of a piece with the cornet. The
big tent and the little tents--stables, dressing-rooms--and the
caravans. The canvas roof lifting up and down in the wind, and the
flag on the top. And then when it began to get dark! The lighting up!
They had gas in those days--I suppose it was laid on from the town
mains. Outside one of the small tents I saw a man dressed up as a
clown. I thought I recognized him, so I asked him if he wasn't the man
who played the cornet in the wagonette. He said he was. He looked at
me with a queer sort of a look, because you see I was well-dressed. I
asked him if he was going to play it at the performance. He said he
was. I got a front seat near the ring. I wanted to be as close to him
as I could. And he did play it. Well, I tell you I thought he was the
greatest man in the world. And he _did_ play it. Of course, he wasn't
really a great performer, but I didn't know any better then.

"In the interval when the audience went to visit the stables I saw him
standing with the cornet in his hand. I was very frightened, with all
the people there and him making jokes with the people; but I just had
to speak to him again. I said: 'My word, Mister, but you can play!'
And all of a sudden he looked quite serious at me. He saw my eyes
fixed on the cornet, and he said: 'Like to look at it?' You see he was
a bit flattered. He gave me the cornet to hold. I pretended to put it
to my mouth. He said: 'You couldn't make a sound on it, young sir.' So
I tried. I'd watched how he held his lips, and I did make a sound,
very loud indeed. The whole crowd turned to see what was up and
laughed like anything. I blushed, and gave him back the cornet and ran
off back into the big tent for the rest of the performance.

"But he didn't play the cornet any more. He did a trapeze act in the
second half. When I got home my father hadn't come. I couldn't sleep
all night, and the next morning, as soon as it was light, I set off
for Lewes again. I couldn't tell you what made me. I'd three pounds in
my pocket--burst open my money-box. The circus people were taking the
tents down and packing up and feeding the horses and so on. They were
all helping. Everybody did everything in that circus. It was the
finest thing I was ever in, and the most exciting. Early morning you
know and all! And they were all so jolly. I made friends with the
cornet-player--I couldn't tell you how.

"I followed the circus to Brighton. It was a procession half a mile
long. The cornet-player told me I could ride with him a bit. I gave
cigarettes to all the band. On the way he showed me a bit how to play.
He said I could do it, and by heaven, sir, I did do it! The gift, I
suppose. The ring-master talked to me. Somehow I slept in one of the
tents that night, and helped the next morning to pack up, and I
followed 'em again to Southwick--no, Shoreham.

"At Shoreham my father came after me. He'd guessed what had happened.
Well, I wouldn't go back with him. I knew I had a vocation, and I
couldn't leave it. He was very mild, as usual. In the end he said:
'Just as you please, Jimmy. You know where I live in case you come to
grief. I daresay you'll be strolling along in about a fortnight. And
it's all experience.' I must say he had some sense--in some things.
But he was cynical.

"I was soon playing in the orchestra. But not the cornet. No. The
drummer went off on a drinking bout, so I offered to play the drum.
But I was practising on the cornet all the time. The cornet-player--he
was called Jeroboam--he seemed to like teaching me. It was a glorious
life, even when it rained, was Radlett's Royal Circus.

"I got spoony on the Snake Girl--couldn't she twist herself! There was
a goodish bit of the tender passion around Radlett's. Oh yes!" His
eyes twinkled. "One morning I serenaded her on the cornet outside the
caravan where she slept. And there was a devil of a row about it. I'd
waked her up. Still, she liked me, but she said she wouldn't have
anything to do with me unless I gave up the cornet. It wasn't the
sound she objected to so much as shaking the moisture out of the
instrument after you've been playing it a bit. Said she couldn't stand
that. Of course I wouldn't give up the cornet, especially as I'd begun
to buy one on the hire-purchase system. After that I felt I was a real
cornet-player. That was how I began, sir."

"But that's not all," I said, eager for more. "There must be a lot
more."

"Oh, there is!"

I offered him a cigarette, which he refused.

"Waitress!" Reiterated rap. A smile. "Packet of Gold Flake, please."


III

He resumed:

"The most astounding thing that ever happened to any man happened to
me. Yes, _the_ most astounding! By the way, I ought to mention that I
left that Circus. Had to. The Snake Girl made life too hard for me.
But when you have been in one circus it's not very difficult to get
into another one. In the next one I was billed as a solo
cornet-player. About a year later I got a letter from August Manns.
August Manns, if you please--asking me to go and see him. Of course,
you don't remember him?"

"You mean the Crystal Palace Orchestral conductor?"

"The great conductor," he said gravely.

"A big man in his time," I said.

"A big man for all time, my dear sir. Some friend of his had actually
persuaded him to go and hear me play in the circus. I got a day off
and saw him and he offered me a place in the Crystal Palace
orchestra!"

"Well," I agreed. "That was certainly astounding."

"Oh!" he corrected me sharply. "That's not the astounding thing. I see
nothing astounding in that."

"I beg pardon."

"I played in the Crystal Palace orchestra. Yes, sir. I played in
Beethoven's C minor symphony."

"On the cornet?"

"On the cornet."

"I don't know much about music," I said. "But surely there's no cornet
part in the C minor."

"There is not. But don't you know, aren't you aware that in those
days, when you simply couldn't get horn-players in England, the horn
parts were played by cornets?"

"I'm sorry," I said humbly. "I did not know. I was not aware."

"Manns saw that I had proper lessons. He was very enthusiastic about
me because I was so enthusiastic about the cornet. He said I had a
finer classical style than any other cornet-player he'd ever heard.
So I had--and have. But only men like Manns could appreciate it, and
the classical sobriety of my performance always stood in my way.

"Manns died. Soon afterwards I was playing in the streets. Row with my
father. The mere fact is enough. I need not go into details. Yes, I
was playing in the streets. Me! I was being paid to move on. I made
quite a decent living by moving on." He stared at me proudly,
quivering. "Me! The protg of the great Manns."

"What a disgusting shame!" I burst out.

"It was in this moving on business that the astounding thing happened
to me. I used to play in Sloane Street, near the top. Best place in
London. Full of rich shoppers, women with overfed pet dogs and so on.
I was always moving on there. Mind you, I had no trouble with the
police, because I'd taken the trouble to find out what the police
could do and what they could not do. You know the police can't move
you on far, and they can't move you on at all unless there's a
personal complaint from a resident. If you want to give a first-rate
performance in the street, why shouldn't you? Lots of people enjoy it.

"Well, I'd been playing a pretty long time in front of one house one
morning--I'd surpassed myself--and a man came out of a door and
beckoned to me very politely. He gave me a shilling and asked me to
tell him about my cornet, and he took me upstairs to the second
floor--there were three floors, over a shop. As soon as I was in his
rooms he wanted to examine the cornet. He was still very polite. I
gave it to him, and he hit me over the head with it and began the most
extraordinary tirade--how I was driving him mad, etc., etc., and how
he'd do for me if he ever heard me again. Can you imagine it? The
fellow was mad  already. There was some tussle, and I fell downstairs
from the second floor to the first; but I'd got my cornet, all dented
as it was. My head was bleeding.

"Then a door opened on the first floor and a lady came out. She heard
the noises and me falling and the fellow shouting. I thought I was in
for more trouble. But no! She said: 'Are you that splendid
cornet-player?' And she took me and looked after me. How she played
the cornet herself; she loved the cornet. She was a widow; about
twenty-six. Her husband had gone off his head and died in a lunatic
asylum. Mrs. Alicia Williams. She gave me some lemonade and showed me
her cornet. It was a superb instrument. She locked the door, and as
soon as I'd recovered a bit I played it for her in her drawing-room.
The stamping overhead was dreadful, but I kept on playing. I had to
stay there till evening--till the fellow upstairs had gone out.
Daren't move till then, you see.

"Well, she liked me, and she adored my playing, and she was all alone,
and she saw at once I was a gentleman--not an ordinary street-player,
and I married her. We joined cornets, so to speak. Now _that's_ what I
say is the most astounding thing that ever did happen to any man; and
you can say what you like. Ah! But I can't describe it to you."

I did not say what I liked, for if I had I should have said that he
was not telling this story for the first time; I should have said
indeed that he had told it many times before. He had dramatic gestures
and pauses, and some of his phrases were rather effectively chosen. He
was a performer not only on the cornet. However, he was holding all my
attention, and he seemed to be sticking to the truth pretty well. Also
I felt great sympathy for him, as surely one ought to feel sympathy
for any man who is reduced to disburdening himself to strangers.

"I'm convinced you _can_ describe it to me," I said.


IV

"Well," he took breath. "I don't suppose there ever was a courtship or
a honeymoon like ours. Alicia was a bit older than me, and knew more
about men than I knew about women. She saw of course that I was a
sensitive sort of person--especially in the matter of money: she had
money and I hadn't--and she always behaved with the greatest tact. She
gave me a new cornet. No, she insisted on giving me hers, because I
liked it so much, and she got a new one for herself. During our
courtship we used to go out into Epping Forest and play together, all
among the trees and far from anybody, except a gipsy or two now and
then. It was wonderful, really wonderful. I can never forget those
days. And after the wedding we took a small house in the forest; very
small; we didn't want to be bothered with servants; but soon we got a
deaf woman for a skivvy; and when I played in her ear she'd say she
thought she could hear something but wasn't sure. Of course we
couldn't talk to her; we had to write down our orders. Still it was
very convenient.

"And then my one trouble was removed. My father died and I came into
between four and five hundred a year. It was all ideal. Yes, ideal! My
wife played very nicely. She didn't play as well as me, no woman
could--and jolly few men either. But she played with taste; and she
was willing to learn. You couldn't guess what happened next."

"No. I doubt if I could."

"It happened what happens to all artists. We both wanted to show our
powers to the public, to give pleasure to others by means of our art.
Naturally! We got tired of playing always to ourselves. We tried to
get openings at concerts. But there was nothing doing. The notion of
duets--two cornets--seemed to frighten the concert-agents. I could
have had situations in bands. But no conductor would look at a woman
cornet-player, and I wouldn't go without my wife. So it came to
music-halls--especially provincial music-halls. Circuits. We did
several tours, and in between tours we would go back to our little
house and enjoy ourselves. Yes, it was a nice, varied life. And then
the next thing happened. I say the next thing happened."

"Yes?"

"Ah!" he mused. "What an idyll those years were! Nothing like it
before, and there'll never be anything like it again--not in this
world, nor in kingdom come either."

"And then?"

"Ah! Waitress! Another coffee, please, my dear." And to me: "I suppose
I may as well finish the story now I've begun it. Eh?"

As it was obvious he fully intended to finish the story, I merely
nodded.


V

"One night when my wife made rather a mess of a duet with me on the
stage of a music-hall at Reading, I noticed in our dressing-room that
her lips were quite blue after she had taken the paint off. I thought
I knew what that meant, and I was not wrong. I insisted on her going
to London with me early the next morning. A doctor in Queen Anne
Street immediately forbade her to play the cornet any more. Heart
trouble! You see, the strain of cornet-playing is rather severe.
Singers whose hearts go wrong have to give up singing. Much more a
cornet-player. I got the doctor to telegraph her certificate of
illness to Reading, and my wife never played again. Neither did I ever
play again--in public. It was a frightful blow to both of us. She was
still young, still beautiful, and we had been making a name, in spite
of my deplorable classical style." He smiled sardonically. "But we
were very fond of one another--excuse these details, my dear sir--and
managed to be very happy in our house in Epping Forest. Our thoughts,
and hers especially, turned in other directions--another direction.
She loved me to play for her, and even in the winter we would go out
together nearly every day--except Sundays--and I would play in the
glades.

"In the spring my wife, if you'll pardon the old-fashioned phrase,
presented me with twins. Generous! Generous! Yes, she always had a
generous mind. Her sister, who was a nurse by profession, and almost
as generous as Alicia, came to take charge of the nursery. I began to
play my cornet for the twins. But somehow it didn't seem to suit them.
In fact the sound of the cornet seemed to send the pair of them
straight into hysterics.

"I hoped they would get over this curious aberration of natural taste.
But no! The effect was always the same. The mere sight of the cornet
upset them. I persevered, but there was no improvement. At last my
sister-in-law told me that if I didn't stop playing the cornet in the
house she would have to leave, as she couldn't take the
responsibility. She was a charming girl, and she cried when she gave
me her decision. Alicia also cried.

"I went out into the forest and played by myself; but I had to walk at
least a mile to get out of earshot of the house, and anyhow I didn't
like playing by myself. Like all artists I needed an audience if I was
to obtain any satisfaction. As soon as my wife's health was thoroughly
re-established she would go out with me to listen. It was summer; the
weather was heavenly. I was happy, and I thought she was. My playing
had even improved. But one day her nerves appeared to give way
suddenly. She burst into terrible sobs and without a word snatched the
cornet from me and threw it into some bushes. She shouted: 'I can't
bear it! I can't bear it any longer!' Motherhood had quite changed
her.

"I discovered afterwards that motherhood does sometimes change women
in the most extraordinary manner. I picked my cornet out of the bushes
and we walked home in silence, except that my wife never ceased
sobbing. When we reached the house she ran to the babies, seized hold
of both of them, and walked up and down the bedroom with them in her
arms, still sobbing. An awful scene; I shall always remember it....

"Well, I had played my last cornet solo. I took the instrument and
threw it into a pond--drowned it, drowned it." His eyes shone with
emotion. "We've been happy. What man could be unhappy with a woman
like my wife? Not me! We have had more children. We took a larger
house in the village of Epping--some of 'em call it a town. We have
money. I am a family man. No, I couldn't honestly say I'm unhappy. And
yet--yet----!

"Now and then I go and look at the pond. I expect I couldn't play a
cornet now if I tried. It's all gone from me. Now and then I have to
come to London on little matters of business, and when I do I always
carry this case. I don't know why. Yes, I do know why. It's because I
like musicians to know I'm a cornet-player--or was one once." He shut
the case. "Now did you ever hear such a story? Isn't it different
from any other story you ever heard?"

"It is indeed," I replied. "And I'm very grateful to you for telling
it to me."

"I thought you'd be interested," he said with nave pride. "Waitress,
my check, please. I'm in a hurry."

He looked at his watch.




MURDER!

I


Many great ones of the earth have justified murder as a social act,
defensible, and even laudable in certain instances. There is something
to be said for murder, though perhaps not much. All of us, or nearly
all of us, have at one time or another had the desire and the impulse
to commit murder. At any rate, murder is not an uncommon affair. On an
average, two people are murdered every week in England, and probably
about two hundred every week in the United States. And forty per cent.
of the murderers are not brought to justice. These figures take no
account of the undoubtedly numerous cases where murder has been done
but never suspected. Murders and murderesses walk safely abroad among
us, and it may happen to us to shake hands with them. A disturbing
thought! But such is life, and such is homicide.


II

Two men, named respectively Lomax Harder and John Franting, were
walking side by side one autumn afternoon, on the Marine Parade of the
seaside resort and port of Quangate (English Channel). Both were
well-dressed and had the air of moderate wealth, and both were about
thirty-five years of age. At this point the resemblances between them
ceased. Lomax Harder had refined features, an enormous forehead, fair
hair, and a delicate, almost apologetic manner. John Franting was
low-browed, heavy chinned, scowling, defiant, indeed what is called a
tough customer. Lomax Harder corresponded in appearance with the
popular notion of a poet--save that he was carefully barbered. He was
in fact a poet, and not unknown in the tiny, trifling, mad world where
poetry is a matter of first-rate interest. John Franting corresponded
in appearance with the popular notion of a gambler, an amateur boxer,
and, in spare time, a deluder of women. Popular notions sometimes fit
the truth.

Lomax Harder, somewhat nervously buttoning his overcoat, said in a
quiet but firm and insistent tone:

"Haven't you got anything to say?"

John Franting stopped suddenly in front of a shop whose faade bore
the sign: "Gontle. Gunsmith."

"Not in words," answered Franting. "I'm going in here."

And he brusquely entered the small, shabby shop.

Lomax Harder hesitated half a second, and then followed his companion.

The shopman was a middle-aged gentleman wearing a black velvet coat.

"Good afternoon," he greeted Franting, with an expression and in a
tone of urbane condescension which seemed to indicate that Franting
was a wise as well as a fortunate man in that he knew of the
excellence of Gontle's and had the wit to come into Gontle's.

For the name of Gontle was favourably and respectfully known wherever
triggers are pressed. Not only along the whole length of the Channel
coast, but throughout England, was Gontle's renowned. Sportsmen would
travel to Quangate from the far north, and even from London, to buy
guns. To say: 'I bought it at Gontle's,' or 'Old Gontle recommended
it,' was sufficient to silence any dispute concerning the merits of a
fire-arm. Experts bowed the head before the unique reputation of
Gontle. As for old Gontle, he was extremely and pardonably conceited.
His conviction that no other gunsmith in the wide world could compare
with him was absolute. He sold guns and rifles with the gesture of a
monarch conferring an honour. He never argued; he stated; and the
customer who contradicted him was as likely as not to be courteously
and icily informed by Gontle of the geographical situation of the
shop-door. Such shops exist in the English provinces, and nobody knows
how they have achieved their renown. They could exist nowhere else.

"'d afternoon," said Franting gruffly, and paused.

"What can I do for you?" asked Mr. Gontle, as if saying: 'Now don't be
afraid. This shop is tremendous, and I am tremendous; but I shall not
eat you.'

"I want a revolver," Franting snapped.

"Ah! A revolver!" commented Mr. Gontle, as if saying: 'A gun or a
rifle, yes! But a revolver--an arm without individuality, manufactured
wholesale! ... However, I suppose I must deign to accommodate you.'

"I presume you know something about revolvers?" asked Mr. Gontle, as
he began to produce the weapons.

"A little."

"Do you know the Webley Mark III?"

"Can't say that I do."

"Ah! It is the best for all common purposes." And Mr. Gontle's glance
said: 'Have the goodness not to tell me it isn't.'

Franting examined the Webley Mark III.

"You see," said Mr. Gontle. "The point about it is that until the
breach is properly closed it cannot be fired. So that it can't blow
open and maim or kill the would-be murderer." Mr. Gontle smiled archly
at one of his oldest jokes.

"What about suicides?" Franting grimly demanded.

"Ah!"

"You might show me just how to load it," said Franting.

Mr. Gontle, having found ammunition, complied with this reasonable
request.

"The barrel's a bit scratched," said Franting.

Mr. Gontle inspected the scratch with pain. He would have denied the
scratch, but could not.

"Here's another one," said he, "since you're so particular." He simply
had to put customers in their place.

"You might load it," said Franting.

Mr. Gontle loaded the second revolver.

"I'd like to try it," said Franting.

"Certainly," said Mr. Gontle, and led Franting out of the shop by the
back, and down to a cellar where revolvers could be experimented with.

Lomax Harder was now alone in the shop. He hesitated a long time and
then picked up the revolver rejected by Franting, fingered it, put it
down, and picked it up again. The back-door of the shop opened
suddenly, and, startled, Harder dropped the revolver into his overcoat
pocket: a thoughtless, quite unpremeditated act. He dared not remove
the revolver. The revolver was as fast in his pocket as though the
pocket had been sewn up.

"And cartridges?" asked Mr. Gontle of Franting.

"Oh," said Franting, "I've only had one shot. Five'll be more than
enough for the present. What does it weigh?"

"Let me see. Four inch barrel? Yes. One pound four ounces."

Franting paid for the revolver, receiving thirteen shillings in
change from a five-pound note, and strode out of the shop, weapon in
hand. He was gone before Lomax Harder decided upon a course of action.

"And for you, sir?" said Mr. Gontle, addressing the poet.

Harder suddenly comprehended that Mr. Gontle had mistaken him for a
separate customer, who had happened to enter the shop a moment after
the first one. Harder and Franting had said not a word to one another
during the purchase, and Harder well knew that in the most exclusive
shops it is the custom utterly to ignore a second customer until the
first one has been dealt with.

"I want to see some foils." Harder spoke stammeringly the only words
that came into his head.

"Foils!" exclaimed Mr. Gontle, shocked, as if to say: 'Is it
conceivable that you should imagine that I, Gontle, gunsmith, sell
such things as foils?'

After a little talk Harder apologized and departed--a thief.

"I'll call later and pay the fellow," said Harder to his restive
conscience. "No. I can't do that. I'll send him some anonymous postal
orders."

He crossed the Parade and saw Franting, a small left-handed figure all
alone far below on the deserted sands, pointing the revolver. He
thought that his ear caught the sound of a discharge, but the distance
was too great for him to be sure. He continued to watch, and at length
Franting walked westward diagonally across the beach.

"He's going back to the Bellevue," thought Harder, the Bellevue being
the hotel from which he had met Franting coming out half an hour
earlier. He strolled slowly towards the white hotel. But Franting, who
had evidently come up the face of the cliff in the penny lift,  was
before him. Harder, standing outside, saw Franting seated in the
lounge. Then Franting rose and vanished down a long passage at the
rear of the lounge. Harder entered the hotel rather guiltily. There
was no hall-porter at the door, and not a soul in the lounge or in
sight of the lounge. Harder went down the long passage.


III

At the end of the passage Lomax Harder found himself in a
billiard-room--an apartment built partly of brick and partly of wood
on a sort of courtyard behind the main structure of the hotel. The
roof, of iron and grimy glass, rose to a point in the middle. On two
sides the high walls of the hotel obscured the light. Dusk was already
closing in. A small fire burned feebly in the grate. A large radiator
under the window was steel-cold, for though summer was finished,
winter had not officially begun in the small economically-run hotel:
so that the room was chilly; nevertheless, in deference to the English
passion for fresh air and discomfort, the window was wide open.

Franting, in his overcoat, and an unlit cigarette between his lips,
stood lowering with his back to the bit of fire. At sight of Harder he
lifted his chin in a dangerous challenge.

"So you're still following me about," he said resentfully to Harder.

"Yes," said the latter, with his curious gentle primness of manner. "I
came down here specially to talk to you. I should have said all I had
to say earlier, only you happened to be going out of the hotel just as
I was coming in. You didn't seem to want to talk in the street; but
there's some talking has to be done. I've a few things I must tell
you." Harder appeared to be perfectly calm, and he felt perfectly
calm. He advanced from the door towards the billiard-table.

Franting raised his hand, displaying his square-ended, brutal fingers
in the twilight.

"Now listen to me," he said with cold, measured ferocity. "You can't
tell me anything I don't know. If there's some talking to be done I'll
do it myself, and when I've finished you can get out. I know that my
wife has taken a ticket for Copenhagen by the steamer from Harwich,
and that she's been seeing to her passport, and packing. And of course
I know that you have interests in Copenhagen and spend about half your
precious time there. I'm not worrying to connect the two things. All
that's got nothing to do with me. Emily has always seen a great deal
of you, and I know that the last week or two she's been seeing you
more than ever. Not that I mind that. I know that she objects to my
treatment of her and my conduct generally. That's all right, but it's
a matter that only concerns her and me. I mean that it's no concern of
yours, for instance, or anybody else's. If she objects enough she can
try and divorce me. I doubt if she'd succeed, but you can never be
sure--with these new laws. Anyhow she's my wife till she does divorce
me, and so she has the usual duties and responsibilities towards
me--even though I was the worst husband in the world. That's how I
look at it, in my old-fashioned way. I've just had a letter from
her--she knew I was here, and I expect that explains how you knew I
was here."

"It does," said Lomax Harder quietly.

Franting pulled a letter out of his inner pocket and unfolded it.

"Yes," he said, glancing at it, and read some sentences aloud: "'I
have absolutely decided to leave you, and I won't hide from you that I
know you know who is doing what he can to help me. I can't live with
you any longer. You may be very fond of me, as you say, but I find
your way of showing your fondness too humiliating and painful. I've
said this to you before, and now I'm saying it for the last time.' And
so on and so on."

Franting tore the letter in two, dropped one half on the floor,
twisted the other half into a spill, turned to the fire, and lit his
cigarette.

"That's what I think of her letter," he proceeded, the cigarette
between his teeth. "You're helping her, are you? Very well. I don't
say you're in love with her, or she with you. I'll make no wild
statements. But if you aren't in love with her I wonder why you're
taking all this trouble over her. Do you go about the world helping
ladies who say they're unhappy just for the pure sake of helping?
Never mind. Emily isn't going to leave me. Get that into your head. I
shan't let her leave me. She has money, and I haven't. I've been
living on her, and it would be infernally awkward for me if she left
me for good. That's a reason for keeping her, isn't it? But you may
believe me or not--it isn't my reason. She's right enough when she
says I'm very fond of her. That's a reason for keeping her too. But it
isn't my reason. My reason is that a wife's a wife, and she can't
break her word just because everything isn't lovely in the garden.
I've heard it said I'm unmoral. I'm not all unmoral. And I feel
particularly strongly about what's called the marriage tie." He drew
the revolver from his overcoat pocket, and held it up to view. "You
see this thing. You saw me buy it. Now you needn't be afraid. I'm not
threatening you; and it's no part of my game to shoot you. I've
nothing to do with your goings-on. What I have to do with is the
goings-on of my wife. If she deserts me--for you or for anybody or for
nobody--I shall follow her, whether it's to Copenhagen or Bangkok or
the North Pole, and I shall kill her--with just this very revolver
that you saw me buy. And now you can get out."

Franting replaced the revolver, and began to consume the cigarette
with fierce and larger puffs.

Lomax Harder looked at the grim, set, brutal, scowling bitter face,
and knew that Franting meant what he had said. Nothing would stop him
from carrying out his threat. The fellow was not an argufier; he could
not reason; but he had unmistakable grit and would never recoil from
the fear of consequences. If Emily left him, Emily was a dead woman;
nothing in the end could protect her from the execution of her
husband's menace. On the other hand, nothing would persuade her to
remain with her husband. She had decided to go, and she would go. And
indeed the mere thought of this lady to whom he, Harder, was utterly
devoted, staying with her husband and continuing to suffer the
tortures and humiliations which she had been suffering for years--this
thought revolted him. He could not think it.

He stepped forward along the side of the billiard-table, and
simultaneously Franting stepped forward to meet him. Lomax Harder
snatched the revolver which was in his pocket, aimed, and pulled the
trigger.

Franting collapsed, with the upper half of his body somehow balanced
on the edge of the billiard-table. He was dead. The sound of the
report echoed in Harder's ear like the sound of a violin string loudly
twanged by a finger. He saw a little reddish hole in Franting's
bronzed right temple.

'Well,' he thought, 'somebody had to die. And it's better him than
Emily.' He felt that he had performed a righteous act. Also he felt a
little sorry for Franting.

Then he was afraid. He was afraid for himself, because he wanted not
to die, especially on the scaffold; but also for Emily Franting who
would be friendless and helpless without him; he could not bear to
think of her alone in the world--the central point of a terrific
scandal. He must get away instantly....

Not down the corridor back into the hotel-lounge! No! That would be
fatal! The window. He glanced at the corpse. It was more odd, curious,
than affrighting. He had made the corpse. Strange! He could not unmake
it. He had accomplished the irrevocable. Impressive! He saw Franting's
cigarette glowing on the linoleum in the deepening dusk, and picked it
up and threw it into the fender.

Lace curtains hung across the whole width of the window. He drew one
aside, and looked forth. The light was much stronger in the courtyard
than within the room. He put his gloves on. He gave a last look at the
corpse, straddled the window-sill, and was on the brick pavement of
the courtyard. He saw that the curtain had fallen back into the
perpendicular.

He gazed around. Nobody! Not a light in any window! He saw a green
wooden gate, pushed it; it yielded; then a sort of entry-passage....
In a moment, after two half-turns, he was on the Marine Parade again.
He was a fugitive. Should he fly to the right, to the left? Then he
had an inspiration. An idea of genius for baffling pursuers. He would
go into the hotel by the main-entrance. He went slowly and
deliberately into the portico, where a middle-aged hall-porter was
standing in the gloom.

"Good evening, sir."

"Good evening. Have you got any rooms?"

"I think so, sir. The housekeeper is out, but she'll be back in a
moment--if you'd like a seat. The manager's away in London."

The hall-porter suddenly illuminated the lounge, and Lomax Harder,
blinking, entered and sat down.

"I might have a cocktail while I'm waiting," the murderer suggested
with a bright and friendly smile. "A Bronx."

"Certainly, sir. The page is off duty. He sees to orders in the
lounge, but I'll attend to you myself."

"What a hotel!" thought the murderer, solitary in the chilly lounge,
and gave a glance down the long passage. "Is the whole place run by
the hall-porter? But of course it's the dead season."

Was it conceivable that nobody had heard the sound of the shot?

Harder had a strong impulse to run away. But no! To do so would be
highly dangerous. He restrained himself.

"How much?" he asked of the hall-porter, who had arrived with
surprising quickness, tray in hand and glass on tray.

"A shilling, sir."

The murderer gave him eighteenpence, and drank off the cocktail.

"Thank you very much, sir." The hall-porter took the glass.

"See here!" said the murderer. "I'll look in again. I've got one or
two little errands to do."

And he went, slowly, into the obscurity of the Marine Parade.


IV

Lomax Harder leant over the left arm of the sea-wall of the man-made
port of Quangate. Not another soul was there. Night had fallen. The
lighthouse at the extremity of the right arm was occulting. The
lights--some red, some green, many white--of ships at sea passed in
both directions in endless processions. Waves plashed gently against
the vast masonry of the wall. The wind, blowing steadily from the
north-west, was not cold. Harder, looking about--thought he knew he
was absolutely alone, took his revolver from his overcoat pocket and
stealthily dropped it into the sea. Then he turned round and gazed
across the small harbour at the mysterious amphitheatre of the lighted
town, and heard public clocks and religious clocks striking the hour.

He was a murderer, but why should he not successfully escape
detection? Other murderers had done so. He had all his wits. He was
not excited. He was not morbid. His perspective of things was not
askew. The hall-porter had not seen his first entrance into the hotel,
nor his exit after the crime. Nobody had seen them. He had left
nothing behind in the billiard-room. No finger marks on the
window-sill. (The putting-on of his gloves was in itself a clear
demonstration that he had fully kept his presence of mind.) No
footmarks on the hard, dry pavement of the courtyard.

Of course there was the possibility that some person unseen had seen
him getting out of the window. Slight: but still a possibility! And
there was also the possibility that someone who knew Franting by sight
had noted him walking by Franting's side in the streets. If such a
person informed the police and gave a description of him, inquiries
might be made.... No! Nothing in it. His appearance offered nothing
remarkable to the eye of a casual observer--except his forehead, of
which he was rather proud, but which was hidden by his hat.

It was generally believed that criminals always did something silly.
But so far he had done nothing silly, and he was convinced that, in
regard to the crime, he never would do anything silly. He had none of
the desire, supposed to be common among murderers, to revisit the
scene of the crime or to look upon the corpse once more. Although he
regretted the necessity for his act, he felt no slightest twinge of
conscience. Somebody had to die, and surely it was better that a brute
should die than the heavenly, enchanting, martyrized creature whom his
act had rescued for ever from the brute! He was aware within himself
of an ecstasy of devotion to Emily Franting--now a widow and free. She
was a unique woman. Strange that a woman of such gifts should have
come under the sway of so obvious a scoundrel as Franting. But she was
very young at the time, and such freaks of sex had happened before and
would happen again; they were a widespread phenomenon in the history
of the relations of men and women. He would have killed a hundred men
if a hundred men had threatened her felicity. His heart was pure; he
wanted nothing from Emily in exchange for what he had done in her
defence. He was passionate in her defence. When he reflected upon the
coarseness and cruelty of the gesture by which Franting had used
Emily's letter to light his cigarette, Harder's cheeks grew hot with
burning resentment.

A clock struck the quarter. Harder walked quickly to the harbour
front, where was a taxi-rank, and drove to the station.... A sudden
apprehension! The crime might have been discovered! Police might
already be watching for suspicious-looking travellers! Absurd! Still,
the apprehension remained despite its absurdity. The taxi-driver
looked at him queerly. No! Imagination! He hesitated on the threshold
of the station, then walked boldly in, and showed his return ticket to
the ticket-inspector. No sign of a policeman. He got into the Pullman
car, where five other passengers were sitting. The train started.


V

He nearly missed the boat-train at Liverpool Street because according
to its custom the Quangate flyer arrived twenty minutes late at
Victoria. And at Victoria the foolish part of him, as distinguished
from the common-sense part, suffered another spasm of fear. Would
detectives, instructed by telegraph, be waiting for the train? No! An
absurd idea! The boat-train from Liverpool Street was crowded with
travellers, and the platform crowded with senders-off. He gathered
from scraps of talk overheard that an international conference was
about to take place at Copenhagen. And he had known nothing of it--not
seen a word of it in the papers! Excusable perhaps; graver matters had
held his attention.

Useless to look for Emily in the vast bustle of the compartments! She
had her through ticket (which she had taken herself, in order to avoid
possible complications), and she happened to be the only woman in the
world who was never late and never in a hurry. She was certain to be
in the train. But was she in the train? Something sinister might have
come to pass. For instance, a telephone message to the flat that her
husband had been found dead with a bullet in his brain.

The swift two-hour journey to Harwich was terrible for Lomax Harder.
He remembered that he had left the unburnt part of the letter lying
under the billiard-table. Forgetful! Silly! One of the silly things
that criminals did! And on Parkeston Quay the confusion was enormous.
He did not walk, he was swept, on to the great shaking steamer whose
dark funnels rose amid wisps of steam into the starry sky. One
advantage: detectives would have no chance in that multitudinous
scene, unless indeed they held up the ship.

The ship roared a warning, and slid away from the quay, groped down
the tortuous channel to the harbour mouth, and was in the North Sea;
and England dwindled to naught but a string of lights. He searched
every deck from stem to stern, and could not find Emily. She had not
caught the train, or, if she had caught the train, she had not boarded
the steamer because he had failed to appear. His misery was intense.
Everything was going wrong. And on the arrival at Esbjerg would not
detectives be lying in wait for the Copenhagen train?...

Then he descried her, and she him. She too had been searching. Only
chance had kept them apart. Her joy at finding him was ecstatic; tears
came into his eyes at sight of it. He was everything to her,
absolutely everything. He clasped her right hand in both his hands and
gazed at her in the dim, diffused light blended of stars, moon and
electricity. No woman was ever like her: mature, innocent, wise,
trustful, honest. And the touching beauty of her appealing, sad, happy
face, and the pride of her carriage! A unique jewel--snatched from the
brutal grasp of that fellow--who had ripped her solemn letter in two
and used it as a spill for his cigarette! She related her movements;
and he his. Then she said:

"Well?"

"I didn't go," he answered. "Thought it best not to. I'm convinced it
wouldn't have been any use."

He had not intended to tell her this lie. Yet when it came to the
point, what else could he say? He told one lie instead of twenty. He
was deceiving her, but for her sake. Even if the worst occurred, she
was for ever safe from that brutal grasp. And he had saved her. As
for the conceivable complications of the future, he refused to front
them; he could live in the marvellous present. He felt suddenly the
amazing beauty of the night at sea, and beneath all his other
sensations was the obscure sensation of a weight at his heart.

"I expect you were right," she angelically acquiesced.


VI

The Superintendent of Police (Quangate was the county town of the
western half of the county), and a detective-sergeant were in the
billiard-room of the Bellevue. Both wore mufti. The powerful
green-shaded lamps usual in billiard-rooms shone down ruthlessly on
the green table, and on the reclining body of John Franting, which had
not moved and had not been moved.

A charwoman was just leaving these officers when a stout gentleman,
who had successfully beguiled a policeman guarding the other end of
the long corridor, squeezed past her, greeted the two officers, and
shut the door.

The Superintendent, a thin man, with lips to match, and a moustache,
stared hard at the arrival.

"I am staying with my friend Dr. Furnival," said the arrival
cheerfully. "You telephoned for him, and as he had to go out to one of
those cases in which nature will not wait, I offered to come in his
place. I've met you before, Superintendent, at Scotland Yard."

"Dr. Austin Bond!" exclaimed the Superintendent.

"He," said the other.

They shook hands, Dr. Bond genially, the Superintendent
half-consequential, half-deferential, as one who had his dignity to
think about; also as one who resented an intrusion, but dared not show
resentment.

The detective-sergeant recoiled at the dazzling name of the great
amateur detective, a genius who had solved the famous mysteries of
'The Yellow Hat,' 'The Three Towns,' 'The Three Feathers,' 'The Gold
Spoon,' etc., etc., etc., whose devilish perspicacity had again and
again made professional detectives both look and feel foolish, and
whose notorious friendship with the loftiest heads of Scotland Yard
compelled all police forces to treat him very politely indeed.

"Yes," said Dr. Austin Bond, after detailed examination. "Been shot
about ninety minutes, poor fellow! Who found him?"

"That woman who's just gone out. Some servant here. Came in to look
after the fire."

"How long since?"

"Oh! About an hour ago."

"Found the bullet? I see it hit the brass on that cue-rack there."

The detective-sergeant glanced at the Superintendent, who, however,
resolutely remained unastonished.

"Here's the bullet," said the Superintendent.

"Ah!" commented Dr. Austin Bond, glinting through his spectacles at
the bullet as it lay in the Superintendent's hand. "Decimal 38, I see.
Flattened. It would be."

"Sergeant," said the Superintendent. "You can get help and have the
body moved, now Dr. Bond has made his examination. Eh, doctor?"

"Certainly," answered Dr. Bond, at the fireplace. "He was smoking a
cigarette, I see."

"Either he or his murderer."

"You've got a clue?"

"Oh yes," the Superintendent answered, not without pride. "Look here.
Your torch, sergeant."

The detective-sergeant produced a pocket electric-lamp, and the
Superintendent turned to the window-sill.

"I've got a stronger one than that," said Dr. Austin Bond, producing
another torch.

The Superintendent displayed finger-prints on the window-frame,
footmarks on the sill, and a few strands of inferior blue cloth. Dr.
Austin Bond next produced a magnifying glass, and inspected the
evidence at very short range.

"The murderer must have been a tall man--you can judge that from the
angle of fire; he wore a blue suit, which he tore slightly on this
splintered wood of the window-frame; one of his boots had a hole in
the middle of the sole, and he'd only three fingers on his left hand.
He must have come in by the window and gone out by the window, because
the hall-porter is sure that nobody except the dead man entered the
lounge by any door within an hour of the time when the murder must
have been committed." The Superintendent proudly gave many more
details, and ended by saying that he had already given instructions to
circulate a description.

"Curious," said Dr. Austin Bond, "that a man like John Franting should
let anyone enter the room by the window! Especially a shabby-looking
man!"

"You knew the deceased personally then?"

"No! But I know he was John Franting."

"How, Doctor?"

"Luck."

"Sergeant," said the Superintendent, piqued. "Tell the constable to
fetch the hall-porter."

Dr. Austin Bond walked to and fro, peering everywhere, and picked up a
piece of paper that had lodged against the step of the platform which
ran round two sides of the room for the raising of the spectators'
benches. He glanced at the paper casually, and dropped it again.

"My man," the Superintendent addressed the hall-porter. "How can you
be sure that nobody came in here this afternoon?"

"Because I was in my cubicle all the time, sir."

The hall-porter was lying. But he had to think of his own welfare. On
the previous day he had been reprimanded for quitting his post against
the rule. Taking advantage of the absence of the manager, he had
sinned once again, and he lived in fear of dismissal if found out.

"With a full view of the lounge?"

"Yes, sir."

"Might have been in there beforehand," Dr. Austin Bond suggested.

"No," said the Superintendent. "The charwoman came in twice. Once just
before Franting came in. She saw the fire wanted making up and she
went for some coal, and then returned later with some coal. But the
look of Franting frightened her, and she went back with her coal."

"Yes," said the hall-porter. "I saw that."

Another lie.

At a sign from the Superintendent he withdrew.

"I should like to have a word with that charwoman," said Dr. Austin
Bond.

The Superintendent hesitated. Why should the great amateur meddle with
what did not concern him? Nobody had asked his help. But the
Superintendent thought of the amateur's relations with Scotland Yard,
and sent for the charwoman.

"Did you clean the window here to-day?" Dr. Austin Bond interrogated
her.

"Yes, please, sir."

"Show me your left hand." The slattern obeyed. "How did you lose your
little finger?"

"In a mangle accident, sir."

"Just come to the window, will you, and put your hands on it. But take
off your left boot first."

The slattern began to weep.

"It's quite all right, my good creature." Dr. Austin Bond reassured
her. "Your skirt is torn at the hem, isn't it?"

When the slattern was released from her ordeal and had gone, carrying
one boot in her grimy hand, Dr. Austin Bond said genially to the
Superintendent:

"Just a fluke. I happened to notice she'd only three fingers on her
left hand when she passed me in the corridor. Sorry I've destroyed
your evidence. But I felt sure almost from the first that the murderer
hadn't either entered or decamped by the window."

"How?"

"Because I think he's still here in the room."

The two police officers gazed about them as if exploring the room for
the murderer.

"I think he's there."

Dr. Austin Bond pointed to the corpse.

"And where did he hide the revolver after he'd killed himself?"
demanded the thin-lipped Superintendent icily, when he had somewhat
recovered his aplomb.

"I'd thought of that, too," said Dr. Austin Bond, beaming. "It is
always a very wise course to leave a dead body absolutely untouched
until a professional man has seen it. But _looking_ at the body can do
no harm. You see the left-hand pocket of the overcoat. Notice how it
bulges. Something unusual in it. Something that has the shape of
a----. Just feel inside it, will you?"

The Superintendent, obeying, drew a revolver from the overcoat pocket
of the dead man.

"Ah! Yes!" said Dr. Austin Bond. "A Webley Mark III. Quite new. You
might take out the ammunition." The Superintendent dismantled the
weapon. "Yes, yes! Three chambers empty. Wonder how he used the other
two! Now, where's that bullet? You see? He fired. His arm dropped, and
the revolver happened to fall into the pocket."

"Fired with his left hand, did he?" asked the Superintendent,
foolishly ironic.

"Certainly. A dozen years ago Franting was perhaps the finest amateur
light-weight boxer in England. And one reason for it was that he
bewildered his opponents by being left-handed. His lefts were much
more fatal than his rights. I saw him box several times."

Whereupon Dr. Austin Bond strolled to the step of the platform near
the door and picked up the fragment of very thin paper that was lying
there.

"This," said he, "must have blown from the hearth to here by the
draught from the window when the door was opened. It's part of a
letter. You can see the burnt remains of the other part in the corner
of the fender. He probably lighted the cigarette with it. Out of
bravado! His last bravado! Read this."

The Superintendent read:

"... repeat that I realize how fond you are of me, but you have killed
my affection for you, and I shall leave our home to-morrow. This is
absolutely final. E."

Dr. Austin Bond, having for the nth time satisfactorily demonstrated
in his own unique, rapid way, that police-officers were a set of
numskulls, bade the Superintendent a most courteous good evening,
nodded amicably to the detective-sergeant, and left in triumph.


VII

"I must get some mourning and go back to the flat," said Emily
Franting.

She was sitting one morning in the lobby of the Palads Hotel,
Copenhagen. Lomax Harder had just called on her with an English
newspaper containing an account of the inquest at which the jury had
returned a verdict of suicide upon the body of her late husband. Her
eyes filled with tears.

"Time will put her right," thought Lomax Harder, tenderly watching
her. "I was bound to do what I did. And I can keep a secret for
ever."




THE HAT

I


It was in the National Gallery, London, near closing time. I was
bending down to examine more painstakingly 'The Nativity' of Nicolas
Poussin, in one of the French rooms. Whenever I visit London I always
go to the National Gallery, and whenever I go to the National Gallery
I always take care to look at Poussin's 'Nativity,' which for me is
one of the most subtle and delightful little pictures in the finest
gallery in the world. The simple, enthusiastic joy of the small group
of onlookers, the unaffected and almost merry pride of the Madonna in
the Child, the exquisiteness of the Child, the originality of the
composition, the freshness of the charming colour, the depth of the
emotion--all these things enchant me, they have enchanted me for
years, and they enchant me more and more as I grow older and wiser in
the appreciation of art.

Now as I was gazing at the picture, a man came and stood close by me,
and he too bent down to examine it. I glanced idly at him for an
instant. I had noticed him ten minutes earlier in the gallery,
wandering about, preoccupied and even absorbed. A tall, slim man, of
about forty, with dark eyes, a peculiar, intent, dominating, piercing,
enigmatic expression on his pale, thin face. Well dressed, even
elegant, even distinguished. I had thought: "He must be an expert,
possibly a collector." And I had felt a certain excitement, for I
regarded collectors--I mean real collectors, who struggle against one
another at Christie's and whose sales when they die and leave their
pictures behind them, make a front-page item in newspapers--I regarded
these beings as the exalted, enviable princes of mankind.

"Jolly thing!" the man murmured in a deep voice, very surprisingly,
for strangers never address one another in the National Gallery. No
matter how much they may be moved by what they see, they keep their
feelings to themselves, according to the traditional British code of
scrupulous reserve.

"Yes," I agreed with warmth. Never before had I known a solitary
visitor at the National Gallery to be so un-English as to divulge that
any picture therein was having the slightest effect on his mind, heart
or soul. Nevertheless, the man was English enough.

"That bit of sky through the archway is astounding," the man
proceeded. "So dramatic, if I may say so." He looked closely at me, as
a detective might have looked at me.

"Well," said I, unduly modest. "I don't know anything about pictures.
But for me this Poussin is in a class by itself. And what's more I
think Poussin's one of the greatest painters that ever lived."

The man replied, as if he meant it:

"I'm glad to hear you say that. I have a Poussin myself. It's only a
sketch, but it's a Poussin all right."

"I wish I had."

Yes, my surmise about him had been sound: he was a collector; he was
among the darlings of fate.

"Did you pick it up?" I inquired.

"Shop in the Vauxhall Bridge Road," said he, excusably complacent.

"I congratulate you," I said.

We both ceased to bend, hesitated, and turned away the one from the
other.

"Pardon me," he approached me again. "But is that your hat you're
wearing?" His tone was surpassingly smooth and gentle, despite its
depth.

I must say I was shocked. Here we had been discussing a work of
sublime genius, and he suddenly switched off to hats! I was wearing an
ordinary bowler hat, like a million other bowler hats, probably made
at Denton, a town with which I was not unfamiliar. It fitted me
perfectly. It had no exterior marks to differentiate it from its
innumerable brothers upon the heads of men. I was shocked, and more
shocked than anyone unacquainted with the facts would imagine. For the
hat I was wearing was indeed not my own, though I had been covering my
half-bald scalp with it at intervals for the better part of six
months--indeed since my previous visit to London. During that visit I
had lunched with friends at the huge and famous Hotel Majestic in
Knightsbridge. I had given up a hat to a cloakroom attendant, and upon
leaving had received a hat from a cloakroom attendant. And not until
my return to Manchester had I discovered that the hat I had received
was not the hat I had deposited.

Of course I ought to have written to the Majestic. But owing to the
common, deplorable sloth of human nature I had not done so. The hat
fitted me as well as my own. Had it been a worse hat than my own I
might have taken the proper measures to regain my property; but it was
a better hat than my own.... Human nature is strange and sadly
imperfect. In the course of six months I had grown accustomed to the
hat, and had long ceased to think of it as another's.

"Why do you ask?" I demanded defensively, but not offensively.

I had already observed in the man's glance some quality of a
detective, and I thought it might be imprudent to set him against me.
The mystery of him thickened. At one moment he was a connoisseur of
pictures, and the next he was apparently the greatest expert of hats
in the whole history of male headgear. How in the name of sinister
magic had he divined that the hat was not mine?

"If that's the hat I think it is, it has the initials 'T.C.L.' inside,
and your initials are 'D.W.'"

"I take off my hat to you," I said.

It would have been more correct to say: "I take off somebody else's
hat to you." But he saw the pleasantry, and gave a benevolent laugh. I
displayed to him the inside of the hat which bore the initials
'T.C.L.' in gilt.

"And further," said I, "my initials _are_ 'D.W.' And will you please
tell me how you do it?" And to myself I thought: "This is the most
extraordinary thing that ever happened to me--or to anybody."

"It's very simple," said he. "You were given the wrong hat at the
Majestic some time ago--a hat belonging to a--er--gentleman that I
know. His initials are 'T.C.L.,' and he had to go away with a hat
marked 'D.W.'"

"Quite, quite!" I exclaimed, perhaps impatiently. "I realize what
happened. But how did you know that this hat isn't mine?" I resumed
the hat.

"I daresay that I have a gift that way," he answered, queerly as I
thought. "Sort of intuition."

"And how can I get hold of my own hat? Can you tell me that?" I asked.
"I should much prefer my own hat." (This statement was not true.)

"I believe your hat is at the Majestic," said he. "Mr. Lottleton
brought it back, hoping you'd bring this one back. I'm going to the
Majestic now," he added, looking at his watch sharply. "May I drive
you there?"

The guardian of the Gallery was beginning to warn the public that they
must depart.

"Whoever could have foreseen this?" I thought to myself, as I preceded
the man into the taxi.

"Would you very much mind if I called at my house for one second? It's
on our way," said the man.

"By all means. Please!" I begged him. "And I must tell you that I
should certainly have taken the hat back long ago to the hotel, but I
live in Manchester, and this is the first time I've been in London
since then."


II

A natty, smallish house, in Chapel Street, off Grosvenor Gardens. The
window-frames newly painted. Boxes of flowers on some of the
window-sills. The front-door a bright and coquettish green. Yes, the
house of a man of taste. The man jumped quickly out of the taxi. Then
stopped, as he fumbled for keys in his hip-pocket.

"Might come in and see my Poussin," he smiled. "Won't take two
seconds."

I accepted the invitation.

As he could open the front-door with his latch-key there was no need
for him to ring and no servant appeared. The entrance hall, though
narrow, had a delightful aspect: a Turkish rug on the tiled floor; an
antique cabinet; etchings on the walls; an oriental lamp suspended
from the ceiling; a classical cornice between the ceiling and the
walls; a glimpse of well-carpeted stairs, with more etchings on the
walls of the staircase. Positively the house of a man of taste who, or
whose wife, had an eye for harmony of detail.

"This way," said he. Evidently he was pressed for time.

I followed him into a dining-room, which had closed folding-doors at
the back. More proofs of taste in this apartment. A glittering,
polished table--empty. Empire chairs; an Empire sideboard. The Poussin
sketch, in a frame emphasizing its importance, was over the
mantelpiece. An ideal landscape, with ideal figures, men and women,
lounging on grass beneath foliage, some of them very negligent in the
matter of costume, and others who had apparently decided that to wear
any costume whatever in an ideal landscape and ideal weather would be
absurd. A lovely thing. Beyond doubt a genuine Poussin. And the fellow
had picked it up in the Vauxhall Bridge Road!

"Delicious!" I said. "Do you happen to know what picture it's supposed
to be a sketch for?"

"I don't," said he. "Wish I did. I have heard there's a picture in the
Louvre--But you see it's very difficult for me to travel."

At that moment we heard a tremendous cry behind the double-doors at
the end of the room. It was the cry of a tiny child in distress.

"Good heavens!" the man exclaimed, and rushed to the double-doors, and
opened one of them, disclosing a small, nondescript room, such as one
generally finds behind London dining-rooms. Formerly it would have
been called the breakfast room, doubtless because nobody ever had
breakfast in it. Here, judging from its attractive, fluffy, and
cushioned aspect, it was most probably a lady's boudoir. A child of
perhaps fourteen months, in a 'crawling' frock, was sitting on the
clean parquet floor, its face rendered horribly ugly by the distortion
of sobs and yells. The child was all alone in the room.

"Good heavens!" the man repeated. "Where's that d----d nurse--leaving
the child by itself like this!"

He glanced again at his watch. "What on earth's the matter with you,
baby? Celia, what is it?" He bent over the child, seemingly timorous
of handling her.

I took her myself into the light of the further window. She shrieked
and kicked, but not from temper. She was in agony.

"The little thing's in very severe pain," I said.

Several times she put her tiny, fat hands to her eyes.

A young nurse hurried in. She wore an armlet with an initial on it,
showing that she belonged to some Institute and was therefore fully
trained.

"My cherub!" cried the nurse. "Why are you naughty?" And she made as
if to take the child from me.

"She isn't naughty," said I. "I'm a doctor. Get a sponge or something
and some warm water, Nurse. Quick. I see you've been putting zinc
ointment on her face for this rash. Food too rich, I expect. She's
rubbed some of the ointment into her eyes. It's nothing, but it must
be frightful for her while it lasts."

"I'm awfully obliged, sir," said the man. "No idea you were a doctor.
Take her away, Nurse. I can't wait another moment."

"No! Get the sponge, Nurse," I insisted, and to the father: "I see
you're in a hurry. But I'll stay and finish this job and come on to
the Majestic later. Where shall you be? Who shall I ask for? But of
course I needn't ask for you, need I? I'll just tell them at the
cloakroom."

I had almost to shout, because of the terrible noise made by the
struggling child.

"Oh!" said he, imitating my loudness. "I'd like--er--to see you. I
shall probably be in the hall there. But if I'm not, will
you--er--please ask for Mr. Paddock. Can't thank you enough! No,
really I can't."

He gave me a grateful but worried smile, and went.


III

When, the nurse watching me, I had nearly finished soothing the eyes
of the most vociferous baby, the door opened from the back lobby, and
a young and very pretty blonde bounded into the room. She had untidy,
shingled, golden hair, and liquid, rather wild eyes, blue. She was
wearing a pink silk nglige all ribbons and large feathers, with
slippers of an elegance to match. An amber necklace. Several rings on
her fingers, but not bells on her toes. The mother! She stopped
suddenly, at the sight of me, scared.

"Excuse me getting up," I said--I was seated in a low easy-chair--and
explained the situation to her in the fewest possible words.

The baby was still crying loudly.

"Your little girl will be better now," I said.

"All alone in the room!" the mother repeated a phrase I had used. "Why
did you leave her alone, Nurse?"

"It was you who rang for me," the young nurse answered, somewhat
curtly. "When you ring three times it's for me, isn't it? I ran back
as soon as I heard baby."

"Yes," said the mother, after a short hesitation, coldly. "You needn't
wait now. You'll be late for your evening."

"Very well."

"You'll be back for her ten o'clock feed?"

"Yes."

The nurse vanished.

"It's very good of you, Doctor," said the mother to me, with generous
warmth, and a step forward. "Nurse is leaving us. I'm afraid she's
been neglecting baby, or--is doing something to her." She stopped,
seemed to be reflecting. "Perhaps I oughtn't to say a thing like
that."

"No," said I to myself, "You oughtn't. It's a very serious
accusation." (The nurse's face had appeared to me to be honest and
capable enough.) "But all you mothers are alike. You live in the midst
of an imaginary conspiracy against your precious infant's life." And I
said aloud: "Of course if a nurse puts zinc ointment on a child's
face, she ought to watch it for a bit afterwards."

"That was my fault," said the mother, as impulsive in remorse now, as
she had been in charging the nurse a moment earlier. "I put the
ointment on. Perhaps nurse didn't know I'd done it."

Without saying anything, she bent down and took her child from me, and
dandled it, and clutched it to her, and dandled it afresh; while the
child, full of its immense grievance against a cruel and totally
enigmatic universe, continued to complain distressingly in the only
language it could employ. The mother enveloped the child in fold upon
fold of passionate love. She buried the child in her breast, and then
buried her fair head in the child. For a minute nothing existed for
her but the adored child. She had no emotion save for the adored
child. All her being was flowing out of her into the child, and the
preoccupied child's being was sucked into the mother.

"I was very ill when she was born," the mother murmured, lips pressing
close on the child's neck. "_You_ don't know how ill your mammy was
when you came. Naughty mammy, putting nasty, horrid stuff on your poor
little face!"

More dandling. A touching, and somehow pathetic spectacle. The
elegant, pretty young mother, coquettish in every detail of her
toilette, utterly oblivious of her elegance as with a thousand
caresses she impetuously fondled her child in the soiled crawling
frock.

The baby halted, silent, in the middle of a sobbing intake of breath.
It had suddenly occurred to her that her eyes were not hurting her
quite so much. She looked round. Then, pessimistic, determined not to
be placated, she started once more to yell.

I stood up.

"Sit down, please," I said to the mother.

The mother sat down.

"So my husband's gone away again!" she remarked, discontented and
loving. Some trace of the whine in her soft voice.

"She's her husband's idol!" I said to myself. "You can see that in
everything about her. She's cared for, this young woman is. She's
spoilt. She asks and she gets. And all she has to do is to be
delicious to him. And she _is_ delicious to him--possibly too much.
She's a perfectly delicious creature, especially with that kid in her
bare arms." I was a bachelor and felt a bachelor's regrets--for having
left undone that which I ought to have done, and so on. I would have
loved to love such a delicious creature--wife and mother. I would have
spoilt her to the tune of my last half-penny. Day and night I would
have been devising means to spoil her.

She was crying. Tears ran down her delicious, passionate, powdered,
and rouged face.

"Let me take baby," I said, in a purposely matter-of-fact tone. "I
think you'd better lie on the sofa for a while. Seems to me you aren't
very well. I'll give you the baby afterwards." I could see that she
was perilously verging on hysteria.

Unresisting, she allowed me to take the child from her. Like a child
herself, she laid her body wearily on the sofa, and held out her arms,
and I restored the child to her, and she clasped it. On the floor by
the sofa was a crimson eiderdown which I spread across her knees. The
child had now satisfied itself that the universe was growing kinder.
It ceased to sob, but the tears were still slipping over its stout
cheeks. The mother also ceased to sob, but the tears were still
slipping over her lovely contours. The child stuck a finger into its
mother's rosy mouth.

"If I were you," I said, "I should see the doctor. Who is your medical
man? I could telephone for him."

"Oh!" said she, plaintively. "We haven't got a regular doctor. I'm
never ill. I mean I was only ill when baby was born, and then we had a
specialist. But he isn't our doctor."

"Well," I said, "I shall be seeing Mr. Paddock. I'm going to the
Majestic to see him about something. I only called here for a minute
because I wanted to look at a picture of his--the Poussin. I'll tell
him. And in the meantime, do let me advise you just to lie quiet, and
don't worry about _anything_. You're worrying."

"I know I am! I know I am!" she sighed. "But nobody knows what I'm
going through." The complaint, flung to anyone who happened to be
ready to listen, of the spoiled darling who is convinced that her woe,
when she has one, is a blow of fate especially directed against
herself, and more grievous than the woe of anybody else could possibly
be! "It's that nurse of ours. I admit she's a good nurse. She's very
good." The charming, spoilt darling being consciously just! "I thought
she'd quite settled down here, and I shouldn't have any more trouble.
But no! She's heard--something about my husband--you know, you're a
friend of his. There are droves of nurses with prams in Hyde Park, and
they gossip. I do believe they all know each other. Well, she won't
stay! And she's the second one! I can't understand it. I can't imagine
the way they think. It isn't as if I put on any airs with them. I
don't. My father kept a shop, and I don't care who knows it. But I
suppose a shop-keeper's daughter's as good as a nurse. And yet--You
know it isn't fair to baby; it really isn't--a new nurse every two
months or so! Of course I'm worried. Who wouldn't be? What mother
wouldn't be?"

The delicious creature went on and on, repeating herself, beginning
her story all afresh in similar words, the sound of her voice
increasing exactly in the manner of a hysterical subject. I let her go
on till she was exhausted. To have opposed her in the slightest degree
might have precipitated an attack. I did not even correct her notion
that I was a friend of her husband's.

It was evident to me that, delicious creature though his wife was, my
acquaintance, Mr. Paddock, connoisseur of pictures, must have married
someone not quite his intellectual or social equal. Yet what could it
be in Mr. Paddock that trained nurses of babies objected to? I might
have asked Mrs. Paddock, and perhaps found out; but I feared to do so
lest any discussion of the matter should have a disastrous effect on
her nerves. After much speculation, I half decided that he must be
either a bookmaker or a private detective. He had an imperative
appointment, apparently in the foyer of the Majestic. A private
detective might have to keep an appointment in the foyers of big
metropolitan hotels, for astonishing encounters undoubtedly happened
in them. But a bookmaker! Did bookmakers do business in such grandiose
rendezvous? I know not. And why, come to think of it, should nurses
take exception to either of these important and necessary callings? Or
could Mr. Paddock be the public executioner? Or a vivisectionist? Or
had he figured as the villain of a divorce case?

"It's very late," the mother charmingly complained. "And I quite
forgot to have tea. And of course no one thought of asking me about
it. Even if I don't always take tea, you'd suppose they'd just ask
me."

At her request I rang the bell. Tea was ultimately brought in,
together with the baby's six o'clock repast, by a reserved and
impeccable middle-aged parlourmaid. I drank one cup of tea in order to
satisfy the delicious creature's yearning to be hospitable to one whom
she deemed a benefactor. And then I said good-bye. She jumped up, baby
in arms, suddenly endowed with the most perfect health and spirits,
and insisted on accompanying me to the front-door. The baby also
accompanied me to the front-door. The scene was too exquisite to leave
without regret.

No sooner was I in the street than the obvious explanation of the
mystery occurred to me: Mr. Paddock must have served a term of
imprisonment. Mrs. Paddock was the kind of woman who, when she loves,
loves without any reserve.

Then another mystery rose up before me. Mr. Paddock had said that he
had to call at home. He had called, but he had spoken to nobody there
save myself. He had merely come and gone. For what purpose had he
called?


IV

"Mr. Paddock here?" I asked an attendant who stood just within the
revolving doors of the Majestic. He looked at me in a peculiar way.

"Mr. Paddock?" (No 'sir'!)

"Yes, Mr. Paddock," I repeated sharply, not very well pleased with his
tone or his extreme brevity.

I may be a provincial, but I believe in the rules of the game being
observed.

"You'll find him there, sir," said the man, pointing to a group
crowded round the counter of the cloakroom.

I had stayed quite a long time at the house in Chapel Street; and the
earlier diners, those who meant to go to a theatre, were already
arriving in the hotel. It is surprising how fashion will persuade
people to dine in Knightsbridge, which is a good mile away from any
West End theatre. I approached the group, but among it I saw nobody
who resembled my connoisseur acquaintance. Then, happening to glance
behind the counter, I saw a tall, slim man (with a lesser man) dressed
in a superbly rich livery. His legs were hidden from me by the
counter, but I know that he wore knee-breeches and shoes with silver
buckles. This was Mr. Paddock. Yes, I admit that the identification
came as a very considerable shock to me. Still, as a Midland
provincial, I reckoned that I could keep my nerve as well as any
Londoner. I neither blanched nor staggered. I understood a number of
things.

In the few moments which passed before I could reach the counter, I
watched the demeanour of Mr. Paddock as he accepted hats, overcoats
and sticks. Some customers he left to the lesser functionary, who gave
tickets in exchange for garments. Mr. Paddock never gave a ticket. He
gazed hard at his customer, exactly as he had gazed at myself in the
National Gallery; he took the hats and garments; and the customer
nodded, obviously flattered that the head attendant held it to be
unnecessary to hand a ticket to so distinguished a personage.

"Here is your hat, sir," said Mr. Paddock impassively, at length
recognizing me as I got nearer. And like lightning he produced my
inferior hat from beneath the counter.

He had made no error. The inferior hat was indeed mine.

"Thank you," said I, impassively, putting a shilling on the counter,
and abandoning the superior hat.

"Thank you very much, sir."

"It wasn't to you I gave this hat six months ago."

"No, sir."

"I say," said I. "What time are you free to-night?"

"Twelve o'clock, sir."

"I'll look in again, then."

"Thank you, sir."

"Not at all, Mr. Paddock."


V

Something after midnight Mr. Paddock and I were strolling rather
intimately in the direction of Chapel Street. Mr. Paddock was in the
smart mufti which he had worn earlier in the day. I had had to wait
for him, and in the time of waiting, I had had the pleasure of seeing
a rain of shillings and sixpences pour down on to the counter of the
principal cloakroom at the Majestic. The sight of this rain had helped
me to understand things still better. We got on very well, perhaps
because I had accepted the situation with what I am bound to describe
as admirable nonchalance. I told him my news about his wife's
condition.

"Yes," said he, after very warmly thanking me for my attentions to her
and the baby. "I may say that I've been noticing some signs of
hysteria for several days. I really called at home this afternoon just
to have a look at her: but as soon as I heard baby making that
terrible noise I knew there would be a scene, and I thought I
shouldn't do any good by staying, so I went at once. I'd no time. I'm
speaking to you quite frankly--as a doctor."

"Just so!" I agreed. "I'm glad you are. But as a doctor I must point
out to you that hysteria is a pathological condition like any other
disease. It isn't something vague that you can safely leave alone in
the vague hope that it'll get better. It won't get better if it isn't
treated and the causes removed. It'll get worse."

"I see," said he, "I fully see that something must be done. But what
to do I don't know. It's very difficult. The servants are aware of the
facts, but _they_ don't seem to trouble about them at all. Trained
nursemaids do. I suppose there's some difference of rank. Though why a
nursemaid should consider herself a cut above a really important
person like a cook I can't imagine. What's good enough for a cook
ought surely to be good enough for a nursemaid."

"Mysteries!" I commented. "That's what they are. Mysteries! And there
it is!"

"I used to be a clerk," Mr. Paddock continued, "at the Grand Babylon
Hotel, on the Embankment. Someone discovered that I had a pretty good
memory for faces and all sorts of things. In fact people said a quite
extraordinary memory--but I don't know about that. Anyhow, as I knew
something about the relative financial positions of employees in the
big hotels, I suggested myself for the cloakroom. They thought I was
mad. But I wasn't. The work was easier, and the profits about ten
times as much. And I had lovely suits of clothes free. When I changed
from the Grand Babylon to the Majestic--well, I was in clover. You
see, I run the cloakroom there. Of course I pay them a rent, and I
pay my staff. But there really is money in it. I had always had a few
private tastes of my own. I was soon able to indulge them a bit. Then
I married.... You see?"

"Perfectly."

"Naturally I should have told you my--er--circumstances before we'd
got to the hotel this afternoon. But at home things fell out so that I
hadn't a chance."

"Quite. I understand absolutely."

"I suppose you wouldn't care to look in to-night and see my wife
again--professionally. She always waits up for me. I should be very
grateful. We've no regular doctor."

"So Mrs. Paddock said. I'll come in with pleasure, but only on a
friendly footing. I'm having a short holiday in London."

"I really couldn't--"

"Yes, you could," I corrected him. "And what's more, I have an idea
that I could put you on to some treatment that would cure Mrs.
Paddock."


VI

Mr. Paddock had forgotten his latch-key. Whether he had left it in the
pockets of his gorgeous knee-breeches I know not. At any rate he had
to ring instead of masterfully entering the house in Chapel Street. He
rang several times. I was wondering, as we waited on the threshold of
his most attractive and not unfashionable home (far surpassing in
splendour my own), whether the countless male persons who rained
sixpences and shillings on to the counter of the cloakroom at the
Majestic ever realised what those sixpences and shillings were changed
into by the wit of man. I decided that the great majority of those
unconscious contributors to the house in Chapel Street would have
been astounded by that domestic organism could they have seen it, and
that the result upon them of even a glimpse of it would have been to
cause them to reduce their sixpences and shillings to threepences and
sixpences.

At length the bright door was opened, by the delicious creature Mrs.
Paddock,--still attired in the dazzling nglige which I had
previously beheld. For a fraction of a second her charming blonde face
had an aspect which heralded anxieties for Mr. Paddock on his return
home from an arduous day's work. But as soon as the lady caught sight
of myself, in the background of the steps, the face softened and
cleared and became the face of an amiable and adorable hostess and
wife.

I was invited to the boudoir, scene of the baby's afternoon tragedy,
where on a tray a delicately-laid supper awaited the breadwinner,--a
picnic meal which comprised cold ham, an egg salad, and a small bottle
of white wine. I refused food, though Mrs. Paddock urged me to let her
run down to the kitchen and find some for me; but a cigar and a glass
of wine were pressed upon me by those ringed hands, and I smoked and
drank. The moment was extremely agreeable,--and particularly so for
me, as I did not share the politely-concealed cares, apprehensions and
grievances of husband and wife.

"Now I only called in to say," I said, with as casual and modest an
air as I could assume, after I had inquired as to the baby and
received the news that it was healthily asleep. "I only called in to
say that I know in Manchester a nursemaid who is anxious to come to
live in London so as to be near her married sister. She is forty, and
she is plain. But she is thoroughly trained and thoroughly
conscientious, and she has a long series of first-rate references.
Also, I can personally vouch for her. And I am quite certain that she
will not care two pins about the trifling matter which has so
disturbed your present nursemaid, and the previous one. You may take
that from me as a positive fact. Manchester notions are very different
from those of London."

When I had said a little more, and my peace-producing scheme in its
beautiful comprehensiveness had sunk well into the untranquil mind of
Mrs. Paddock a marvellous thing happened.

She rose from her low chair by the table where Mr. Paddock was eating,
threw round his neck her arms from which the silken sleeves fell away,
and kissed him again and again. Her features were transformed, her
loveliness intensified, the glance of her eyes deepened. She did more
than kiss him,--she enveloped him, folded him up, in her exquisite and
passionate affection. She was then doing what heaven had appointed her
to do in this world, and she became perfect. The presence of a
stranger did not in the least incommode her, because she was aware of
nobody and naught but her husband. She had absolutely no
self-consciousness. (The same could certainly not be said of Mr.
Paddock.) I wondered once more whether the countless male persons who
rained sixpences and shillings on to the counter of the cloakroom at
the Majestic ever realized that officials in knee-breeches and buckled
shoes are apt to be real human beings with private lives, woes,
compensations, ecstasies, unique moments. And I decided that the great
majority of them, could they have witnessed the episode, would for the
future increase their sixpences and shillings to florins and
half-crowns.

But I had a sort of idea that possibly Mrs. Paddock had been rewarding
by her kisses the wrong man.




UNDER THE HAMMER

I


August weather on the Marine Parade at Dunge. Crowded pavements drying
in the wind, and another shower preparing on high to baptise anew the
big holiday resort. Huge moving cloud-shadows and some sunlight on the
turbulent noisy sea below the Parade.

Harcourt Withers, preoccupied, made his way as well as he could
through the groups that loitered in front of the postcard shops, the
drapers', the chemists', the offices of the road-car companies.
Withers was a man of twenty-seven, slim, slight, not tall, in a neat
grey suit, with fitting shoes and a discreet necktie. A quiet and
rather reserved fellow, he was a native of Dunge; but he did not like
its provinciality, especially in the summer season. The dowdy throngs
revolted him,--the enormously fat, waddling women, the stolidity of
heavy fathers, the vulgar sprightliness of youths, the garish cotton
frocks of pretty girls, the sprawling children who got smacked, the
comatose, pale babies. The autumn-winter season was much less
offensive. Visitors were fewer then, but they had at least some style,
and they reminded him of London, where he had lived for two years, a
member of the staff of a large firm of estate-agents and auctioneers
near Hanover Square.

He transferred his umbrella to his left hand, stopped, raised his hat,
and gave a quiet, pleased smile.

"Oh good morning, my dear," he said softly.

The girl had some style, and she was very good looking, despite a
certain prominence of the front teeth. A local doctor's daughter, she
too was a native of Dunge; but like himself she had acquired a
smattering of London; and here was one reason why he had fallen in
love with her. She gave him a lovely smile, far more brilliant than
the smile she received.

"I _am_ glad to see you," said she, with a sort of gentle exuberance.
"What's the matter, Harry?"

She called him Harry because he cared not for the name Harcourt, which
seemed to him pretentious and silly, in the provincial manner.

"Nothing. Why?"

"You seemed so preoccupied--before you saw me. It's all gone now."

"No, no. I'm all right. Have to preside at the fortnightly sale
to-day. Father's in bed with a chill. Mother's nursing him."

"Oh, Harry! Sorry about your father. I suppose it's nothing serious,
is it? But how splendid for you! It's your first auction."

"Yes. I did once finish the tag-end of one."

"Do you feel nervous, darling?"

"Not a bit." (Hardly true.) "But look here, Cecily. Don't you come
strolling in to watch me at it."

"Oh I shan't," the girl answered, a little too decidedly for
Harcourt's pride. He would have preferred her to show a strong,
childlike, feminine desire to stroll in and watch her hero at work
with the hammer. "I'm simply frightfully busy. But you'll tell me
about it afterwards. I shall see you to-night?"

"Certainly."

"Because I've had another talk with dad." Her expression was still
benevolent, loving, admiring; but it had somehow lost its bright
assurance. And her voice had dropped.

"Well?"

Both of them looked askance at the people round about, fearing
listeners.

"Well! He'll never agree. Never!"

A pause.

Harcourt said quietly:

"Then naturally we shall have to manage without him."

"But Harry----"

"But my dear," said Harcourt, in the same low tone, firmly. "You
aren't going to tell me that we must put off getting married till your
father gets over his tantrums with mine!"

"It's terribly difficult," said Cecily, on a timid, uncertain note.

Harcourt was astonished and hurt. Could the girl hesitate for one
moment between himself and her ogre of a father? Was his happiness and
hers to be interfered with because her parent and his had
quarrelled--and about such a trumpery matter as a doctor's bill?
Inconceivable!

"We'll talk to-night," said Harcourt, recovering his full
self-possession. "In a hurry. So are you."


II

The fortnightly auction went very well that morning. The sales were
held in a great room at the back of the premises of Withers & Co., in
the busy London Road. The walls of the room were papered with large
bills announcing for disposal all sorts of desirable mansions, houses,
shops, offices, farms, hotels, ground-rents and furnitures. Withers &
Co. was a firm old-established and very prosperous. Withers & Co. did
real business, as was demonstrated by the red-printed slips 'Disposed
of' pasted cross-wise over many of the bills.

Harcourt Withers occupied an elevated rostrum in the middle of the
back of the room, with three windows behind him, and a clerk at a desk
in front of and below him. The company, some seated, more standing,
was numerous beyond the average. Harcourt recognized the group of
dealers at the big table, with their callous, rather bored faces.
Often, but not always, they formed a 'knock-out ring,' refusing to bid
against one another, acquiring articles at far less than true value,
and then afterwards holding a private auction of their own and
dividing among themselves the difference between the proceeds of the
first auction and the proceeds of the second. Old Withers was
humorously tolerant of them. Harcourt regarded them as a gang of
respectable swindlers and a blot on the ancient institution of
auctioneering. He invented schemes for their undoing, but never a
practical scheme. His father maintained that not even a new law,
backed by all the majesty and force of the British Legislature, could
beat them.

Then there were sundry townsmen on the look-out for bargains, a few
owners of the objects put up for sale, and a few friends of owners.
And lastly there were holiday visitors, who had entered partly to
escape from the uncertainties of the weather and partly in obedience
to the mighty attraction which a sale by auction always has for
sensible persons with a moderate taste for adventure.

Two men in green aprons carried the objects to and fro for inspection,
or, if the objects were unwieldy, lifted them up for a moment so that
all might behold. From time to time a general faint rustle was heard
in the room as pages of the catalogue were turned over.

Harcourt found himself perfectly at ease. His quiet voice was
excellently audible, his articulation clear. He glanced benevolently
first to one side of the room, then to the other, then down the
centre. In obedience to his father's maxim, 'Keep 'em cheerful,' he
occasionally made a dryly humorous remark, which was always generously
rewarded by answering smiles or even laughs. He did not despise the
vocation of an auctioneer, for not only was his father an auctioneer,
but his grandfather had been an auctioneer; and therefore the
vocation, for him, was mysteriously dignified by family tradition.

Nevertheless, he said in his heart that auctioneering was an absurdly
easy job,--at any rate the auctioneering of furniture; the sale of
houses, he admitted, did perhaps demand a certain wary diplomatic
technique, which must be learned by long experience.

And also in his heart he said, and repeated continuously: "It's
impossible that Cecily should stick to her disgusting father. Hasn't
she told me again and again how tyrannical and disagreeable and mean
he is, and what a hard life her mother had with him. It's impossible!
Either she loves me or she doesn't. If she does ... Old Menrow will
give way. He's bound to. But he's a d----d obstinate fellow. Or Cecily
will defy him. But will she? She's his daughter. She can be obstinate
too. And don't I know it!... Impossible! Impossible! Somehow I've
_got_ to have her for my wife. And that's flat!"

So he said and said and said in his heart, the while he was selling
and selling and selling, and rapping and rapping and rapping with his
hammer on the desk of the rostrum. And nobody else in the room had the
least suspicion that the young, calm, modest and yet commanding
auctioneer had a heart acutely disturbed or a heart at all.

"Lot 171. An old Staffordshire earthenware coloured group. Mary and
her lamb. Lot 171," said Harcourt Withers, in a level, judicial tone,
but a tone with no boredom in it; the skilled and conscientious
auctioneer will never disclose that his interest is waning.

"Ten shillings," responded a voice, it was plainly an American voice;
and it belonged, as Harcourt at once saw, to a typical American, lean,
loose-limbed, neat, with thin, mobile lips and a square jaw; a man of
middle age. Not only Harcourt, but the whole room looked at the
American who was thrusting himself into an English auction.

"Ten shillings is bid, ladies and gentlemen," said Harcourt, with as
much liveliness as though he was announcing an original and
stimulating phenomenon which must arouse the curiosity and excite the
passions of the entire company.

"Fifteen," said a voice, and it was the dull voice of one of the
dealers performing his daily tedious task.

"One pound."

"One pound is bid for this quaint old figure-piece, ladies and
gentlemen," said Harcourt, and glanced round.

"One pound five," replied the dealer.

"Ten," said the American.

"Fifteen," replied the dealer.

"Thirty-five shillings is bid," said Harcourt.

"Two pounds," drawled the American.

The dealer nodded to the auctioneer.

"Two pounds five is bid," said Harcourt.

"Three pounds," said the American, with an even more deliberate drawl
than before. It became plain that the American was emulating the
cucumber, though defiance of John Bull vibrated in his twang.

The dealer nodded.

"Three pounds five is bid," said Harcourt.

"Four pounds," said the American, with an admirable assumption of
condescending tranquillity.

Harcourt's heart ceased to talk to itself about its private affairs,
and the image of Cecily vanished from it. "Some mystery here," he
thought. For the bit of Staffordshire ware was certainly not worth
four pounds at auction, nor even in a second-hand shop. During the
early bids he had supposed that the dealer, on behalf of the ring of
his colleagues, was merely freezing out the intruder. But at four
pounds this theory would no longer hold. Yes, some mystery. The whole
room felt the presence of a mystery. The atmosphere of the big room
was electrified. Everybody was glad that he or she had come to the
auction. Everybody had a new sense of the liveliness of life.
Everybody forgave the bad August weather, which had driven such a
crowd into the auction-room. Raindrops showed on the three windows,
and nobody cared tuppence for the rain. A few patriots remarked to
themselves sarcastically: "These Americans think they can do anything
with their dollars."

The dealer nodded.

"Four pounds five is bid," said Harcourt.

"Five pounds," drawled the American.

"Five pounds is bid for this beautiful piece," said Harcourt.

The dealer nodded.

"This looks like going on," said Harcourt to himself, after he had
announced the bid.

"This is great fun," thought the crowd of spectators.

The bids climbed over one another, climbed and climbed, slowly but
most perseveringly.

At length:

"Twenty pounds is bid, ladies and gentlemen," said Harcourt,
triumphant in his professional cheerful suavity. His tone said: "Of
course it's nothing to me,--all in the day's work. Still, no one can
deny that this is a fine auction, held by the oldest firm of
auctioneers and estate-agents in Dunge."

Some of the spectators had cheered, timidly.

The bids climbed higher.

"Bring it here, Jim," said Harcourt, to one of the green-aproned men
who had been walking to and fro exhibiting the piece.

The man placed the piece on the desk of the auctioneer's rostrum.

Harcourt picked it up, glanced at it, turned it round, glanced at it
again, and set it down. Yes, he had not been mistaken. He was
superficially acquainted with the piece because, as usual, he had
superintended the preparation of the catalogue. The piece was probably
about ninety years old. It was genuine. It was quaint. It was pretty
and attractive. Mary's blue pannier skirt, beneath the tight white
curving low-cut bodice; her jaunty hat; her backward look at the lamb;
the whiteness of the lamb; the collar of green leaves round the lamb's
neck: all very agreeable to the eyes. Also the piece was perfect--not
a chip on it anywhere, not a single one of Mary's delicious little
fingers missing. But Harcourt knew that there were thousands of such
pieces up and down England, and that there was little demand for them.
Collectors disdained them, because of the crudeness of their design.
Collectors would not begin to collect them for perhaps another twenty
years. And then the prices would mount mightily. Meanwhile a couple of
pounds would be quite a good retail price for Mary and the little lamb
that Mary had.

Harcourt had now decided that the American was rich and merely showing
off, and that the dealer must have received a bidding commission from
some client who at the preliminary view had recognized that particular
piece and for personal reasons was determined to own it. A diverting
encounter,--which would incidentally result in a substantial
percentage for the old-fashioned firm of Withers. Auctioneering was
capable occasionally of being very romantic and picturesque.

Loud cheers. Thirty pounds had been reached.

Still louder cheers. Forty pounds had been reached.

The affair was as good as a play or a prize-fight,--better. Every
member of the crowd was on pins. Harcourt himself was thrilled, in
spite of himself. Unprofessional to be thrilled, but thrilled he was!
He raised his hammer. Surely the bidding would cease. It did not
cease. The bids climbed and climbed, monstrously. Madness on someone's
part, naturally. But what matter?

Forty-five pounds, six, seven, eight. A pause. Harcourt raised his
hammer once more ... Nine.

Tremendous cheering. The peak of fifty pounds had been attained.

At this moment Harcourt saw his mother in a corner of the room by the
double-doors. Was his father worse? No! Absurd idea! The old lady was
smiling at him. She wore no mantle, only her green hat. His father
must be better, and she had run down, perhaps in the car, just for the
pleasure of seeing her son presiding at one of the big fortnightly
sales of furniture, ornaments, utensils, and oddments. Just like her.

"Fifty pounds is bid, ladies and gentlemen," said he in a voice
particularly masterful for the impressing of his mother.

Another pause.

He handled the piece again. Curious, the sentimentality of people
about inanimate objects! He could scarcely understand it. For he lived
in a specialized world where everything was always changing hands,
where people were for ever getting rid of homes and acquiring homes,
and getting rid of furniture and acquiring furniture. An extremely
changeful world.

The pause persisted. The thrilled crowd began to whisper. The tension
was terrific.

Harcourt glanced at the dealer, who would not look at him. He glanced
at the untired, alert American.

"Fifty pounds is bid. Any advance on fifty pounds? No? Come! Who says
fifty-one. It's a fine piece. Going--going--"

He stopped, with another questioning glance at the unresponsive
dealer. His mother was still smiling. But Harcourt was too
professional to smile back. She made a gesture towards him which he
did not comprehend, a downward gesture of the hand.

"Gone!"

The hammer sharply descended. But it happened to descend on Mary and
her little lamb and smote the piece to bits.

Never before had such pandemonium been witnessed in the most
respectable auction-rooms of the firm of Withers.

Harcourt's first shamefaced, self-conscious glance was for his mother;
but the old lady had gone, doubtless fleeing from the sight of a
disaster due solely to her son's inordinate clumsiness.


III

In obedience to a telephonic message that his father wished to see him
at once, the unhappy young auctioneer left the offices of Withers as
quickly as possible after the conclusion of the sale, the last part of
which had assumed the nature of a dreary and perfunctory anticlimax.
But before leaving he had ascertained that his theory of the heroical
battle of bidding was substantially correct. The American had informed
several people that he had bid for the piece simply because it had
taken his fancy. The dealer said that he had been commissioned,
without limit, to buy the piece for a visitor who had had to return to
London, and whose name was Edall, with an address in Sloane Street. He
had withdrawn from the competition at fifty pounds, for the reason
that he was only casually acquainted with his client, and had been
afraid to interpret the commission too literally. Reference to the
firm's books had disclosed to Harcourt that the piece had come, with a
miscellaneous lot of other stuff, from a house near Rye. An old clerk
offered his opinion that it had probably formed part of the Edall
Manor collection (in North Kent), which had been disposed of in one
lot to a rich building contractor years earlier. Harcourt had had the
fragments of the piece collected in a cloth, perhaps as a souvenir of
a unique occasion!

Now he nervously forced a latch-key into the key-hole of the
front-door of his home. He had made a shocking fool of himself; the
firm would of course have to pay fifty pounds (less the usual
percentage) to the owner of the piece; and his father would quite
certainly be displeased and sarcastic. Hence Harcourt was entitled to
feel nervous and to be resentful against an innocent latch-key.

At length he got the door open.

Cecily herself was standing in the hall, hatless, gloveless, as though
she lived there,--she who had not entered the house since the quarrel
between their parents.

"Hello!" Harcourt brightly exclaimed. "What's all this?" And he went
on quickly: "Heard about my accident?"

"Your accident?"

"Yes. Smashed a fifty pound piece of earthenware at the sale."

"Oh, Harry!"

He then saw that Cecily had begun to cry.

"Oh! It's nothing," said he.

"Your mother--" Cecily began.

"What about her?" he asked. "Come back, hasn't she?"

"No! She never recovered consciousness."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Oh! Harry! I'd better tell you at once. The poor thing's dead."

"Dead?" Harcourt repeated mechanically. "But I saw her at the sale."

"At the sale? When?"

"About an hour and a quarter ago."

Cecily shook her head.

"She's been dead at least an hour and a half."

"But don't I tell you--" He stopped. "Here," he said very quietly.
"Come into the drawing-room." He had a sudden sensation of sheer
fright, an awful breath-taking qualm such as he had never before
experienced.

"Now," said he, when they were shut in the drawing-room. "Please." He
was acting perfect self-possession but not acting it very
convincingly.

"The hot-water bag in your father's bed had gone wrong. Your mother
said she would slip over to the chemist's herself to get a new one,
the sort she prefers. She put on her hat, and ran downstairs--you know
how quick she can be. At the front-door she saw what the weather was
like, and ran upstairs again for her umbrella. At the top of the
stairs she fell. They telephoned for your new doctor. He was out. Then
they telephoned for father. He came. At first he wouldn't. But I said
he must. And I came with him. I thought I might be useful. She was
dead. Heart. Father said he'd often told her she ought never to run
upstairs."

"Of course he had. I know that."

"But she's so active."

"Yes. Especially when anyone's ill."

"Yes."

"Do you mean to say she didn't go out of the house at all?"

"That's what the parlourmaid told us. Hadn't been out all morning."

In her emotion, Cecily seized Harcourt's hand.

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs, on her own bed."

"Where's your father?"

"He's gone. He said there was nothing to be done. He had two urgent
cases. He'll be calling for me soon."

"And father--my father, I mean?"

"He's in bed, of course. But it's nothing but a bad chill with him."

"Does he know?... About mother."

Cecily nodded. Then she added:

"But what do you mean--you saw her at the sale."

Harcourt could not speak at first.

"My dear," he said. "Stay here a minute. Sit down." He led her to an
easy-chair. "You're a bit overdone. It was awfully decent of you to
come. I'll be back in a moment."

In the hall the parlourmaid was crying.

"Oh, Mr. Harcourt! Mr. Harcourt!"

He nodded to her appreciatively.

"Bessie!" he murmured.

"And so terrible sudden, sir! So--" The stout girl sobbed, hid her
face.

"Yes."

He strode up the stairs. Near the top he paused and leaned over the
banisters.

"Bessie."

"Yes, Mr. Harcourt." The girl subdued her sobs.

"Do I understand that mother didn't go out this morning?"

"No, Mr. Harcourt. She didn't."

"At all?"

"No sir."

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, sir, she was in master's bedroom all the time. And I saw her
coming downstairs, pinning her hat."

"What hat was she wearing?"

"The green one, sir."

Harcourt went on. He hesitated outside his mother's door. The
sensation of fright was still powerfully upon him. And he was also
retrospectively afraid. He was afraid for himself as he had stood an
hour and a half earlier looking at his mother from the auctioneer's
rostrum. What had he been looking at? He ought to have felt fear in
the rostrum. But he had not felt fear; and that seemed somehow very
wrong. The mere thought of his not then being afraid frightened him.
He was as one who has been through a dreadful and dangerous crisis
without knowing it.

And the universe was enlarged for him, transformed for him, made awful
for him. Dead, his mother had visited him, signed to him, and
vanished. Result: the smashing of the earthenware piece. Why had she
done it? Or rather, why had her spirit done it? Yes, her spirit! The
universe was strange to him. All his life he had been accustomed to
smile superiorly at tales of spirit manifestations. He had dismissed
them with one word: 'Imagination.' But he did not smile now. And the
word 'imagination' seemed silly, puerile, almost offensive. His eyes
had seen his mother, in her green hat. He was not ill; he was in no
state of agitated nerves; he had never been subject to delusions; he
was as sane as any man could be sane. And his eyes had plainly seen
his mother in the everyday, prosaic, commonplace, earthly surroundings
of the auction-room, and in full daylight. His fright grew.

But he went into the room.


IV

His mother lay on her bed, from which the pillows were removed. Her
brown dress had been disordered, doubtless for the purpose of medical
examination, and rather summarily put right. The body and limbs were
properly arranged, the arms straight, the legs straight. The face was
extremely pale; but the face of Mrs. Withers had always been extremely
pale. The eyes of course were closed. How small and how frail she
looked--somehow girlish!

Gazing from the foot of the bed, Harcourt divined in the still,
recumbent figure the girl his mother had once been. He felt an impulse
to cry, but did not cry. He saw as in a dream the whole of his
mother's life, from girlhood to grey hairs. And his sadness increased.
He was acutely sorry for her, as we are always sorry for the poor
dead. He realized that he had never been entirely just, and never
generous enough, towards his mother. Millions of us have had exactly
such sensations in similar circumstances; but to Harcourt the
sensations were as fresh and vital as though he were the first of the
human race to feel them.

He glanced round the room, and perceived a hundred trifling familiar
objects,--the green hat, out of shape, was on the chest of drawers.
The pathos of the whole spectacle was intolerable to him. The idea
occurred to him that one day sooner or later all those objects, and
all the furniture, would ultimately come to auction, under the hammer,
and be hammered down to indifferent purchasers who neither knew nor
cared what they had meant to once living souls. The hidden, sinister
quality of auctioneering was laid bare to him....

Edall? Edall? The name aroused faint, thin memories. His mother's
sister, or half-sister--he forgot which--long since dead, had surely
married an Edall. He had never seen her, only heard of her, vaguely.
Was the name Edall? Yes, it was Edall? But he could recall nothing
whatever of the husband, had certainly never seen him. Perhaps, when
he himself was a child, there had been a quarrel between his father
and the uncle-in-law. His father had a certain aptitude for
quarrelling. Why had the image of his mother visited the auction-room
precisely at the moment when the earthenware piece was under the
hammer? Why had she died just in time for the visit? Coincidence? Or
were there invisible mysteries which for ever magically and tragically
enfolded the daily existence of men? No! Coincidence! And yet---- His
brain was unequal to the tremendous problems and shadows of problems
that loomed, advanced, receded....

A motor-lorry rumbled and blundered through the street below, shaking
the house. The man driving it could have no notion of the dread
solemnities which his monster was shaking. Harcourt shifted away from
the bed to the window. The noise of the lorry dwindled diminuendo into
absolute silence. A sigh? A scarcely audible sigh? The ghost of a
sigh? Had Harcourt heard a sigh? Impossible! But all his skin was in a
tremor. He returned, fearful and unwilling, to the bed.... Undisturbed
immobility of death! He wondered where, where, was the spirit which
had passed--how?--from the mortal husk on the bed to the
auction-room. Then Harcourt gave a start of terror. The left eyelid of
the body had flickered. It was still again; but it had flickered. He
dashed to the door. Simultaneously there was a knock at the door,
which opened. Bessie, the fat parlourmaid, red-eyed.

"Please, Mr. Harcourt, it's the undertaker people, to lay out. And the
doctor's called in."

"Hsh! Hsh!" Harcourt stopped her, intensely excited. "Get some brandy.
Send the doctor up instantly. And do bring some brandy. Get on with
you. And keep those people out of here. Quick!"


V

The next afternoon.

Mrs. Withers, her wrinkled, small, innocent, white face very sweet and
as it were resigned, lay in bed. Cecily, seated by the bed, had just
entered the room, and was holding Mrs. Withers' hand.

"But you haven't had any sleep, my dear," said Mrs. Withers in her
meek and gentle invalid's voice.

"Oh yes!"

"But you stayed up with me all night."

"Well, I slept from ten this morning till half-past two, and then I
had something to eat and then I thought I must come along here again
to see how you were getting on."

"You've been very, very kind."

"Not at all. When they telephoned for father yesterday morning I just
had the idea I might be useful if I came with him, as Mr. Withers was
ill too. Spur of the moment--you know."

"And useful you were, my dear. I shall never be able to thank you.
Never! I'm much better. In fact I'm quite well now. And Mr. Withers
is on the up grade too. I do believe I shall be downstairs to-morrow.
Who's that? Oh! It's you, Harcourt."

Harcourt, bearing a package, joined them, with a jaunty, rather
bustling air hardly natural to him. He exchanged with Cecily a glance
not seen by Mrs. Withers. That glance said: "We are in the presence of
a miracle. The beloved old lady is now different from all other human
creatures. She has left earth and come back to it. She is set apart.
And she doesn't know it."

And Mrs. Withers did not know it. She thought that she had merely lost
consciousness and returned to consciousness. Evidently she had no
memory of a tremendous spiritual adventure. Her placidity was
complete. The immortal part of her was keeping its own secrets from
her brain. The servants, the undertaker's staff, the undertakers
themselves had all been most solemnly pledged to silence.

"What's that funny parcel?" Mrs. Withers inquired.

"D'you mean to say you haven't been told about my famous accident
yesterday morning at the sale?" Harcourt exclaimed, with histrionic
gaiety.

"Accident?"

Harcourt related the episode.

"How very careless of you, my dear!" she commented. "Fifty pounds!"

"Yes. Fifty pounds! That we have to pay out! So I thought I'd bring
the bits along and have a look at them. My opinion is it can be
mended. If it can, we shall at any rate have something for our fifty."

He undid the package, spreading the cloth on the bed and the broken
fragments on the cloth.

"Supposed to be Mary and her little lamb."

He fingered the fragments.

"Here's a good half of the lamb," said he.

Mrs. Withers took the bit in her thin, pale, blue-veined hand.

"Where's the bottom of it, my dear?" she asked.

Harcourt pieced together the base of the group.

"Is there anything painted on it?" Mrs. Withers murmured.

"No," said Harcourt.

"Not up in the little hole under Mary's figure?"

Harcourt peered.

"It's so black. Yes. F something. E, s, something. Can't read it. Must
have been painted on, some time after it was made. Hasn't stuck. Why,
mother?"

"My dear boy," said Mrs. Withers, still with an even placidity. "This
is the strangest thing that ever happened. I'm so glad you broke it. I
can't tell you how glad I am. If that American had got it and taken it
to America with him--no, I could not have borne that. Well, of course
I _could_, because I shouldn't have known anything about it, should I?
But if I had known I couldn't. That piece was given to me by my mother
on my birthday when I was seven. 'For Essie.' Those were the words."

"But who's Essie?"

"I'm Essie. They always called me Essie when I was a little girl."

"Why?"

"Well, it was a pet name."

"I never knew."

"Perhaps not, my dear. But you don't know everything, do you? Some
things get forgotten. And afterwards I gave it to my younger sister,
your Aunt Rhoda, that married an Edall. And she's been dead ever so
long. Ever so long. We heard that her husband sold up Edall Manor
afterwards; but I couldn't be sure, because we--we never saw anything
of him. He's dead too. That I _do_ know.... And I'm still here."

Her voice shook, and tears showed in the old lady's eyes; also in
Cecily's eyes.

Harcourt looked uneasily at the two women.

"I'm sure it can be mended. That fellow in Norman Street can do it,"
said he, with a wonderful imitation of casual ordinariness. Then he
added: "I'm awfully glad, Mother. Yes, it _is_ the strangest thing.
Makes you feel queer somehow."

"I want you to go and tell your father," said Mrs. Withers, still
inspecting the fragments.

"Yes," Harcourt agreed.

But before seeing Mr. Withers Harcourt ran downstairs.

"Bessie," he called. "Bring me a whisky-and-soda."


VI

When Bessie brought the whisky-and-soda she announced the tidings that
she had seen Dr. Menrow just arriving at the house.

"Show him in here," said Harcourt. And to himself, grimly: "I'll talk
to that fellow."

He drank the whisky-and-soda in one draught.

Dr. Menrow was introduced into the room. A middle-aged,
harsh-featured, professional man, not well dressed, with nose, eyes,
and especially chin all very pugnacious.

"Good afternoon," said he, non-committal, in his customary surly tone.
Marvellous how the fellow, with such an unsympathetic style, could
keep a clientle together; but he did. His practice flourished.

"Good afternoon," said Harcourt, standing on the hearth-rug, hands
behind back. "Sit down, will you? This is the first chance I've had to
speak to you alone. My mother is getting on wonderfully."

"I'm glad."

"No need for you to see her any more. Unless of course--"

"No. No need," the doctor concurred.

"You made a serious mistake there."

"We all make mistakes at times," said the doctor defiantly. "You do."
His lip curled as he stared at the young man. "But what particular
mistake have I been making lately?"

"About my mother."

"I certainly made no mistake there."

"But you said she was dead."

"I did say your mother was dead. And she was dead. That's positive.
Any man who knew his business would have said the same. And he'd have
been right."

"But the old lady is alive and nearly well."

"I don't need anybody to tell me that."

"Then how do you explain it?"

"I don't explain it. I merely say she was dead."

"Then it's a miracle."

"I know nothing about miracles. But it's a very solemn thing. Very
solemn."

His tone had changed. At last he sat down.

The interview was not proceeding quite as Harcourt had planned it in
his mind.

"And that's all you can say?"

"It is." The doctor rose from his chair. "If my daughter's here, I
shall be obliged if you will let her know I'm waiting for her."

"I say," Harcourt made a fresh start. "I suppose you think Cecily
would never marry without your consent?"

"I think she would not."

"I'm of the same opinion," said Harcourt.

"I'm sure she wouldn't."

"But why?"

"Because she was brought up like that. That's all."

"And you'll never agree to her marrying me because of the row you've
had with father."

"Your father said things---- No! I prefer not to discuss your father
with you."

"I'm not asking you to." Harcourt sat, and, strangely, the doctor sat
also. "But don't you think that seeing all we've been through these
last two days, this quarrelling business is a bit silly. When you
consider my mother's death--and her return--and ask yourself where she
was in those two hours, and what brought her back, what power--you say
it was a very solemn thing. It was. These mysteries frighten you.
They're too big. Make quarrels seem--seem--well, you see what I mean."

"I do.... Never have I had such a solemn night as I had last night."
The doctor's voice quivered.

"I'd undertake to fix father." Harcourt's voice quavered.

He approached the older man.

"Yes. You're right," the doctor murmured. He sprang up and walked to
and fro.

Half-an-hour later Harcourt re-entered his mother's bedroom.

"Mother," he began impetuously. "What should you say if I married this
Cecily here. Mr. Menrow's here and he agrees."

"Harcourt!" Cecily exclaimed, absurdly startled and self-conscious.

"Yes, he agrees," Harcourt repeated.

"Harcourt," said Mrs. Withers, after they had talked a little, "I want
to see you kiss her."

He kissed Cecily. Both of them felt the room to be uncomfortably hot;
both of them blushed.

"Cecily, my dear," said Mrs. Withers, placid and full of bliss. "I
don't know what Father will give you for a wedding-present. But I
shall give you Mary and her lamb. My mother gave it to me--and I feel
I must give it to you--and--oh dear!"




THE WIND

I


The vast stretch of lion-coloured sands; the vaster stretch of
tumbling grey sea; the still vaster stretch of disordered grey-inky
clouds which passed endlessly at a great rate from west to east across
the firmament; the wind; and one small bare-legged figure on the
sands.

The wind had been blowing hard for days; it varied in strength from a
stiffish breeze to half a gale; once or twice it had surprisingly gone
right round to the east, and the clouds had uncovered the sun, and the
showers been briefer and fewer; but during the whole holiday the wind
had never ceased. As soon as you arrived over the ridge of shingle on
the beach, it assaulted you. There was no peace from it except in the
lee of the tarry bathing-hut, sole edifice within sight, perched high
on the shingle; and the instant you moved even a foot away from the
shelter it assaulted you again with new power, and continued
incessantly to assault you.

It may have been a healthy wind, but its effect on the nerves was
evil. Mr. Frederick Lammond was keenly aware of its sinister influence
on his nerves. Mr. Lammond stood where sand and shingle met, between
the bathing-hut and the small figure approaching the sea's edge.
Hearing a faint shriek from the hut, he turned.

"Look after the child!"

Across the hostile wind the words which had begun in a loud shriek
from the lips of the half-undressed girl standing in the doorway of
the hut reached him like a whisper.

The wind caused the end of the ribbon encircling his insecure straw
hat to vibrate with a noise like the hum of an insect's wings.

He waved a reassuring arm.

"Oh, d----n!" he muttered. "As if I hadn't got my eye on the kid the
whole time!"

The infant was yet quite thirty yards off the water.

Mr. Lammond strolled after the infant with careful, callous
deliberation.

The infant was the most expensive toy on earth. Her unconscious
demands on Mr. Lammond's purse were enormous. She had meant a larger
house (with all the expenses of removing and the wages of more
servants) because she needed two entire rooms to herself, one for day,
one for night. She had meant new furniture, new pictures (specially
selected to attract and develop her youthful mind); a self-clicking
gate at the top of the stairs; a succession of new toys; a succession
of new clothes (for she grew day and night); a superb perambulator,
whose wheels revolved on ball-bearings. Also the salary of a trained
and certificated nurse, who save for half a day a week devoted her
entire existence night and day to the welfare of the expensive toy.
Then there was Grade A milk, which the infant seemed to drink in
immoderate quantities, and various other costly foods.

And then there was the new motor car, with the chauffeur. Before the
era of the infant the Lammonds had been happy with a trifling 7 h.p.
run-about, which Frederick drove himself, and which even Edna herself
occasionally drove. Edna, however, would not allow the life of 'her'
child to be risked in any run-about controlled by an amateur. Strange
creature! She had not minded Frederick risking his own life, or hers.
But the infant was as sacred as an Indian cow--and not more
intelligent. Hence the chauffeur, and you could not decently put a
chauffeur in a car of less than 20-40 h.p. Hence, further, liveries
for the chauffeur, licence for the chauffeur, many meals for the
chauffeur.

Frederick Lammond calculated, and loved to calculate, that his
offspring cost him in all an extra thousand a year. He did not grudge
the expense, for the profits of the wood trade were increasingly
handsome; but he thought it was a lot, a tremendous lot, with little
immediate result.

He thought, too, that Edna was rather silly about the child. He
excused her silliness, on the score of maternal instinct, which he had
often read about and was now witnessing in action. But he found it
hard to excuse her criticism, spoken and implied, of his own attitude
towards the child. She charged him with indifference. She asked him if
he realized that he was a father. She expected him to kiss madly, to
hug fondly, to be thrilled by, to think constantly of, the child. He
could not. He knew, rather than felt, that he was a father. Certainly
he thought that the whole business of the child was wonderful, even
miraculous. He was pleased when the child began to adventure across
floors on hands and knees; he was gratified when she managed the trick
of balancing herself on two legs; he was delighted when she first said
'Ta-ta.' And when she recognized him, smiled at him and otherwise
'took notice' of him, he was absurdly flattered.

Yet for hours together he could completely forget the existence of the
child. And he was capable of coming home of an evening and omitting to
ask after her. Was it his fault? He could not pretend. Or, if he could
pretend, he could only pretend to be more indifferent than he in fact
was. A father is not a mother. But Edna was not pleased. The child was
drawing Edna away from him. Edna, with the nurse and the child, formed
a sort of Opposition to His Majesty's Government. The nurse would say
to Mr. Lammond, critically: "Aren't you coming to see your child in
her bath?"

Still, despite occasional conjugal friction, it was all very romantic
and agreeable.

So, with careful, callous deliberation, Mr. Lammond pursued his child.


II

The baby, who for some ridiculous reason was usually addressed by her
father as 'Joe,' surveyed idly, as she moved, the expanse of sand. The
sand was illimitable, and hence beyond her conception. She did not
know it was called sand; but she knew what it was. It was a substance
which yielded pleasantly to the clutch of her toes, and which
amusingly worked itself up between her toes, producing an agreeable
tickle.

Though alone in the infinite, she was not a bit afraid, being secure
in her conviction that she was the centre of the universe and the most
important phenomenon in the universe. She could not have demonstrated
this fundamental truth by any process of ratiocination. She could not
even have put it into words. She just knew it: which fact settles for
ever the great controversy among adults whether or not thought can
occur without words.

If she wanted anything somebody was always on the spot either to
supply it or to soothe her without supplying it. If she got into any
trouble somebody was always there to get her out of it. If she was
happy she saw happiness in the faces of others. If she was unhappy
she saw sympathetic concern on the faces of others. When others were
with her, no matter how many, they all looked at her all the time,
keenly, passionately interested in everything she did.

Of course some of the feats she accomplished well merited attention
and admiration. For example this new feat of putting one foot in front
of the other and so moving magically to fresh and strange and exciting
places. And this other feat of making such noises as were made by the
giants whose faces were generally up near the ceiling,--a noise for
instance like 'Ta-ta,' which was her chiefest success in noise.
Whenever she achieved 'Ta-ta,' the audience laughed with joy. She was
less effective with noises like 'nanny,' 'daddy,' 'mammy.' But 'Ta-ta'
always created a sensation. Had it failed to do so she would have been
gravely disappointed.

She lived for sensations. And she could justly boast that she had
created a few. As when she first picked up a black, scratchy thing and
ran it through her hair in the manner of the tallest and darkest
giant! And as when she first made a continuous series of noises in the
manner of all the giants. She knew not the significance of these
series of noises (nor did anybody else), but they evidently thrilled
the whole race of giants. So she often made them and made them longer
and longer.

By all these signs it was that she knew positively and unshakably the
supremacy of her position in the universe.

After she had been putting one foot cleverly in front of the other for
many hours she vaguely perceived, ahead of her, shifting matter which
somehow reminded her of her own bath. This perception diverted her
from the perception of an invisible, slightly hostile, slightly
obstructive thing that was constantly pressing against and chilling
her face, arms and legs. But the shifting matter was still very
distant, and she perseveringly moved forward in her lonely adventure.
Then suddenly, her feet grew painfully cold, and she saw around them
soapsuds such as Nanny manufactured in the bath. And she was afraid.

And simultaneously she was afraid of the invisible thing which, also
suddenly, became more hostile and more obstructive. And she faintly
recalled a frightful experience of cold and sham soapsuds and wetness
that had happened to her many years ago,--to be exact, on the previous
afternoon. And then to-day's soapsuds, also suddenly, dashed at her
red legs, and the invisible hostile thing attacked her anew with
shattering fury, and the complicated apparatus of her legs got beyond
her control. Her beautiful face was transformed to hideous ugliness;
she gave a high screech; and fell down in the water of a tremendous,
overpowering bath. And she wanted Nanny more than she had ever wanted
anything. And she was colder and wetter than she had ever been; and
for the first time in her life she realized the awful terror of
solitude in a universe of dread and dismay.


III

When Edna started to run down from the hut to the sea she already felt
slightly, not seriously, inimical towards her husband. A more
pleasurable mood was conquering her annoyance with the callous father
of a babe fragile and defenceless: a mood due to the consciousness
first of the beauty of her own form and face, second of the becoming
tints and cut of her bathing-costume, her cloak, her cap and her
shoes, and third of the power of her feminine charm over the sinful
man.

No one not aware of the fact would have taken her for a mother. She
had the body of a girl, and like a girl she bounded lightly across
the crackling shingle and the sand. She was lovely to the sight, and
she knew that she was lovely. The incessant wind exasperated her
delicate skin and her nerves, but she had a mighty force of health to
repulse its malign influence.

Then, just before she passed the strolling Frederick, the child fell.
Whereupon, at the shock, her features changed, much as the babe's had
changed, though less violently.

"There!" she cried, in a savage, hating voice. "You see!... Might have
been drowned. That's what she might!"

She ran on. Frederick ran after her, but he could not match the flying
girl, who stopped for a second to shed her cloak (which must on no
account be exposed to the risk of damage), and yet arrived easily
first at the child. She fondly seized the yelling, wet child, and
hugged it and soothed it and comforted it in her encircling beautiful
arms. Her face was lovely again.

"No harm! No harm!" said Frederick awkwardly, guiltily. "Do her good.
Now take her into the water with you. It'll get her used to it. You
said you wanted to get her used to it." Such was his attitude towards
the greatest disaster of Joe's whole existence.

She replied with calm and intense animosity:

"How can I take her into the water when she hasn't got her bathing
things on?"

"I thought she had," said Frederick weakly.

"Of course you didn't."

"Then I'm a liar?"

"Can't you see she hasn't got her bathing things on?"

"Well, her legs are all bare. Hanged if I can tell the difference!"

"Don't know when your own child's in her bathing things and when she
isn't! Shows how interested _you_ are in her!"

Joe still shrieked out her desolating woe, which the wind tore into
strips and wildly scattered about the sandy waste. Edna was carrying
the child at a swift pace upwards towards the distant hut, while
Frederick followed behind sheepish but somehow defiant.

"Here! I'll carry her," said he at length,--it was a considerable
effort on his part towards an armistice. "She's too heavy for you. And
I don't believe she's as wet as all that!"

"No, you _won't_ carry her!... I suppose you're going to leave my
cloak behind."

He was. He had not noticed the cloak. He picked it up with fury.

"You did it on purpose!" cried Edna in the unnerving wind, striving to
kill him with a glance over her shoulder.

"Did what on purpose?"

"Let her go by herself into the water--deliberately."

"Oh! I see!"

"Yes. The fact is you're jealous of the child. That's what you are. I
know. I can see. I've seen it for months. You're jealous."

"Quite!" said Frederick. "And so I meant to let her drown!"

"_Yes!"_

"That's your considered opinion?" Frederick grunted.

"Yes, it is. We may as well be open with one another--at last!" Her
tone was affrighting in its terrific sincerity.

Joe's yells increased in strength and resentfulness. She correctly
surmised that somehow she had ceased to be the centre of the
universe.


IV

A rather dreadful thing happened in the car as they were driving up
from the beach to the ancient town, once a Norman port, but now left
high and dry by the receding sea.

Edna had done marvels. She had stripped and dried the infant, and then
clad it in its unused bathing costume and covered the bathing costume
with odd woollies and a rug against any cold, and then completely
dressed herself in about four minutes,--she who had reckoned to allow
at least thirty minutes for even an informal after-bathe toilette.

And now, while Frederick sat silent in one corner of the speeding car,
she sat silent in the other, with the reassured and happy infant
clutched to her body. Never before had she had such a sense of utterly
owning the infant. Sometimes in the past she had given hints to its
father of her estimate of the supreme share which had been hers in the
production of the infant; but now, as the car rolled swiftly over the
curving road across the marsh, she was convinced that Frederick
counted for absolutely naught in the origin of the child. To her and
to none else was due the glory. She thought of all that she had
suffered for the sublime achievement; she saw clearly how in the daily
life of the child Frederick was nobody but an outsider, incompetent,
inefficient, and helpless in any real crisis such as that which his
callous negligence had just brought about. Her devastating meditations
were disturbed by a sudden restlessness on the part of Joe. The child
wanted to slip down from its mother's lap on to the floor of the car,
and it had its way, and, freed from the rug, sat on the floor and
stared around in search of some new activity.

"The truth is," said Edna harshly, gazing straight at Frederick's
speciously agreeable fair face, in which she decided that she had
always seen the signs of a weak character. "You have no sense of
responsibility. Everybody knows that."

Frederick made no answer.

"You know it's true," Edna insisted.

Frederick remarked calmly:

"You said on the beach I meant to let the kid drown."

"So you did! At the moment."

"Well, until you withdraw that, I shall have nothing to do with you."

"I won't withdraw it! Because it's true! Never, you understand! And
I'll never speak to you again."

"Very well."

The cleavage between them was absolute and final. And Edna, the
outraged mother, exulted in it.

At this point it was that the dreadful thing happened. The child rose
clumsily on its fat rosy legs to its chubby feet and lurched against
Edna's knees. Edna seized it again. The child querulously rebelled.
Edna was forced to loose it, and to the general stupefaction the child
then crawled across to its father's boots, and after clutching at his
trousers held out appealing fat arms and was taken on to the paternal
lap! Nor was that the worst. The child smiled the smile and laughed
the laugh of contentment, and talked at some length in its own
language, seeming to call upon Edna to share its pleasures in the
situation.

An incident perhaps nothing in itself, but the symbolism of it could
only be described in one word: dreadful. Never had a well-brought-up
child committed such an appalling _faux pas_. Even Frederick felt
extremely self-conscious and uneasy in his unmerited triumph. And
because Frederick was not instantly struck dead by lightning, Edna
ceased to believe in the justice of God.

The child was apparently quite unaware that its ill-judged act had
sealed the everlasting dissolution of the tie between its parents. The
chauffeur hooted along his forward path, turning the wheel according
to necessity, but turning his head neither to the right nor to the
left: splendidly ignorant of the domestic tragedy from which he was
only separated by a thin glass wall. The chauffeur had set off on the
homeward journey with a vivacious youngish man and a most attractive
young woman (in deportment singularly girlish for a mother) jointly in
charge of an enchanting baby of uncertain temper. He assumed that
these highly civilized creatures were still behind him. He had no
notion that magically they had vanished from his car and been replaced
by a couple of aged, murderous implacable savages and the very imp of
evil.

The car shot through the antique gateway of the stranded town and in
another minute came gently to rest in front of the rather picturesque
house which the Lammonds had hired for the summer. At the same moment
a young, somewhat slatternly girl ran up, full of the importance which
rightfully attaches to a functionary of His Majesty's Mails, and
handed to Mrs. Lammond, who had precipitately jumped down, an orange
envelope.

Edna ripped open the envelope and read aloud, not of course to
Frederick, but to herself:

"Mother very ill you had better come at once."

The sender had been so agitated that he (or she) had omitted to sign
the message. However, Edna knew that the sender could be none but her
maiden sister, Angelica.


V

A strong and unexpected gust of wind--the Lammonds had forgotten the
exasperating wind in the shelter of the car--snatched the telegram out
of Edna's hand and flew off with it, and then, capricious as winds
will be, dropped it in the main street.

"Oh, this wind! This _wind_!" Edna complained, not of course to
Frederick, but to herself, and she ran girlishly after the rapt paper.
Frederick might have run after it, but he was descending very gingerly
from the car, baby in arms; the chauffeur might have run after it, but
the chauffeur was anxiously superintending the descent of his
employer.

Frederick stood grimly watching Edna return. She returned with grim
dignity. Frederick no doubt regretted the illness of his
mother-in-law, whom he liked, but he regarded it chiefly from the
angle of his own dignity. The illness had created a most serious
diversion. He had stated positively that he would have nothing to do
with Edna unless she apologized. Could he keep his word? Ought he to
keep it? Difficult problem! He would await developments.

His wife, her face hard set, held out the telegram to him.

"I heard you read it, thanks," said he, coldly polite.

She took Joe from his arms and went into the small house, the
front-door of which was half-open.

"Wait please, Sidley," she called to the chauffeur, disappearing.

No word to Frederick did she vouchsafe about her intentions in regard
to the telegram.

"If she thinks I'm going in after her without being asked, she's a bit
wrong," said Frederick firmly to himself. "It isn't my fault her
mother's ill."

He lit a cigarette, not with a match, but with a fusee which fizzed
defiantly at tempests.

"Wind rising, sir," the chauffeur ventured, in the way of decorous
companionship.

"Yes," said Frederick shortly: he was preoccupied.

The wind was indeed rising. It seemed to rush out in a continuous but
irregular stream from some lair behind the house. Every tree--and
there were many--in the vicinity waved its agitated, rustling plumes,
and the wrought-iron sign of the art-pottery shop opposite the house
creaked as it swung.

Just as Frederick was finishing his cigarette Edna reappeared with the
child, who was now clad in a normal fashion.

"Will you take her?" said Edna. "You can put her in the perambulator.
It's in the garden. She'd really be happier if she went out for a bit,
but there's nobody to.... I can't ask that cook. Besides--"

"I suppose I can take her out in the pram as well as anybody else,"
Frederick snapped, accepting the child.

Edna was silent for a moment.

"I've decided to drive over to Sevenoaks at once," she said at length.
She turned to the chauffeur. "You can get there in less than two
hours, can't you?"

"Yes, madam. An hour and a half."

"We shall be there easily before six, then. I'm afraid you'll have to
wait for your tea till we get there, Sidley."

"Yes, madam."

Edna sprang into the car.

"But what about baby?" asked Frederick, astounded at this
extraordinary maternal casualness concerning the welfare of the child.
"Nurse won't be back till ten o'clock."

"Nurse will be back on the six-fifteen 'bus," said Edna superiorly.
"I've just telephoned to her at Bognor. Baby will be quite all right.
I've given her her orange-juice. Of course, she ought to be having her
bath before six, but it won't matter to half an hour. I don't believe
in children being slaves of habit, however small they are....
Sevenoaks, then," she finished to the chauffeur.

The car vanished in a thin swirl of dust.

It was like magic, sinister magic, this swift abandonment of
Frederick, and this abandonment of the child to Frederick's amateurish
masculine care--the child moreover whom half an hour earlier he had
been charged with attempting to drown.

He was nervous under his terrific responsibilities. And two hours
seemed almost eternity.

"The chauffeur's tea, yes! She thinks of that," he sardonically
reflected. "But what about my tea?"

However, going aimlessly into the house, he found tea laid for one in
the oak-beamed dining-room, and the 'temporary' cook-general there.
Clearly Edna had been organizing things to the height of the occasion.

"When will you have your tea, sir?" the touchy sloven inquired,
without a smile at baby in father's arms.

"Now."

"Yes, sir."

He took tea with Joe on his lap, and contrived to keep the uneasy
creature diverted by means of minute morsels of brown bread and
butter. But when the supply of morsels ceased, Joe began to whimper,
having noted with disapproval that something had mysteriously gone
wrong in her universe. Frederick carried her through the hot kitchen
into the garden at the back of the house, and met the wind. He glanced
at his watch. He had purposely dawdled over his tea, and yet only five
minutes had passed since he sat down to table and only nine minutes
since the departure of Edna. A century; an age! The two hours were
still almost intact. He deposited the child in the perambulator. The
child immediately resumed its whimpering. He pushed the perambulator
along the grass, and the child stopped whimpering. He stopped the
perambulator, and the child started to whimper again.

Frederick thereupon said aloud:

"And after all why the hell _shouldn't_ I take her out in the pram for
a bit?"

Not an easy feat to manoeuvre the perambulator down the narrow path by
the side of the house, through the gate, down the step, into the road;
but he accomplished it. He looked along the road in both directions
like a guilty thing. Never in his life had he seen a well-dressed man
in sole charge of an occupied perambulator. Was he observed? No. But
in the main street he would be a perfect cynosure for quidnuncs and
char--bancs. Still, he successfully persuaded himself that he didn't
care who saw him, nor what anybody might say.


VI

But he had scarcely turned into the main street before his mood
changed into a mixture of defiance and shame. In the stress of the
adventure of the perambulator he entirely forgot the serious illness
of his mother-in-law: he even was no longer troubled by the thought of
the unbridgeable chasm which now separated Edna and himself. He was
far more self-conscious than he had ever been in all his life. But he
had begun and he would persevere.

The wind swept across the wide churchyard and smote his cheek and his
nerves and the perambulator, and he demanded savagely of the air:

"When _will_ this wind stop? I can't stand much more of it."

Thousands of persons on the South Coast were putting the same question
to the skies.

Frederick thanked heaven for one great mercy: Joe was being good. Not
a sound from Joe.

At the corner where the high street twists westward at a right angle,
by the Lighthouse Hotel, a large char--banc rollicked past him, and
every offside passenger on that char--banc leaned vulgarly over to
stare and to grin at the spectacle of a well-dressed man pushing a
perambulator up the hill in a high wind. Some of the passengers, an
ill-bred lot, commented audibly to one another upon the spectacle.

This trifling incident it was which decided an abashed Frederick to go
straight on up the hill towards the old mill, instead of continuing to
provide an exciting spectacle for the main street. Often he had beheld
from a distance the picturesqueness of the lofty old mill, and here
was an opportunity to visit the same. Though the steep road
degenerated into a very bumpy path, and the perambulator every moment
waxed in weight and unwieldiness, these troubles were compensated by
an instant sense of relief.

The mill formed the apex of a huge mound, fenced in from surrounding
lands. He had to open a gate, prop it open, force the perambulator
across ruts, and shut the gate. At length, hot, he arrived at the
bare-armed mill itself. A noble piece of industrial architecture, set
high in a marvellous rolling landscape of hill and dale. The views
were grandiose, the colours gorgeous. The sun suddenly shone out amid
shifting continents of cloud. Frederick felt his soul uplifted and
wanted to be a painter.

Withal, the wind was more obstreperous, uproarious, and imperious than
ever. Frederick sought shelter from it in the lee of the mill. But,
curiously, there was no lee. The wind ran round and round the mill. He
could trace the swift-running footsteps of the wind in the short
grass: innumerable waves that encircled the mill in a magic ring. The
wind exasperated him intensely. Then he guided the perambulator
through an aperture where once had been a door into the interior of
the mill. Immediate and perfect calm, ease, alleviation, comfort! He
sighed, as at a deliverance. The huge dimensions of the mill could
only be estimated properly from the inside. What height! What gloom!
What tremendous masses of oak and of rusty iron! What English
solidity! All abandoned now, and destined to destruction! He was
impressed, and wanted to be a poet. The baby, safe under the hood of
the perambulator, had fallen asleep.

Frederick noticed, to his left, between various interstices of shaking
tree-clumps, distant white figures which indicated that cricket was in
progress. At one period he had played a lot of cricket; he was
interested in cricket; he had got himself made a member of the town
cricket-club. As something of an expert he wondered what sort of
cricket was possible in that high wind. Only a couple of hundred yards
of cross-country divided him from the scene of the game. He looked at
his watch. One hour and thirty-three minutes still remained of the two
hours vigil allotted to him by his estranged wife. He hesitated. He
glanced at the babe. The babe, well protected, was certainly fast
asleep. He hesitated. He recalled uneasily Edna's acid phrase: "You've
no sense of responsibility." And the still more disturbing tag:
"_Everybody knows that_." He denied the charge, but he could not deny,
even to himself, that he had heard the charge at intervals for many
years past. However, the charge was unjust, monstrous, and ridiculous.
He hesitated. Then, yielding to the force of temptation, he hurried
over two fields and a fence and a paling, and duly reached the
cricket-ground; where he had evidence of the fact that cricket could
be not unsatisfactorily played in three-quarters of a gale, in even a
gale.

But two minutes later the sun vanished behind flying cloudy
continents, a relative darkness descended on the summer afternoon, and
rain too descended--descended in such soaking, overwhelming quantities
that the cricket-ground was emptied in a moment, and the members' hut
packed.

Nobody present, except a man from Java, had ever seen such rain. Water
surged through the air almost horizontally, driven with extreme
violence in front of the pursuing tempest. The curtain of liquid hid
the green grass of the fields, and trees became mere blurs on a vast,
grey, indistinguishable distance. Everyone said that rain could not
possibly continue on this scale of downpour. A boy ran out of the hut,
and in a few seconds, while he was yet in sight, his clothes were
shining like silk and clinging to his body like tights. The rain did
continue; it achieved the incredible and increased, as the wind
increased. Men said: "Here's weather that will be in the papers
to-morrow!" Frederick, knowing that the infant was well within the
security of the mill, maintained by an effort his serenity.
Nevertheless he had a very strong and virtuous desire to return to the
sleeping Joe.


VII

In the course of time Joe woke up, and rubbed her blue eyes with her
podgy pink fists, and gradually became aware of the fact that
something fundamental had gone wrong in her world. To her blue eyes
the  light was unfamiliar; to her lovely delicate ears the sounds
they heard were alarmingly unfamiliar; indeed beyond the confines of
that ark of comfort and reassurance, her perambulator, every
phenomenon was; extremely disconcerting. She could find no clue to the
solution of the new enigma of the universe. She waited a few moments
to see an attentive known face bending over her, to hear the accents
of a soothing, known voice. In vain.

Instantly she had the sense of martyrdom, of injustice. The situation
must be remedied, and the first step towards a remedy was to cry. She
cried. She wept; she sobbed; she shrieked; she kicked; she fought
vacancy and silence with her angry fists. No result. No audience.
Gifted with strong practical sense, she would never perform long
without an audience, because she knew in her deep brain that to do so
was a waste of effort. She therefore ceased to cry, and, her grievance
all the while growing, reflected upon the next move in the difficult
game of life.

She sat up. She had learnt a lot in eighteen months, and was an adept
in the feat of sitting up. She had a feeling of unaccustomed freedom
about the shoulders. The fact was, her father had forgotten to adjust
and fasten the straps which were designed to prevent her from
performing any dangerous acrobatic tricks in the perambulator. She
turned over, got on to her hands and knees, and essayed the more
complicated action of standing on her feet. She bumped the top of her
head against the hood of the perambulator, and fell on her knees
again. Fortunately her big head was well protected by the most
wonderful growth of hair that any baby of a year and a half had ever
achieved. Persevering, she tried again and succeeded.

She was now erect in the perambulator; insecure on the yielding bed,
but erect. Mothers and nurses, could they have seen her, would have
rushed to save her from certain disaster. But she was alone. She
lurched against the side of the perambulator and then fell over the
edge of a bottomless precipice: at which she was considerably
surprised. But not hurt; for the reason that she had alighted on her
back on a heap of sand.

She might have yelled: any ordinary baby would have yelled. But Joe
was noted for displaying, on occasion, an admirable stoicism. Instead
of yelling, she perceived the humorous quality of the affair, and
laughed, and, laughing, rolled off the heap of sand and stood up once
more. She wandered a little to and fro, perhaps clumsily, but still
with marked success maintaining her balance on those two tiny
supports, her feet. She came to the enormous towering mass of the
perambulator, pushed against it playfully with her powerful hands, and
was diverted to see it slip away, first slowly, then quickly, and
vanish. Out of sight out of mind: she forgot the perambulator
completely.

She walked towards the light, as any sagacious animal instinctively
would, and some water plopped on her soft cheek, warningly. She
accepted the warning with philosophy, and retreating, wandered for
immense distances in a twilight among the exotic and puzzling matters
which met her at each step. Finally, the strangeness of the new
universe, and the general increase of noises quite fresh even to her
lengthy experience of noises, vanquished her courage. She dropped to
the ground, an excruciatingly pathetic little figure in the solitude,
and wept seriously. Bangs occurred. She knew no more.


VIII

Frederick Lammond, pretending to himself to be in a state of perfect
equanimity, was hurrying across the wet earth towards the old mill
when he saw his own motor-car come glistening to a standstill at the
gate which led to the mill enclosure. He ran forward. The rain had
nearly ceased, but at that moment the tremendous downpour resumed and
in a few seconds he was soaked and shiny from head to foot. By the
time he reached the gate the rain had stopped again, though the wind
still grew in violence. Edna's face showed at the window of the car.

"Where's baby?" cried Edna, ignoring his state of saturation.

"She's all right. What's happened?"

"But where is she?"

"I tell you she's all _right_." With one dripping arm he indicated the
mill. "In there. What's the matter? What has happened to you? How did
you know I was up here?"

"The whole place knew you came up this way," said Edna curtly--but not
too curtly, because the chauffeur was an audience which must be
respected.

Edna then explained that, eight miles on the road to Sevenoaks, she
had re-examined the telegram and found that, differently from the
envelope the form itself was addressed to someone of the name of
Copestick. She had returned resentfully home and calling at the
post-office, had discovered a confusion of telegrams. Whereas some
other person's mother was seriously ill, her own telegram contained
the piquant information that a new bathing-costume was en route to her
from London.

"Ah!"

"You're wet through," said Edna.

"Am I indeed!" Frederick retorted, ominously sardonic--forgetting the
audience.

His mother-in-law was no longer in danger, and therefore he felt
justified in proceeding hatefully with the terrible feud which
existed between himself and his wife.

The wind assaulted the car with extravagant ferocity on every side.

"Why did you leave her in that mill?"

"Out of the rain."

"In her pram?"

"Naturally. She's asleep. What did you expect me to do? I took her out
for a bit of a promenade, because I thought that was the best thing to
do. Sorry if I was wrong."

He laughed lightly, remembering the audience.

In the same instant the figure of a middle-aged agricultural or
gardening man, in a heavy macintosh, appeared behind the car.

"It's all right, sir," said this person, touching his cap, as it were
reinforcing the assurance which Frederick had already given to Edna.

"What's all right?"

"The pram, sir."

"The pram?" Frederick had begun to feel chilly. He now suddenly felt
warm.

"Yes, sir. I saw it from my door." He pointed to a cottage below.
"Lying on its side just here by the gate. I supposed the wind had
blown it over. So I came along and brought it into my shed." He
pointed again.

Edna jumped from the car, and as she jumped, shrieked:

"_But where's my baby_?"

"I never saw the baby, ma'am. I thought the nurse was inside the mill,
and the pram must have run down the hill of itself and she couldn't
fetch it back because of the rain."

"But it was my husband brought baby here in the perambulator!"

The mystery was awful and complete. Abandoned perambulator! Total
disappearance of a baby! Rapine! Brigandage! Ransom! Horror!
Martyrdom! Death!

Overwhelmed, Frederick could open his mouth but could not speak. And
Edna could open her mouth but could not speak. The chauffeur, knowing
his duty, remained strictly a chauffeur.

"Must be somewhere, ma'am," said the man in the macintosh
unanswerably. But he unwisely suggested: "In the mill."

"How could she be in the mill? She was left in her pram, fast asleep,
and you found the pram here. She couldn't have got out of the pram by
herself."

Without actually shedding tears, Edna blubbered and sobbed.


IX

It was the chauffeur who first noticed the modification in the
architecture of the old mill. He was so excited thereby that he
instantly lost his sense of the proprieties and became human. The
brick basement of the mill was unaltered, but its upper structure, of
massive wood, began to show angles and curves where there had been
only straight lines. This frightening phenomena was succeeded by the
most loud and awe-some tearings, rippings, groanings and bangs. The
incredible noises deafened every ear. Edna covered her ears with her
hands, and shrank cringing before the might of the wind, which had now
revealed the full horror of its intentions, all its previous exploits
being reduced by comparison to airy trifling. The super-structure of
the mill toppled over and crashed in complex ruin on the grass. And
there was silence, save for the strong rustle of leaves of trees that
were keeping themselves upright by dint of yielding. The gale was at
its height. It was the same gale that uprooted John Wesley's
celebrated oak in the churchyard.

Nobody moved or spoke. Nobody was capable of motion or speech. The
wind, as if despising its own power, continued blindly to run round
and round the mill, producing the tiny grass-waves which Frederick had
noticed before he abandoned his babe and her perambulator.

Edna spoke first--only in a whisper--as she stared spellbound at the
disastrous spectacle:

"If baby is inside...!"

Frederick wanted to reply: "She couldn't possibly be inside. How could
she be inside? The perambulator was down here by the gate."

But he was still speechless,--struck dumb by the realization of
fearful guilt. Often he had been unfairly accused of lack of the sense
of responsibility. In the present case the elements of wind and water
had combined to undo him. He tried to persuade himself that he had not
really been irresponsible, that he had only been unlucky. He could not
persuade himself; he bowed to the inevitable verdict of mankind.

Useless to argue that baby was not within the mill, she might have
been; and anyhow--where was she?

Although obviously the baby could not be inside the mill, Edna got
through the gate and ran up the crystal-beaded grass slope.

"Don't go near it! It's dangerous!" cried Frederick passionately,
rushing after her.

But Edna was not to be stopped. As she approached the doorway the baby
appeared therein, unsteadily toddling. She was crying, or had been
crying. But when she recognized Edna, her soft, chubby, roseate face
lightened. She smiled, and proudly uttered with brilliant clearness
the very latest addition to her vocabulary:

"Hello!"

Then she stumbled over some unevenness of the threshold and fell down,
and she seemed so tiny, so minute, so fragile, so miraculously whole
and lovely, against the formidable background of the immense ruin,
that Edna, as she picked the child up, burst into tears. And
Frederick, though he wept not, nearly choked in the effort to remain a
man. And Edna instinctively held the baby towards her father, who
kissed Joe in the same moment as Edna kissed her. Grateful, ecstatic
joy annihilated resentment. Edna forgave Frederick, without further
inquiry. Frederick forgave Edna. Frederick also forgave himself. Both
parents in fact were extraordinarily illogical.

And the wind, having accomplished its great task of teaching certain
human beings what is really important in life and what is not, at once
began to subside.

Spectators accumulated around the gate. The fantastic show of the
ancient, toppled mill was already drawing all sorts of eager citizens
away even from the equally fantastic show of John Wesley's deracinated
tree in the churchyard.




HONOUR

I


The curtain fell on the first act of _Liza in the Larder_, a light
comedy just like any other light comedy, in which impossible
characters did impossible things, betraying in nearly every line they
spoke the sentimentality of the author and his affected or real
ignorance of what life actually is.

But this was a first night, and the author had previous successes to
his credit; in the cast was a star whose known salary was 200 a week,
and whose name burned in electricity on the faade of the theatre. The
stalls were crowded with the frocks and the white waistcoats of those
to whom it was more important to be seen at a first night than to save
their souls; similarly with the other parts of the theatre. 'Fans' of
the star were everywhere; also friends of all the players; so that
every entrance of a player was celebrated with eager, amiable, silly
applause which deceived nobody, and the applause on the curtain was
loud, though the experienced knew that it came from comparatively few
people.

The poor shabby band began to play, with pathetic sprightliness, and
the bright hum of general small-talk among acquaintances arose in the
auditorium. Many persons went out, to chatter and drink. Among those
who remained, in the front row of the stalls, were a dark, tall,
full-bodied man of thirty-seven or so, and a younger woman with large
dark eyes, a striking nose, and Spanish hair. They were side by side.

The woman, smiling cautiously, said in a weak, meek voice to the man:

"Well, Mr. Cardy, you don't remember me."

The man turned to look at her, and answered in a quiet, low, strong
voice, unperturbed and frank:

"I'm very sorry. There's a hole in my head. Everything slips out." No
relaxing of his grave features; but a faint glint in his black eyes.
Then some memory of the woman's face ascended into his brain from the
deeps of the subconscious. "Yes, I do. I----" He hesitated, uncertain.
"Help me, please."

"A party at Sybil Chatterton's, she introduced us. We sat on a
ricketty sofa."

"Oh yes!" he said, rather blankly. "How long ago?"

"Years," said the woman shortly. "My name was Griffin then. It's Crote
now."

"Marriage?"

"Marriage." Her voice might be weak and meek, but she had a certain
originality of tone and some self-confidence.

Mr. Cardy leaned his bulk towards her and murmured:

"Then was that your husband who's just gone out?"

"Not in the least," she murmured in answer, with a little disdainful
shaking of the thin, black-draped shoulders. And then, louder: "And
what are _you_ doing here? I thought you were a chartered accountant."

"So I am a chartered accountant. But can't chartered accountants go to
the theatre?"

"Not on first nights," she said. "It's not done."

He felt flattered by her recollection of him, and her interest in him
excited his interest in her. Moreover her way of talking, modest yet
challenging, challenging and yet subtly admiring, was very
attractive, even if her face was not. Stay! Her eyes were attractive.

"Well," said he. "I'll tell you. And mark how a plain tale shall put
you down. I'm here professionally. I'm a bit keen on the theatre, as
an institution. It needs ideas, and I think I have a few. Besides
being a chartered accountant, I'm a dramatic critic,--_New Weekly
Review_. The job was offered to me a couple of years ago. I took it
on."

"And I ought to have known. I apologize. I'd no notion I was in the
presence of the great."

"I thought you hadn't," he quizzed in return.

"Of course you are very great," she said. "But in a very small world."

"Pardon me," he corrected her. "A very big world. Thirty theatres in
the West End alone. If there were thirty concerts every night in the
West End, no hats ever made would be large enough for the heads of the
musical critics."

"Yes," she retorted. "But I expect that not one theatregoer in a
hundred has ever heard of you, or even of _The New Weekly Review_.
Most people don't read theatrical criticisms, and if they do they
don't care a pin who writes them. They hear someone say that a play's
good and they just go and see it."

"May I inquire how you know all this?"

"I don't know. It's merely my estimation of the probabilities."

"Ah!" he laughed. And said to himself, about her: "You've got a nerve
all the same, with your thin voice and your striking nose and your
large eyes!"

Indeed he was a little piqued by her bluntness. And certainly he did
not like her voice. But he had to respect her. She was somebody who
stood up to him, and who must be stood up to. And there was much in
what she said. He wondered curiously where she had found the common
sense to think of it for herself. The woman had an unusual brain.

"I admit I'm very pert," she said, dropping her eyelids.

"You're very sound," he replied. "And now it's my turn. What are _you_
doing here? A woman with a mind like yours has no right to be at a
preposterous play like this."

Mrs. Crote said:

"Oh! I only came because of Janet Waxworks."

"Who's she?"

"You know. Lady Janet Wickworth. Daughter of an obscure earl. She's
playing. She asked me to come."

Mr. Cardy glanced at his programme.

"I don't see her here, whoever she is."

"Oh! Not under her own name. They say it's very brave of her not to
take advantage of her name. I forget what she calls herself. She's the
parlourmaid who had to drop the decanter at the end of the act. But
surely you know her. She's everywhere."

"I believe I do," said Mr. Cardy vaguely. "Yes, I do. Is she
stage-struck?"

"Not at all. But they're so poor, you see. She must do something to
help. So she is taking to the stage."

"Of course I know her," said he. "I thought somehow I recognized the
face. I remember now."

"Of course. Well, if you want to do a kind thing, you'll go round and
see her in her dressing-room at the end. She'd be frightfully
flattered."

"Are you going?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I must."

"Then I will. But it'll be the first time I've ever been 'behind'." He
leaned towards her again. "That ricketty sofa, I remember that too,
now. A blue sofa, wasn't it?"

"It was. But what was I wearing,--that stumps you."

"Yes, it does," he agreed. "But I can tell you one or two things you
said."

"And I can tell you everything that you said."

Their talk grew more eager and confidential.

"What a nuisance!" exclaimed Mr. Cardy when the curtain rose and
abruptly put a stop to their conversation.


II

At the end of the performance and at the end of the applause, the
enthusiasm, the catcalls, the appearance of the author and the speech
of humble and grateful thanks to a favour-conferring audience for an
enthusiastic reception which it had not given, Mr. Cardy followed Mrs.
Crote through an iron door at the side of the proscenium and found
himself in a narrow world of electric switches, shabby scene-shifters,
grey, numbered canvasses on wooden frames, dirt, litter, and flexes,
and large printed injunctions to "Silence." The back wall of a
luxurious drawing-room was ascending slowly to heaven, whence came
hoarse calls of unseen men. Presently, after another iron door, and
still in the wake of Mrs. Crote, and with other persons fore and aft
of him, he was climbing mean, stone stairs which continuously turned
double corners, and at every double corner were two or more doors, and
from every half-open, labelled door came the sound of gay and excited
chatter, with glimpses of frocks and tail-coats. At last, and at a
great height, they arrived at a door labelled "Lady Janet Wickworth."
(The distinguished identity, then, was concealed on the programme
only.) A small, poor, distempered room crowded with women in rich
raiment and jewels, and correct men, and animated with conversation in
loud, smart accents. The aristocratic parlourmaid was in the midst,
talking like anything.

"Well, Janet."

"My _dear_ Emilia! No, don't kiss me. My make-up."

"I've brought Mr. Cardy."

"Oh! Mr. Cardy. This _is_ good of you! I _do_ hope you liked the
show," said Lady Janet, taking Mr. Cardy's loose hand.

"Of course," said Mr. Cardy. "Who wouldn't?"

She gazed at him appealingly, touchingly, her benevolent mouth
working.

"And me?"

"Most decidedly."

"Oh! _Thank_ you! If _you_ like me," said she, "I'm satisfied. I know
I'm only a beginner."

She had a most amiable face. Mr. Cardy decided that he must say
something agreeable about her and her tiny part in his notice.

"What cheer, old Jan?" cried a voice at the door.

"Jack!" cried Lady Janet ecstatically, breaking away.

Jack, a very young and urgent man, threw his arms round her and kissed
her on her make-up.

"You _are_ a dear!" she murmured. And to the others: "This is my
cousin, Lord Purfitt."

Then Mr. Cardy seemed to be forgotten, and he felt rather foolish as
he gazed self-consciously round the room. There were flowers
everywhere, mounds and masses of them. And on the neglected walls hung
strings of telegrams, pinned one to another, some scores of them, and
Mr. Cardy deciphered in them such phrases as "Fondest good wishes for
big success." An electric radiator glowed in a corner. A
dressing-table covered with a confusion of bottles and contrivances
was at the back of the room. Six naked electric lights filled the
place with a dazzling crude glare. People kept coming in and going
out, crushing and pushing past one another.

"You were _splendid_, dearest."

"Not really!"

"My dear Lady Janet. _If you_ can play _a parlourmaid_ you could play
simply anything. How _did_ you do it? I loved it all."

"Very courageous of her. But she always had pluck."

"Very tiring the stairs, aren't they? I'm _so_ sorry. They offered me
a room on the first floor, Number two, but I wouldn't have it. I told
them I had the smallest part, and I must have the least convenient
dressing-room. I offered to share it with anyone, but they wouldn't
hear of that. Everybody's been most frightfully kind."

"You deserved it all, my dear. I'm sure you've got a great success."

"Do you think so? The author says it won't run a month."

"Oh! The _author_! They always talk like that, authors do. To save
their faces--if there _is_ a failure. But I go to every first night,
and you can believe me."

"I can't offer you anything to drink. I forgot it. Just like me."

New, different voices all the time: and the parlourmaid inexhaustibly
vivacious, appealing and pleasant.

Mr. Cardy could hear lively voices outside on the stairs: they
approached, they receded. Now and then rushing footsteps on the
stairs. The little room was excessively hot and close, but none except
Mr. Cardy appeared to notice it. He thought of all the other
dressing-rooms, all excessively hot, all breathing fictitious
enthusiasm and laudation. And he thought of them quiet and desolate
during the run, and the  tittle-tattle running from one to another,
and the same goings and comings at the same moments every night, and
the entire, withdrawn, self-centred, aspiring, infinitely tedious,
self-deceiving world of the theatre. He felt sorry for Lady Janet; he
had compassion for her. She was a nice young woman, a decent
woman--probably rather stupid, certainly without real talent for the
stage, but unselfish, yearning for righteousness, kind in heart and
marked by a natural personal distinction in every tone and gesture. He
had always been conscious of sympathy for her. Her simple, confiding
eyes aroused in him feelings that were protective. Yes, he would be
nice to her in his notice. What could it matter, a touch of
insincerity?

The population of the room was diminishing. Mr. Cardy, awakening from
a meditation, looked around. No Mrs. Crote! He examined the corners,
the threshold. Mrs. Crote had gone. She had vanished without a word,
as visitors do in a crowd. Mr. Cardy had a sense of loss, of
apprehension, of impending trouble. Mrs. Crote had made an impression
on him: but evidently he had made none on her. He wanted to see her
again, to see more of her. Lady Janet was negligible, poor lady. Mrs.
Crote, however, had a mind. Emilia! That was her name. Throughout the
second and third acts of the play he had searched his brain for the
name and found it not. Emilia! It denoted perhaps a certain
affectation in her parents, but it was a beautiful name. And she at
any rate was not affected. Would he ever meet her again? Was she, or
Mr. Crote, in that book of short stories, the Telephone Directory?
Many people took care to keep out of the Telephone Directory. And her
husband? She had a husband.

"You aren't going, Mr. Cardy?"

He was at the door, and Lady Janet had caught him in the act of
slipping away. She moved towards him and took his hand earnestly.

"Thank you so much for looking in. I know you wouldn't have come to
see me if you hadn't liked my little performance. And I'd sooner have
your praise than anybody's. Yes, really. It's the greatest compliment
I could ever receive. I mean it. I always read your articles."

She gazed at him, and her soft eyes showed that she did mean it.
Strange! Her performance was naught, and he had said scarcely anything
in the way of praise. And yet she was almost emotional with nave
gratitude! How disfiguring, on a close view, was her make-up!
Dreadful!

"I'm at home on Sunday night, in my small flat. Do come," she pleaded.

He said he would. Perhaps Emilia would be there also. He had an
impulse to ask if Mrs. Crote would be there, but somehow he could not
act on it. He had another impulse to ask her, Lady Janet, for Mrs.
Crote's address, but he was foolishly too proud, or too
self-conscious, to do so.

He walked slowly down the stairs, lost his way, and the next moment he
was at the stage-entrance, at the side of the theatre, in the alley
where he had parked his run-about. It was raining. The night-man of
the theatre, in uniform, was waiting respectfully about, ready to do
anything for a trifling tip. The night-man touched his cap.

"Wet night, sir. Both commissionaires are gone for taxis, sir. One of
'em 'll be back in a minute, sure."

"It's all right, thanks," said Mr. Cardy, crossing the alley to his
car.

A woman was standing at the corner, just under the edge of the glass
awning which stretched along the front of the theatre.

"Mrs. Crote." He walked to her as he spoke.

"I'm waiting for a taxi. And I'm waiting. And I shall wait and keep on
waiting till one comes. Did you ever see such an empty, damp square?"
A weak voice, but a sturdy and humorous demeanour.

"Let me drive you home. My car isn't as gorgeous as any of these"--he
pointed to several big cars that were dozing patiently in
attendance--"but I'll undertake to get you home--wherever it is."

The faade of the theatre was already dark.

"You're awfully kind. Are you sure I shan't be----"

He tucked her into his car, which would hold two at the most. He had
an extraordinary sensation of sudden romance, of having escaped from a
great danger. He had a feeling which he had not experienced for many
years. He was not near forty, except by the almanac--he was young; he
was uplifted; he was happy. Of course he had his reserves about
Emilia. Did not like her voice. Perhaps scarcely liked her somewhat
masculine frankness. She did not a bit coincide with his ideal of a
woman. Still, romance!


III

Mrs. Crete's one maid said to Mr. Cardy when she opened the door of
her mistress's service-flat:

"Madam will not keep you waiting long, sir. She asked me to tell you
that she has been washing her hair."

"A nice greeting for a man!" thought Mr. Cardy as he sat alone in the
small and very feminine drawing-room perched high up in a huge piled
block of homes in central London. Women of course, like men, must wash
their hair--or have it washed. But why instruct servants to talk about
the fact? If Emilia had paid him a call and his servant had said to
her: "Mr. Cardy will not keep you waiting long. He has just been
washing his hair,"--what would she have thought of such a reception?
It was not as if Emilia did not know that he was coming. She did know;
he had warned her. But women permitted themselves all sorts of
careless freedoms which they would resent in men who practised them.

He heard a piano overhead. How could people live in these immense
warrens, where such poor privacy as there might be was so factitious?
Moreover the room did not satisfy him. It was a mixture. Bits of it
showed taste, other bits showed a lack of taste. As for comfort, no
doubt it was comfortable enough for a woman, but for a man cushions
spoilt the ease of every chair. And what cushions! And what bows and
what ribbons on the cushions! He compared that interior with the
interiors of his own dignified bachelor house, where order and
punctuality reigned and servants had been trained to a soothing
formality.

He went to the window and looked out and down at the street populous
with dolls and toy automobiles. He mused, impatient. Four months since
he had first entered her flat, on the afternoon following the first
night of the play. It seemed like yesterday; but also it seemed like
ten years ago. Time had flown; but time had lagged. She had told him,
frank and straight, that she was not 'with' her husband--a Scotchman
and a yachtsman, a man who lived on and for the sea, evidently a
strange fellow. Yes, strange--yet why were they not together? Emilia
had never explained. His common sense, his knowledge of the world,
told him that the cause of these mysterious separations was, and could
be, never entirely one-sided. Had existence with Emilia been too great
a strain on her husband's nerves?

Friends and acquaintances said of them casually, according to the
modern custom: "Oh! They couldn't agree, so they agreed to disagree.
No reason why they should continue to jar on one another. They have
money."

Nobody had even hinted at another woman, in his case, or at another
man in hers. Scandal was silent. Only they were definitely apart who
had once been amorous enough to marry. Why? Had the husband been
driven to sea, as to a refuge? Life was very difficult, very full of
dangers. For many years Mr. Cardy had lived in peace--frequently bored
perhaps, but in peace. And now--was he not inviting conflict? He felt
nervous, hesitant, cornered, at bay. As though in a quandary from
which he could only escape by taking a certain course! As though he
were compelled to take just that course! It was not Emilia who was
compelling him, by the power of her attractiveness. Not at all. He had
(he considered) the completest realization of her shortcomings. It was
something within himself that was exercising the compulsion.

Emilia came into the room:

"It's not quite dry. But here I am, Phil."

Her weak voice; her formidable nose; her sturdy, challenging
demeanour!

Had he not been informed of the fact, he would never have guessed that
she had been washing her hair. Then why have referred to it? He was
extremely excited, all of a sudden. Why should she have this influence
over him? He was not in love with her. At least, his sensations did
not accord with any previous conception of what love was. He forgot
her defects; and, equally, he forgot her qualities. He could not
understand her, and still less could he understand himself.

There she stood, smiling, _she_, and produced in him a terrible
turmoil and a great fear. Not a happy turmoil. No happiness in him at
all; seldom even an hour's tranquillity. He was unhappy away from her,
and, save in rare moods of expansion, unhappy with her. His business
was going well; he had no material cares; but he was unhappy. She
liked, admired, respected him; but he was unhappy. She was obviously
flattered by the homage of his attentions; but he was unhappy. Yet in
the depth of his mind lay unexamined an old-established conviction
that love meant happiness. Hence he could not be in love. Nevertheless
he knew that any such argument was absurd, and that he was in love and
gravely in love.

On this present occasion Emilia was self-conscious, not at ease.
Something, doubtless, in his own demeanour that made her so. (Women
were disturbingly psychic.) She said little.

Tea was served.

He thought:

"I must speak. At once. No! I will have some tea first. Then I will
speak."

He drank a cup of tea.

As soon as he had drunk the tea, a new and charming and reassuring
idea came to him:

"It makes it much more intimate, this hair washing and drying. Quite
probably she arranged it on purpose to bring us closer together.
They're very subtle."

He braced himself, as for a feat dangerous to life.

"Well now, Emilia!"

"Well now, Phil!" She smiled encouragingly, but with reserve.

"I've got something to tell you, and I'm not going to be good at it.
And the worst of it is somehow I can't be natural. I'm in love with
you. I... want you. Perhaps you guessed."

"Perhaps I did." No smile. "Have some more tea?"

"Thanks."

He continued, not displeased with his exordium:

"What about it all?"

"You want me?" Feebly and uncertainly.

"I positively do." He spoke with a masterfulness more assumed than
real.

The worst was over. He had plunged, had risen to the surface again,
was afloat, if a little out of breath.

"But I am married," she said.

"But your husband will surely set you free."

"He will not."

"How do you know that?"

"I've asked him. And he's refused. His refusal is definite. I know
him."

He was amazed, thrilled, and delighted by this extraordinary
revelation: which showed what her feelings were. At the same time he
had qualms, caused by the disclosure of something queer and not quite
nice in her character. She had been beforehand with him! She had taken
him for granted! But the qualms were naught. On balance he was
immensely relieved.

"I asked him in a general way. You see I had to know where I stood--in
life; you know what I mean, Phil."

"Yes. But perhaps if you asked him in a particular way--"

She shook her head.

"No. He wouldn't--ever."

"But why?"

"He's like that, Willie is."

(Willie! First time he had ever heard the fellow's Christian name!
What an unsuitable name for such a type of man!)

"But there's no publicity in these days."

"Makes no difference. I've mentioned all that to him."

Mr. Cardy believed implicitly what she said. Waste of time to probe
the wife's mind for the husband's reasons. He was forced to accept the
situation.

"I say I love you. Do you love me?" He moved his chair closer to hers.
Tremendous moments.

She nodded, troubled, serious. The steady gaze of her eyes was
magnificent, her bearing perfect. What a woman! She had no faults. She
was heroic, and simple and candid as a man. He had made no mistake in
her. Imagine the deep satisfaction of living with such a wondrous
girl.

"Well then?" he said, speaking with authority--the authority of his
passion, of his age, of his experience, of his worldly success. "There
is only one thing for us to do."

His tone was very assured; it overstated the confidence of his heart,
which mysteriously trembled at the core. He drew still nearer to her.
He took her unresisting hand; it was cold to his hot touch. His face
approached hers; their bodies were close; she did not retreat. He
could see every liquid detail of her eyes. His mouth hovered above
hers. His spirit and hers seemed almost to coalesce into one being.
Extremes! fulness of life!

"May I?" he murmured.

She shook her head, and murmured solemnly:

"_What_ is the one thing for us to do?"

"Ignore your husband. Act as though he did not exist." His voice was
thick.

She shook her head again.

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because--I couldn't."

"But--"

He thought of all the arguments in favour of his proposal. He and she
had the rights of sincere lovers. The attitude of society was changed.
All their friends would understand and tolerate. Many would even
applaud. Was their love to be frustrated, and were both their lives to
be rendered disastrous, because of the accursed selfish obstinacy of
one man who could gain nothing by the tragedy? Endless arguments. No
counter-arguments. Not one. But speak he could not.

"Never!" said she. "It wouldn't be right. I married him. I took the
risks."

She softly withdrew her hand from his, and he moved from her. The
moment withered which had so miraculously blossomed; it became dust.

"I'm sorry," she said strongly in her thin accents.

Her eyes fell on him for a while. They were wet, but intrepid. They
were firm, but compassionate. They withstood him, but they begged his
forgiveness. She lowered them, and she smoothed her hair.

He thought, raised above his ordinary self by frightful calamity:

"She is finer, far finer, even than I had guessed, and she will never
be mine."


IV

The telephone at 11 p.m.

"Is that Mr. Cardy?"

"Speaking. Who is it?"

"Janet. Can I come and see you to-morrow?"

"No, you can't, my dear. I'm going to Leeds to-morrow to see a play.
What's the matter?"

"Something's happened. I can't tell you on the 'phone."

"Well, come along here at once then. My house."

"Sure it won't be a bore?"

"Don't be absurd."

"Thanks frightfully. I'll come. I've only got to take my paint off."

Lady Janet arrived at 11.30. In his most orderly drawing-room Mr.
Cardy had some food ready for her after her night's work. He had been
seeing her quite a lot. He liked her, not because she was clever or
capable, but because she was soothing, took pains to be agreeable, had
a strong social sense, admired him, looked up to him. And he liked her
also because he had been kind to her.

Six months had elapsed. Many events had occurred. A new European war
had threatened, and the menace had passed. Piccadilly had been closed,
re-laid, and re-opened. Mrs. Crote had left London; he knew not where
she was; he had not seen her since their crucial interview, and he
felt it was best that he should not see her. But the play was still
running, and there was no prospect of it ceasing to run. Lady Janet
sat at the small folding-table in his drawing-room, eating away at
cold ham and salad and drinking lager. In the absurd and mediocre play
she had nightly dropped the decanter two hundred times at the same
moment, and spoken her few lines two hundred times with precisely the
same intonations and gestures, and chatted with the same colleagues,
and earned about 150, and advanced not one inch in her profession,
and had undiminished fond hopes of advancing. She was unchanged,--as
wistful, pathetic, bright and appealing as ever.

"Now then, my dear. You've eaten. Tell me."

He offered her a cigarette.

She said:

"I was late on my entrance again to-night in the first act, and I
muddled my lines and had to fluff. And the manager was in front, and
he was _really_ angry this time."

"But why were you late?"

"Oh! I suppose my watch was wrong: and the dresser couldn't find my
apron."

"No, margin for accidents, eh, my dear?"

"I know. I admit it. I know I've no excuse. I wasn't going to blame
the dresser. Besides, it wouldn't have been any use."

Feckless thing! Happy-go-lucky! Mrs. Crote would never have been late.
And this was not the first time Janet had missed her entrance. Only a
week ago she had missed it, and held up the play. Terrible moments!
Then, he had helped her the next day by composing a letter for her to
the manager. But apparently she was incapable of learning. Yes,
feckless! Nevertheless, he liked her very much, with her charming,
kind face, her beautiful figure, her lovely voice, her admiration of
him, her trust in him, her watchful social ease, her style, her
remarkable natural distinction. At any rate it stood to her credit
that she had made a serious, brave effort to keep herself,--and she
was sticking to it. The obscure earl her father had lost everything in
some foolishness in the City; his mortgaged estate was worth less than
nothing, and, all unequipped, Janet had gone forth into the world to
fight the world. Mrs. Crote had never attempted to justify her
existence by work; Mrs. Crote had been content to remain an idle
parasite. In this matter, as in natural distinction, Janet showed to
advantage over Emilia.

For six months and more his house had struck him as desolate in its
masculinity. Likewise his days. Janet's hat lay on a chair. It seemed
somehow to furnish the room. Her presence transformed the room.
Bachelors were free, but they had to endure hours of tedium. Clubs
were devastating institutions. And he had befriended her. He had given
her the powerful moral support of his wisdom, his experience, his
self-confidence. She counted on him. She ingenuously worshipped him.
Probably not much of a housekeeper! But what a mistress of a house!
And think of her enormous circle of acquaintances!

"Why have you no flowers here?" she asked.

"You're off the point," he said. (She never could keep to the point.)
"The point is, your career." (Her career--comic, touching!) "Will they
sack you?"

"I'm afraid they will. My contract's a fortnight's notice." Tears in
her soft eyes.

"Well, if they do," he said with inspiring assurance. "You'll get
another job. I shall help you. Don't worry any more to-night. I'll
think it over."

"You're a dear!" she breathed.

But he thought:

"I can't invent a job for her. As if any manager would listen to me! I
don't know any managers. Moreover, it's ridiculous her trying to make
a living. She simply can't do it, and never will do it. Making a
living isn't her line. What she needs is protection, petting, and all
that. She needs to be taken in hand. I'm a fool. But something is
driving me on. I wonder what it is."

"I'm not in the least a dear," he contradicted her, after the pause.
"But I'll see you through."

The atmosphere of the room was quickly changing.

He thought:

"I'm going to marry this girl. 'Lady Janet Cardy.' All right. 'Mr.
Cardy and Lady Janet Cardy.' Decidedly all right! I shall protect her.
Spoil her. And she'll adore me and do everything I tell her. No
arguments. No standing up to me. Ideal existence!"

He said:

"I've never told you, my dear, but you're fine ... and I'm coarse."

"Coarse is the very last thing you are!" said Janet.

He imagined he was in love with her; but he was only in love with
love.

Ting! The clock had most startlingly struck one. Middle of the night!
And they were alone together! Forgotten were Janet's troubles, her
inefficiencies, the imperilling of her important career. She was in
bliss. His altered voice was like a caress. His tone made love to her,
if not the words he uttered. She was not surprised, and yet his mood
seemed almost too good to be true. She saw a glorious end to struggle
and misfortune. She perceived the absurdity of the stage as a vocation
for Janet Wickworth. As for him, he had intoxicated himself with the
fancied vision of her wonderful self in action as the adoring goddess
of Philip Cardy and his home. A single sentence spoken, and the vision
would be realized! He rose, walked nervously to and fro; then sat down
again, nearer to her, very near to her.

"Janet----" he hesitated. He could see acquiescence in her gaze. "Have
another cigarette."

He searched around for the matches.

More nervous even than her wooer, Janet had to alleviate the
unbearable suspense by a banality.

"You've seen that in the papers to-night about Mr. Crote," she
remarked.

"Crote?"

"Yes, Em's husband. Emilia. You know."

"I haven't. What about him?"

"Killed on his yacht. Not drowning. A boom or whatever they call it
broke and one part of it hit him on the head, and killed him
instantly, so it says."

Philip's back was turned to her, though he had found the matches.

"Oh! And where's _she_?"

He articulated with preciseness, carefully controlling his throat.

"She's gone on one of those Mediterranean cruises."

"Oh!"

And now the vision of Emilia formed before him, and he knew where lay
his felicity and the treasure of his heart. Just in time! A minute
later! The revelation would have been too late.

He was bound to face Janet and strike a match and hold it for her,
close to her lips. He turned. Their eyes met....

It was already too late. He could not withdraw. Honour! How could he
disappoint her expectancy? Inconceivable that he should do so. She was
waiting for his declaration like an exquisite living vase for the
inpouring of some potion divine. He put away a possibility that
thrilled him, dismissed it utterly, shattered it.

He would not love, but he would be loved. He could be no more than a
kindly deliverer, but he would be adored as an idol. He would bestow
bliss and receive only the counterfeit of bliss. His soul would always
be false to the worshipping flushed girl. But she would not know. No
one had ever guessed the episode between himself and Emilia. His
future would be the continual expending of an affectionate benevolence
upon Janet. And she could be the happier of the two; for it was better
to love than be loved.

"My dear creature," he said steadily. "You're off the point again with
your Mr. Crote. The point is that I want you to marry me."

At two-fifteen she went with him to the garage, clinging, and he drove
her home in the intimacy of the small car.




THE FIRST NIGHT

I


The climax came when Mr. Brane, the producer of the play, stamped his
foot rather viciously, and called out to the male star:

"Really, Brighthelm!"

There were five chief people in the theatre on that cold morning. On
the stage, Alec Brighthelm (the male star), Miss Carstone (the female
star), and Jack Duke (a secondary performer in the play but the
principal man in the episode now to be recounted). In the front row of
the stalls, Mr. Brane--the producer, and Arthur Tiverton, the author
of the play, a personage of quite minor importance. They all wore furs
or overcoats or both.

Besides the five there were, invisible but not inaudible, several
charwomen in the duskier parts of the auditorium, and several players
and stage-hands in the wings.

"And what now?" said Brighthelm, coming menacingly down stage to the
place where footlights used to be but often are no longer.

Mr. Brane answered very firmly, indeed with challenge, in his
irritated voice:

"You _will_ get up stage. If you're doing that now, a week before
production, I wonder what you'll be like on the first night and
afterwards. It isn't as if I hadn't told you."

The public in its innocence is apt to assume that the star-performer
likes to edge himself down stage so as to be as near to the audience
as possible. A delusion! The star-performer likes to be up stage, so
as to face the audience while speaking to the other players, who are
thus compelled, in order to address him, to turn their faces away from
the audience. Half the vendettas of the theatre are caused by the
universal tendency of actors and actresses illegitimately to seize
every chance of getting further up stage than anybody else.

"I think I shouldn't mind being relieved of this part," said
Brighthelm, articulating every syllable carefully in his beautiful
voice.

An ultimatum, and delivered as such!

The star stood there importantly in handsome insolence. He was fifty,
would pass for forty in daylight and for thirty when made up as he
knew how to make up for a youthful hero. Though a star, he was not
among the first three male stars of the West End. But he was in the
first six, and got over _100 a_ week, and rarely found himself
lacking either a job or letters of earnest admiration in feminine
calligraphy. He waited, confident; careless of the celebrated
producer's renown as a disciplinarian.

The producer and the author murmured to one another. The author gave a
short laugh; the producer sniggered.

"Very well, Mr. Brighthelm," said the producer at length, turning to
the star and glancing at him through his glinting eye-glasses. "If
that's it, we'll tear up the contract. Thank you. Good morning."

"Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." Mr.
Brighthelm bowed, buttoned his fur-overcoat, pulled out of a pocket
his yellow gloves, and strode gloriously away and was gone.

"He'll come back to-morrow smiling as if nothing had happened," said
the author.

"He won't come back to this stage," said the producer.

The theatre was thrilled. Even the charwomen ceased for a moment to
manipulate brushes and cloths. It was indeed a first-rate climax.

"Jack!" called the producer.

"Yes?" said Jack Duke nervously.

"Come here a minute."

Jack Duke jumped down from the stage into the auditorium, and followed
the producer and the author, who had retired like conspirators along
the centre aisle into the gloom.

"See here, my lad," said the producer, putting his hand on Jack's
shoulder. "_You're_ going to take Brighthelm's part."

"Can I do it?" Jack questioned weakly.

"Of course you can. Mr. Tiverton is quite willing. It's the chance of
your life."

And it was the chance of Jack's life. He was very good-looking, aged
thirty, really thirty, and had adorned the stage only two years,
having been tempted from an Insurance post in the City by the
irresistible fascination of the theatre. During those two years he had
some mild successes, but also had endured hardships which were the
reverse of mild. His dream had of course been to play lead in a big
West End production. An impossible dream, now suddenly come true! He
had been engaged for a smallish part and as understudy to the star.
And now, in a hundred seconds, he was transformed into the star!
Miraculous! He ought to have been wildly uplifted and happy. But
somehow a fearful apprehension filled his heart.

"Let's get on," said the producer loudly, with a certain fictitious
cheerfulness. "Miss Carstone, Mr. Duke will replace Mr. Brighthelm.
Jack, give your old part to Mr. Tiverton. Tiverton, you'll read Jack's
old part this morning, won't you? Jump up there--if you, can, Jack,
dear fellow. The rehearsal will proceed."

"There's ten days," said Jack, hesitant.

"Well, do you want ten years?" said the producer gaily. "Naturally,"
he added, "you'll have to work. You've got to carry the weight of the
play, and don't you forget it."

The producer's methods were always drastic. The rehearsal did proceed,
from the beginning of the act: but it did not proceed very
satisfactorily, because everybody, including the producer himself, had
been perturbed by the affair, and everybody, too, was simply dying to
get out to lunch and talk about it at great length....


II

One o'clock in the morning, nine days later.

The curtain had fallen on the dress-rehearsal. Some discreet
applause--not much. The house was in darkness.

"House-lights! House-lights!" called a loud, peremptory voice.

And there was light in the auditorium, revealing a few friends of the
company and of the management, dotted up and down the stalls and the
dress-circle. Mr. Tiverton, the author, was walking solitary to and
fro at the back of the pit. Mr. Brane, the autocratic producer, had
been seen to run 'behind,' with his pugnacious shoulders raised and
his eye-glasses glinting criticism.

A murmur of conversation from the rising sparse audience.

"I think it's heavenly."

"Of course you never know with a play, but really I don't see _how_ it
can fail. No, I don't. Really!"

"Mr. Duke is so handsome. He's done wonders."

"Everything went so beautifully smoothly."

All looking on the bright side as usual. Determined to be pleased and
to be optimistic.

And then a voice:

"They always say a bad dress-rehearsal means a good first-night."

Which disturbing remark from a realist seemed to show that in the
opinion of the speaker, an old actress, there was another and quite
different bright side. The stalls emptied.

At the back of the dress-circle stood an extremely fat woman in black,
with a red imitation leather strap round her infinite waist, a white
cap on her grey hair and a trifling white apron in front. This immense
mass, as if awaking from a trance, suddenly projected itself at
surprising speed out of the door, down the stairs into the stalls,
through the iron door into the wings, up more stairs, and more stairs,
and into a dressing-room marked 'Miss Carstone,' where she unscrewed
the stopper of a thermos flask and poured forth a steaming liquid into
a glass.

The next moment Miss Carstone came into the room.

"Here's your Horlick, Miss," said the fat woman, in the soothing
accents of a child's nurse. "Lovely and hot. What I say is, get it
down as hot as you can."

"How thoughtful of you--what's your name?"

"Addie, Miss."

"Oh, of course!"

Dressers go with theatres. Players appear and disappear. Dressers
stay. Till that night, Miss Carstone had never seen the dresser
allotted to her by the management.

"Rest yourself on the sofa, Miss. There's another photograph-call,
isn't there, Miss?"

"Yes. But I asked him to do me last. I thought I looked too tired and
this stuff would pull me together. He'll send for me."

"Yes, Miss. And very wise you were, I'm sure. Not that you do look
tired. No. But a minute's rest is worth half an hour of waiting about.
That's what I say."

Fat Addie knelt down, lifted Miss Carstone's feet on to the sofa,
covered them, and then fondled Miss Carstone's dress with admiring
affection.

"It's the most beautiful frock I've put on any of my ladies for months
and months, Miss, and if you'll excuse me you _do_ know how to wear a
frock. There's only this buckle wants moving. Half an inch or hardly.
I'll speak to the wardrobe mistress. Or I can do it myself to-morrow."

Miss Carstone sipped and sipped, one arm hanging limp.

"Have you seen any of the show?" asked Miss Carstone, handing the
empty glass to the attendant Addie. She was a very capable actress of
experience and many disappointments and a few triumphs, still slim,
still capable of looking a sprightly twenty-six on the stage: and she
spoke with the unenthusiastic voice of one accustomed to disillusion.

"Only a tiny bit, Miss. I just slipped into the circle after I'd put
those lovely flowers in water--I couldn't bear to see them pining any
longer."

"How did it strike you?"

Addie hesitated, with a benevolent smile, eager and yet cautious, on
her round old face. That hesitation brought to the surface in the
dressing-room all the uncertainties, the doubts, the qualms, the fears
which had lain hidden beneath the professional optimism of the stalls
at the end of the rehearsal. Sinister visions of players out of work,
and dressers out of work, of blank blue paper pasted over the
poster-boards, formed themselves vaguely in the little interior.

"I thought you were lovely, Miss. I've never seen you before on the
stage. We don't get much chance--dressers don't, I mean. And that
frock!" She caressed the frock again.

"But the play?" Miss Carstone was in a state of anxiety which forced
her almost morbidly to seek the views of even a dresser.

"Well, Miss, it isn't for me to say. But what I saw--he didn't give
you much."

"Who? The author?" Miss Carstone's tone sharpened.

"No, Miss. Mr. Duke, as he calls himself."

"Isn't that his name then?"

"No--I mean.... I only mean they don't always use their real names, do
they, Miss?" A pause. "No, Miss. He didn't give you much. You know
what I mean."

Miss Carstone did know. The fat woman must have some knowledge of the
stage. It was true that Jack Duke thought solely of what he himself
had to do, and never of helping his partner to do what she herself had
to do. A common fault. Miss Carstone was well used to it.

"Oh, Addie! Don't you think he's very clever, then? I think he's full
of talent."

"Yes, Miss. But he didn't give you much." Addie's features were
suddenly enlivened with a sort of benevolent malice. "Yes, and I did
think he's clever. But is he a plus or a minus, Miss? That's the
question."

"What _are_ you saying?"

"A plus or a minus, Miss. I mean for to-morrow night. If you're better
than your best on a first night you're a plus, but if you aren't as
good as your best you're a minus. And that's all there is to it.
You'll excuse me, Miss. But I know what it is. You may have heard that
in my time I was roller-skating champion of the world. Yes, Miss. Me.
So I know what it is goes on between the public and the artiste.
However, that's beside the point, me being once roller-skating
champion--lady champion I should have said--of the world. All I say
about this Mr. Duke is--"

The fat woman turned away, startlingly silent.

"How wonderful of you!" Miss Carstone murmured, with nearly a break in
her voice. The fat Addie--but no more could she address her as
'Addie'!--had been a world-champion and was now a dresser. All news to
Miss Carstone, though everybody on the staff of the theatre was
thoroughly familiar with every detail of the exciting, incredible,
pathetic story! And why had Addie stopped dead in the middle of a
sentence?... 'A plus or a minus.' Something in that.

Someone knocked at the door.

"If you could come down now, Miss Carstone. The photographer's ready.
Something's happened to Mr. Duke, so he couldn't be taken. They're
'phoning for a doctor."

The messenger was surely very laconic.


III

Jack Duke had had a violent week, marked by anxieties, acute strain,
horrible nervousness, and insomnia. But of course he was the luckiest
young actor in the world. And he was envied. Scarcely anybody, except
Mr. Brane, the drill-sergeant-producer, believed that he could come
through. The producer was simply willing him to come through. All the
people connected with the production wanted the play to succeed. They
all knew that the play could hardly succeed if Jack Duke did not
succeed. And yet some of them somehow wanted him to fail. Illogical
reasoning, naturally, but the human heart is rarely logical, and the
owners of hearts seldom wish what is best for themselves. They are too
apt to forget that you can't have everything.

As for Jack, he was fearful. In more than one Amateur Dramatic Society
he had enjoyed tremendous triumphs. But the professional stage was
different. On the professional stage the majority of his colleagues
knew more than he did. The producer, especially, knew all about
everything, and continually made this important fact quite clear. He
still called Jack 'my lad,' and compelled Jack to feel his 'lad.' Jack
accepted all his suggestions and commands with a pathetic eagerness.
And at rehearsals Jack, aware that he was the cynosure of every
critical eye, grew more and more self-conscious.

Withal, Jack was a star, or occupying the place of a star. And he
began to feel like a star, despite his qualms. In a minor part he was
accustomed to bow in silence before all injustices and difficulties.
Now he would murmur (mildly) at every imagined or real hindrance to
his 'effects.' He would even mention to both the author and the
producer that a line here and there might be altered with
advantage--or a line suppressed or a line added. He saw with saddening
distinctness the defects of every member of the company, and wondered
that actors and actresses could be so bad. He judged all of them in
relation to himself--did they help him or did they hamper him? He
dwelt every moment, privately, on his own needs, and never on the
needs of anybody else. He assumed the privileges of a star--in
particular the privilege of edging up stage, and keeping his handsome
face in full view of the auditorium, no matter what might happen to
his fellow-players. If he was not speaking his lines he reflected
exclusively either on what he had just said, or on what he was going
to say, or on the probable effect upon an audience of his poses and
his 'business.' In short, he did everything that in his previous
opinion a star ought not to do.

And he justified himself by the memory of the producer's words:
"You've got to carry the weight of the play, and don't you forget it."

He didn't forget it.

And he savoured keenly the compensations which fate brought. The
press-agent had arranged for him to be interviewed. His photographs
had been distributed to the newspapers. Actors who had once been his
equals stared at him with the respect due to a superior. His salary
had been raised: not sufficiently, but it had been raised.

On one sublime occasion he was recognized, obviously, in the street,
by two young women who were beyond question actresses, but with whom
he was not personally acquainted. A unique thrill! These simple,
aspiring creatures had beheld the man destined to greatness. From this
point onwards, within the space of a few days, the illusion grew in
him that London was somehow watching those rehearsals in which he was
the chief figure, and speculating about the grand result thereof as it
would be disclosed on the first night. He fancied thousands and
thousands of persons eagerly opening their newspapers on the morning
after the first night to find out what kind of a display Jack Duke,
the incipient star, had given at that great solemnity.

He would have been happier, or less unhappy, could he have learnt
what the rest of the company, and Mr. Brane, and Mr. Tiverton the
harmless author, thought of his performance at rehearsals. But he
could not get accurate information on the subject. The author said
nothing. The producer was non-committal; the producer never went
further than: "That's better." And Miss Carstone herself, Jack's
opposite number, a sweet being, quite sympathetic and also
admiring--Miss Carstone did not unpack her mind to him.

There were colleagues who indulged him with extravagant laudations,
and one part of him loved the praise, swallowed it hungrily and
thirstily. But another part of him rejected it (with reluctance) as
insincere and not disinterested.

Taken in all, the week was the most harassing of his whole life. And
the worst thing in it was the awful sense of responsibility.

And the dress-rehearsal furnished no relief. Both the author and the
producer maintained their customary attitudes. Miss Carstone, sweet as
ever, competent as ever, volunteered no remarks. The usual two-faced
persons were prodigal of the usual unconvincing praise. At moments
Jack decided that he was fine or very fine; at moments he decided that
he was the worst and least effective actor on earth. When he thought
of the next night, which was the first night, he was in a panic. He
whispered to himself: "I'm in a panic. Yes. I'm in a panic, a panic, a
panic."

Then, at the end of an extremely exhausting and nerve-racking night,
came the photograph business. This particular photograph business was
quite special, apart from, and in addition to, the ordinary photograph
call. The photographer was American, and a friend and worshipper of
Mr. Tiverton, the author. He was apparently impervious to cold, and
walked around the icy stage in his shirt sleeves. He could wait
pleasantly for hours, and for hours he had waited. He seemed to have
no notion of the passage of time, and one o'clock in the morning was
the same to him as three o'clock in the afternoon. The turn of Jack
Duke _solus_ arrived. Jack's profile was the subject of the
photographer's enthusiasm.

The origin of the catastrophe which ensued was Mr. Tiverton, who had
not gone home because the photographer was his friend and under his
protective wing. Mr. Tiverton was not a facile talker, but he had his
ideas, and he earned his living in main by his ability to put himself
imaginatively in the place of others. He sat on the O.P. side of the
stage watching Jack Duke. Jack was seated solitary in the full glare
of two tremendous, blinding, white electric lights, and on his face
was a strange pathetic air of utter, wistful defencelessness. Mr.
Tiverton put himself in Jack's place, he understood all Jack's
difficulties and trials; and he was very sorry for him indeed, acutely
sorry. His eyes grew moist. Jack happened to catch sight of the
author's sympathetic gaze. And he saw such a look of compassion, of
pity, for a victim, a sufferer, and a creature destined to a terrible
martyrdom, as he merely could not stand. The soft glance completely
overcame him.

"Is my position so hopeless to them?" he thought, and slipped down off
the chair.

"My God!" drawled the photographer. "The poor guy's fainted."

Agitation on the stage.


IV

See the group on the stage, in the terrible glare of the
photographer's twin lights. The American in his shirt-sleeves and a
strong belt showing round his waist, bent helpless over the inanimate
form of the star who in twenty hours ought to be carrying the weight
of the play. The tyrannic Mr. Brane bent over the inanimate form,
thinking that perhaps he had after all been somewhat too Prussian in
his methods with the boy Jack. Mr. Arthur Tiverton, unaware that he
was the origin of the disaster, bent over the inanimate form, thinking
that Brane had been really an impossible task-master. A minor but
resplendent actress tenderly bent over the inanimate form, not daring
to kneel on the dusty boards because in the play she was an extremely
wealthy society woman clad in a very fragile cream silk frock which
had cost seventy-five guineas. Two minor actors bent over the
inanimate form, thinking that if the first night had to be postponed
for a week they would lose a week's salary and their children might be
calling for bread. Several grimy stage-hands stared from a proper
distance at the inanimate form.

"He'll be coming to in a moment," said Mr. Tiverton, who, though
kindly, hated illness and was very fearful for his play.

"Of course he will," said Mr. Brane. "It's nothing. I bet you he
hasn't been eating enough. They often don't. I've often known them not
to be able to swallow. First-night nerves."

"Yes, that's it. Nerves," said one of the minor actors with deference.

"Guess we'd better loosen his collar," said the American, who wore no
collar while at work and whose shirt was unbuttoned at the neck.

"Yes, I believe that _is_ the correct thing to do," agreed Mr. Brane,
with a hint of sardonic humour in his voice, and knelt in order to do
the correct thing.

When the correct thing had been done Jack Duke, if still in the
greater part of a magnificent evening-suit, had the air of a drunken
man who had been knocked out in some fracas at a night-club.

At this point Miss Carstone arrived in a rush and swish of silk, and
dropped to her knees by Jack's side without the slightest regard for
the expensive property of the management. She spoke not: she only
gazed at the young man whose role it was to help her carry the weight
of the play.

And then Jack opened his eyes, and a stage-hand came along with a mug
of water, a few drops of which Jack drank while many tablespoonfuls of
it took the starch out of his steel-like shirt-front.

"I'm all right," Jack murmured. "I shall be all right in a minute."

"That's the stuff, my lad," said Mr. Brane, in a tone of breezy
encouragement.

"Yep," said the American, who was supporting Jack's shoulders.

And all the group breathed relief, and decided that the play would be
presented according to schedule after all. And yet none of them was
entirely reassured in his heart.

And then fat Addie, enormous Addie, appeared, with dignified gait and
perfectly possessed. She stopped a few feet away, as became a dresser
who was no more the lady champion of the roller-skating universe but
merely the social equal of stage-hands. She gazed firmly at Jack Duke,
and Jack blinked queerly at her, and the next thing was that Jack
fainted again, and everybody had renewed visions of a fatal
postponement.

"Let him lie flat, _you_!" said Addie simply, to the American, who
immediately lowered Jack's head and shoulders in obedience.

The stage-manager arrived with the news that he had rung up two
doctors, of whom one was out at a maternity case, while as to the
other the Exchange had informed him that he was never to be disturbed
between midnight and nine in the morning. General exclamations upon
the savage inhumanity of the medical profession. Fancy a man
ruthlessly insisting on sleep while hard-worked persons toiling at 2
a.m. might be dying as a consequence of devotion to duty! All the
eager generosity of the stage was aroused in hot resentment.

"A hospital, then. An ambulance!" said someone.

And off went the stage-manager again.

Miss Carstone was crying. And somehow or other--no one knew how--there
were traces of her powder on the shoulder of Jack's swallow-tail.

"He'll come to," said Addie, with impressive tranquillity, watching
the pale, inanimate form.

Even Mr. Brane looked at her as if daunted by her demeanour.

"How are you so sure?"

"How am I sure! Why! It's his heart. He's got a weak heart. I knew
it--when I saw him on the stage to-night in the last scene. His lips
and his eyes. I remember when I was skating at San Francisco in '90
something"--the American looked up--"there was a young woman there,
silly thing she was, that fainted I don't know how many times in a
waltzing competition--well, it wasn't in San Francisco, it was at
Oaklands--same thing you might say. Just like this young man she
was,--same look in her eyes. He'll come to. He doesn't want any
doctor. He--" Jack Duke did come to. "There! No! You don't need to
move him. Let him lie."

"If he really is all right, I think I shall go home," said Mr.
Tiverton in an apologetic voice. And rather sheepishly departed. But
he was not off the stage before Jack Duke fainted once again. However,
Mr. Tiverton took care not to stop. Still, he felt extremely
sympathetic.

Fat Addie spoke apart with Miss Carstone.

"You'd better have him carried up to Miss Carstone's dressing-room,"
said Addie to Mr. Brane, after this chat. "Three of you can do it. The
sofa's very comfortable there, and the room's warm. Three of you can
do it easy."

Mr. Brane was really shocked at the commanding accents of the dresser.
But when their two individualities had faced one another for two
seconds, he bowed, grunting. The stage was speedily emptied, Mr. Jack
Duke having been borne away in the processional manner of a corpse.

"Is the old girl a'going to pass the night with his lordship?" asked
the fireman of a stage-hand in the wings.

"Yes, the old girl is," answered Addie, appearing suddenly from behind
a flat. "Where's the wardrobe mistress? If she hasn't gone I want
her."

"But where can I change?" Miss Carstone demanded of Addie up in the
dressing-room.

Jack Duke was there, lying lightly covered on the sofa, eyes shut.

"Bless us! Here!" said Addie. "You don't suppose he's going to take
any notice of you, Miss, do you? He's asleep, that's what he is, and
he'll stay asleep. You'll leave me what there is left in that thermos,
Miss, for him? You just change as quick as you can and get away. I've
told them to ring up the cab-rank for you. The ambulance was coming
from Charing Cross, but I've told the hospital it needn't. When once
you get into those hospitals you never get out again. I was in a
hospital once in Prague, and don't I remember it!"

Miss Carstone hurriedly obeyed the injunction.

"Good night--Mrs. Addie."

"Good night, Miss. And don't you rise up out of bed till tea-time."

"I'll try not to."

"That's all right," said Addie to herself when the leading lady had
disappeared. "'Where can I change'--indeed! If she'd seen what I've
seen...."


V

The female ex-champion roller-skater of the world sat in Miss
Carstone's dressing-room, which was very inadequately lighted by the
dim glow of the electric radiator. She had a woolly table-cloth
(purloined from the property master) round her shoulders. Not that she
was ever cold--but she liked to feel cosy in the chair untruthfully
styled 'easy.' She could just make out the vague outlines of the sofa
upon which reclined the chief support of the new play.

"Anybody there?" The murmured question came from the sofa.

"Yes, my lord."

"What time is it?"

"Time for you to go off to sleep again."

Then there was a faint knock at the door--a knock to which the night
gave a certain dramatic quality. Addie arose and opened the door. The
nocturnal fireman, not quite so fat as Addie, stood on the threshold
in his brass and blue and crimson.

"See here," said Addie stepping outside and lifting a finger. "This
isn't a fire. It's an illness. And the old girl is passing the night
with his lordship. And don't let your tobacco smoke get into this
room, _if_ you please."

"I thought I'd see if you wanted anything," said the fireman
apologetically in his hoarse, amicable voice.

"Well, I do," whispered Addie. "I want quiet till seven o'clock, and
then you can call me, and bring me a pint of milk."

"Enough said!" agreed the old fireman, saluting.

Addie closed the door softly.

"You might put the light on," suggested his lordship from the sofa.

Addie put one of the lights on. The sofa had been transformed into a
reasonable imitation of a bed, with pillow, blanket, counterpane, and
the occupant in pyjamas: all of which articles had been abstracted
from the stores of the theatre; one or two of them had played
important parts in forgotten light comedies.

The eyes of the nurse and the nursed met.

"You're over it now."

"Yes."

"Well--" Addie administered to the patient the last contents of Miss
Carstone's flask.

"Do they know?" the handsome patient inquired, gently smacking his
lips as he relinquished the metal cup.

"No, they don't," Addie replied with emphasis. "And I'll say this for
you, my lad. You've got some of your mother's grit in you. Yes. I'll
say that for you. When you came to, out of your faint, and saw me, I
was afraid you might begin squealing 'mammy' or something of the sort.
But you didn't. You kept your nerve and looked at me as if I was a
gallery charwoman. You'll get on, my lad. But of course in your place
I shouldn't have done what you've done. I shouldn't have told my
mother I didn't want anybody to know who she was. At least, I don't
think I should. But you never know. Don't talk. Lie quiet. I know you
wanted me to give up this place because you were coming here. But why
should I give it up? It's a certainty, which acting isn't. I only took
this place because you'd gone in for acting and I couldn't rely on you
keeping me in food and lodgings any longer. Seems to me lately I've
been helping to keep _you_."

"But--"

"Don't _talk_, my lord! I'm not complaining. Not me. Young actors
who've given up a good sure job to go on the stage oughtn't to have
mothers to keep. Well, you haven't got a mother to keep. Don't think I
can't see your point of view, the stage being what it is. I see your
point of view plain enough. All I say is, in your place I should have
said: 'This is my mother, and you can take it or leave it, and go hang
all the lot of you!' But I'm like that and you aren't. I daresay you
were right. So now you just go off to sleep again and don't let me
have to tell you twice."


VI

A tap-tap-tap, a tapping on the door.

"So it's seven o'clock, is it?" thought Addie, waking up in the chair
which her fat body told her might have been a relic of the Spanish
Inquisition.

His lordship was faintly snoring.

Addie went to the door, and unlatched without opening it.

"Leave it there," she muttered drowsily, and returned to the chair.

Tap-tap-tap, again. Addie rose again and opened the door. Miss
Carstone, all in furs, was standing there. In her gloved hand she held
the desired milk-bottle.

"How is he?" whispered Miss Carstone.

Addie slipped into the corridor and shut the door behind her.

"He's quite better, he's asleep," said she. "But I thought you were to
stay in bed till tea-time, Miss!" Her tone was critical.

"I was so anxious. I did sleep a bit. I met the fireman at the
stage-door, and told him I'd bring this milk up for you."

"It's very cold out here," said Addie.

It was indeed very cold on the dark stone stairs, where one electric
light was already being defeated by the dawn.

"Come into No. 12 a moment, will you?" Miss Carstone suggested.

They went into No. 12 dressing-room, and Addie turned on the radiator.

"He'll be able to play to-night?"

"Play? Oh, he'll play. But whether he'll be plus or minus--God knows."

"Tell me, Mrs. Addie," said Miss Carstone, in a strange, wistful
voice. "You're his mother, aren't you?"

In this sudden crisis fat old Addie showed less than her usual grit
and presence of mind. The milk-bottle shook in her hand.

She stammered:

"How did you know?"

"I guessed. I felt sure you were. I just knew."

"Have you got children of your own, Miss?"

"Me! No! I wish I had." Miss Carstone was plaintive, somehow
appealing.

"Well! You'll much oblige me, Miss, by not saying anything. And I
don't want you to go and get any wrong ideas into your head about
Charlie, Miss. If Charlie and me haven't been living together lately,
it's not his fault. I wouldn't have it. I knew that wouldn't do, the
stage being what it is. And _he_ didn't want to keep it a secret,
about him being my son. I made him keep it a secret. A young actor in
the West End can't have a dresser for his mother. And all the more
when he's acting in the same theatre with her. It might ruin him. It
would. So I insisted. I wouldn't have him saying anything."

"You must have had some trouble to get him to agree," said Miss
Carstone, with admiration of his lordship shining in her face.

"Oh yes! Oh yes!"

"How wonderful you've both been!... I'm sure he'll be splendid
to-night. I _feel_ he will."

"He won't give you much."

"Aren't you rather hard on him, Mrs. Addie?"

"We shall see. But I'll say this. If he can't act with you he can't
act with anybody."

"Oh, Mrs. Addie! Well. I'm _so_ relieved. I think I shall go back home
and try to sleep again."

"Yes. You'd better, Miss. And you'll keep all this to yourself?"

"I won't breathe it."

"Of course when he's famous--if ever he is famous--we can let it all
come out then. It'll be awfully good publicity for Charlie.... Good
morning, Miss, and thank you."

Miss Carstone kissed Addie.

Addie said to herself:

"Thought she was kissing _him_, I lay. I wonder she didn't ask me to
kiss him for her. She's too old for him. Well, perhaps she isn't."

There was blitheness in the working part of the theatre that night.
Even Mr. Brane was grimly blithe. (As for Mr. Tiverton, the author, he
was not in the building.) The company was blithe, and therefore the
dressers and others were blithe, because of their joy in the narrow
escape from a postponement. They argued, by an excessively human
illogicality of reasoning, that because of the escape everything was
for the best and therefore that the play was bound to succeed.

Fat Addie alone was not blithe. Neither was she gloomy. She was merely
silent with Miss Carstone. Having been a public performer herself,
she knew that no remarks should be addressed to a performer until
after the performance is over. Transporting her vast bulk unwieldily
to and fro in the room, she was content to be merely efficient.

The front of the house was blithe. A British audience is before
anything benevolent. All the knowing ones in the stalls knew that
young Jack Duke had had a heart-attack at the dress-rehearsal, and the
knowledge was soon general. According to the custom of first-nights
every performer was greeted with plaudits on his first entrance. And
Jack Duke received a far warmer welcome than anybody else. This
welcome brought the play to a halt for quite thirty seconds. Jack Duke
had shown pluck, Jack Duke had. He had to carry the weight of the play
on his youthful shoulders. The ordeal for him was tremendous. Hence he
was entitled to every sympathy and to all encouragement.

The audience's expressions of helpful benignity inspired Jack
Duke--the Lord Ormsdale of the piece. People were convinced that he
acted far better than he in fact did act. At the fall of the first
curtain he walked off the stage in the manner of a star, accepted
congratulations from his colleagues with a modest condescension, and
nodded casually to Mr. Brane. At the fall of the final curtain, when
Mr. Brane had made a too-long speech of gratitude to patrons, that
important figure said to Jack:

"I rather think you've come through, my lad."

"I'm very glad you think so, sir," said Jack, beating down his pride.

"But Miss Carstone carried the thing."

"That's just what I thought, sir," said Jack, lying.

The play was held to be an unmistakable success.

In her dressing-room Miss Carstone said, dropping on to the sofa where
his lordship had slept:

"He was splendid, Mrs. Addie. Really! I don't think we properly
realize what we owe to _you_."

"Did he give you much, Miss?"

"He gave me all he could. But of course he had all he could do to
think of himself."

Addie thought:

"Oh, well! I see he couldn't do wrong for you, milady. You're the
right sort. I wish I knew how old you are."

Miss Carstone asked:

"You must be very tired."

"Yes, Miss."

"Shall you be seeing him to-night?"

"I might."




THE SEVEN POLICEMEN


The click of the doorlatch awoke Mr. Cecil Glasper, who, like
lightning and with a duplicity unworthy of his age, profession and
reputation, seized the book on his knee and pretended to have been
reading. His sister Camilla, maiden, stood at the door in street
attire.

"So you aren't gone to bed, my dear," said Camilla in her clear,
quick, prim tones. She was a tall and slender young woman of thirty,
with a fair face, fluffy light hair, and thin lips and nose, very
neat, very alert, very good-humoured, and her habitual expression
denoted an amicable quizzicalness.

"Apparently not, dearest," said Cecil, from the vasty deeps of his
easy-chair, and glanced at the clock. "It's half-past two."

"I know," said Camilla calmly. "It's even two thirty-three."

"Four," said Cecil. "Your cheeks are quite flushed."

"The wind."

Cecil was a brownish, benevolent, benignant bachelor of forty who,
because he somewhat neglected his mirror and troubled himself not
about a certain increase of girth, looked rather more than his years.
He had thin lips (beneath a too heavy moustache), and his habitual
expression denoted an amicable quizzicalness.

Brother and sister lived together and understood one another in a
house of medium size in Blanesfield Terrace, Pimlico, London. If they
were rich, it was only in the sense that while achieving comfort they
spent less than they earned. Cecil had been for a long time, and for
ever and ever would be, the trusted secretary of two wealthy
philanthropic societies devoted to the welfare of poor gentlewomen.
Camilla had some renown as a competent translator of formidable works
from the German and the Russian, and her learned labours brought a few
hundred pounds a year into the home.

"And where've you been?" Cecil inquired.

"Oh, Chelsea," Camilla answered.

Cecil knew that "Chelsea" meant the studio of an austere middle-aged
sculptor and his young wife.

"So late?"

"Well, we were talking, you know! And there was some dancing."

"Oh, a party!"

"No, no!"

"And did you dance?"

"My dear!"

If modern dance-music was mentioned in their presence, brother and
sister would remark quizzically that they were fond of _music_. In
theory neither danced. But Cecil had suspicions about Camilla. He
happened to be leading rather a double life himself, to his own
surprise and consternation, Hence, quite naturally and uncharitably,
he suspected similar possibilities in his dear Camilla. Camilla had
once nearly been engaged, during the war. An astonishing episode, for
Camilla could be caustic concerning men. The admirer died of a wound.
This event filled her with grief, of which she never spoke. Everybody
had noticed that it had intensified her causticity and fixed her in
spinsterdom.

"I say, Cess!" Camilla's accents were soft and cajoling. She loosed
her cloak, threw her hat on the carpet, and sat down on the high
hassock or pouf which flanked Cecil's easy-chair on the hearth.

At this point Cecil observed, not without mute expostulation, that
Camilla held in her hand a letter addressed to a "Miss Alison
Cockburn." A couple of hours earlier he had written this letter and
placed it on the hall-table, where letters for post were usually
deposited for the attention of servants who would post them.

Said Cecil, controlling his voice:

"Isn't the address right?"

Said Camilla, with infinite tact:

"I expect you're going out with her again one night?"

"Well, I had had the wild idea."

"Now, Cess, please, please don't think I'm trying to interfere in your
affairs--"

Cecil thought:

"That's just what you are doing."

"--but are you sure you won't regret it? I've nothing against her. No,
nothing. But I understand she's very young, and you told me yourself
she never went to bed and never got up. And I've heard other things."

"Who from?"

"Well, friends--who know her."

"Oh, so you talk about her!"

"No, we _don't_."

"Well then?"

"She just happened to come into the conversation."

"To-night?"

"Yes. All I want is to meet her. Can't you ask her here? Can't _I_
write and ask her here?" Camilla's manner was appealing.

The talk continued, and it was the oddest talk that Cecil had ever had
with his sister. They were always affectionately intimate (apart from
a few brief, estranging squabbles over trifles), and yet Cecil
somehow felt that they were now being intimate for the first time in
their lives. He admired the skill with which she managed the colloquy.
Oh yes, he perceived her cleverness! But this perception did not
prevent him from being influenced by the said cleverness.

"Very well," Cecil agreed at length, like a good boy, and he took the
letter from Camilla's hand. "Enough said. It's after three. I'll
listen to your further wisdom to-morrow."

"You won't post it?"

"Do I run out posting letters at 3 a.m.? Off you go to bed!"

Camilla got up and collected her things. Advanced though the hour was,
she looked as fresh as the morn. No trace of fatigue on that sharp,
agreeable, vivacious countenance. But a touch of conquering
superiority in her final glance.

It was the tactless final glance that vitalized the man in Cecil
Glasper. He suddenly saw the scene with Camilla as something monstrous
and incredible. The interview had no meaning except on the assumption
that he was in love, or about to be in love, with a girl too young for
him, a girl whom friends had discussed unfavourably, a dangerous girl,
a girl whom Camilla wanted to "vet" before the alleged affair went any
further. And Camilla had had the infernal impudence to bring back to
him a letter which was practically already posted. And he, with his
ridiculous good nature, had quietly accepted the chit's rebuke!

Cecil rose out of his chair and his anger rose also. There _was_ no
affair. (Untrue!) There was the merest acquaintance. (Untrue!) The
girl was perfectly all right, perfectly correct, indeed charming. And
he would certainly see her again, no matter what answer she made to
his letter. He would see her as often as he chose; he would see her
every night; he would come home from seeing her at any hour he chose;
he would come home at 2.30 a.m. if the whim took him to do so; he
would stay out all night, and nobody should dare to utter a word of
comment upon his proceedings. He liked Camilla; Camilla was fine; but
there is a limit to sisterly interference.

And so on and so on.

He would make a stand for freedom; he would terrorise the whole house;
freedom was the first prize of life, the heritage of Britons, and he
had conducted himself like a milksop. Did he ever attack Camilla's
freedom?...

He passed into the hall, waving the letter in the defiant curves of a
banner of liberty. He seized his hat, opened the front-door, stepped
forth, and pulled the door to very gently lest Camilla might hear! The
letter should be posted.

"Women!" muttered Cecil to himself with grandeur as he walked smartly
up the Terrace. "I suppose they _are_ all the same. Jealous! Hate one
another!" Hitherto he had thought that his sister was different from
other women, and he was sorry to admit that this idea had been an
illusion.

"She's lost all her sense of proportion," he thought.

"Seemed to imagine I could be duped by a woman," he thought. "That she
can judge a woman better than I can! That's good, that is! Considering
that I'm having to deal with women at the office all day and every
day! Hm!"

When he reached the corner, the wind scurrying gustily down another
street nearly blew his hat off (and he saved it only by clutching at
it with his free hand). Possibly therefore the flush on Camilla's
cheeks when she came into the house might really have been due to the
wind as she had said, and not to another cause, as he had been
surmising. He was glad; but also sorry, for he desired to condemn
Camilla.

Then he saw his goal, the pillar-box.

And after the slightest hesitation he passed it.

"A bit of a walk will do me good," said he to himself. And strolled on
and on, and passed another pillar-box. The streets were completely
deserted, mysterious, attractive, soothing. Clouds sailed romantically
across the dimmed face of the moon. He had not been out so late for
years and years. He felt young and adventurous. He traversed the wide
waste of Sloane Square, where was a coffee-stall, and entered into the
expensive Cadogan region. Jolly to be abroad in the night! He arrived
at yet another pillar-box, and with a sudden movement, unconsidered
and audacious, he pushed the fatal letter through the slit; and heard
it fall on the metal bottom of the receptacle. Probably it was the
first letter to occupy that pillar-box since the midnight clearance.

"There!" He had done it. "And be hanged to Camilla! I'll teach her!"

No! Indeed he had not explicitly told Camilla that he would not post
the letter. He had perhaps been guilty of fencing; but she could not
say that he had promised not to post the letter. Anyhow, he had posted
the letter. And she could like it or lump it. Of course he could say,
if dissension arose, that he had accidentally left the letter lying in
the drawing-room and that a servant had posted it.

Then, as he was skirting a large private garden, shared by the wealthy
tenants of a row of tall residences, the boisterous wind lifted the
old soft hat clean off his head before he could clutch it, and he saw
it wing its way over high railings into the enclosed ground. There it
lay, an indistinct object on the sward, only twenty feet distant from
him, but as irrecoverable as if it had been twenty miles distant.
Awkward, that! He felt abashed by the _contretemps_. He had only one
hat (except an antique silk hat reserved for rare funerals, weddings,
and other sad solemnities). Camilla often brushed his sole hat in the
mornings. And more than once lately she had insisted that he
positively must buy a new one. In a few hours she would be missing the
hat. She would be inquiring. There would be a regular hullaballoo. He
would be forced to confess that he had gone out after she had retired
to bed, and had lost the hat. And that fact, in conjunction with the
disappearance of the letter ... Putting two and two together and
making four ... Yes, awkward!

He decided to retrieve the hat. He glanced around. Nobody! Nothing but
the gas-lamps! Not a light in any of the tall houses, save at one
lofty, blinded window, far off. Someone ill, or someone sleepless!

Solitude! He was safe in the depth of the night.

The upright iron rods of the railing were eight inches or so apart,
and perhaps seven feet high--spiked at the top. Between them were
shorter rods, four feet high, also spiked; and all the rods were
joined together by two horizontal rails, one three feet and the other
six feet from the pavement. He could do it, by stepping first on the
lower rail, then on the spike of one of the shorter rods, and then
prising himself up till he was a-straddle of the upper rail. He was
young enough. This notion that he was old, or even middle-aged, was
preposterous. As for his activity, had he not proved it in certain
rhythmic exercises with the person named on the envelope of the letter
now lying in the pillar-box? He had his right toe on the lower rail in
a moment, and on the spike of one of the shorter rods in another
moment. He seized on either hand the spikes of the two higher rods,
and used his muscles.... Not so easy. Still, he was young and agile
and the thing could be done.... At length he was triumphantly astride
of the upper rail, pressed between two of the upper spikes, insecure,
as on a horse without stirrups. The next feat would be to cock his
outer leg over the spike in front of him on to the inner side of the
railings.

Perilous! He dared not try it. He was afraid of falling in a lump on
the empty flower-bed that bordered the lawn of the garden. He was
stuck. His legs were fixed, moveless. The rough, chill wind disturbed
his hair. He called himself by evil epithets. His muttered language
was unprintable. Something must be done. Nothing could be done. Clump,
clump, clump on the pavement. Surely not a policeman? Yes, a
policeman! The majestic figure (not fat, with a face quite youthful)
stopped beneath him, half-lit by the flicker of a gas-lamp.

"Women!" thought Cecil bitterly.

The policeman saw an untidy, suspect person, hatless and guiltily
self-conscious, perched aloft.

"Hello!" he greeted Cecil hoarsely. "What's this?"

"I was getting my hat," answered Cecil. "It's blown off into the
garden here."

Even to Cecil himself the tale sounded far-fetched and silly. "It's
down there on the grass," he added.

"Where?" asked the policeman. "I can't see any hat."

Cecil examined the lawn, but he could not see any hat either. The wind
had evidently moved it on into some distant shadow.

"Well," said Cecil, "it was there a minute ago."

He felt very unstable, as well as cold. He was by no means accustomed
to the nocturnal rigours of the equinox in London. Further, he was
extremely uncomfortable, squeezed between two spikes and seated on a
sort of narrow iron steed that was all spine and no flesh nor ribs.

"Do you live in one of these houses?" the policeman demanded, his
tone growing more curt.

"No-no," said Cecil. "I was just passing."

"At this time of night?"

"Yes," said Cecil. "At this time. Couldn't have been any other time,
could it, officer?"

This attempt to be frolicsome with the policeman was ill-judged.

"If you don't live in one of these houses, you're trespassing," said
the policeman harshly. "Because this garden's private property, and
so's the railings. If you've taken a fancy to go in for being an
acrobat you ought to try it on your own railings. Where do you live?"

"Blanesfield Terrace."

"Oh! So it's Blanesfield Terrace, is it? Nowhere near here. I suppose
you'll say you came out for a bit of exercise."

"No. I came out to post a letter."

"Well, there's about ten pillar-boxes and a post-office between here
and Blanesfield Terrace. What about it?" And as Cecil did not answer
the question the policeman concluded: "Come out of it. Come down now,
and quickly--that's my advice to you, my man."

"I can't get down. I'm stuck," protested Cecil, whose worst sensation
was the sensation of looking and feeling a fool.

"See here," said the policeman, with menace. "Shall I have to pull you
down?"

"I wish to heaven you would," said Cecil.

"Got any tools in your pocket?"

"Tools?"

"Yes, tools. A jemmy, for instance?"

"Fountain-pen," said Cecil. "That's the best I can do for you."

At this juncture Cecil from his eyrie saw a most extraordinary
phenomenon, namely, a file of six policemen with simultaneous clump,
clump, clump, on the opposite pavement. He wondered for an instant
whether he was not in bed and dreaming: but the reality of the rail
which divided his dangling legs was beyond any metaphysical challenge.

"Here, lads!" said the original policeman.

The stalwart string of constables curved in obedience to the summons,
crossed the road, and drew up beneath Cecil in military order.

Said the original policeman:

"Here's a cove says he's armed with a fountain-pen. Seems as if he
climbed up there to write a letter to his sweetheart, 'Because I love
thee!' And he refuses to come down. Pull him down, two or three of
you."

The railings were instantly clustered with policemen. One of them with
unnecessary violence lifted Cecil's right leg over the upper rail.
Cecil fell on the top of two others and the trio collapsed on the
pavement, with no damage other than a rent a foot long in Cecil's
trousers.

"Don't loose him," the original policeman commanded. "He looks a bit
too slippy for my taste."

Cecil was pitched upwards on to his feet and seized by both arms in
the grip of the law.

"Where did you say you lived, my man?"

"Blanesfield Terrace."

"What number?"

"Seventeen."

"Well, we'll have a look at No. 17 Blanesfield Terrace," said the
first policeman. "Then we'll have a look at the Walton Street Police
Station. Come on with him, lads."

"I'll go quietly," said Cecil, attempting vainly to free his arms.

"You bet you will," said the policeman.

As he walked in shame, one policeman in front, one on either side, and
four behind, Cecil reflected upon the mutability of human existence. A
few minutes earlier he had been a respectable householder, an educated
man, a secretary to philanthropic societies of the highest standing.
Now he was a criminal. Hitherto he had always regarded policemen as
benevolent beings who said "sir," and interrupted the progress of
three-ton lorries in order to facilitate the progress of
perambulators. Now policemen were adamantine robots of the law,
without bowels.

       *       *       *       *       *

Until the arrival of the _cortge_ at his own house Cecil Glasper kept
his promise to go quietly, though he had been somewhat tried by the
ribaldry of three customers of the Sloane Square coffee-stall, close by
which the policemen had too deliberately marched him, whereas it would
have been quicker and more humane to take the prisoner diagonally across
the Square. These three customers, two men and a woman, were in rich
evening-dress, but their demeanour and their remarks were unworthy of
their attire. "Looks as if he might have been respectable once," the
lady had taunted, with a wanton, loose giggle. Cecil, hitherto quite
unacquainted with nocturnal London, had felt outraged by the monstrous
manners of a great and supposed-to-be-civilized city. Nevertheless he
had contrived to maintain an outwardly calm dignity.

As they were mounting the steps of No. 17, however, one of the two
pinioning policemen slipped and fell on his knees. Did he loose
Cecil's arm, as any policeman of decent feelings would? He did not. He
dragged Cecil down with him. Under a sudden angry impulse Cecil fought
for freedom. Useless! All seven were instantly upon him. The coarse,
physical brutality of the law astounded and shocked him. He ceased to
fight.

"Got a latch-key?" demanded his original captor.

"Men usually have," Cecil icily replied.

"Where is it?"

"In my pocket--strange to say."

"No lip, my lad," No. 1 warned him.

"You can use anything I say against me," said Cecil, in a lashing
tone.

"Which pocket?"

"Left-hand hip-pocket, I'll get it for you."

"Oh no you won't," said No. 1, and began to search Cecil's pockets.

With a curious moral cruelty, and entirely ignoring the information
given to him by Cecil, No. 1 investigated the prisoner's left-hand
front-pocket, then the right-hand front-pocket, then the right-hand
hip-pocket and finally the left-hand hip-pocket, from which his
fingers emerged with a bunch of keys. The groping of another man's
hand in the sacred privacy of his pockets, hitherto immaculate, was
Cecil's last humiliation; an insult which he nobly swallowed.

In a moment the door was wide open.

"I hope you're convinced now of my bona fides," observed Cecil, with
increasing nobility.

"Convinced of his what?" cried No. 1, leering at the others, and gave
an enormous laugh.

All the others responded with enormous laughs: noise enough to wake
the sedate Terrace from end to end.

"Shove him in, lads," ordered No. 1. "Him and his bona fides, too.
Bona fides, eh! I daresay he's only a lodger here. Attic. Bed and
breakfast and clean your own boots."

And Cecil, unpinioned at length, was shoved into his Englishman's
castle head foremost, disgracefully, ignominiously. He thought: "At
the police-court I shall give my own version of this affair." But he
thought again: "And what will be the use? They'll all lie together,
and the magistrate will believe them, or pretend to. Magistrates
always do. It's a regular conspiracy. Helpless! Helpless! That's what
we are."

The door was banged with immense force. The whole house shook.

"That will waken Camilla," thought Cecil. "And if she comes down----"
He stopped thinking.

The narrow hall was full of policemen, bursting with them--and Cecil
somewhere defenceless in the throng. It was at this point that he had
confirmation of a suspicion already formed in the streets: namely,
that within a certain period several at least of the policemen had not
successfully resisted the sovereign attraction of alcoholic liquor.
Still, being a magnanimous man, with tastes, he admitted privately
that policemen were also human beings and well entitled to fortify
themselves with historic liquids before going on duty in the middle of
the night: there could be no reason why policemen should be total
abstainers.

"We'd better telephone to Walton Street, lads," said No. 1. "I say,
Mister, where's your telephone?"

The telephone was situated in the small useless room which in London
houses is always found at the back of the dining-room on the
ground-floor. Four of the officers vanished into this room, the other
three having been instructed to keep guard over the prisoner, who
stood idle with one hand in a pocket and the other feeling the long
and dangerous rent in his ruined trousers.

"What's this?" demanded one of the three sentinels, pointing suddenly
to a piece of sculpture perched on a bracket in the hall.

"A statuette," Cecil replied.

"Is it a Gurdon?" asked the constable surprisingly. He was a tall,
fair, youngish man with an alert and almost refined expression on his
round face.

"It is," said Cecil dryly. "But what do you know about Mr. Gurdon's
work?"

"Oh," said the constable, after a pause. "We have our lecture-clubs
and all that, you know, in the Force. And I've been on duty in the
Royal Academy before now."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Cecil. And he was. His notions of the
state of culture existing in the Constabulary were being enlarged.

"Seems to me she might have been wearing a bit more," observed another
constable. "I call it indecent, that's what I call it."

"They like 'em like that," said the tall, fair man. "You get used to
it."

Silence. Cecil could not honestly deny the truth of the assertion.

The other policemen came noisily out of the back room. As they did so,
Camilla, in a somewhat diaphanous peignoir, appeared with an extremely
startled look on her face at the head of the stairs. Nothing of the
quizzical in her demeanour now. The tall fair man glanced at her for
one instant, whereupon he sprang to the front-door and opened it.

"Oh!" shrieked Camilla and disappeared in a rush. It was as though the
incoming wind had wafted her violently away.

"Look here," said No. 1, addressing Cecil. "We've told them all about
it at Walton Street, and they aren't satisfied. And you've got to go
up there to the Station. You see, I don't mind telling you we're a
squad on special duty, and there's been a lot of funny things
happening lately round Cadogan Square, including two cat-burglaries.
Out with him, lads."

Cecil answered with dignity:

"The police-station's the very place I want to go to. I shall have one
or two very plain remarks to make to the Inspector when I arrive
there."

"Doesn't matter what you want or what you don't want. Get a move on,
and don't argue."

So, hatless, and in draughty trousers, and pinioned, Cecil issued
forth again into the streets.

"It's bound to end some time," said he to himself with resignation,
and reflected upon the names of friends who might properly be summoned
to bail him out.

After a hundred years or so of marching he noticed that the special
squad had somehow been reduced in number from seven to six. The tall,
fair constable was mysteriously lost to view.

A considerable walk to Walton Street, from Pimlico! But speed induced
warmth in Cecil's imperfectly clad body. Only his head was very cold:
he predicted neuralgia for himself. Strange that Camilla should have
displayed cowardice! And yet perhaps not strange! Earlier in the night
she had shown him that all women were alike.

The _cortge_ turned into Walton Street. Lo! The customary
blue-and-white lamp bearing the horrid words: 'Police Station'! Up the
steps, into the dark stone-floored entry-corridor. Nobody to be seen;
but there was a slit of light under a door on the left.

"You go in there," said No. 1 in a murmur. "They're waiting for you,
and they're in a hurry. You go in there and you make your plain
remarks. We shall come as soon as we've reported."

With that all six policemen walked out of the police-station. Cecil
stood still for a minute, for two minutes, possibly for three. He
hesitated to confront the Inspector in the room behind the ill-fitting
door. Why should he of his own accord confront the Inspector? The
idea of escape, of freedom, of the glorious streets, irresistibly
tempted him. He crept to the portal, and peeped out. Constables might
be lurking there. No! Not a constable! Nobody! The long, straight
street slumbered under its double row of lamps. He jumped down the
steps, and ran, risking the ignominy of pursuit and recapture. Of
course he was a fool to run; the police are always too strong for the
public; but he ran.

       *       *       *       *       *

The same morning Cecil Glasper sat in the sole easy-chair in the
little back room where the telephone lived. He wore his loose
house-suit of Pyrenees sheep's wool; sign to the household that he was
indisposed. He was drinking tea, having refused food: another sign of
the same. The gas-stove glowed crimson. He had telephoned to his
offices that he was kept away from them by urgent official business.
His reason, however, for inhabiting the back room was not that he
wanted to telephone but that he was expecting telephone-calls which
none but himself could answer or ought to know of. One of these
anticipated calls was from the police. He hoped that the police would
ring him up before arriving with handcuffs, so that he might arrange
for a dignified departure. A wild, silly hope!

The parlourmaid entered with a card:

"Mr. Septimus Mardern," Cecil read.

"I can't see anyone," said he, and then he thought: "Possibly someone
to do with the Police!" And he said aloud: "Unless of course----"

"The gentleman says it's very urgent, sir."

"Show him in, then."

Yes, it was the police right enough! The tall, fair constable: the
young man looked rather odd in mufti. For some reason or other he was
disguised, with a soft hat, blue shirt, and fluid necktie, as a sort
of Chelsea artist.

Cecil respectfully and nervously rose.

But Septimus Mardern the constable was nervous too.

"I felt I must call at once, Mr. Glasper, to apologize for last
night's affair--I should say this morning's. You see, we were all a
bit jolly, and when you're in fancy-dress you're apt to do things----"

Cecil then learnt that his seven imitation policemen had been
returning from a big carnival ball in the Albert Hall.

"Sit down, sir," said Cecil sternly, pointing to a hard chair, and
himself resumed the easy-chair.

Intense relief in his mind, together with an impulse towards harshness
and cruelty! And immediately his physical condition changed to one of
perfect health. Even the neuralgia vanished. But he could not maintain
the impulse towards harshness and cruelty, because he felt so
ridiculously happy and superior. The false constable was a squirming
worm in front of him.

"Ah!" he remarked, grimly sardonic. "So it has occurred to you to
apologize!"

"Of course you've heard all about it by this time, sir."

"Quite," said Cecil. But he had heard nothing about it. He had not
even set eyes on Camilla, who was still in her room, and he had taken
care not to meet trouble half-way by arousing her.

"I only want to say, sir, that I really hadn't the slightest idea who
you were, until I caught sight of Miss Camilla on the stairs. I'd
never had the pleasure of meeting you. But I ought to have known you
by your likeness to Miss Camilla. I had only met Miss Camilla at
Gurdon's studio--several times. I admit I ought to have stopped the
thing at once, the moment I realized whose house we were in. But I
rather lost my head--didn't know what to do. So I just ran off. Not
for any money would I have done anything to annoy Miss Camilla--nor
you either, sir, nor you either--especially after she'd been so kind
as to come with me to the ball. I should have brought her home, and
then I should have known where you lived; but she left me without
telling me. But of course you've heard, sir."

"What I haven't heard is, how Camilla could go to a fancy-dress ball
in ordinary clothes."

"Oh! She didn't, sir. We called at my studio on the way, and I fitted
her up with a Japanese kimono, which she left behind with Mrs. Gurdon.
That was how I knew she'd gone. I'm terribly afraid she'll be vexed.
If you could----"

"The fact is, you've not called to apologize to me. You've called to
get me to make your peace with Camilla."

"No, no, sir. Both, sir."

"You're a painter?"

"Yes, sir. You may have seen----"

"I haven't."

Mr. Cecil Glasper was touched and uplifted. For he divined that he was
assisting at a romance. Septimus Mardern was most obviously deep in
love with that deceitful chit, Camilla. He was a frank, honest kind of
young man, with an intelligent, fresh kind of face. And he was
respectful and repentant and appealing. The spectacle of romantic love
delighted Mr. Cecil Glasper, secretary of philanthropic societies. And
it impressed him, forced him to behave, and even to think, in a
Christian and benevolent manner.

"You know what your lively friends did after you so prudently left us?
Took me to the police-station. A bit risky, eh, that?"

"Yes, sir. I heard about an hour ago. It was indeed risky. It was
mad. But, if I may say so, it only shows what--er--what an advanced
state of jollification they must have been in."

"Well," said Cecil grandly. "I accept your apology. And you'd better
call round one afternoon and put things right with Camilla as well."

"I will, sir. _This_ afternoon?"

"Yes, why not? But--_But_----"

"Yes, sir?"

"You must subscribe among you for a new hat for me. My size is seven
and three-quarters."

"You're frightfully decent, sir," said Septimus Mardern, rising.
"Frightfully decent. I'll go and tell them all."

No sooner was the painter gone, with a tremendous bang due to the
still blusterous wind having snatched the doorknob out of the
parlour-maid's hand, than Camilla entered the back room in search of
her brother.

"Noisy morning!" said she, bright but nervous; the brightness was
obviously being assumed to hide the nervousness, for she avoided
Cecil's eye.

"To think," said Cecil to himself, "only a few minutes ago I was
fearing to meet her and preparing to go to police-courts and things;
and now I've got her under my thumb."

And aloud he retorted:

"Not so noisy as the night."

"Oh?" she parried.

"You're a nice two-faced minx!" said he quizzically.

"Oh?" she parried again.

"Yes," said he. "You took care not to tell me you'd been to a
fancy-dress ball."

"Well," said she. "It was so late and I--I didn't want to keep you up
with a long talk. Besides I did tell you there'd been some dancing.
I'd no idea I was going when I left the house after dinner last
night."

"I assert and maintain you're a two-faced minx," said he
magisterially.

"You aren't well, my dear," said she.

"I'm perfectly well," said he.

"But you aren't dressed," said she.

"It's the first time I've heard of it," said he.

"But you haven't gone to the office," said she.

"That's quite true," said he. "I'm here sitting in this chair."

"But why, then?"

"I stayed at home to think out what coloured kimono it was you wore
last night at that ball."

"Who--who told you?"

"A fellow named Mardern," said Cecil. "He called on me in the middle
of the night--as you are well aware. Very friendly chap. And he called
again this morning--he's just gone. And he's calling again this
afternoon--to see you."

Camilla was blushing in the most maidenly manner.

"But you don't know him," she murmured.

"Oh! Don't I! I have the best reason for knowing him," said Cecil.
"He's going to buy me a new hat. I lost mine last night when I went
out to post a letter. It blew off into a private garden."

"What letter?"

"That letter your ordered me not to post." Cecil spoke carelessly,
boldly. What cared he for her views about his carryings-on with women?
Figuratively, she was bound and gagged before him. She dared not raise
an eyebrow at him.

"Do tell me all about everything," she appealed, with the touching,
modest diffidence of a sweet opponent defeated and captive.

She was delicious to behold in her confusion. But not unhappy, because
in Cecil's masterful bullying was the quizzical benevolent note which
she knew so well.

Something new had somehow insinuated itself into the house, something
that had never been there before, something beautiful, exciting and
tender.

The telephone bell sounded. Camilla turned to the instrument.

"You leave that telephone alone," said Cecil, sharply springing up.
"You can go."

"I won't," said Camilla. "You've got to tell me all about everything."

"Is that Mr. Glasper," said the delicate voice of the telephone, which
was also the voice of the mysterious creature whom Camilla had never
seen and had demanded to see.

"Speaking," said Cecil, in a voice rendered uncertain by sudden and
extreme agitation.

"I'm so glad I've found you in," said the telephone. "I telephoned to
the office and they said you hadn't come."

"No, I hadn't," said Cecil.

Camilla was staring hard at him, fascinated.

"I've had your letter. You asked me to telephone because you couldn't
wait," said the telephone.

"And I couldn't."

"Neither could I," said the telephone.

A pause.

"Yes?" said Cecil encouragingly.

"That's the answer," said the telephone.

"What's the answer?"

"Yes," said the telephone, very faintly, very magically.

"Oh!" said Cecil, but with a constrained clumsiness. "I am glad."

"Is that all?" asked the telephone.

"No. There's lots more."

"Say 'I love you, darling'," said the telephone.

"By Jove! I should think I did!" said Cecil, all in his woollen
house-suit and his hair untidy and no collar on.

"But say it. Say what I said."

Cecil glanced round at Camilla, reflecting that the girl had no
slightest notion of the lengths to which he had gone with the
mysterious creature at that instant joined to him by a mile or two of
telephone-wire that ran through streets and up walls and under floors.
Could she have guessed that the letter contained an offer, a request,
an epoch-making proposal----?

He put his hand over the mouthpiece.

"Get out," he said to Camilla.

"I won't," said Camilla.

"Say it, please, I want to hear it," the tiny voice of the telephone
insisted.

"I love you, darling," said Cecil, a man. And looked challengingly at
Camilla, and blushed exactly as she had blushed.

"Well, of all the----!" exclaimed Camilla.

Yes, something new and lovely had entered the monastic house; and
seven policemen had facilitated its arrival.




MYRTLE AT SIX A.M.

I


It was 5.50 a.m. A lovely, virginal summer morning. The vast London
square, with its vast central garden surrounded by vast roads
surrounded by vast houses, lay half in sunlight and half in shadow,
and the sunlight was gaining every moment over the shadow.

The vast door of No. 91 opened. Mr. Emmarce stepped forth and at the
same moment a vast automobile slid forward from somewhere, silent as a
ghost, and stopped in front of him. No other living thing in the whole
square. Mr. Emanuel Emmarce, known wherever financial newspapers are
read, was a short, stubby man nearer fifty than sixty, who wore his
distinguished clothes without distinction, and had thick fingers,
full, pink cheeks, and a greyish moustache--but warm, dark, gleaming
eyes: eyes of a passionate lover of music, a passionate collector of
pictures and of Persian pottery.

Following Mr. Emmarce through the vast door came a slimmer, more
elegant person rather younger than Mr. Emmarce,--Plaistow, his 'man',
carrying a despatch-case.

"Come along," said Mr. Emmarce, petulant.

"Yes, sir," said Plaistow, with deferential hostility. It was as if he
had said: "Now be careful. You're all nerves because you got up too
early. But I got up earlier, and I went to bed later, as I always do.
I'm a very good valet, and I could get a new situation any day of the
week. So don't go too far."

"My stick?" queried Mr. Emmarce. But, tyrannic, self-made Napoleon
though he was, he modified his tone; for he was aware of all that
Plaistow had not said, and he could hardly imagine existence without
Plaistow. He hated servants, especially the males, but they were
necessary to him. In the attics and basements of the Square slept
probably two or three hundred men-servants. In Mr. Emmarce's opinion
they ought to be slaves, but each year they were growing less and less
like slaves. March of democracy.

"Oh!" exclaimed Plaistow, startled by his own forgetfulness.

He sprang back into the mansion, having first deposited the
despatch-case. Mr. Emmarce walked to and fro, head bent, hands behind,
Napoleonic. He utterly ignored the chauffeur, who utterly ignored his
employer. Still, it was a lovely, a heavenly morning.

A taxi-cab appeared on the horizon of the Square. It approached. Mr.
Emmarce thought: "That taxi is coming here." He was right. Before it
had stopped, he thought: "That taxi contains my daughter." He was
right. The taximan pulled up his flag, and the bell rang. Mr. Emmarce
very grimly opened the door of the vehicle and held it open. The
moment was dramatic; he felt the drama.

A beautiful young girl within the cab: lightly, fashionably,
indecently clad in pale green; a velvet wrap insecure on the bare
shoulders; cheeks and lips rosy with rouge; marvellous auburn hair,
waved; jewels, richness, perfect expensiveness, the finished product
of civilization, as fine as anything the Square could show! His girl!
He contrasted her with his memory of his sister at her age, pretty but
dowdy--because poor, having to count every sixpence. _He_ had created
his daughter, and he was proud of his creation. She was one measure of
his success in life.

But he was tired, short of sleep; he had risen too early; he was
harassed by the anxieties of an imminent negotiation which would
require the most delicate and ruthless handling and which if he was
equal to the ordeal would mean a gain of half a million to him; his
nerves were stretched tight, ready to snap. He was annoyed to witness
his daughter arriving home in a taxi, and alone. True, he had given an
order that his chauffeurs were never to be kept up after 2 a.m. But he
threw the order out of his mind. And was there no young man with a
limousine eager to escort her to her door? A slash across the face of
his family pride.

"Hullo, daddy!"

Myrtle admirably maintained her calmness. No sign of astonishment at
the strange encounter. No symptom of curiosity as to the reason for
her father's presence on the pavement at that hour, obviously prepared
for a journey. He appreciated the equanimity of her demeanour, while
condemning her for it. She had character. She was his daughter. She
had jumped elegantly out of the cab. What youth! What grace! What
style! What enchanting arrogance! What a challenge to the democratic
contumacy of flunkeys! He did not return her greetings.

"Pay the taxi, there's a darling," she said negligently. "Haven't a
cent."

He asked inimically:

"What would you have done if I hadn't happened to be here?"

"Don't know."

He banged the door of the taxi and paid the driver his fare, plus a
generous tip. It was his family function to pay. He was the cashier in
chief. He was always paying and he was always expected to pay. His
family knew nothing and cared nothing of money--where it came from,
how it was made. They took money as a matter of course, immense sums
of money all the time. But the sums were as naught to him. His
expenditure could never match his income. The driver, recognizing a
gentleman, and having no eye for thick fingers, touched his hat and
departed.

Mr. Emmarce said:

"You're as bad as your mother. How often have you been told never to
go out without money?"

"Yes," said Myrtle casually. "How often have I?"

The nerves of Mr. Emmarce snapped.

"You know, my girl," he began bitterly. She was already moving towards
the vast open door of the mansion, and with a savage glare he held her
gaze as she turned her head at the sound of his voice "You know, my
girl, you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Coming home like
this at six in the morning after one of your parties! I don't say
much, but something must be said sometime. Your cocktails and your
dancing and your sleeping it off all day! Day after day and night
after night. How old are you? Twenty-two. And look at you! What good
are you in the world? What sort of an example do you think you're
setting? To servants, for instance? It's the goings-on of young people
like you that are upsetting the country, making bad blood, giving
these labour fellows a stick to beat us with. What answer is there to
their criticisms, I should like to know. There's no answer. It isn't
as if you hadn't been educated. You've had every chance. And what use
have you made of it? What use have you made of it?"

He paused for an answer. She gave no answer.

He thought:

"What the hell's that man doing with my walking-stick? I shall be
late."

Then he continued:

"Here am I just starting out on my day's work, and you're coming home
after a night of what I suppose you call pleasure. Do you think
anybody respects you? How can anybody respect you? I'm ashamed of you,
and I tell you flat." His voice was rising.

Plaistow appeared, bland and unhurried and hostile, with the
walking-stick. Plaistow perceived that trouble was afoot between
father and daughter, and he was cynically delighted. He passed across
the pavement to the automobile and deposited the stick. He and the
chauffeur exchanged saturnine winks.

Myrtle had not moved. Her body was still turned towards the mansion
and her head towards her father. A statue! But Mr. Emmarce noticed a
blush on her neck. He savoured it, as he waited for her to speak. She
did not speak.

"If I speak to her, she ought to speak to me--if there were forty
servants here!" he thought resentfully. He grunted and got rather
heavily into the car. Plaistow shut the door and jumped up by the side
of the chauffeur. The car fled away, silent as a ghost. Myrtle had
entered the mansion.


II

Myrtle walked vigorously up the broad, thick-piled stairs, on which no
footfall was ever audible. She had felt tired in the cab, but now all
the sensations of fatigue had left her with extraordinary suddenness.

The house was in a twilight, pierced here and there by bright shafts
of sunshine in which millions of motes vibrated. The electric lamp on
the first landing patiently awaited its extinction by the
earliest-descending housemaid. Dust lay on the glass of the show-case
of the rare faience which stood beneath this lamp. The toilette of the
vast mansion would not begin for another hour yet, if as soon. The
second landing was lighter than the first because the curtains of its
windows had not been drawn close.

Myrtle hesitated at her mother's bedroom, and then opened the heavy
door. An enormous chamber, all curtains, cushions, upholstery,
knicknacks; and in a corner the Louis-Seize bed, and in the bed her
mother, sitting up, and half bent over a spirit-lamp surmounted by a
gleaming kettle. One electric lamp burned on the table near the
kettle. Otherwise the room was in darkness. The two windows were
hidden by thick curtains, for the least ray of daylight would wake
Mrs. Emmarce, who even in the most favourable circumstances was a most
inefficient sleeper. She made tea for herself when she could not
sleep, and she was making tea now.

Myrtle looked at her mother. A handsome woman; a handsome wreck;
plump; she had a magnificent, impressive frontage, which a cashmere
shawl imperfectly covered. Completely unconscious of the invasion of
her room, she was putting tea-leaves into the teapot with a childlike
ingenuous interest in the operation.

"Mother!"

Mrs. Emmarce gave a start.

"Oh my dear! How you frightened me! What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. I thought you'd be--"

"Wait a moment. Wait a moment. I can't hear you."

The tea-maker pulled wax out of her ears. Any sound, like any light,
would arouse her out of her precarious slumber; the wax enabled her to
defy the nocturnal noises of the Square.

"Now! What time is it, my pet?"

"Oh! Six o'clock, more or less."

"Good gracious! I thought it was about two."

Mrs. Emmarce lived in a world of her own where time was not. None of
her wrist-watches was ever in order, and she seemed to exercise a
magical depraving influence even on all respectable and reliable
clocks within a radius of twenty feet.

"But you're very late, my pet. How is my dear Lady Massulam? Didn't
she ask after me?" The tones of Mrs. Emmarce were charmingly
querulous. She loved a tiny grievance; she was always crossing the
stream before she reached its bank; but she had a kindly heart.

Myrtle, touched by the simplicity of her mother's yearning for
affectionate appreciation, invented at once an agreeable reference to
her by Lady Massulam. Then, in response to another inquiry, she
mentioned the names of a number of Lady Massulam's other guests.

"You surely must be wanting some breakfast, my pet," said Mrs.
Emmarce, abruptly starting a new subject as she poured boiling-water
into the teapot.

"No thanks, mother. The usual bacon and eggs were served at five
o'clock."

"Well," said Mrs. Emmarce. "I don't know how they manage. _Our_
kitchen-staff wouldn't do it. Come and sit on the bed, my pet. We'll
drink out of the same cup."

"But don't I tell you, mother--"

"And there are plenty of biscuits. I've got a new sort!"

When Mrs. Emmarce had decided to play the role of Good Samaritan
nothing would deter her.

Smiling, she beckoned to her daughter, who slowly approached the bed
and perched thereon, dropping her cloak. Mrs. Emmarce poured some tea
without waiting for it to infuse.

"If you'd only come a tiny bit earlier," said she, "you might have
shared your father's sandwiches and thermos in his room. He hasn't
been gone a minute. I wonder you didn't see him."

"I did," said Myrtle briefly, harshly.

"Where?"

"On the pavement outside. I suppose he's 'stealing a march' on someone
as usual."

"My dear!" Mrs. Emmarce protested mildly against the sarcastic tone.

"Well," said Myrtle. "He was very rude to me."

"Rude?"

"Yes. And in front of Plaistow and Price, too!"

"But Myrtle! Perhaps you weren't very polite to _him_."

"I was perfectly polite to him, and he snapped my head off. I blushed.
I could feel myself blushing. But not for myself! For him!"

"It's very strange," said Mrs. Emmarce, tremulous. "He popped in to
see me only a few minutes since, and chatted--said he'd seen my light
burning under the door, and he couldn't go without giving me a hug.
Why! He actually wanted to make my tea for me, though he was in a
hurry. But I wouldn't let him. No. I would _not_. Nobody could have
been more charming. He takes just as much trouble to be nice to me as
he did before you were born, my pet. If all husbands were like him the
world would be a very different place for wives."

"Oh, yes," Myrtle retorted, with a hint of a sneer. "We all know he's
always charming and all that to _you_. But not to us. And everyone
says he's simply terrible when he's doing one of his business deals.
Hard as flint. And that's how he is to me--I mean that's how he was
this morning. I really came in to tell you about it."

Mrs. Emmarce was gently crying. Myrtle refused to notice the tears.
She loved her mother, but in spite of herself and in spite of her
judgment. It was true that the Napoleonic financier invariably treated
her mother with the most marvellous consideration. But Myrtle
cynically suspected that her father's conjugal demeanour was chiefly
the result of a deep feminine unscrupulous cleverness on the part of
her mother, who acted the sensitive simpleton, the ivy to the oak, the
weak foolish woman adoring and trusting the strong, sagacious, loving,
leniently masterful man. Myrtle suspected. She was not sure. Had she
been sure she would have scorned her mother, burned her up with
disdain, loathed her. Womanly wiles were for Myrtle the most
despicable form of iniquity. Ugh! She retched at the thought of it.

"Have some tea."

Myrtle shook her head gloomily.

"To please _me_, my pet. Just one little sip."

Ruthless, her mother's soft insistence!

"Oh well!" Myrtle, beaten, took just one little sip. Then, with
trembling hand, she returned the cup, and stood away from the bed,
towering formidably youthful over the ageing weak woman with her
sex-appeal undiminished by age.

"My dear! My dear!" said Mrs. Emmarce, when Myrtle had finished the
tirade in which she repeated, very correctly--save for a few
exaggerations due to her youthfulness and a state of high emotion, all
her father's remarks. "Of course I can understand your father. You
coming home at six in the morning--he was bound to be upset. You must
see that for yourself."

"I think it's monstrous," Myrtle proceeded. "Simply monstrous! Does he
imagine I haven't thought about it all hundreds and thousands of
times. But what's the use? What can I do? What can any of us girls do?
... 'Educated,' am I? He has a nerve to tell me I'm educated! How am
I educated? I can speak French and German, in a way. But what's that?
But what can I _do_? I've been brought up to be idle and spend money,
and enjoy myself. Only I don't enjoy myself. I hate it all. I only
live as I do because I was taught to live like that, and because all
the other girls do it. It isn't my fault. It's your fault--I mean
father's. And you always agree with him. I should just like him to
show me what I _ought_ to do. He couldn't. And then he rounds on me.
Supposing he lost all his money and I had to go out and earn my
living. How should I do it? I don't know anything about anything
that's _real_. Why, when I see a housemaid cleaning a room I'm
ashamed,--yes, ashamed! Because I couldn't clean a room. Don't know
how to. I often feel the maids scorn me, because at any rate they can
do something and I can't. They do earn their living. They're in
demand, maids are. And they'd leave as soon as look at you. They know
if they leave one place they can get forty other places. Of course
they scorn me. And don't I guess how they talk about me in the
staff-hall! And what will they be saying to-night when Plaistow gets
back and Price comes in for orders! A nice juicy story! And I'm forced
to stay here and stand it all; I'm in a prison here, because I've been
brought up to be idle and helpless! Supposing I walked out, and I've a
good mind to; but I know I shan't because I've got no character. My
character's never been developed. Nobody ever cared twopence about it.
Oh yes, I know I'm considered pretty good at small talk and keeping
things going and all that. And I can play the guitar. Negro
spirituals! Good God! But supposing I did walk out--I should starve.
Well, I might be a mannequin--I was forgetting that--and you know what
mannequins are, and what they jolly well have to do! It isn't as if I
hadn't given you hints now and then that I wasn't satisfied. I have!
But what's the result always been? You've smiled. And you say it
wouldn't be right for me to be taking the bread out of another girl's
mouth who really _needs_ money. So I'm to be sacrificed. What I say is
that a fair day's work for a fair day's pay won't take the bread out
of anybody's mouth. And I shouldn't care if it did anyhow. I'm the
unemployed. I'm on the dole, that's what I am! And what about father
taking the bread out of other people's mouths? Why, he never does
anything else!"

She stopped, resentful and triumphant, sure that she had spoken
unanswerably. She was merciless, granitic, in her outraged youth. She
would make no allowance for anybody. She was unarmed against parents
and the world, but she victoriously held the field.

Mrs. Emmarce had ceased to cry, and ceased to drink tea. She was
rubbing a thumbnail against her teeth. She thought: "I must be
careful. The child only needs handling." She pitied Myrtle's nave
youth. "The child will get over it." She entirely ignored the problem
which Myrtle had so passionately stated.

Then she said aloud, very quietly, very soothingly:

"You know, my pet, you'll see later on that you aren't being quite
just to your father,--or to me. You ought to know that if he thought
you really _wanted_ to work, he wouldn't stand in your way.".

Myrtle broke out again:

"It isn't a question of standing in my way. I don't 'want' to
work--why should I, seeing how I've been brought up? I only feel I
ought to work. What I need is to be encouraged to work, forced to
work, whipped into it. I need to have work knocked into me. I could
stand it all right. I should come through. But I can't come through by
myself. I need--"

"I'll tell you what you need, my pet," said Mrs. Emmarce, with a
strange, confidential smile. "Let's be frank. You're grown up now.
You're a woman. What you need is to get married. You're spoiling for
it. You know you are. There's nothing else the matter with you. And
you know as well as I do you can get married whenever you choose."

Myrtle was startled, dashed, for an instant. How clever her mother
was, with that new flattering tone of hers! But the young girl
recovered savagely.

"Well, I just won't do it. I'm not going to get married for my
father's money. One waster's enough--we don't want two. And I won't be
married on my face. And what else have I got to give to a man in
exchange for what he'd give me? I can't run a house, haven't the least
idea how to! I can't manage servants. I don't know the price of
anything except clothes and scent. What sort of a fool should I look
in a butcher's shop or a fishmonger's? I couldn't tell beef from
mutton until I tasted it. I can't even be punctual. I couldn't make a
husband comfortable. Do you think I don't know what sort of a rotter I
am? I won't marry a rotter, and I won't cheat a man who isn't a
rotter."

"But listen, darling--"

"Oh, shut up, mother! You make me sick."

Myrtle bent her head suddenly, sobbed, and ran out of the room,
banging the heavy door.

Mrs. Emmarce sighed gently.


III

"Are you at home, miss?" Plythe, the fat butler--tall too, but a head
shorter than any of the three terrific footmen his solemn
legionaries--had ceremonially entered the small drawing-room which lay
hidden behind a disguised door in the highly decorated wall of the
palatial main reception room.

Myrtle was alone, lounging meditative in a cushioned corner. She had
been alone and meditative all day.

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Cuthbert Mallins."

Her first impulse was to answer No. Fourteen hours earlier that day
she had been dancing with him, Cuthbert Mallins. Thirteen hours
earlier she had been eating bacon and eggs by his side.

"Yes, show him in," said a voice: hers. After all, why should she
refuse herself? She was not a coward, and she had had perhaps more
than enough of her own society.

Plythe bowed and departed. A very tall young man--as tall as any of
the legionaries,--appeared, broad-shouldered, bland, fashionably
dressed, smiling.

"Hello, Bertie. What's the meaning of this?"

"Well, you said I might call."

"I'm glad to see you. But you do take a girl at her word, don't you?"

"I do." He had a deep, reverberating voice.

"Wasn't expecting you for at least a week."

"Well, there it is."

"Tea?"

"No, thanks. Nothing."

"You've come into a house of mourning, Bertie," she began lightly,
when they were both seated, he about six feet away from her. She was
noted for her conversational ease. "Smoke if you want." An ambiguous
smile prevented him from accepting her announcement literally.

"Some Pekinese dead?" he suggested.

"Much worse," said Myrtle. "I've been officially informed that I'm a
rotter." She found pleasure in bursting out with the news and thus
startling the young man. They had known one another for a year past,
and in recent weeks their intimacy had grown rapidly. During the
previous night they had had two separate intimate talks. She liked his
mind. She knew that he liked her mind. And he was a man of parts who
now and then hinted a polite but effective disdain of the military and
the ducal clans. Partner in an enormous firm of stockbrokers. A
realist who could smile benignantly on his realism. And well-made,
athletic (though with no mad passion for games), personable,
discreetly ingenious in the matter of neckties.... Anyhow she would
see how he behaved in the situation. Not that she cared how he behaved
(she thought)! She just had to have the relief of opening her soul.
She had written about the rotter business to her sister and great
friend Helen, who was 'finishing' an elaborate education in Paris. But
the relief of writing had not endured. Her mother had become an
invalid for the day--prudently awaiting her husband's return before
deciding on a policy. Her mother had not sought her and she had not
sought her mother. Like her mother she awaited her father, but she
awaited him as one angry tiger awaits another. She had cancelled a
lunch-engagement and a tea-engagement, and declined every siren call
of the telephone.

"How a rotter?"

She related the 6 a.m. incident to Mr. Mallins as fully and as
brutally as she had related it to Mrs. Emmarce. Rather fun, this
audacity; bitter fun, but fun!

"What do you say to it all?" she ended.

"Oh!" said he. "I'm not at liberty to talk freely. I don't know you
well enough."

"Bertie, my boy, if you say one more word in that strain I shall ring
for help."

"Then I agree with your parent. You are a rotter." He slid down in
the easy-chair, and his legs were all across the room. He smiled and
frowned at her simultaneously.

"Thank you!"

"Well, you asked for it."

"But I'm _really_ thanking you. I'm not being sarcastic. Yes, I am a
rotter. But don't I tell you it's not my fault."

"Yes, it's your fault all right, because you've got brains and
character. If you hadn't--"

"I've got brains--a bit. But I certainly haven't got character. So you
needn't flatter me."

"As I was saying, if you hadn't got character you wouldn't have told
me all about this. Of course you've got character. Only you've been
letting it lie idle--until to-day."

"But what can I do? What could I have done?"

"Good God! What a question! If _you_ can't educate your parents, who
do you think can? It's your job. You ought to have issued an ultimatum
to them--long ago. But there's still time. Do it to-morrow. Do it
to-night."

"But what ultimatum?"

"Say you mean to earn your living in your own way. He wants you to be
useful at something."

"He doesn't. He was only tired and cross this morning. And it was only
the cheap melodrama of him starting out when I was coming home that
struck his fancy. He simply couldn't resist it. Supposing he won't
have my ultimatum--and he wouldn't, you know!"

"Then walk out of the house."

"Yes, and starve."

"You wouldn't starve. With your family you could always lay your hands
on a few hundreds--"

"But that wouldn't be keeping myself. I can't _earn_ anything."

"I know that. You haven't got anything to offer in the labour market.
But if you had a few hundreds you could learn to earn."

"Learn what, for instance?"

"There are two things you ought to do. You ought to go to a business
college and discipline your mind. And you ought to go to a school for
household-training. These two things are obvious. But it doesn't
matter what you do, so long as you cure your awful disease."

"Idleness, naturally. Yes, and mind-wandering."

She was deeply impressed by the revelation that his mind marched
equally with hers. But she hid her feeling.

"You've evidently been thinking quite a lot about the modern girl,"
she said sarcastically.

"Yes, I have."

"And you think you're very wise," she added, with a sarcasm still
fiercer.

"Perhaps," Cuthbert agreed negligently, pleasantly.

"But why should I take any notice of what you say? You're talking
through your hat. Aren't _you_ a rotter too? Why, three times in the
last fortnight I've seen you myself up till four in the morning. This
morning it was nearly six. How can you do an honest day's work after
such nights?"

"Ah!" said Cuthbert. "There's an explanation of that."

"What is it?"

"I won't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's too soon. I won't be hurried."

"You'll tell me this very moment." Myrtle stood up.

Then Cuthbert stood up.

"Very well then. I'm getting to be a rotter because you're making me a
rotter. I'm burning the candle at both ends because that's the only
way I can see you. I stay late at these damned parties because you
stay late. You're my evil star, and so now you know."

"And I suppose this is what you call love-making. Latest fashion, I
suppose!" Myrtle's nostrils were expanding and contracting.

"Call it what you please," said Cuthbert.

But in spite of the tenor of these last remarks, and of their tone,
Myrtle, even more than Cuthbert, felt that a solemnizing, a thrilling
influence had descended upon the room. Both were frightened, as well
as happily expectant.

Then Mr. Emmarce himself came in.


IV

Myrtle, exercising by instinct her renowned social tact, assumed
imperturbability. After all, she was not in Cuthbert's arms, nor were
they seated close side by side. They were standing at two-arms'
length.

"Well, Dad, so you're back. This is Cuthbert Mallins. His first visit
here. You're just in time to make his acquaintance."

"Oh! But I know Mr. Mallins quite well, don't I?"

"Yes, sir," said the young man, shaking hands.

Mr. Emmarce was blandness itself, very different from the taut Mr.
Emmarce of 6 a.m.

"You were quite right this morning, Dad," Myrtle proceeded. "I _am_ a
rotter. Cuthbert agrees with you. So do I. I thought it was your
fault, though--me being a rotter. But Cuthbert disagrees with me
there. He says it's my own."

"But my dear girl!" Mr. Emmarce protested, less imperturbable under
shock than his daughter.

"What--"

Myrtle had sat down, leaving the two astounded men on their feet.

"It's perfectly all right," said Myrtle. "No secrets from Cuthbert.
I've told him every word you said. He's in love with me. He didn't
mean to tell me so; but I dragged it out of him."

The outraged males glanced at one another, forming in an instant a
secret but perfectly futile society for the protection of their sex
against the unconscionable and unpredictable sex. Still, all three had
a strange sense of relief and well-being, mingled with their
apprehensions.

"I'm clearing the air," thought Myrtle.

"She's practically accepted me," thought Cuthbert.

As for Mr. Emmarce, he saw in Mr. Mallins the solution of a frightful
domestic problem. Mr. Mallins was supremely eligible.

"And he's my medical adviser, too," Myrtle went on, indicating
Cuthbert. "He says I'm suffering from a disease, a moral disease. And
he's prescribed the cure, and I shall take it. It starts with an
ultimatum--to you, Dad."

"That all?" murmured Mr. Emmarce, diplomatically.

"Either you've had a very successful day, Dad, or you've been talking
to mother and she's warned you to mind your p's and q's with me."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Emmarce, dropping into a chair, as if to say:
"Well, I'm out without my umbrella. Let it rain, and be hanged to it!"

"The ultimatum is," Myrtle explained, "either you let me--or I should
say either you encourage me, positively force me to attend a business
college and a school of household-training, and work day and night
_seriously_, and you _keep_ me at it, with a whip if necessary,
whether I want or not--or--"

"Or?"

"Or I walk straight out of the house, sell my jewels--the emeralds
alone ought to be ample--and go into lodgings and live on the proceeds
until I've learnt something useful and got my mind into order, and got
all this midnight frolic foolishness out of my system. That's what
Cuthbert advises."

"I didn't quite--" Cuthbert began.

"Yes, you did, and you know you did," Myrtle interrupted him
violently.

"I accept," said Mr. Emmarce.

"It isn't," Myrtle concluded. "It isn't that I have a passion for
business. Not at all! But I'm told that my mind needs discipline.
That's what the business college is for. Teach me good habits.
Industry, order, and all that. If I succeed, perhaps Cuthbert will
graciously condescend to marry me--though he's very angry with me
because it seems I've been making him into a rotter too."

"Look here, I say, Myrtle," Cuthbert exploded. "You're really going a
bit too far. Mr. Emmarce, believe me--"

At this point Myrtle and Cuthbert had the spectacle of Mr. Emmarce as
unobtrusively as possible quitting the room. Having arrived at the
door he turned like a humorous, happy fox and said:

"I may as well leave you to it."

He was gone. The door closed quietly.

Myrtle rose.

"Don't get ideas into your head," she remarked threateningly. "There's
a tremendous lot to be done, and I daresay I shan't manage to do it,
being a rotter. But you may take it from me I won't marry anybody--I
mean I won't go into the labour market, because that's what it amounts
to, until I've got something to offer."

Cuthbert seized her left hand, and with brutal force, inexcusably
wreaking his physical superiority of a male upon a weak defenceless
girl, pulled Myrtle almost viciously towards him. Degrading sight!...
They were hushed, awed, moveless in the presence and grip of a power
which they had yet scarcely begun to understand. The room had ceased
to be a drawing-room. It had ceased to exist. They were alone together
in space.




STRANGE AFFAIR AT AN HOTEL

I


Mercia had just finished dressing--by electric light, 8-15 a.m.--when
there was a knock at the door of her bedroom.

The room was in perfect order, save for the unmade bed; it had
something of the appearance of a home--indeed it was Mercia's home,
retreat, fastness, castle; but its dimensions and general aspect were
modest, and its window showed that it formed part of an attic floor in
the hotel. Worse rooms than Mercia's were, however, to be found by
opening doors on the long and narrow carpetless corridors of the attic
floor. For Mercia was a member of the upper-class of the hotel-staff.
On one side of her lived the second-floor housekeeper, quite a
personage; and a few rooms away a far greater personage, the Italian
manager of the Grill-Room, hid the secrets of his private life.

"Come in," said Mercia, in a quiet, composed voice.

That voice was one of the keys to the enigma of Mercia's
individuality. (Not that her individuality could fairly be called more
enigmatic than that of any other human being!) Twenty-four years of
age, dark, tallish, with some perhaps disputable claims to beauty,
simply dressed in black alpaca enlivened by certain trimmings of
(artificial) silk, well shod, smoothly coiffured, unjewelled,
efficiently self-manicured, she spoke with benevolent, firm
restraint, and she moved in the same manner.

A fat, middle-aged housemaid entered the room, bearing a box in brown
paper.

"I knew you'd be dressed, Miss," said the smiling incomer, glancing at
the alarm-clock which stood on the small mantelpiece between framed
photographs of Mercia's parents. "So I thought I'd run in with this
before you went down. I happened to see it on the radiator by my
lift."

Evidently Mercia was a favourite with at least one humbler member of
the staff.

"It was awfully nice of you," said Mercia, and took the parcel.

The housemaid, rather breathless, vanished quickly, waddling: as one
who had five seconds to give and no more.

Mercia gazed with curiosity at the parcel.

Three years earlier, on the death of her mother--her last surviving
parent--Mercia had inherited a sum of about 6,000. She had
immediately invested her inheritance in gilt-edged stocks, and sworn
to herself never to touch the capital. In the three years she had
saved, and invested, 800 of interest. Having been told all her life
that she possessed a talent for housekeeping and organization, and
being modestly convinced of the truth of the story, she had decided to
learn the art of running a hotel; for during short sojourns in English
provincial hotels she had not once stayed in a hotel whose management
she did not think she could easily improve. She had a desire to put
herself to the test by renting in due course a small hotel, and so at
the same time exercising her faculties and earning a good livelihood.

The strangely logical creature had accordingly set about making her
career by obtaining, through the hazard of influence, entry into a
first-rate London hotel and then labouring in such of its various
departments as were open to girls. She had heard that in Switzerland,
where hotel-proprietors are the only salt of the earth, the haughty
sons of salt learned the job of their fathers by beginning as
dishwashers and ascending industriously in the scale till they reached
the throne of supreme power in the director's room. Why should she not
do likewise?

She had done likewise--as completely as was permitted to her. She had
toiled in the mending department, and the clerical side of the
kitchens. She had been a housemaid and then a floor-housekeeper; she
had familiarized herself with the beauty-parlours styled cloakrooms;
she had rung on and off in the telephone exchange; she had performed
early morning shopping in the great markets; and now she was in the
bills-department, where day by day the money arrives, and a good part
of the friction also arrives. To be perfect in the bills-department
one must have a very wide knowledge of the functioning of all services
charged for in the bills: which knowledge Mercia demonstrably had.

She now undid the parcel, whose address was written in a masculine
hand. Within the beribboned box within the brown-paper was a wreath of
gardenias, and on the wreath reposed half a sheet of hotel-notepaper
on which had been inscribed, in the same hand as the address, the
words:

"Many happy returns of the day. M.F.H."

The unromantic, common-sense creature instantly, to her own surprise,
slipped into a most romantic mood. She knew nobody with initials
'M.F.H.' She knew nobody at all likely to bestow flowers upon her. She
lived the strict, monastic, insular life of an hotel-employee. She had
never mentioned her birthday to anyone, scarcely even to herself.
What was the conclusion? The sole possible conclusion, she thought,
was that among the hotel-guests she had an unknown male admirer who
had been bewitched by her across the counter of the bills-department.
She accepted this conclusion. Silly! But sweet! Yes, it was a sweet
conclusion, and a thrilling. A conclusion which changed her from
Mercia into a quite different girl of the same name.

She always, on principle, had a margin of time in hand. She now
expended the margin in arranging for the comfort of the gardenias in a
bowl of water.


II

Susie was dressing, in terrific haste and wild disorder, all across
and around the next room to Mercia's. Susie had reached the lipstick
stage of her toilette, and was using to the lipstick language which no
refined young woman ought to use to a lipstick. As for the room, it
had the air of having recently been put to the sack by a burglar with
no time to spare.

Twenty-four years of age, dark, tallish, with indisputable claims to
beauty, simply but not inexpensively dressed in black alpaca touched
at the wrists and the neck with colour, jewelled watch on one wrist,
stylistically shod, marvellously coiffured, her fingernails a fine
unnatural pink, Susie mumbled to her lipstick without benevolence and
without restraint.

Three years earlier Susie had inherited a sum of about 6,000, which
money she had immediately employed in transactions on the Stock
Exchange, buying many more shares than she had capital to pay for and
selling them again before the dawn of pay-day. For some mysterious
reason she had a profound belief in her own financial flair. In the
first three months of her transactions this belief was richly
justified by results. Her 6,000 grew into 12,000 odd, and she
foresaw herself a millionaire in a year or so.

But in the second three months fate somehow fought against her, and
she lost the entire 12,000 plus a hundred pounds or so which she had
to borrow to save herself from bankruptcy, shame, humiliation, and
other trials.

Through influence she had obtained a post as saleswoman amid the
luxuriant blossoms of the hotel flower-shop. She had been so successful
that, a vacancy occurring, she became the head of the fabulous shop. She
was not a good head. Her buying was scarcely economical: her accounts
were comic, when not tragic, in the eyes of inspecting clerks from the
accountant's office. She sinned against various disciplinary rules of
the hotel. Punctuality was not her chief virtue. But she kept her
position easily, because she could sell more flowers, at higher prices,
than anybody else in the varied history of the hotel flower-shop. Hotel
guests seemed to be drawn into the flower-shop as by invisible magic
cords. She had a passion for flowers, and she would communicate that
passion to her fellow-creatures, especially males, by means
incomprehensible even to herself.

Susie had the trustful type of mind which assumes that time stands
still for you if you are late and still ardently want to accomplish
something outside your schedule. She never had in hand a margin of
time, but in desperate cases, which with her happened about ten times
a day, she always pretended that she had.

This morning she snatched up a parcel from her toilet-table and dashed
out of the room and dashed into the next room like Byron's Assyrian
wolf. And just within the doorway she dashed into Mercia who, calm
and unhasting, was on her way forth. Susie hugged Mercia fondly.

"Child!" said she, her sticky lips on Mercia's soft cheek. "Many of
'em. Here's some chocs. Couldn't afford anything better." And bestowed
the parcel.

Mercia took an envelope from her handbag and bestowed it in exchange
for the chocs. The envelope contained a cheque.

"Ten pounds!" Susie exclaimed. "You horrid, wealthy darling. You've
saved my life!"

Then Mercia hugged.

"We shall be late," said Mercia.

"Hullo!" said Susie. "_Hello_!" She had spied the wreath of gardenias
in their watery bed on the mantelpiece. "Who's the simpleton, my
child?"

Mercia, not without pride, displayed the sheet of hotel-notepaper.

"Oh, him!" said Susie.

"You know him?"

"A customer," Susie replied. "Buys flowers twice a day. Can't think
what he does with them. Yes, he bought those gardenias last night."
She examined the flowers and recognized them. For her every flower had
a personality. "Yes, them's them all right. He gave _me_ some
chocolates last night."

"These?" Mercia inquired, lifting the box and smiling ironically.

Susie nodded, and laughed. They both laughed.

"You don't mind, child?" said Susie. "You know I never eat chocs.
Daren't. And you oughtn't to."

"Of course I don't mind!" Mercia pooh-poohed the absurd idea. "But how
did he know about our birthday?"

"I suppose I must have mentioned it," said Susie, self-conscious.

Mercia asked for information about M.F.H.

"Room 404," said Susie, shortly.

"_Oh!_" Mercia murmured, and cogitated. "Name's Helford, then?"

"Yes."

Thoughtful, Mercia led Susie in the direction of their day's work.


III

The bills-department gave on to the main entrance-hall or foyer, from
which it was separated by a mahogany counter. Over the counter hung an
electric sign, "Cashier." At a right-angle to this counter was another
and larger counter labelled, also electrically, "Reception." Behind
the reception counter rose an immense lace-work of hundreds of
pigeon-holes, with brass keys hooked on to some of them, and here and
there little packets of letters ledged slanting within them. Next came
the book and newspaper stall and the tape-machine. Then the sacred
lair of that great, benevolent, and aged panjandrum, the splendidly
uniformed hall-porter, who was so important and respected that nobody
could ever be quite sure whether he or the managing director was the
supreme authority in the world of the hotel. Susie's flower-shop,
which from the exterior resembled a conservatory of green punctuated
with rich and rare blossoms, stood on the other side of the
entrance-hall. The entrance-hall lived night and day in electric
light.

At the back of the Cashier counter lay quite a large room, with a wide
doorway but no door in it. In the room were several clerks, including
two girls (one of them Mercia) and a man. They entered items from
slips into colossal books of many colours, and they transferred the
entries from the books on to bill-sheets. Every bill bore the words
"Cheques not accepted"; cheques, however, were frequently accepted.
On one wall of the room was suspended a framed, printed managerial
notice of guidance. "THE GUEST IS ALWAYS RIGHT." But the clerks knew
that they must add to this injunction the proviso "Except sometimes
when money is in dispute."

The traffic between guests and the bills-department was usually at its
most active in the morning; for it was in the morning that guests as a
rule would depart. On this particular morning Mercia happened to be at
the counter. A stout, shabby, and plethoric old gentleman was arguing
with her about his bill, which included an item of 26 8s. 6d. for a
dinner and a supper. Mercia was exhibiting to him a series of slips,
all indubitably signed by himself, vouching for every bit of food and
drink served to him or to members of his party during their visit.

Her diplomatic task consisted of proving that the hotel was right
while tacitly admitting that he could not possibly be wrong. "Yes, my
lord." "Certainly, my lord," said Mercia mildly, soothingly.

His lordship looked at Mercia (when he did not look through her) and
saw a discreet female clerk who presumably had no human ties, no
private life, no distractions. His lordship had not the least notion
that Mercia was not really standing opposite to him at the counter,
but rather was flitting in and out of the flower-shop, gazing at a
wreath of gardenias in an attic, wondering how and when she could wear
them, recalling the physiognomy of Room 404 (with which as
floor-housekeeper she had once been completely familiar), and
recalling too the physiognomy of a blond young man named Helford, who
had had several short conversations with her across the counter about
his bills, about London traffic problem, and about nothing. A somewhat
wild young man, though agreeable. He made unexpected remarks, but was
never familiar; and he never looked through her.

She had not thought twice about him, nor imagined that he had thought
twice about her.... And now the startling wreath of gardenias! That
wreath of gardenias might well have induced, in a young woman less
perfectly self-controlled than Mercia, an absent-mindedness fatal to
the diplomatic conduct of business.... The gift of chocolates to Susie
she could understand; she could have understood a bracelet to Susie.
But a wreath of gardenias to a bill-clerk! Baffling! Exciting! Yes,
very exciting--she could not deny the excitement! However, she managed
to overcome his lordship, who signed a cheque.

In the glass which covered part of the counter, she could, by bending,
see herself. She looked curiously at herself, as if looking for an
explanation of the wreath of gardenias.

She had heard the subdued tinkle of the telephone-bell in the room
behind her. As soon as the Scottish peer had left the counter, the
male clerk came to her side and murmured, scarcely audible, one word:

"Suicide!"

"What?" Mercia breathed, frowning.

"Suicide. 404. Name Helford--you know. Seems he's a playwright. Writes
under the name of Dusk or something. Richard Dusk. Had a failure at
the Charing Gross Theatre or somewhere."

"Oh!" breathed Mercia, gathering up the cheque and the series of
slips.

Now in a hotel a suicide, or any sort of demise, is an exceedingly
grave matter, the news of which reaches every member of the staff in a
hundred seconds. The duty of every member of the staff is to hide it
from all surviving guests, or, if it becomes known, to be either mute
or utterly mysterious about it.


IV

Susie, helped by an assistant, a capable young girl of sixteen, to
whom she gave an order about every half minute--and sometimes two
orders simultaneously, was busy among her flowers in the flower-shop;
the flowers which had lived all alone during the night, and the
flowers which had just arrived from the wholesalers.

She looked at the latter, lying as it were drugged with their stalks
stretched straight in long wooden boxes, and her glance somehow
instantly gave them life and individuality. She talked to them, while
lifting them from the cotton-wool, as she might have talked to a cat;
she caressed them; she called them sweet names; she condoled with them
upon the brevity of floral life and the imminence of death.

And she dashed around the shop, and the assistant dashed around the
shop eager to be useful. And the flowers were housed and fed. And
Susie's eye glinted and her limbs moved freely and loosely, and her
hands were expressive of her feelings towards the flowers.

An impulsive, flyaway, beautiful creature! She had the sort of mind
that flits incessantly to and fro, incapable of concentration because
of the variety of its interests. While thinking of the flowers she
thought of the bestower of chocolates and gardenia wreaths. Her
unspoken reflections and her spoken remarks ran into one another and
made an extraordinary medley.

"I like him but I don't like his moustache. Quick! Take that box from
under my feet. Of course he's a flirt, but he's quite straight. Why
_does_ he have a moustache? No! Fold up the paper. Anyhow put it
somewhere else. Why did he send those gardenias to Mercia? He never
said a word to me about them being for her. You never know what he'll
say next. But he's frightfully nice and polite. Under thirty. Yes,
under thirty. Now do cut the stalks evenly. You can't cut them with
those scissors. Get the large pair. No, stick them in that brown vase
in the corner. No, not that one. The brown one in the corner. Can't
you see? Why Mercia? He told me when his birthday was, so of course I
had to tell him when mine was. Only decent to tell him. Besides, he's
all right. Steady with that maidenhair. Steady. He must have money.
Comes in twice a day and spends about a pound each time. I wonder what
he does with them all. Must know lots of girls.... And then _Mercia_!
And he never let on who they were for. Don't drown them, now. You're
flooding the entire shop. Mind your apron. And leave that Japanese
pigmy alone. You know it only wants watering every other day. But
_why_ Mercia? She never mentioned him to me, and he never mentioned
_her_. Not his sort--I should say--"

"Please miss," said the assistant, "Mr. Medmenham's outside."

And Mr. Medmenham was indeed outside. The great, gloriously-uniformed
panjandrum, he who had once been summoned in the night to chat with an
American envoy lying sleepless on a bed of pain! The benevolent old
fellow had left his den and was espying from the front of the
flower-shop.

Susie thought of him always as Father Christmas, because his hair was
white and his uniform chiefly scarlet. She dashed to the front of the
shop, and enchantingly beamed upon him. She had an affection for the
panjandrum, and the affection shone in her bright eyes and showed
itself in her parted, pouting red lips.

The panjandrum's red face was very sad and very sympathetic. He
thought that Susie was a strange and incalculable piece; but he
returned her affection, and his general attitude towards her was that
of a guardian and protector.

"Whatever's the matter, Mr. Medmenham?" Susie burst out, rather
loudly, ignoring the movement of people in the foyer.

The panjandrum spoke low, a warning in his voice.

"I wanted to tell you myself," said he in a murmur. "Something rather
dreadful's happened, and it'll be a shock to you."

Susie glanced across the hall and descried the figure of Mercia. So it
could not be Mercia to whom something dreadful had happened.

"Oh dear! What?" Susie lowered her tone.

"It's that Mr. Helford. He's--he's had an accident."

"But he was in here last night. And I've been expecting him every
minute. This is his time. Is he hurt?"

"I'm afraid he's hurt. I'm afraid--they say he's gone and killed
himself. It's a great calamity for the hotel."

Susie gave a shriek, startling the hall. In the whole of the
panjandrum's experience such a shocking noise had never before been
heard in the sacred foyer. Hysterical giggles, yes! But a loud shriek!

Mr. Medmenham pushed Susie back into the shop, followed her, and shut
the door.

"Come now! Come now!" he softly adjured his ward. And thought: "How
sensitive they are!"


V

When, according to custom, the chambermaid entered the bedroom of Mr.
Montagu Frederick Helford from his sitting-room on the morning of the
events previously narrated, she found it as usual in darkness save
for one or two glints of daylight at the edges of curtains and blinds.

Mr. Helford had been staying in the hotel for several weeks, and the
woman knew exactly what she had to do,--namely, draw the curtains and
the blind of the right-hand window and leave the curtains and the
blind of the left-hand window alone. Mr. Helford did not care for a
lot of light at an early hour. He preferred to get used to the dawn
gradually. Sometimes Mr. Helford would ask her to transmit his
breakfast-order to the floor-waiter; and sometimes he would telephone
the order himself from his bedside. The nature of his breakfast would
depend on his waking mood.

The chambermaid softly attended to the right-hand window and was just
leaving again by the sitting-room door, when she had a 'feeling' (as
she afterwards described it) that all was not as usual in the bedroom
of the amiable and vivacious Mr. Helford. Till that moment she had
refrained, as every discreet British chambermaid does, from looking at
the bed.

Looking now at the bed, which was in the shadow of the curtained
left-hand window, she perceived, or thought she perceived, in the
gloom, that Mr. Helford was lying in bed fully dressed. Not in
evening-dress, which might have been explicable, but in a
lounge-jacket with soft collar and a club-tie. Being a chambermaid of
immense experience in life, she was not unduly alarmed by the odd
spectacle; indeed a sardonic and indulgent smile transiently lit her
face. Then it struck her that the features of the sleeper (turned
towards the wall) had a mortal paleness.

She very courageously approached the bed. Yes, the face of the sleeper
was nearly as white as his pillows. Also, though clad, he was lying
not on the bed but in the bed, with the sheet, blanket, and eiderdown
only just below his shoulders. One arm was inside the bed-clothes;
the other, the right, was stretched rather crookedly on the eiderdown.
Still more odd, the right hand wore a thick, dark, fur-lined glove.
The chambermaid, horrified, but spellbound, gazed closer. There was a
small red hole in Mr. Helford's blanched temple. From this hole a
little blood, very little, had exuded. Lastly, on the purple
eiderdown, and scarcely distinguishable from it, reposed a revolver.

The chambermaid gave a gasp and fled quickly. Here was a first-class
sensation, transcending anything in even her experience of the
remarkable habits of hotel-guests.

In the corridor the chambermaid met the second floor waiter, an
Italian whose English, though adequate enough for his duties, drooped
under the strain of tidings poured out by a highly excited woman about
the alleged suicide of a rich young gentleman who was admired and
beloved by every employee on his floor. The two retired in rapid
converse to the service-room at the end of the corridor. In which room
the chambermaid fell into hysterics. Other employees joined the scene.
The head floor-waiter could not be discovered. When he arrived he
listened to the tidings with a certain incredulity, whereupon the
chambermaid, who had partially recovered her reason, grew angry.

The head floor-waiter commanded the chambermaid to accompany him into
No. 404. She refused. The man insisted. The woman relapsed into
hysterics. The head and the second floor-waiters decided to invade the
room themselves. They beheld what the chambermaid had beheld, and the
head floor-waiter seemed to lose nerve when his subordinate lifted the
arm of Mr. Helford and it dropped back like a piece of wood. The head,
an Italian also, had an appalling fear of the police, and he furiously
cursed the second floor-waiter for daring even to touch the body in
the absence of authority.

"Yes," the two men heard as they re-entered the service-room. "And
they'll be having me in the dock for murder!" The tearful, despairing
voice of the chambermaid!

Confusion! Indecision! Long delay! The supreme director must be
informed of the event. The senior waiter picked up the telephone
receiver: then replaced it.

"No," he wailed. "I can't say that on the telephone." And he
instructed his subordinate: "You go down to the office."

The subordinate declined the job. Discipline had vanished. Bells were
unanswered. At length, because some pusher of an unanswered bell had
telephoned a complaint to the office, the supreme director most
strangely did make his appearance, solemn, calm, ineffably important,
he demanded a pass-key. Several were offered to him. But the door
would not yield to the persuasion of the key. Nor would the door of
405, the sitting-room.

Pause.

"Both doors have been bolted on the inside," said the director.

A case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable post!

Should one of the doors be broken in? Decision against this course, as
being both too noisy and too destructive!

Then somebody thought of the bathroom door, No. 403. The bathroom door
yielded. But the door between the bathroom and the bedroom was locked
and the key gone, and there was no pass-key for that secondary door.
Who could have locked it? And who could have bolted the other two
doors from the inside?

In the end another key was found, and the locksmith began to file its
wards. At the very moment of the locksmith's triumphant success,
Mercia arrived in the corridor. At the next moment Susie arrived in
the corridor. Both were neglecting their duties. They gazed reproaches
at one another, but not for the neglect of duties. After them came a
doctor who had been summoned; also a policeman. The supreme director,
with the head floor-waiter and the locksmith (who felt that he
deserved a reward) and the doctor and the policeman and Mercia and
Susie (neither of whom cared twopence what the director might think or
say) streamed in file into the bedroom.

The bed was empty; the bedroom was empty; the wardrobes held naught
but clothes; the sitting-room was empty. The policeman threw up a
window; but the window looked upon a stone precipice some seventy feet
in depth.


VI

Mercia and Susie, by previous arrangement, spent that evening together
at the newest and largest and grandest cinema house, the El Dorado, in
the centre of the West End. The great sensation of the hotel had died
down during the day, under the influence of a new rumour to the effect
that there had been something spurious about the tremendous case of
suicide. No member of the staff lower than a few hierarchs of the
topmost rank knew the true inwardness of the affair; but instructions
had come down from the directorial room that the occurrence of a
suicide in the hotel was to be categorically denied. And denied it
was. And among the employees everybody pointed out sagaciously to
everybody else, first, that a corpse could not have been conveyed
unseen out of room No. 404, and second, that the doors of Nos. 404
and 405 could not have bolted themselves on the inside.

Susie could have provided a man or so for the joint birthday-festival,
but Mercia said that they had had enough of men for the present, and
Susie had rather regretfully agreed to this proposition.

At the end of one super-film, and before another super-film began,
Susie suggested that they should test the resources of the
refreshment-lounge. As they went out they talked of the super-film
just witnessed, but the conversation was less lively and critical than
usual: partly because the event of the morning had taught them that
super-films were not after all so wildly untrue to real life as the
girls had supposed: and partly because the relations between the pair
were not completely cordial. Each had privately resented the presence
of the other at the crucial moment of entry into No. 404. Some obscure
form of jealousy.

Further, Susie resented the fact that whereas not a managerial word
had been said to Mercia about her absence from duty, Susie had barely
escaped sentence of dismissal for a precisely similar absence from
duty. In vain did Mercia explain to Susie that as she, Mercia, was
officially in the hotel for the purpose of learning the whole business
of hotel-running, it was at once her privilege and her duty to learn
the methods of procedure in dealing with cases of suicide; for a
suicide might happen in any hotel, and a manageress who through lack
of practice could not cope with such a calamity would hardly be
justified in claiming that she knew her job. Susie merely sniffed at
the argument.

Still, on the surface, and perhaps some distance beneath the surface,
the pair were on goodish terms.

The refreshment-lounge rivalled in vastness, and surpassed in
splendour, the auditorium itself. Louis XV, of whose style it was a
modern imitation, accustomed though he was to the dimensions of
Versailles, would have regarded the lounge as no trifle. Scores and
scores of tables dotted the immeasurable, thick, glowing carpet,
dozens of natty waitresses waited, and hundreds of patrons either
promenaded over the carpet or sat in easy-chairs at the tables.

The bill-clerk and the florist sat down at a table, felt quite at home
in the magnificence, and, having lit cigarettes, were served with
synthetic lemonade.

"Look!" murmured Mercia warningly, and bent her head.

Susie looked, and saw the giver of gardenias and chocolates wandering
about with the bright eye of a searcher, just as if he had not been
dead twelve hours earlier. He wore the fawn-tinted suit in which the
chambermaid had discovered him.

"He's looking for us," muttered Susie, and bent her head.

"Did you tell him we should be here to-night?"

"I may have mentioned it," admitted Susie, confused.

Futile for the pair to avert their faces! The searching eye found
them, and Mr. Helford advanced with an astonishing _sang-froid_.

He doffed his hat. "May I?" he asked, and without awaiting a reply sat
down at the table.

"Thank you," said he, to Mercia.

"For what?" Mercia quietly demanded.

"You're wearing some of my gardenias."

It was true. The lapel of her coat held a couple of gardenias from the
wreath.

Both girls were self-conscious. Susie kept strict silence.

"But what have I done, dear ladies?" the blond and airy Mr. Helford
inquired in a most innocent tone. "I used my knowledge of the stage to
make my face a dead white--'dead' is a good word--I painted a fine
wound on my forehead, and I put a thick glove on my right hand so
that nobody could tell whether my hand was burning hot or stone cold;
and I got into bed and laid a revolver convenient; and when the door
opened I shut my eyes and didn't move an eyelash. Any harm in that?
Was it a crime? Was it bad manners? Did it do wrong to anybody? If
anybody carelessly mistook me for a corpse am I to be blamed? And yet
you look at me as if I had assassinated both my parents! I know people
said I was in despair because my play has just failed in London. What
a notion! All good plays fail in London. One expects it. But in New
York I made a hundred thousand dollars with that same play. Why should
I despair?"

"Mercia," said Susie. "We are missing the next film."

"No you aren't," said Mr. Helford, blithely. "I'm the next film. I've
come here to tell you everything, and I must tell you. I haven't told
anyone else, and I don't want to tell anyone else. Except the police.
The police very kindly paid me a visit this afternoon--at another
hotel. They asked me how I got away from No. 404 unseen. I told them I
had a confederate. 'Who is he?' said they. 'Wouldn't you like to
know?' said I. But I don't mind telling you he's a waiter who's going
to start a little restaurant of his own in Soho, and I promised him
some capital. All he had to do was to create as much delay as he could
before informing the management. He did very well.... I washed the
grease paint off my face, put on a uniform mackintosh and a cap which
I abstracted from the locker of one of the chauffeurs of the hotel
laundry-vans, slipped out of the bathroom door and down the
service-staircase and out by the goods entrance. So simple! I do
confess that if I'd known earlier it was your birthdays to-day I'd
have put the affair off; because I admire both of you so much and I
wouldn't have spoilt your birthdays for anything." He smiled. "But you
didn't let me know about your birthdays until it was too late to alter
my arrangements." He smiled anew.

"So that was it!" said Mercia awkwardly.

"That was it. I see you both hate me. So as I'm desperate at being
hated and don't care what happens to me, I'll just tell you one more
thing. I only gave _both_ of you little birthday presents because I
couldn't bear that one of you should feel out of it. But it's the
other one who's knocked me silly. You're dying to know which of you it
is who's knocked me silly. And you never will know now, because I see
everything is all up with me. And anyhow it's nobody's business but
mine.... I must say that though you _are_ alike in looks, you aren't
so frightfully alike in anything else--for twins."

Susie glanced up at him, and then quickly down again.

"What we _are_ dying to know, Mr. Helford," Mercia primly remarked.
"Is why you played this prank at all."

"It wasn't a prank," Mr. Helford cheerfully protested. "There's a fake
suicide in a hotel in my next play, and I _had_ to find out exactly
what does happen and how it happens when some idiot shoots himself in
a big hotel. You often read of these things in papers, but I needed a
few realistic details. And I've got 'em. I interviewed my
confederate--five minutes after the police had retired hurt--and the
conscientious fellow had taken very careful notes for me. True, he
can't spell."

"I understand now," said Mercia, no sign of reproof in her sedate
voice. "And I'm glad you told us."

Mr. Helford, the successful playwright, gazed appreciatively and with
intense relief into Mercia's eyes, and Mercia gazed into his. And
Susie witnessed the exchange and threw down her cigarette. In that
instant she had comprehended, with shocked amazement, that it was the
chocolates, and not the gardenias, which had been given so that one of
the girls should not feel 'out of it.'

"Well, I _don't_ understand," she exclaimed. "What I _do_ understand
is that I've lost my situation through this lark of yours, Mr.
Helford."

"Susie!" her sister demurred.

"Well," said Susie, correcting herself. "I mean I might have lost
it.... Mercia, let's go home. I couldn't possibly stick another film.
Besides, it's half over."

The refreshment-lounge was indeed nearly empty. None of the three had
noticed the exodus.

The synthetic lemonade had been supplied on an immediate cash basis,
and thus there was nothing to delay departure. Mr. Helford rose from
the table with the girls. Nobody said good night. Hence Mr. Helford
permitted himself to accompany the girls through the satin foyer and
the silk vestibule into the street. Susie walked on in front. Mercia
made an excuse for her to Mr. Helford, who replied that in his opinion
Miss Susie was perfectly justified in her annoyance at his suicidal
escapade. He said that he understood. Plainly he and Mercia were in a
mood of mutual understanding, and the resentful defection of Susie
somehow drew them closer together. Suddenly Susie stopped a taxi, and,
jumping into it with the rapidity of an acrobat doing a trick, cried
out:

"You two can walk to the hotel together, if Mr. Helford dare put his
nose into the place!"

She was gone.

A sad display of pettishness on Susie's part. But Mercia again made an
excuse for her, and Mr. Helford asserted that she was, _really_, a
charming girl, and so good-looking. And his tone said further: "But
not as charming and as good-looking as you are, Miss Mercia."

They did walk to the hotel together, or rather they walked together
till the hotel was less than a hundred yards off. A solemn promenade!
And somewhat taciturn! But they both enjoyed it, though they could not
have explained why. A month or two later Mr. Helford was in a position
to explain why he at any rate had enjoyed it. And he did explain, and
Mercia accepted the explanation for the gospel which it in fact was.

Susie's moods, whatever they might be, were never of long duration.
She proved to be an enchanting sister-in-law to Mr. Helford, full of
affectionate mockeries.




THE SECOND NIGHT

I


"Well, I'm going now," said Mr. A.P. Lavington, standing in the little
doorway of the speckless mahogany cubicle in which he passed his life,
to the assistant seated in the chair behind the tiny window of the
cubicle. And he spoke the simple words, and the assistant received
them, as though they were epoch-making: which indeed they were.

Mr. Lavington was one of the most regularly advertised celebrities in
London. Every day, including Sundays, you might see his name in all
the principal London newspapers. It occurred in the advertisements of
the Mayfair Theatre, thus: "Box Office (Mr. A.P. Lavington) 10 to 10."
The Mayfair, for dignity and tradition, was unsurpassed, and probably
unequalled, by any theatre in the West End. Standing some eight
hundred yards out of the recognized 'theatre district,' it had no
competitors within that distance. It was a rather small theatre, but
very select. Warm, draughtless, comfortable, cosy, gilded, ornate,
frequently re-decorated and re-seated, clean and bright even in its
back-of-the-stage staircases, it steadily maintained an artistic
policy which well matched its physical policy. Its name was always
uttered with respect. "Ah! The Mayfair!" people said, when deciding
upon an evening's entertainment, in a tone to imply that any play done
at the Mayfair must have merit, and at worst must be a nice play, a
play guaranteed not to shock nor to humiliate. The Mayfair had had its
failures--it had just experienced one--but fewer than any other
theatre in London. In short its reputation was unique, and rightly
unique.

Now everybody knows that the most important part of any theatre is not
the stage but the box-office. Hence to be the manager of the most
important part of a theatre with a unique reputation as clean as its
staircases, was to occupy a position unrivalled in the theatrical
world. Mr. A.P. Lavington occupied that position--admirably,
conscientiously, perfectly. He had occupied it for sixteen years, and
for a dozen years before that he had occupied a subordinate position
in the same box-office. So that he knew all about the Mayfair. He
_was_ the Mayfair.

Tall, slim, austere, urbane, irreproachably clad in a morning coat
during the day and in evening dress at night, he was about fifty years
of age--and yet he looked but forty. And he had kept this juvenility
of appearance in spite of the fact that he worked long hours (10 to
10) and got no exercise except the short walk from his home to the
theatre and from the theatre to his home. He would say that he owed
his excellent health to regular habits. His habits never changed, and
so his appearance never changed. Friends and acquaintances who had
known him for thirty years constantly averred, and with sincerity,
that he was exactly the same in the twentieth century as he had been
in the nineteenth. He believed it.

And not only did he know all about the Mayfair--he knew all about all
other theatres. If not actually 'born on the boards,' he had very
nearly been born in a box-office. His father had been a box-office
manager. Two of his brothers (younger) were box-office managers--in
their minor way. One of his sisters had been an actress. Two of his
cousins (distant) were dressers. He lived in and for the theatre. He
knew all the gossip of the stage, all the plans of all the managers.
In the morning he would easily inform himself of the previous night's
receipts at every theatre. It is not too much to say that he amounted
to a complete encyclopdia, always up to date, of theatrical
information. Lastly, he was ever at his post, save during the brief
hours of what he called his 'relief.'

The reader will now understand why his words 'I am going now,' spoken
at three o'clock in the afternoon, were regarded by himself and his
chief assistant as epoch-making.

He walked, with the consciousness of a great occasion, into the dark
auditorium. The commissionaires in the foyer said to one another,
startled, that 'Mr. Lavington' had gone into the stalls. Certain
higher officials, and some artistes, were aware that 'A.P.' had gone
into the stalls. The proprietor himself knew that 'Lavington' had (by
permission) gone into the stalls. The proprietor, by the way, was the
only individual on earth who addressed Mr. A.P. Lavington as
'Lavington,' or who openly referred to him as 'Lavington.'


II

The stalls of the dark auditorium were nearly uninhabited; only little
groups of two or three persons here and there. The orchestra, hidden,
was playing soft, vague music. Mr. Lavington glanced around in the
gloom, and then, seeing a young girl seated by herself discreetly
hiding from general observation in the tenth row, went and sat down
beside her. The girl looked at him nervously, recognized him, and
smiled as if reassured. He took her hand in a fatherly manner, shook
it, squeezed it sympathetically, held it for a moment. A glow of light
illuminated the foot of the curtain, and the curtain went up on a
comfortable, nice, domestic scene. The orchestra ceased. Voices were
heard on the stage.

"I thought I really must see your play, Miss Smith; and of course the
dress-rehearsal is my one chance," Mr. Lavington gently murmured in
the girl's ear.

"How kind of you, Mr. Lavington!" the girl murmured. Her smile had
become heavenly.

Aline Smith (on the play-bills 'Alina Tresham') and Mr. Lavington had
made acquaintance a few days earlier through the latter having
summoned the former to the window of his cubicle. In his most
benevolent tone he had asked her what seats she would want for her
first-night. She had replied that she would not want any. Not even the
customary 'author's box'? No. Not even that. After a moment she had
suggested that she might be granted a couple of seats in the
upper-circle. At which Mr. Lavington's head had signified a negative.
All sold! She ought to be glad. Yes, she was immensely glad. But all
the same stalls would not quite suit her friends. As a compromise he
had bestowed upon her two seats (which he could have disposed of for
good money) at the back of the dress-circle.

He had instantly taken a fancy to the young author of 'Fireside.' She
was pretty; she was neat; she was modest. No! She was not a bit puffed
up, though she might well have been at the prospect of having her
first play presented at the unique Mayfair. She had absolutely no
pretensions and she put on no air of intellectual smartness. If she
put on any air at all it was the air of being awkward. She stated
frankly that she was a typewriting girl employed in a solicitor's
office in Bedford Square, and that she felt rather bewildered. Her
demeanour had the innocent-guilty charm of bewilderment. Yet how
clever must she be to have written this delightful play, worthy of the
splendid traditions of the Mayfair!

"Nay!" said Mr. Lavington paternally, in answer to her inquiring
glance when the house-lights went up at the end of the first act of
the dress-rehearsal, "I won't tell you what I think till I've seen it
all. You'll excuse me now for a minute or two."

And he returned to his mahogany cubicle to find out what had happened
there during his absence.

And Aline Smith sat alone again. No one came to congratulate her or to
wish her success, or to invite her views on the performance. Few
people even knew who she was. She had been present only at scraps of
rehearsals, by reason of the difficulty of leaving Bedford Square in
office-hours. And, when present, she had been silent, almost
apologetic. She preferred Mr. Lavington to anybody else on the theatre
staff,--he had been so protective, so full of the milk of human
kindness.

On the previous day she had confided in him--far more than she had
confided in the publicity-man--told him how she had discovered two
backers who had offered to put money into the play, how with the help
of her employers a small limited company had been formed 75
(capital--to save stamp duty--and 4,000 of Debentures), how through
one of the backers the unique Mayfair had been rented for a month,
with option to extend, at 500 a week (the month's rent having been
paid in advance), and how not all the debentures had as yet been
subscribed for (but it didn't really matter).

Mr. Lavington had said, lightly and casually, that from all he had
heard the play was so good he wouldn't have minded applying for a
couple of hundred pounds' worth of Debentures himself. What Mr.
Lavington actually meant (though he did not know it) was that the
author was so young and diffident and feminine and attractive he
wouldn't have minded applying, etc. And so on.... An idyll!

Before the curtain rose on the second act Mr. Lavington reappeared,
with the publicity-man, a stout gentleman, following him.

"Well, A.P.," said the publicity-man, nodding carelessly to the
author, "what do you think of my publicity?"

"Excellent! Excellent!" replied Mr. Lavington with judicial dignity.

Mr. Lavington's private notion was that in the case of 'Fireside' the
publicity-man had had rather a soft job. Here was a poor typewriting
girl having a play, and a first play, done at the sacrosanct Mayfair!
The romance of it! The wonder of it! The possibilities of it! What
more could a publicity-man desire? The newspapers positively competed
for his snappy communications. The publicity-man departed.

At the end of the second act Mr. Lavington repeated himself to Miss
Aline Smith, who, however, gathered from his benign and radiant face
that he was highly pleased with the piece. At the end of the third and
last act the audience, scanty and blas as it was, applauded. Miss
Smith blushed. She had a feeling that she must rush out of the
theatre.

But Mr. Lavington seized her hand.

"My dear," said he. "I've been in the business for thirty years, and I
_like_ your play. One can never be sure, but I believe in it. And of
course the Governor believes in it--or he'd never have let you have
the theatre. Now I wouldn't mind taking 200 of those Debentures, with
the ordinary shares that go with them."

Miss Smith showed that she was very deeply impressed.

"There are only 300 of Debentures left now," she murmured.

"Let me take 300 then," said Mr. Lavington nobly.

Miss Smith said that she would see to it by telephone immediately.

"My cheque's ready at any time," said Mr. Lavington.

Outside in the street, jumping on to a penny 'bus, Miss Smith felt
perilously dazed. It was all too marvellous. The dress-rehearsal had
been a success. And Mr. Lavington, with all his vast experience of the
stage, had _asked_ to be allowed to contribute capital!

What Miss Smith did not know, and could not have guessed, was that
'Fireside' happened to be the first play Mr. Lavington had seen in its
entirety for about a quarter of a century. How could the kindly man
see plays? He was always in his cubicle. Now and then, after ten
o'clock, he might slip into the auditorium and witness the end of a
play--no more. And but rarely had Mr. Lavington witnessed even the end
of a play, because when ten o'clock struck and the shutter punctually
descended on the window of his cubicle, Mr. Lavington's leading idea
was to go straight home at the earliest possible moment, have a bite
and a drink, and retire to bed.


III

Three 'curtains' after the first act. Five after the second act. A
very friendly reception. Such were the reports of the performance
received by Mr. A.P. Lavington in his cubicle during the first-night.

At ten minutes past ten, when the ticket window had been shut down and
accounts set in order and cash counted and locked away, he went and
stood at the back of the dress-circle to witness the final scenes of
the last act.

As he knew the exact location of the two seats allotted to the
authoress for her friends he glanced with interest at their occupants:
a young man and a young woman, neither of them in evening-dress, but
both of a neat and dignified clerkly appearance. He regretted the
unconventionality of their costume, but otherwise he was content with
them--and the more so as they were obviously enthralled by the play
and gleaming with joy in it. And Mr. Lavington himself again found
much pleasure in the play. Just as he thought Miss Aline Smith
delicious, so he thought her light domestic comedy delicious, and he
was glad that he had put three hundred pounds into it. Indeed he
foresaw a fortune, in which he would share; he foresaw a cottage in
the country, retirement, pottering about in a garden, and sleeping as
long as he pleased.

At the close there was considerable applause--and sustained applause,
sympathetic applause. And the approval of a discriminating audience
such as that of the Mayfair--nearly all Mr. Lavington's choice
'first-night list' of patrons were present--meant a great deal both in
prestige and in money.

The curtain went up and down and up and down. Then the players were
called to receive kindly ovations. There were loud calls for 'author,'
'author,' and 'speech,' 'speech.' Mr. Lavington was delighted. He
could not bear the tension of his delight. Clapping his hands was not
enough. He must go behind. But as he did not wish to pass through the
auditorium he ran out into the street, round the corner, through the
stage-door, and so on to the stage.

From the Prompt wing he could hear the still sustained applause (it
was louder than ever), and he could see the slim, delicate figure of
Aline, all highly nervous and flustered, bowing and blushing. Aline
wore a sort of demi-toilette, evidently of home manufacture, evidently
inexpensive. The sight of her was pathetic; it touched Mr. Lavington's
heart. Here stood that humble, timid young creature, earning probably
two pounds a week at most and obliged to calculate her expenditure
even to 'bus fares. But so brilliantly gifted that the world was at
her feet and a glorious income well within her grasp. In simply no
time she would be dashing to and fro in her own motor car and ordering
frocks in Bond Street. Romance! Romance!

The curtain fell definitely at last, and no further sound arrived from
the auditorium. The sudden silence struck strange, almost sinister.
The first-night was over.

Aline came tripping off the stage, which already was, in possession of
rough stage-hands who were taking a domestic interior to pieces with
disconcerting rapidity and loud noises. Perceiving Mr. Lavington,
Aline rushed at him as at an old and intimate friend, impulsively,
girlishly. Her joy was almost out of control. Mr. Lavington clasped
her hand.

"Congratulations, my dear! Congratulations!" said he, eagerly.

She was so young that she made him feel very old, and he wished,
painfully, that he had been nearer her age. Really she was a
marvellous being, so simple and yet so talented, What need had she of
smart frocks and costly jewels? None! She was perfect, ravishing.

"Thank you! Thank you!" she replied with warm gratitude. Tears stood
in her exquisite grey eyes, tears of a bliss that was incredible to
her.

"You think it's a success?" she questioned. But the tone of the
question showed that the girl was sure of an affirmative answer.

"Very decidedly," said he, with conviction.

"How is the booking?" she asked, surprisingly. What could she know
about booking?

"Oh! Quite nice. Quite nice," said he. "Of course one doesn't expect a
lot of advance-booking for a first play by an unknown author. If it
had been a Barrie, no--but you aren't a Barrie--yet!"

She laughed lightly, as if to imply that if she wasn't yet a Barrie,
she soon would be. Mr. Lavington liked her ingenuous confidence. How
unspoilt she was!

The stage-manager, the assistant-stage-manager, and two electricians
in blue overalls, were standing by. The stage-managers were amiably
smiling; the electricians had the indifference of gods.

"I expect some pretty lively booking to-morrow," said Mr. Lavington.

"Yes.... I must go," said Aline, preoccupied. "I shall be late."

He loosed her hand, which he had been steadily holding. She fled. The
abruptness of her departure incommoded him.

He reflected:

"She's thinking about somebody else. And the little thing doesn't know
enough to know that she ought to go upstairs and congratulate her
artistes before she leaves."

He was pushed aside by scene-shifters, who were no respecters of
persons. They would have pushed aside the Governor himself had he
obstructed their path. Mr. Lavington moved aimlessly up-stage.

"Lavington," said the imperative voice of a stoutish and elegant
gentleman who was leaning against one of the big radiators on the back
wall.

Mr. Lavington sprang towards him out of a dream.

"Yes, Governor."

"Not an earthly!" the Governor muttered sardonically.

"Well, sir," said Mr. Lavington. "I don't know,"'

"I do."

"The reception was very friendly, sir," said Mr. Lavington.

"The first-night reception is always friendly in this theatre," said
the Governor with grimness. "Nothing to it. Nothing to go by. _You_
know that. Or perhaps you don't know. Any booking?"

"Nothing very much," Mr. Lavington admitted.

"You wait and see the notices to-morrow, my boy," said the Governor.

"But we thought you thought very well of the play," said Mr.
Lavington.

"I thought it had a fair chance," the Governor said. "Or I shouldn't
have let the theatre. But you can never tell. Anybody who could tell
for certain would be the richest man in the world in ten years.... No!
Not an earthly! Makes no particular difference to us. It's a clean
play, and we've got our rent in advance. Good night to you." The
Governor vanished.

Mr. Lavington stared around on the now nearly deserted stage. On every
white-washed wall he saw in enormous letters the admonitory word
'Silence!' Sinister.

"Lavington." The Governor had reappeared.

"Yes, sir."

"Do I hear that _you've_ put something into this show?"

"Well--yes, sir."

"Three hundred?"

"Yes, sir."

"You can bid your three hundred a fond good-bye," said the Governor,
and vanished for the second time.

To leave the theatre Lavington passed by the iron door through the
auditorium, which now was sheeted with whitish white-wash sheets and
lit by only two or three bulbs. He became aware that beneath all his
satisfactions and his congratulations there had from the first been a
horrid, hidden disbelief in the reality of the play's success. He had
only believed what he wished to believe.


IV

On the second night Mr. Lavington entered the author's box just as the
curtain was falling on the last act of 'Fireside.' There she sat, in
the same pathetic frock which she had worn on the previous evening to
take her call. And she sat alone; she had sat alone throughout the
play. And the box was a large box--indeed it was the royal box, with a
little drawing-room behind it. She glanced round to see who might be
the visitor, and she appeared not a bit surprised to see that the
visitor was Mr. Lavington. Taking his offered hand as it were
absent-mindedly (but sweetly), and pointing to a chair, she turned her
gaze back towards the audience. She was absorbed in the audience.

As for Mr. Lavington, he had no need to look at the audience. He knew
everything about the audience without looking at it. He knew that not
a single box had been sold, and only one given away--the box in which
sat the author. He knew that, though the stalls were two-thirds full,
less than one tenth of the somewhat dowdy persons in them had paid for
their seats. He knew that the same was true of the dress-circle and of
the upper-circle. He knew the exact number of patrons in the pit--a
paltry gathering clustered together in the centre of the first three
rows thereof. And he knew that the takings in the gallery amounted to
appreciably less than a couple of pounds. And somehow he most
irrationally felt ashamed, guilty, as though he were somehow to blame
for the sparse audience.

What interested Miss Aline Smith, however, was not the size of the
audience but its demeanour--especially the demeanour of its hands and
its faces. The audience was apparently very pleased with the play. It
proved its pleasure by clapping and by smiles. Although far, far
smaller and far less smart than the first-night audience, it made
quite as much noise as the first-night audience, and showed quite as
many smiles. Indeed its demeanour was extremely heartening.

"You can't get over _that_!" said Aline Smith to Mr. Lavington,
proudly and confidently, while the curtain ascended and descended
times beyond count, and the performers, all smiling, bowed and bowed.

The applause was very persistent indeed, so much so that Mr. Lavington
was moved himself to join in the clapping. The applause would not
stop. But in the end it did stop. In every applause there is always a
last clap, and on the present occasion the last clap was clapped by
Mr. Lavington. Rather pathetic, that!

Then a drum rolled and the orchestra mauled and nearly assassinated
'God Save the King,' and everyone stood at attention. And then the
orchestra broke into a fox-trot, and the auditorium was suddenly
empty. The people disappeared like water out of a cracked basin. One
moment they were there; the next they were not there. Aline Smith and
Mr. Lavington by a common impulse sat down again. Mr. Lavington was
nervous. Aline was not at all nervous. The assurance of the
appreciated playwright had been engendered within her and was rapidly
growing.

"You can't get over that," Aline had said; and Mr. Lavington correctly
understood the possibly enigmatic phrase to mean: "You may say what
you choose about the press-notices, but this applause absolutely
contradicts them, and it is genuine. It doesn't matter a pin what the
press says so long as the public is enthusiastic."

The press-notices, morning and afternoon, had been deadly--and in the
main with the worst sort of deadliness, the benevolent, casual sort. A
few were enthusiastic, because Aline was a young beginner and because
she had written a 'wholesome' play--such a welcome antidote to the
flood of unhealthy sex-dramas, eternal triangles, morbid appeals to
the morbid, and so on and so on! A few had sneered at the play. A few
had condemned it out and out as amateurish bosh. But the majority had
displayed a terrible forbearing kindliness from which disdain peeped
out. Yes, the press-notices made very grievous reading.

Mr. Lavington was familiar with the tone of press-notices, and he knew
what this tone meant and implied. Nevertheless the tone of Aline Smith
changed his attitude, inspired him with hope and trust in the future.
After all, you could _not_ get away from the applause, and why
_shouldn't_ the play succeed? Were not the annals of the stage
punctuated with plays that had triumphed over press-notices?

"No, you can't," said he courageously, forgetting, under Aline's
influence, that small audiences are always more enthusiastic than
large ones, and that persons who have not paid for their seats with
money often consider it a duty to pay for them with applause.

Women were stretching interminable sheets along the rows of stalls.
The safety curtain slowly descended. Lights went out. But the electric
bulb in the box continued loyally to burn.

The pair, the delicious young lady and the experienced man of
middle-age, talked together just like cronies of old standing.

"How much was there in the house to-night?" Aline asked nicely.
Already in some mysterious way she was picking up the stage-idiom.
Girls were wonderful.

"I don't just remember," lied Mr. Lavington. (He lied even to
himself.) "But you'll have the returns slip by first post in the
morning. Of course we mustn't expect too much on a second night.
They're generally apt to be a bit on the slack side."

"I suppose so."

"And then you know there's a slump on in the West End just now. Always
is at this time of year. If you knew _some_ of the returns--Not to
mention the weather." He was producing all the traditional excuses
which the characteristic optimism of the stage invents and re-invents
whenever there is need for them.

A white veil fell with a swish between the box and the rest of the
auditorium. It was the enormous sheet which had been loosed from the
upper box in order to cover the ornate and gilded fronts of both
boxes. It brought about an exquisite privacy of two in the royal box;
and the two continued to chat.

"And then," remarked Mr. Lavington, later, "what I always say is that
what counts is not what the papers say, but what people say to their
friends after they've seen the play. If they've been pleased, as they
certainly have been to-night, they spread it about. 'You ought to go
and see it,' and people _do_ go and see it. But of course that takes
time. We must give it time."

"How long?" questioned Miss Aline Smith, realist.

"Oh! A week--ten days," Mr. Lavington answered, very brightly and
optimistically.

And, gazing at Aline, he drew confidence from her shining, attractive
countenance and gave the confidence back to her with interest. He was
now practically certain that the play would succeed, if for no other
reason than that such a delightful play couldn't _not_ succeed. The
Governor was wrong; the critics were wrong. And he himself had been
wrong to be doubtful about success for one moment. In short, he had
come back to his senses and his common-sense.

Then the bulb in the box startlingly expired. No glimmer of light
penetrated through the sheet. The pair were in total darkness.

"Aha!" exclaimed Mr. Lavington cheerfully.

But Aline said, with no girlish sign of perturbation:

"I was only going to say that if it's a question of keeping the play
on for a few weeks at a loss till it really gets going I can have some
more capital. In fact, I've arranged it to-day."


V

A silence. Mr. Lavington, aware of a terrifying change of heart, due
to these tidings, was engaged in thought.

"We'd better be clearing out of here," said he in a voice which
disclosed emotion.

He lit his silver lighter, and by its faint illumination gathered up
his coat and hat while helping Aline to put on her cloak. They crept
from the box, and went through the little drawing-room into a corridor
as black as a coalmine after an accident. Then Mr. Lavington's lighter
yielded to a draught of cold air and died. Mr. Lavington could not
persuade it back to life. He felt for and laid hold of Aline's fragile
arm.

"I know the way," said he. "Don't be afraid."

"I'm not," said Aline calmly.

Her arm was warm to Mr. Lavington's hand.

"This is romance," he thought. "But it frightens me."

The corridor seemed to be about a mile long, and it curved and there
was a step, for which Mr. Lavington groped with his feet.

"Here's a step," said he, warningly.

At the end of the curve they saw in the distance the trifling
greenish flame of a gas-jet turned very low, and it was like a symbol
of hope in a hopeless world. They halted beneath the gas-jet, and Mr.
Lavington made another futile effort to revive his patent lighter.

"So you can obtain more capital?" said Mr. Lavington.

"Oh, yes," replied Aline, with assurance.

"May I ask where from?" Mr. Lavington weakly demanded.

"My fianc."

Her fianc. Then this magical courageous creature was already in love,
already appropriated--as you might say!

"He believes in the play?"

"_Rather!"_ said Aline. "He saw it last night with my sister--you
remember I asked you for two seats. They're both simply wild about the
piece. My fianc wouldn't have it let down for anything."

"He's rich, your fianc?"

"He isn't at all rich," said Aline, with a short, airy laugh. "He's a
bank clerk. He would have been here to-night, but it's near
quarter-day and they have to work late. Only he's saved over
100--towards setting up house, and he can borrow on his insurance
policy, with three sureties. It's all in order." She spoke in a tone
admirably business-like.

Mr. Lavington comprehended that he was faced with the greatest crisis
of his existence.

"It's a bit of a gamble," said he.

"Gamble!" she repeated the word, affronted. "But you yourself--"

"I know! I know!" Mr. Lavington excused himself. "But you never _do_
know--in the theatre."

"Now, Mr. Lavington," she said, looking him straight in the face under
the dim gas-jet. "This is a very serious matter. I thought you
believed in the play." She was growing more direct and business-like
every moment.

Mr. Lavington might even then have recovered his position with her,
for she was ready enough to hear what she desired to hear. He was
somewhat profoundly disappointed--yes, and hurt--to learn of her
engagement. Still, if she was engaged, she was engaged, and there it
was! He could not bear to contemplate the bank-clerk, her fianc,
throwing good money after bad, and the disillusion of the youthful
pair, and the postponement of the marriage, and the permanent mortgage
of the insurance-policy and the tragic general woe. He could not bear
it. You may call him a coward, or you may call him a hero. You will
probably call him a hero, for to eat one's words requires a heroic
moral power of digestion.

"I did believe in the play," he murmured.

"But you don't now?"

"No."

"Not after all you said?"

"No."

"When did you change your opinion, Mr. Lavington?" Her accents were
almost threatening.

"Last night," said he feebly.

"Then you've been deceiving me all this time," she accused him.

He said nothing.

"You've been deceiving me!"

"Well, it's this way," he mumbled. "The capital you've got was, as you
may say, gone. I only wanted to cheer you up. After all, there's
always a chance."

"Then there _is_ a chance?"

"There isn't enough chance. We only took 22 10s. to-night."

"Then you knew all the time how much there was in the house to-night,
and you said you didn't!"

Mr. Lavington ignored this inconvenient question and went on:

"And to-morrow night I shouldn't be surprised if we don't take 12.
I'm bound to tell you there's no booking at all.... Well, I booked two
stalls to-day. And what's that?"

"But the applause?"

Mr. Lavington explained about the applause.

"The fact is," he said desperately. "Everybody believes the play can't
possibly run."

"That isn't true," Aline corrected him. "And who's everybody?"

"The Governor, for one," said Mr. Lavington. "He's quite sure."

"He said so?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Last night."

"And you never breathed a word to me!"

"Miss Smith," said Mr. Lavington, "I couldn't bring myself to do it.
And I did try to hope. You made me hope."

"Then you think you'll lose your three hundred?"

"Yes. I think so. But that's nothing. A gamble's a gamble. It isn't my
three hundred that's worrying me. It's your fianc putting his savings
into the gamble, and borrowing on his policy for it. I must be honest
with you."

Did she thank him for his honesty, for his watchfulness over the
interests of her fianc, for his first belief in the play, for his
admiration of her and of her talent? Yes, she did.

"Thank you!" said she; but in such a tone...!

Did she admit that at worst she had lost nothing through him, whereas
he had lost something considerable through her? She did not.

"She's wounded," said Mr. Lavington to himself. "She can't help it."

He forgave her. He simply could not conceive, without acute
discomfort, that she was not perfect. And she was so young, so young;
and so pretty, and her charm was so enchanting. And he was a criminal.
At least he felt as though he had committed a crime.

"Of course if it's like that," said she, "I'd better go and tell my
fianc at once. He ought to be at our flat by this time. How can we
get out?"

"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Lavington, who had succeeded at last with his
lighter.

They departed by the stage-door, after devious wandering through
passages. The theatre was very cold now. The firemen, all in brass and
blue, showed much astonishment at the sight of them.

"Good night," said Aline stiffly, not shaking hands.

She scurried off in the darkness of the street, no longer illuminated
by the brilliant electric sign which over the Mayfair during
performances displayed to the world in letters of fire the one word:
Fireside.


VI

Mr. Lavington entered his drawing-room, which was but little larger
than the room behind the royal box of the Mayfair Theatre: it was also
his dining-room. He occupied two rooms and a kitchen on the second
floor in a house in Shepherds Market, close by the magnificent and
monumental mansion erected by an American millionaire for his daughter
when she espoused a British Marquis. Mr. Lavington had taken off his
dress-coat and was wearing a tweed jacket--one of his oldest, closest
and loosest friends. A large portion of the room was occupied by a
table. On the table was a plate of cold mutton, some sauce, cheese,
bread, a tumbler and a bottle of stout.

At the table sat a middle-aged, stout woman--a year or two the senior
of Mr. Lavington. She was mending a shirt. She scarcely looked up when
her husband came in and sank into a chair opposite hers.

"You're late, A.P.," said she.

"Yes," said he.

No curiosity on her side. No communicativeness on his. She said no
more. He said no more. She continued to mend. Mr. Lavington poured
forth stout, with the skill of an expert who knows how to avoid an
overflow of froth. He ate and he drank. The room was warm, even close,
with a gas-fire.

The twain had lived amiably and smoothly together for nearly a quarter
of a century. Few or no quarrels. No romance. No children. A
fortnight's holiday a year. He trusted her. She trusted him. His
wife's face was bent over her sewing. Mr. Lavington gazed at the face
surreptitiously as he ate and drank. It rather more than confirmed her
age. It was marked with what are unkindly called blackheads. She just
washed it from time to time and nothing else, using no cosmetics.
Similarly she just brushed her grey hair, and nothing else. Youth had
gone from her. Mr. Lavington doubted whether she had ever been young.

He thought of the delicious embodiment of romantic youthfulness who
ten minutes earlier had scurried away from him up the street. He began
to make excuses for the girl. She had suffered a tremendous, a
devastating disappointment, and she had borne it with real valour. No
wonder that she had been a bit curt with him! No wonder that she had
forgotten to be grateful to him for his sympathetic, admiring attitude
towards her. He understood the girl. He felt for her. Well, she was
now with her young love, the bank-clerk, youth with youth,
chattering, hoping, making new plans, perhaps sadly but sweetly
kissing. At any rate he had saved them from further loss and more
disastrous disillusion. (Of course she hated him for his ultimate
honesty--he knew that.) He had not saved himself from a dead loss of
three hundred pounds. Mr. Lavington's salary was not large. Three
hundred pounds represented one fifth of the daily economies of nearly
thirty years. He had said not a syllable to his wife about the gamble,
for he knew the domestic value of reticence in such masculine affairs.
He never would say a syllable about it. His wife 'left everything' to
her husband. She trusted him. He trusted her.

He dreamed of the delicious, heavenly, nave, timid, brave Aline
Smith. He dreamed and dreamed, behind his spare, austere, respectable,
dependable face. A strange episode, very strange!

"Harriet," said he, enigmatically, lighting his pipe when the bite and
sup were finished. "You may not know it, but you've had a d----d near
shave."

She was not curious.

"Oh, have I?" said she. "And what was it?"

"Nothing," said he, puffing.

"That's all right, then," she observed blandly, and went on sewing.

And Mr. Lavington said to himself:

"_Has_ she had a d----d near shave?"

One never knew.




THE UNDERSTUDY

I


Mr. Charles Crone was in his sitting-room at the Grand Babylon Hotel.
Bachelor of forty, slim, straight, spruce; his clean-shaven, pale,
healthy face showed a character determined and masterful. He had just
arrived in London from Australia, where he had spent five very
successful years in making money by various enterprises, and chiefly
in reaching the position of the most important man in the antipodal
marine world: his name had frequently got itself into the English
newspapers as being that of the principal power in satisfactorily
settling more than one shipping strike. He had vaguely heard, in this
connection, that a title might be bestowed upon him; he had also read
in the press that he was a millionaire.

The telephone tinkled.

"I won't speak to anyone," he said, in a tone benevolently tyrannic,
to the girl-secretary who sprang to the instrument.

He had hired the blonde creature from an agency, and knew nothing
about her except that she had lovely hair and was spry and
clear-headed.

He added:

"This is the first day of my holiday, and a holiday ought to _be_ a
holiday, especially when you haven't had one for five years."

"Yes, sir."

"Curtiss--that's your name isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," said his waiting valet (hired from the same agency), who
stood at attention.

"My thick overcoat. And see that the car is ready for me at the door.
Use the telephone in my bedroom."

"Yes, sir."

"It's Mr. _Henry_ Crone, sir," said the girl at the telephone.

"Oh! I'd better speak to him." Charles Crone accepted the receiver
from her.

Henry Crone, the fairly-well-known actor, was Charles's brother, his
elder by two years. Henry had been starring in Australia and New
Zealand for some years. The pair of bachelors had seen a great deal of
each other, had become intimate, and had travelled to England
together. Henry had a room, less luxurious than Charles's
installation, in the same hotel.

"What is it, Harry? I thought you had your rehearsal at 10.30. It's
10.40 now."

"Yes," Charles heard Harry's beautiful voice. "I told you last night I
was in for a cold. And I am. But if I stay in bed to-day I shall
scotch it. Would you mind calling at the Majestic and explaining to
Lannop. Won't take you two seconds."

"Who's Lannop?"

"You know--the producer. Tell him to send me the part by messenger at
once, and I'll be along to-morrow without fail, word-perfect. He knows
I'm a quick study."

"Right, my boy. I'll fix the fellow. Why the devil didn't you let me
know earlier?"

"Oh, I thought I might be able to go. Couldn't decide."

'Couldn't decide!' That was Harry all over! Always behind time. Always
undecided. The elder brother, but Charles continually felt himself
the senior of the twain!

"I'll run in and see you this afternoon," Charles finished, and hung
up the receiver.

Within three minutes, Curtiss, aided by three uniformed attendants,
was putting his strange employer into the car (also hired from the
same agency as Curtiss and the blonde), at the splendid revolving
portals of the Grand Babylon.

"Majestic Theatre--stage-door I suppose," said Charles, turning up the
collar of his overcoat against the dank, hostile, English climate.

In less than no time the car stopped. Charles saw the sign
'Stage-Door' up an alley.

"Mr. Lannop?" he sharply questioned a shabby old, old man, who was
barricaded in a sort of shabby, glazed cell.

The shabby old man gave a bored and negligent glance at the
millionaire.

"On the stage," said he, thickly. Then pointed: "First on the left."

Charles Crone voyaged into the dusky entrails of the old, old theatre.


II

"Late--as usual!"

These words were addressed to Mr. Charles Crone from the middle of the
Majestic stage by a fair-haired spectacled gentleman who, at sight of
the new comer in the wings, interrupted himself in the middle of some
remarks which he was making apparently to the whole company of players
assembled on the bare boards. They were spoken with the accents of a
man struggling hard, without complete success, to be urbane in the
face of many irritating difficulties.

"Give me Mr. Crone's part," said the gentleman very curtly to the
stage-manager seated at a rickety table, and impatiently snatched up a
little bundle of typescript. Then he walked at speed up to Charles
Crone and seized his hand. "Glad to see you, Harry, after all these
years. You're looking better. No time to lose." He pushed the
typescript into Charles's reluctant palm.

"I only came to explain--"

"Explain be d----d!" the gentleman stopped him vigorously, even
rudely, as one who had at last given up the ideal of urbanity. "You've
been keeping us all waiting. You ought really to have been here
yesterday, but of course you couldn't. And Miss Fifield couldn't. And
Miss Fifield can't to-day either. That's the worst of you stars. You
think you can.--Not that you're a star--except in Australia, of
course. In London you're only a planet. Now, let's get on, there's a
good fellow!" The gentleman finished on a more persuasive tone.

But the millionaire was slightly nettled.

"If you will be good enough to listen to me--" the millionaire began
again.

"I will not!" the gentleman exploded, his forbearance exhausted. "I
haven't a second to waste. We've only twelve days to do it in. The
theatre's closed, and the rent's four-fifty a week. I'm not here to
indulge in society babble." And turning to the company he said with a
sigh: "The opening, please. Positions for the opening. Harry, you're
sitting on that chair, straddle; your arms on the back. See? Come
_on_. Read, my lad, read! Don't be afraid, though your voice isn't
quite what it was. The part's a 'silly ass' part. You've made your
name in 'silly ass' parts and here's the best you ever had. Now! Get a
move on!"

Charles Crone the millionaire suddenly laughed; then straddled the
indicated chair. He perceived the enormous joke. The spectacled
gentleman must be Lannop, the great theatrical producer, who in the
grandest theatrical manner had offered a contract to Henry Crone by
wireless during the transit of the ship through the Mediterranean. And
Lannop had mistaken Charles the millionaire for Henry the actor of
'silly ass' parts. Charles was aware of a certain likeness between
them, for once in the precincts of the Sydney Stock Exchange Henry had
been accosted as 'Charles, you bandit!' by an important broker.

But that on the stage of the Majestic Charles should be accepted for
Henry was startling to Charles. Still more startling to Charles was
the fact that Charles felt flattered, Henry the actor being famous for
his good looks. True, the great Lannop had remarked a deterioration of
voice, but that was a detail. Startling, too, was the further fact
that Charles the tyrant had a feeling of pleasure at being ordered
about by this Lannop fellow. Decidedly a change for Charles! The
spirit of adventure took hold of him. If the Lannop fellow insisted on
his being an actor, so be it! He would be an actor and see what
happened.

His car was waiting for him. No matter! He had an appointment at
Sunbury to inspect a residential property which he thought of buying.
No matter! Fantastic complications would ensue. No matter! He would
humour the great producer and let things rip. This was the first day
of his holiday and a holiday ought to _be_ a holiday. Hence the laugh.

He began to read the part. Having had some experience with the
handsome Henry, he knew about cue-words and so on; and he could keep
his head. Indeed Charles had never yet been known to lose his head in
any crisis.

The rehearsal proceeded.

"I say," said Lannop to the millionaire. "Don't laugh so much. You
aren't supposed to see the joke of your own assiness."

"I beg pardon," said the millionaire respectfully, and became grave.

"I say," said Lannop. "I wish you wouldn't be so devilish shrewd.
What's happened to you? Do remember you're playing a silly ass."

"I beg pardon," said the millionaire respectfully.

At two o'clock the rehearsal was interrupted for lunch.

"Everybody back at 2.40 please," said Lannop. "And when I say 2.40, I
don't mean 2.41."

He gazed hard at the millionaire.

The millionaire dashed forth rather like a schoolboy, dismissed his
impatient car, and obtained a thirteen-penny lunch in a tea-shop at
the nonchalant hands of a thirty-shillings-a-week girl who had the
same demeanour for millionaires as for stenographers. At 2.40 he was
waiting on the stage together with the other members of the company.
Watch in hand, he chatted familiarly with these humble and
self-conscious players, and told them trifles about Australia. One
young actor called him 'old man.' The millionaire did not blench.

Then the great Lannop entered.

"No," said the millionaire. "You didn't mean 2.41--you meant 2.45."

Lannop glared at him. The company tremblingly forbore to laugh, for
all of them were anxious beginners such as Lannop always chose, when
he got the chance, as his raw, malleable material.


III

At half-past six Mr. Charles Crone returned to his suite at the Grand
Babylon Hotel and resumed his natural role of benevolent tyrant,
though with a marked sense of guilt which he could not get rid of.
Neither his secretary nor his valet knew anything of the condition of
Henry Crone.

"What shall I say to him?" Charles asked himself nervously as he
hurried to the invalid's room. For the first time in his life he was
afraid to meet his weak, charming, unpunctual brother. A man was
coming out of the bedroom.

"Are you Mr. Charles Crone?" this man asked, carefully shutting the
door.

"I am," said Charles. "Are you by any chance the doctor?"

"Yes. My name is Lydyard. I was telephoned for. I'm glad to meet you.
I was just going to call on you. Your brother has a sharp attack of
influenza, with a temperature. I shall get a nurse in, if it's
agreeable to you. I've told him he can't possibly go out to-morrow,
but he wouldn't believe me. He simply refused to believe me. Perhaps
you can make him see sense."

"I can," Charles answered with assurance--more assurance than he felt
in the privacy of his own mind.

"Of course he won't be _able_ to go out," the doctor continued. "But
he'll have a better night if you can knock the idea out of his head
quickly--the sooner the better."

"I will knock it out," said Charles, acting perfect calmness.

"And you might prepare him for the nurse," the doctor added.

"He shall be prepared for the nurse," said Charles.

"I'll be along early in the morning. Good day," said the doctor, and
shook hands.

Charles tiptoed into the bedroom, which was lighted only by the
bed-lamp. There on the tumbled couch, with his handsome, untidy head
between two disordered pillows, lay the admired and beloved silly ass
in a state of considerable excitement.

"So you're here at last!" Henry petulantly greeted the millionaire.

"Yes," said Charles, apologetic. "I was delayed," he explained, with
truth. "How are you?"

"I'm better. I still feel a bit queer; but I'm better. I shall be all
right to-morrow."

"I lay you will," Charles concurred submissively.

"By way of precaution I had a doctor in. But I got hold of a wrong
'un. The man's a fool."

"Yes, he is," Charles concurred again.

"How do you know?"

"I've seen him," said the millionaire. "Met him outside. I'll tell you
what I've done. I've insisted on him sending for a nurse."

"But I don't want any nurse!" cried Henry.

"I know you don't--not really. But I thought if you had someone handy
she could give you whatever you wanted in the night--in case you woke
up or anything like that. She might give you a sedative, for
instance."

"What rot!" Henry commented.

"Well, if you think so," said the tyrant, meekly, "I'll pack her off
again. But you'll have a better chance for to-morrow if you're
properly looked after to-night. That's all I was thinking of."

"Well, we'll see," the silly ass indulged the millionaire. "You called
at the Majestic?"

"I did. Queer chap, Lannop! Treated me like dirt!"

Henry gave a short, painful laugh.

"That's how he treats everybody."

"However, it's all right. He put on an understudy to-day to read the
part. I stayed and heard some of the rehearsal."

"Who was it?"

"The understudy? My dear boy, do you expect me to remember his name?"

"How did he get through?"

"Awful, _I_ thought," Charles replied.

Another short, painful laugh from the silly ass.

That night Charles Crone dined alone in his sitting-room, with pieces
of typescript lying about on the table. After dinner the valet,
entering from the bedroom, found his new employer striding about the
room, pieces of paper in his hand, and talking excitedly to himself.

"No, Curtiss," said the tyrant very quietly. "Your suspicions are
unfounded. I am not mad. I'm only studying a speech for a meeting of
shareholders. You needn't wait. Call me at 8 in the morning."

"Thank you, sir. Good night, sir," said Curtiss, obsequious; and to
himself: "I don't like the look of this. And I've valeted some queer
ones in my time too!"

The nurse was not packed off. The next morning the millionaire, after
a night chiefly wakeful, interviewed the doctor, learned that the
patient was in no danger--so long as he stayed in bed, and also
briefly interviewed the patient, who charged him with an incoherent
message to Mr. Lannop. Then, after hesitations in the corridor, the
millionaire ejaculated to himself, quite loud:

"Hang it. Here goes!"

And set off for the Majestic.

And as he passed through the stage-doorway he thought: "I said I
wasn't mad. But I'm not so sure."


IV

The first person he encountered was the great Lannop, in a high state
of being busy. The millionaire decided in an instant: of course he
must confess, and depart.

"I'd like two minutes with you--somewhere," he addressed the sovereign
producer, rather diffidently.

"You can't have it," Lannop replied with curtness. "Some of you people
here seem to think I've got pocketfuls of minutes to chuck about. I
haven't." And he passed on.

Just as quickly as the millionaire decided that he must confess, he
now decided that he could not possibly confess--except perhaps in
writing, which would be the method of a coward. The rehearsal
began--first act again--almost to time.

"Where's Miss Fifield?" the producer demanded.

"She's telephoned she'll be here before her entrance--she doesn't come
on till half-way through the act," the stage-manager soothingly
explained.

"Well, she ought to be here now," snorted the producer, martyr to the
caprices of stars.

"Yes, sir."

Somebody had to suffer in Miss Fifield's stead, and the producer's
spectacles glinted upon Charles Crone.

"Harry!" In a tone of thunder.

"Well?" Charles retorted, challengingly.

The producer, startled by the challenge, mitigated the rigour of his
tone: "Where's your part?"

"In my pocket."

"You'd better have it in your hand."

"I don't want it."

"Why not?"

"Because I know my words," said Charles.

"Oh!" said the producer weakly.

This was a point to the millionaire. The great producer chose another
victim. The ether became agitated. Every soul on the stage thought of
his P's and his Q's. The rehearsal proceeded.

"Harry!" The producer tried once more.

"Yes?" said the millionaire.

"Pardon me if I remind you again that yours is a silly ass part. Can't
you get rid of that shrewd manner? I can't imagine where you picked it
up. And do contrive to be a bit less authoritative."

"I beg pardon," the millionaire apologized humbly.

The producer was mollified.

"You see," said he quite benevolently. "You must remember that in the
third act--Oh! I was forgetting, you haven't had the third act yet.
It's promised for this afternoon--author's been tinkering at it. Well,
anyhow, in the third act when you hide under the bed in the lady's
dressing-gown, you simply _must_ look _the_ silliest ass ever known in
the history of light comedy."

The millionaire trembled, as at a frightful shock; then nobly
recovered. Nevertheless the tidings that he, Charles Crone, the
millionaire, the magnate, the industrial Napoleon of the Antipodes,
was destined to hide under a bed in a lady's dressing-gown (and
probably naught but half a suit of pyjamas beneath)--these fantastic
tidings deprived him of at least seventy-five per cent of his
self-confidence; with the result that he pulled his part out of his
pocket ready for emergencies. The great Lannop ironically sniggered.
The fact was that Charles Crone could not now recall a word of his
part.

A few moments later he had an exit. In the wings he saw a little,
buxom, stylishly dressed woman, of perhaps thirty, with masterful
eyes. And the lady saw Charles. And as soon as she saw him she dashed
at him in a kind of ecstasy.

"My _dear_!" she exclaimed.

And threw her elegant arms round his neck. She was within the
hundredth of an inch of kissing him when suddenly she drew back.

"Good morning," she said coldly, a tremor in her voice.

"Good morning," said Charles. And he blushed, who had never blushed
before; and turned away.

A mysterious and disconcerting incident! Most mysterious and most
disconcerting; but to Charles less mysterious than disconcerting.

"Miss Fifield! Rosie! Your cue!" Charles heard the voice of the
producer soon afterwards; he heard, too, the impatient stamping of the
producer's foot on the bare boards.

"Sorry, darling!" said the little buxom lady, and advanced on to the
stage.

The rehearsal went on. Charles's next entrance, when he had to meet
the heroine and be embraced by her, was an agonizing experience. He
'walked' through the remainder of the act as in a nightmare.

At length the producer announced:

"That'll do! Lunch!"

Whereupon Rosie Fifield ran to the producer, took him by the arm, and
moved him up to Charles Crone.

"Listen!" said she. "I don't exactly know where I am. We must have a
talk. Let's eat together somewhere." She included Charles Crone in her
suggestion.

"She's the goods," thought Charles. But he thought a number of other
and less agreeable things, his brain working at a hundred revolutions
a second to face a situation compared to which the settlement of a
Labour dispute in Sydney was a trifle.

"Do come and lunch with me, both of you," he said, with a marvellous
imitation of tranquillity.

"We will," said Rosie, answering for the great Lannop as well as for
herself.


V

The trio sat alone in a private room of Cerrini's uniquely expensive
and select restaurant in Charles Street. The waiter, having served
caviare, had been for the moment dismissed.

"I only want to know where I am," Rosie Fifield opened the meeting.

"Then let me tell you," said Charles, before the great Lannop could
utter a word.

And he confessed.

Then he felt easier. Nobody had eaten him. Nor had the world come to
an end. He felt more like a tyrannic millionaire than he had felt for
thirty hours past. He glanced at the great Lannop, whose lower lip was
quivering. The great Lannop was no longer great for him. Then Rosie
Fifield began to splutter, and her spluttering turned into a laugh.
And the laugh was enormous. Indeed, she laughed the laugh of a
hoydenish schoolgirl. The waiter came back, and she was still
laughing.

The millionaire gazed at her. Yes, she did not look more than thirty;
but, as Charles searched his memory, he calculated that this
celebrated and highly finished comedienne--unrivalled on the British
stage--must be forty if a day. He recalled that she had dropped quite
three husbands by the wayside of her varied career. And lo! She could
laugh like a schoolgirl. And with what exquisite care and finesse of
treatment were her complexion, her eyelashes, her hair, her
fingernails arranged and displayed! And what perfection there was in
her Parisian attire!

"You aren't _you_, and I knew it as soon as I got close to you," she
shrieked through her astounding hilarity.

"But I must--"

And she rose from her chair, put her arms round the millionaire, and
kissed him upon his tyrannical mouth. The presence of the astounded
waiter incommoded her not. And what a kiss! How fresh, cool, sweet!
And what a delicious, delicate, faint odour of caviare on her lips!

"A jolly world!" thought the millionaire. What a lark was life!

"And why didn't you tell me at the start, sir?" the once-great Lannop
asked.

"You wouldn't let me," Charles answered. "You wouldn't listen
yesterday, and you wouldn't listen to-day. I'd heard how dictatorial
you were. So I accepted the situation."

"Oh! Dictatorial am I! Dictatorial am I! Dictatorial am I!" Lannop
repeated, shocked as by a sudden revelation.

Rosie said, resuming her caviare--she enjoyed food:

"I can't understand how it was none of the others realized you weren't
Harry."

"That's simple enough," said Lannop. "They're all beginners. I bet
most of them had never heard of Crone until they knew he was in the
cast."

"But _you_?" Rosie demanded.

"Me!" said Lannop. "Think of the psychology of the thing. I was
expecting a certain individual. An individual came who looked very
like him. It never occurred to me that he wasn't the man I was
expecting.... You remember I did remark a change in your voice, sir.
By the way, who taught you to act, sir?"

"You did," said Charles.

"When?"

"Yesterday and to-day, of course."

Lannop smiled.

"He'd make a railway engine act," said Rosie Fifield. "But you're
marvellous, my dear man, because you _can_ act." And her eyes caressed
the millionaire.

"Seems to me anybody could act," said Charles Crone.

"Don't you make any mistake!" Rosie contradicted him with sudden loud
violence.

She was no creature to be trifled with.

"Waiter!" cried the dictatorial Lannop. "Hurry up with the fish." And
to the other two: "We mustn't be late in getting back." He added
reflectively after a pause: "So you're the _great_ Crone, sir!"

"Better not say that in front of my brother Henry," the millionaire
smiled. And then he in his turn, after a reflective pause of his own,
added: "Of course you and Miss Fifield have to get back to rehearsal,
but there's no point now in me going back."

"Why not, sir?" the great Lannop anxiously demanded.

"The gaff is blown," said the millionaire. "And Miss Fifield blew it."

"I did nothing of the sort," Rosie contradicted. "On the contrary I
maintained the most marvellous presence of mind at a moment when I was
about to kiss an absolute stranger who was passing himself off as an
old friend. And what's more, the gaff isn't blown. I didn't say a word
to any member of the company this morning."

"My dear sir," said the great Lannop. "You can't possibly desert us
now."

"But I never intended to stay with you, my dear sir," argued the
millionaire. "Yesterday, when you wouldn't allow me to speak, I quite
thought that Harry would be all right again to-day. Yesterday it
wasn't so important you shutting me up--"

"My dear Mr. Crone!" the great Lannop suavely protested against such a
phrase as 'shut me up.'

"But to-day," the millionaire proceeded with an urbane wave of the
hand, "when you shut me up I had something _really_ important to say.
I admit I ought to have insisted. But my kind heart betrayed me--as
usual. I saw you immersed in your tremendous creative task and my kind
heart simply wouldn't let me insist--at that moment anyhow. My good
nature has always been my undoing. It's cost me thousands of pounds--"

"Millions, you mean," Rosie put in naughtily.

"Don't let us exaggerate," the millionaire laughed. "Let us stick to
thousands. Yesterday only my infernal good nature made me call on you
at all. Only my ridiculous good nature made me spend the entire day in
rehearsing. And this morning only my perfectly preposterous good
nature made me continue rehearsing. I have at last conquered this kind
heart of mine--thanks to Miss Fifield. You surely must see that it's
utterly out of the question for me to go on with the part. I'm
extremely sorry you're inconvenienced, but I can't help it."

"'Inconvenienced', you say!" murmured the great Lannop. "It means ruin
for the piece, absolute ruin! Yesterday I might have got a substitute.
In fact I had an application, which naturally I refused. And last
night the fellow rang me up very excited because he'd got another
job.... How soon is your brother likely to be out again?"

"Probably not for a fortnight, the doctor said."

"Ruin! Ruin! That's what it is," said the great Lannop.

"Now Charles--your name is Charles, isn't it--be a man! Don't come the
millionaire over us. Don't die on us." This from Rosie.

Charles Crone shook his head.

"But why shouldn't you play it, sir, after all?" The great Lannop
burst out as if he had made a sudden discovery.

"Isn't it obvious?" Charles countered.

But he was basely dissembling. He was aware of a curious temptation to
go through with the business--at any rate until his brother should be
restored to the theatrical world. And only one consideration prevented
him from yielding to the fatal prompting of his alleged kind heart and
to his natural taste for adventure, namely the thought of the bed and
himself in a lady's dressing-gown and little else getting under the
bed in the presence of a thousand assembled persons--and especially
later on creeping out from under the bed. He heard in fancy the
roaring laughter of a thousand assembled persons. No! No!

The great Lannop was a clever individual, and he was particularly
clever at temporizing.

"At least," said he, "you won't refuse to help us this afternoon.
Every moment is of importance, and I've no one but you even to read
the part. If you aren't there it'll put everybody clean off. Three or
four precious hours gone west!"

"I'll do that," the millionaire agreed.

"That's good of you, sir. Very good indeed," said the great Lannop.

As the three of them, abreast, Rosie in the middle, were entering the
alley which led to the stage-door of the Majestic, a man suddenly held
up a camera before them, like a gun, and took aim, and something
clicked.

Charles Crone, unaccustomed to such phenomena, stopped and addressed
the man:

"Why did you do that?"

"Why, sir," the man replied. "That's Miss Fifield and Mr. Lannop,
isn't it? And aren't you Mr. Henry Crone?"

"What the hell's that got to do with you?" said Charles ferociously.

"_Daily Mercury_" said the man, with a triumphant smile.

Still more troubling to the millionaire than the episode of the camera
was the demeanour of the company towards him throughout the whole
afternoon. Every soul in the cast seemed to regard him with awe. The
behaviour proper to democratic comradeship had completely vanished.
Yet neither Rosie nor the great Lannop had whispered the secret.
Rosie, indeed, being a sport, ostentatiously addressed him as 'Harry.'

The millionaire had been anticipating with dread the end of the
rehearsal, when he would have to resume serious conversation with the
great Lannop. For he had by now decided to abandon the show. It was a
preliminary sketchy rehearsal of the bed-scene in the third act which
had brought him to a final decision. Happily, fate favoured him. At
the critical moment, when the company was dismissed, both the great
Lannop and Rosie were engaged in earnest converse with the
stage-manager. The millionaire seized his hat and overcoat and ran out
of the theatre like a pursued stag.


VI

For several hours he lost himself in London; he might have been flying
from justice. Hunger at last, at ten o'clock, persuaded him back to
the Grand Babylon, for he wanted, not to eat merely, but to eat alone.
The blonde secretary, who had faithfully waited for him, reported that
various newspaper offices had been calling him up.

"How _do_ these things get about?" Charles vainly fumbled in his brain
for an answer.

The secretary was far too discreet to say, without being asked, why
various newspaper offices had called him up, and Charles was far too
self-conscious to ask. He sent the pretty creature home. He had a
sense of impending calamity, and if calamity had to happen he
preferred it to happen not in the presence of witnesses. Curtiss the
valet informed him that his bath was waiting.

"Water must be cold," observed Charles flippantly.

"Excuse me, sir. I change the water every quarter of an hour." Charles
did not desire a bath, but how could he dare to stultify such
ingenious devotion?

First he ascertained that his brother was going on satisfactorily, and
was at that moment asleep; then he ordered a solitary supper, with
champagne, and then he subsided quietly into hot water. When he
emerged, his evening clothes were laid out on the bed. He would have
preferred pyjamas and dressing-gown, but he had to consider the
feelings of Curtiss. Just as he sat down to smoked salmon in his
parlour, having dismissed the waiter, the telephone bell rang.

"Speaking for the _Daily Mercury_," Charles heard.

He rang off. Before he had finished the smoked salmon, the telephone
bell rang again.

"Speaking for the _Daily Mercury_. They cut us off."

"What is it?" Charles asked, submitting as to a decree of heaven.

"Is that Mr. Charles Crone?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Mr. Crone, we hear that you are to play your brother's part in
the new Majestic play. Is it true?"

"Of course it's not true."

"We have a photograph of you and Miss Rose Fifield and Mr. Lannop
walking into the Majestic this afternoon."

"Have you indeed!"

"Then we may take it it _is_ true?"

"So far as I'm concerned you can take anything you choose," said
Charles with disgust, and once more rang off.

Within the next half-hour five other daily papers rang up. The
telephone rang a seventh time.

"Look here, whoever you are--I'm sick of this," Charles began.

A voice said:

"Miss Rose Fifield is downstairs and wishes to see you."

Charles was conscious of a shock.

"Send her up," said another voice, which Charles had some reason to
believe was his own.

Rose made a magnificent entrance into the sitting-room. Also she was
the best-dressed actress in London, and the most forceful and the most
energetic and downright.

"Nice of you to see me," said she, giving her hand. "Oh! Bubbly and
all! And all by yourself!"

She cast a blue cloak, and her glory was thereby magnified. Charles
put a chair for her at the table, and poured out some champagne for
her.

"Now don't get ideas into your head, my dear man," said she. "I've
only looked in to find out _exactly_ how poor Harry is. We are very
old friends, Harry and I, and I've been a bit anxious about him."

The millionaire told her exactly how Harry was.

"I'm so relieved," said she, sighing her content.

They discussed Harry for a while, in very sympathetic and laudatory
terms. A pause. Charles had to fill it.

"How's Lannop?" he inquired, foolishly.

"Lannop," Rosie replied, "is on his way to a lunatic asylum."

"Oh! As bad as that, eh?"

"As bad as that," Rosie confirmed. "But of course I quite understand
why you won't go on with the part. Quite. It would damage your
career."

Charles could not tolerate this idea. As if anything could damage his
career!

"I don't see how it would damage my career," said he, grandly. "How
could it damage my career? It wouldn't cost me anything; and if you
imagine it would make any difference to my position in the City--well,
I'd soon show 'em what was what when I got back to work."

"Sorry! Sorry I spoke!" Rosie laughed. "Then you won't go on because
you think you'll make a fool of yourself? Can't really act and so
on?... You're really too modest."

"I'm not in the least modest," the millionaire corrected her. "And I
don't mind telling you that after yesterday and to-day I've come to
the conclusion that the art of acting is sort of in my family. Do you
call that being too modest?"

Rosie leaned her splendid figure and her radiant face towards him, and
murmured confidentially:

"Then what is it? Man to man. I won't split. I'd love to know."

Charles yielded himself to her.

"I'm an idiot," he thought. "But I can't help it. She's marvellous."
And he told her, with flattering candour, that what put him off was
the under-the-bed incident in the third act.

Rosie did not laugh. She did not even smile.

"And can't I understand?" she said in a low, fraternal voice--man to
man. "The way Tony made you do it this afternoon."

"Who's Tony?"

"Lannop. His name's Joshua. So we call him Tony. You see Tony, between
ourselves, has no notion of acting technique--honestly. But nobody
dares tell him so. I'd like to show you how that bit _ought_ to be
played."

"I shan't play it," said Charles, positively.

"No, of course not. You've decided, and that's all there is to it. But
I _would_ like to show you how I think it ought to be played. Got a
bed handy?"

Charles hesitated.

"Or do they sleep on the floor in this hotel?"

The next moment the two were in the adjoining bedroom. Rosie pulled up
the hanging edge of the counterpane.

"No," said she. "This bed won't do. It's too low. A bloater couldn't
creep under this bed. Couldn't we lift it at the foot? Put that trunk
under one foot and get something else for the other foot?"

Charles had to summon Curtiss, with whose aid the flat trunk was
slipped under one foot. The other foot remained safely in the air
because brass is rigid.

"That'll do, Curtiss, thanks," said Charles quickly.

"Now you do it according to Tony," said Rosie.

Her delightful tone rendered a refusal impossible. Charles dropped on
his hands and knees and crawled under the bed.

"Come out again," said Rosie. The millionaire emerged.

"Don't get up," Rosie went on. "You can dust the knees of your
trousers afterwards. You see, the mistake is in going under head
foremost. Every part of the human body is expressive, but the face is
the most expressive of all. It's a good rule never to hide your face
from the audience if you can help it. The proper way is to creep under
the bed backwards. Like that you can make use of your face all the
time until you're right under the bed and out of sight. It gives you
every chance for facial acting. It's far funnier, and it isn't
ridiculous. And there's another thing. You haven't got to turn round
under the bed in order to creep out again. You're in position."

"You're wonderful," said Charles, after the lecture.

"No," said Rosie. "I merely know the job. I'm only wonderful because
I'm about the only person on the West End stage who does know the job.
Now try it my way. Go on. Go _on_! I won't crash the bed down on you."

Charles tried it her way. As he was emerging he heard Rose say:

"Better like that, isn't it?"

"Yes, Madam," Charles heard.

She had been addressing Curtiss through the doorway leading to the
parlour. Charles arose and, before dusting his knees, dismissed
Curtiss for the second time--and more forcibly.

"But we can't let the bed down by ourselves," said Rosie.

"Of course we can," said Charles. "I'll lift up the end of the bed and
you pull away the trunk."

"Never at a loss!" Rosie sweetly observed.

The Herculean feat was accomplished, and the two returned to the
parlour and sat once again at the supper-table.

"I shall take my life in my hands to-morrow and show Tony that dodge
about getting under the bed," said Rosie, drinking. "May I have a
cigarette?"

"Tell me," Charles asked her, somewhat against his own will. "What
does the great Lannop say really?"'

"What about?"

"My acting."

"He doesn't say anything about your acting. He needn't. But he says
something about you."

"What?"

"I wouldn't repeat it--couldn't."

"You must," insisted the tyrant.

"He says you haven't played the game."

"Me! Not played the game!"

"Yes! You! Not played the game. He says it's all rot you pretending he
wouldn't listen to you. You _could_ have told him yesterday if you'd
wanted to. He says you didn't want to. He says you've been having a
lark at his expense for two days, and now you've left him in the
lurch. And it isn't playing the game. And he wouldn't have expected it
from you."

A pause. The cigarette was lighted.

"Mind you!" Rosie finished. "You've asked me and I've told you. If you
hadn't asked me--"

"I suppose I'd better go through with the d----d thing."

Rosie went to the telephone. The millionaire heard her say after a few
moments:

"Tony? That you? He'll play it."

No sooner had she hung up the receiver than the bell rang. And Charles
heard her say: "Who? What? _The Times_? Oh yes. It's quite true. He is
playing the part."

"You're wonderful!" Charles breathed to her as she left the
instrument.

"I am," Rosie agreed.

"But you're a two-faced thing," said Charles.

"I am," Rosie agreed. "Well, I must go. I've got my reputation to
think of."

"Don't go yet."

"I'm going _at_ once."


VII

As a millionaire and antipodean magnate Charles Crone had never had a
quarter of the publicity which fell to his share during the next ten
days. Not a morning, not an evening, but what he saw himself, his
doings, his talents, his career, a front-page item in the press. The
theatrical-staff, the hotel-staff, the blonde secretary and the
ingenious Curtiss were heavily employed in protecting him from
interviewers, telephone-calls, photographers and other pests of
society. To the entire theatre and to the entire hotel he became an
object of pride. Individuals who had the right to greet him, to shake
his hand, grew swollen-headed. The great Lannop roared at him, but
like any sucking-dove. The price of stalls for the first performance
was doubled; ditto the price of the two front-rows for the
dress-circle.

No perspicacious and unprejudiced observer could have denied that
Charles found pleasure in his situation. He certainly did, while
pretending that he didn't. But he was compelled to live like a hermit.
He could take no exercise. He would dash swiftly into a swift car from
the hotel to the theatre, and swiftly into a swift car from the
theatre to the hotel. And always he hid from recognition like a guilty
thing. A breathless existence!

Not even in his brother's bedroom, visiting the sick, was there
surcease from activity. For the recovering Henry was well enough, in
the final few days, to coach the millionaire. Henry was puffed up at
Charles's sudden notoriety and his remarkable skill in portraying a
silly ass, and he was grateful for Charles's superb filling of the
breach caused by the stroke of influenza.

But he was jealous too. He showed his jealousy at rehearsals. As the
silly ass did not appear in the second act, Charles was free whenever
the second act was being rehearsed at the theatre. These periods of
enfranchisement he spent in the sick-room under the invalid's
tutelage, with the blonde beauty and a fatalistic Curtiss reading the
two other important rles in the act. The blonde beauty was enchanted
to be acting the part of Rose Fifield.

In five days the sick man knew not merely every word of the dialogue,
but every position of every player, and every bit of business. Next
the doctor allowed the patient to rise for a few hours.

"I shall be well enough to play the part myself," said Henry one
evening.

"Indeed you won't!" Charles replied, with eyes suddenly blazing.

The brothers hated one another for an instant.

Nevertheless the doctor did agree that, with due precautions, Henry
might just conceivably be able to attend the first performance as a
member of the audience.

At the dress-rehearsal the millionaire had misgivings. There were
about a hundred invited people in the stalls and circle. They
constituted an audience, and the audience frightened Charles. Not in
the first act, but in the third--in the dressing-gown-pyjama-bed
episode. Charles said to himself as in grotesque attire he crawled
backwards under the bed:

"Am I a sillier ass than the silly ass I'm playing? I believe I am."

He had been suffering from odd and uncomfortable sensations throughout
the day. ("First night nerves," all the experts said.) He passed a
very bad night. The following morning--the morning of the supreme
ordeal, he stayed in bed. The doctor came into his bedroom to announce
that he had examined Henry and that Henry might go to the show.

"You look pretty bad," said the doctor, and pushed a thermometer into
the millionaire's mouth.

"101 point 8," said the doctor. "You've got 'flu."

"But how can I have got 'flu?" Charles demanded savagely.

"Caught it from your brother. You must stay in bed."

"Till to-night?"

"And after. Till you're over the attack."

"But I must play to-night."

"There's no 'must,'" said the doctor. "You can't. No doubt you have an
understudy?"

In this frightful, this appalling crisis, Charles showed the stuff
which had brought him to millionaire-ship and magnate-ship.

"Yes," he said casually. "It'll be an awful nuisance for the theatre,
but that can't be helped. I'll tell my secretary to telephone. But I
say--not a word to my brother. You see--"

"Of course," said the doctor. "I'll look in this afternoon. Stay in
bed and you'll be all right."

The doctor did look in, very late in the afternoon.

"101 point 9," said he. "I'd better send a nurse round."

"Yes. Do."

"Everything all right at the theatre?"

"Oh, yes," said Charles, casually.

The doctor had hardly gone when Charles arose and dressed and in the
company of the acquiescent Curtiss dashed to the theatre. He played
the first act; but did not take the curtain-call, for the reason that
he had fainted in the wings. A doctor from the audience transported
him to the Grand Babylon, and it was Henry Crone and not Charles Crone
who had the brilliant triumph in the bed-episode in the third act.

The millionaire was not the only player who failed to take a call that
night. Rose Fifield missed the final ovation because, in her paint and
costume, she had dashed off to the Grand Babylon to watch over Charles
Crone. A great artist she was, and all heart.

One newspaper the next morning had headlines: "Success at the
Majestic. Millionaire crawls under bed in farcical comedy." And every
newspaper praised the millionaire's performance under the bed.

A few months afterwards it began to be rumoured that Rose Fifield was
likely to discover a fourth husband.




THE PEACOCK

I


Mr. Poploy stood up as the half-empty train slackened for the
Underground Station at Oxford Circus. He heard a voice, hardly
distinguishable from a human voice, announcing from a corner of the
ceiling of the carriage: "Oxford Circus. Oxford Circus. Change here
for----" and then a lot of names. The new loud-speaker, installed in
every carriage of the train! Mr. Poploy pulled at the doors; they
would not move. Mr. Poploy abandoned them to their obstinacy. The
train stopped, and the doors magically slid open of their own accord.
He got out. Whistles. The doors magically slid to behind him. The
train was gone. He followed a few people up steps, down steps, through
a long sloping tunnel, down which a high wind blew steadily in his
face, and which was lined with incitements to gaiety, distraction,
food and alcohol. He saw a red light in the distance. He reached the
red light. An official in a special costume took from him a small,
mysterious piece of thick paper, inscribed with illegible characters,
possibly in Sanskrit, and he entered a great cage. Doors clanged upon
him and his adventurous companions, and the entire cage and its
contents shot up into the air. The cage was lined with more
incitements to the life of pleasure and indulgence, and with
admonitions to beware of criminal fellow-travellers. The cage ceased
suddenly to move. The doors magically opened of their own accord. Mr.
Poploy stepped forth, and in a couple of strides he was in an ordinary
London street, a bit dazed, but quite unharmed.

"It's all very sinister," said Mr. Poploy, who had not been in a
London Tube Railway for several years.

He crossed Oxford Street and went into Great Portland Street, whither
he was bound. The hour was close on noon.

Mr. Poploy was a man of family--his own family: twins, Arthur and
Annette. He was a slim person, of medium height, neatly but not very
well dressed in dark grey, with a soft hat. A mild face, more or less
clean-shaven. An unobtrusive deportment. Students of human nature,
observing him, would have said:

"The gentleman is nobody in particular."

Yet years earlier he had made money in the Argentine. Having made it,
he came home, and, being interested in literature, had bought by sheer
accident and for a trifle, a weekly paper whose theme was automobiles,
a subject as to which he knew and cared nothing. A newspaper-lord, who
already owned eleven periodicals devoted to mechanical traction, was
irked by the fact that he did not own twelve, and he purchased Mr.
Poploy's organ at Mr. Poploy's price, which was high. Mr. Poploy had
taken the price in shares of the newspaper-lord's big limited company.
The shares had mightily risen in value. They paid 20%, then 25%, then
30%, then 40%. Mr. Poploy was rich. He had a taste for study, for
reflection, for not being in the same place at the same time every
day, for watching the wondrous spectacle of the world, and for
idleness. It is said that idlers are unhappy. Mr. Poploy was happy,
because he was a philosopher and lived in an atmosphere of
tranquillity.

But recently his twins had engaged themselves to be married, within
two days of one another: and the tranquillity of the house in Onslow
Gardens had thereby been shattered as a crystalline dome might be
shattered by flung pebbles. At the same time, the newspaper-lord's
limited company had proclaimed to its shareholders a gift of one bonus
share for every three shares held. Mr. Poploy was richer. His twins,
properly anxious to make a display before the two families with which
they were to be allied, had insisted that their father must buy a
motor car. Mr. Poploy had refused--but they knew him; they knew that
he would purchase tranquillity at the price of ten motor cars if
necessary.

Mr. Poploy had no motor car. He had a contraption on four wheels which
travelled from place to place by the aid of petrol poured into it. The
twins had acquired it second-hand in the historic past, with Mr.
Poploy's money, for ninety-nine guineas. But Arthur, the elder of the
twins by two hours, had always maintained that this contraption was
not what he called a _car_. Still, it had _one_ quality--it moved; and
Mr. Poploy, who seldom used the noisy, fussy thing, deemed that the
one quality sufficed. Moreover how could he choose a new chariot,
seeing that Arthur's fiance strongly preferred a limousine, whereas
Annette's fianc never went out in anything but an open tourer?
Obviously he could not.

Swearing that he would not buy what Arthur called a _car_, Mr. Poploy
had gone forth privately, that morning, in a pure spirit of curiosity,
just to see, idly, what the car market was like. Knowledge was always
useful, and he had frequently heard the words 'Great Portland Street'
on the lips of his son, who regularly perused all the twelve
automobilistic papers, and who was apparently the most learned pundit
and inclusive encyclopdia ever created on the subject of
petrol-driven vehicles, their prices, and their innumerable points.

Mr. Poploy instantly perceived that Great Portland Street,
unrecognizably changed from the thoroughfare of his youth, was the
centre of the earth. There were more cars in Great Portland Street
than he had imagined could exist in the entire world. Every shop was a
car-shop, or a shop somehow connected with cars. And the thoroughfare
was so long that the other end of it was obscured in the silvery mist
of a lovely London morning in spring. There were cars ticketed at
2,880 and cars ticketed at 288, and to the bewildered eye of the
ex-proprietor of _The Car Owner_ they looked exactly as fine as one
another. No! He would not buy a car; but Great Portland Street made an
amusing and instructive sight, and he was glad he had come.

He hesitated for the fraction of a second before a gleaming car-shop
with an open front, and in the same fraction of a second a beautiful
young man, clad in the height of fashion and smoking a cigarette,
stepped forward and spoke to him. What the young man said had no
importance. It was his glance that had importance. His glance
transfixed the mild Mr. Poploy, rendering him incapable of motion. Nay
more, that glance drew Mr. Poploy within the shop, as the moon draws
the limitless sea.

"Yes," the young man was soon saying: "What you want is an All-Weather
outfit. It has all the advantages of the saloon or limousine and a
sports car. Tourer I mean. Now we happen to have in at the moment an
All-Weather Spink-Stratton that you couldn't beat anywhere. A real
bargain. I mean that, sir. Second-hand, of course, but as you know
Spink-Strattons never wear out. Spink-Strattons are always the finest
value in the second-hand market. And All-Weather Spink-Strattons are
very difficult to find."

At the hallowed and legendary name of Spink-Stratton, the car of
cars, the emblem of opulence, the criterion of taste, Mr. Poploy's
spinal column began to weaken, almost to liquify.

"Try it now, sir? Yes of course. With the greatest pleasure. Puts you
under no obligation whatever. I'll take you out myself."

Well, why not a free ride, and a new experience?

Mr. Poploy had the curious sensation of having lived six months in six
minutes. He was another man.


II

The Spink-Stratton was lodged at the far end of the long, narrow shop.
It presented a noble appearance. Mr. Poploy sat in the front seat, and
he sat in the back seat; he also sat in each of the folding seats
opposite to the back seat. He wound up the winding screen separating
the driver from the prospective owner, and he wound it down again. He
had the complicated hood up, and he had it down. He tested the angle
of the driver's mirror; he touched the tyres and he touched the lamps.
And he became quite excited, almost as excited as if he had already
bought and paid for the car. He agreed, with fallacious calm, to give
the young salesman the honour of demonstrating to him what marvels the
car could accomplish in the central streets of London.

"But how shall you get the thing _out_ into the street?" he asked
brightly.

"Oh! Easy enough!" said the salesman, with a touch of gentle
condescension.

The operation, however, proved not to be very easy. Before, indeed, it
was accomplished, five men were working on it: the salesman at the
wheel, two more employees pushing and pulling other cars, and two
others gauging to eighths of an inch the distances between some dozens
of wheels, and giving advice and warnings. Three inferior cars had to
be shamefully expelled across the pavement into the street as a
preliminary to the glorious enfranchisement of the Spink-Stratton.
Seven lads and an old man assisted the entire manoeuvre by their
ardent, open-mouthed, grinning attention.

Mr. Poploy, somewhat self-conscious, assumed the back seat. The car
started, silent as a phantom, insinuating as a young woman in search
of her heart's desire.

"Sweet!" murmured the dandiacal salesman, turning his head
affectionately backward to gaze at Mr. Poploy, and with a certain
delicate abandonment leaning his left elbow on the upholstery.
(Charming quiescence in control of terrific force!) "Sweet! Isn't it?"

"What's sweet?" demanded Mr. Poploy. "Mind the policeman," he added
quickly, wishing that the lolling dandy would look ahead instead of
astern.

"The engine," replied the salesman. "The policeman's all right," he
added, with a more marked condescension.

The policeman was all right, but to Mr. Poploy it seemed that only by
good luck was he all right.

The automobile was now shooting down the Marylebone Road, haughty,
swift, and noiseless. A super-car, the Spink-Stratton! But Mr. Poploy
had a qualm. He recalled that for years he had spoken contemptuously
of Spink-Strattons as the symbol of insolent plutocracy. Often he had
said that nothing would ever induce him to own a Spink-Stratton,
merely because of its horrible symbolism. Villains in popular novels,
vulgarians in popular novels, grinders-of-the-faces-of-the-poor in
popular novels were always rolling along in their 'powerful and
luxurious' Spink-Strattons ('powerful and luxurious' being here used
as an adjective of vituperation). He could not go home and tell his
satirical children that he had bought a Spink-Stratton no matter how
miraculous a bargain it might be.

"Bit noisy," he commented with blandness, referring to the rattling of
the All-Weather outfit.

"Well, sir," said the dandy unmoved. "Have you ever known an
All-Weather outfit that didn't rattle a bit?"

Mr. Poploy had not.

"Of course we should have everything thoroughly overhauled," said the
dandy. "Tightened up."

"Would you mind stopping here half a minute," said Mr. Poploy
surprisingly. "I'd like to call at this shop--only a moment." The car
was being detained by a traffic block.

"Certainly. As long as you like, sir," said the salesman, and as soon
as he could drew elegantly in to the kerb.

Mr. Poploy had seen an oil-painting in the window of a second-hand
furniture shop. He knew more about pictures than about motor cars,
considered them more interesting, and was more interested in them: an
attitude which baffled Arthur, and inspired the boy with kindly pity
for his father.

In the wretched shop, crammed with the junk of ages, a stout,
middle-aged Jewess of oriental submissiveness displayed to Mr. Poploy
the picture which she had extracted from the window.

"Is it a Hondecoeter?" asked Mr. Poploy learnedly.

"Snyders," said the Jewess, smiling as if in apology.

At the sound of that great Dutch reputation Mr. Poploy, after an
effort towards self-control, yielded to the ecstasy which a frowsy
second-hand shop will too often induce in the breast of the ardent
and the enlightened. The painting showed certain fowls of the air and
the field against a background of trees and Dutch architecture. It was
poetic in conception, masterly in design, brilliant in drawing, and
darkly rich in colour. It was an unusual Snyders. In twenty seconds it
had developed, for Mr. Poploy, into the most unusual Snyders he had
ever seen. Fancy discovering it in the Marylebone Road! What an eye
for a good thing had Mr. Poploy! In thirty seconds Mr. Poploy saw that
his life would be impossible without that picture, and that the
picture would give him the true happiness which for over fifty years
he had been searching for in vain. The Jewess, by a fortunate
coincidence, liked the picture as much as Mr. Poploy did. She beamed
on the picture. Her glance caressed it. And then her glance caressed
Mr. Poploy. In forty seconds Mr. Poploy was wondering whether he might
not leave the picture in his will to the National Gallery.

"A hundred pounds, sir," said she, stroking her miserable, frayed
skirt in the impecunious, dusty squalor of the establishment.

Mr. Poploy was dashed, but the spell of the place and the picture was
not broken. He felt himself to be in a terrible situation, on the
verge of committing a folly. A hundred pounds! Fantastic! With a
hundred pounds he could buy a whole second-hand car (though not a
Spink-Stratton). And it seemed that if the Jewess invested a hundred
pounds she could easily live on the interest thereof in her present
state of comfort.... Still, a Snyders! And such a Snyders! Mr. Poploy
might have been lost, had he not had vast experience of similar
situations. He knew exactly what to do in order to break the dangerous
spell. He merely went to the door, opened it, looked out into the
daily world, and immediately saw that the picture was no better than
hundreds of other pictures, and not in the least necessary to his
future welfare. His sense of perspective was restored. He was saved.

"Shan't be a minute," he called to the dandy, who was lighting a new
cigarette.

"I'll give you fifty," he said to the Jewess, re-entering the foul
den.

She shook her head placatingly.

"It cost _me_ more than that, sir," said she sadly.

"As you please," said Mr. Poploy, showing bravado, now that the danger
was past. "Here's my card in case--"

The Jewess was orientally smooth in her resigned refusal. But she did
refuse the offer.

"A near shave that!" said Mr. Poploy to himself as he got back into
the Spink-Stratton. He felt as if he had been in a railway accident
and escaped unhurt.

"You might go to Onslow Gardens," he suggested to the salesman.

"With _pleasure_," said the salesman heartily, as though of all places
in the world Onslow Gardens was the one which he loved best.

Fortified by his triumphant retreat from the frightful peril of the
shop, Mr. Poploy soon decided that he would retreat also from the
peril of the car.

"Not bad--in some ways," he murmured, as the car drew up in Onslow
Gardens. "But not what I want. How much did you say it was?"

"Eight hundred."

"I'll give you four hundred," said Mr. Poploy, imitating his previous
tactics. "As I say, it's not what I want. But I make you the offer."

Of course it was a silly offer. The salesman smiled in benign
derision.

"Not at all!" the salesman protested, in answer to Mr. Poploy's
excuses for having given him trouble for nothing. "Not at _all_! I'm
only too pleased to have shown you the car, sir. I have others cars
that might suit you better, and if you'll let me have your card I'll
send you particulars to-night. I might be able to run down myself with
another car, if you'll let me. Thank you very much." He wafted himself
away.

Mr. Poploy had won twice. He was a victor. He enjoyed his own
audacious ruthlessness with tradesmen. He was a devil of a fellow.
Spink-Stratton? Pooh! Preposterous! Snyders? Absurd! He wanted no
Snyders. He wanted no Spink-Strattons, nor any other car. And he would
not be intimidated by his children.


III

That night before dinner Mr. Poploy was existing placidly in the
drawing-room, in front of the evening paper, when Arthur entered.

"Hullo, dad! You there?" Casually, benevolently.

Arthur was twenty-five; a young solicitor; well dressed, if somewhat
negligently groomed; an ingenuous and yet sagacious manner; voice
rather loud; an inclination to take charge of the world. Mr. Poploy
was deeply attached to Arthur; he liked the lad's ingenuous glance,
and his comical air of possessing the secret of all wisdom.

"Pauline's here. She may as well stop for dinner, mayn't she?"

Pauline was Arthur's fiance.

"She must," said Mr. Poploy.

It was a pleasing surprise for Mr. Poploy, whose life since the
betrothals of his offspring had been a series of surprises--some
delicious, some disturbing.

"Where is she?" asked Mr. Poploy.

"We've just been buying a hat for her, and she's trying it on again."

"Where?"

"In your bedroom."

"Ah, well!" said Mr. Poploy, affecting a sigh. "Do what you like with
me."

At this point Pauline, wearing what was evidently the new hat, came
into the room. A tall young woman, with a sensible face and a soft
smile, who had never shingled her beautiful brown hair. Mr. Poploy
privately thought that she would have a 'very good influence' on
Arthur. He was already extremely fond of his future daughter-in-law.
It had indeed been arranged that after their marriage she and Arthur
should live under the ancestral roof (leasehold--renewable every seven
years). Mr. Poploy had objected to a lonely life, and the children had
agreed that he ought not to be deserted--especially as he was easy to
live with. Mr. Poploy anticipated the new existence with some
apprehension but with more joy.

Pauline first of all bent down and kissed her future father-in-law.
Him she would kiss in public, though not Arthur.

She said, indicating the hat:

"What do you think of it, daddy? It won't do as it is, but I really
believe that if the ribbon was a bit darker it _might_ do. Arthur
likes it. Only I can't go round to the shop in the morning, because of
mother, and I _must_ have it for to-morrow afternoon. I wish we hadn't
paid for it. So much easier to change a thing when it isn't paid for."

"Shall I go round with it for you? I used to be fine at ribbons," Mr.
Poploy adventurously suggested.

Arthur laughed compassionately; but not Pauline.

She said:

"You are a dear. I should love you to. And everyone knows you've got
perfect taste."

She gave him the name and address of the artist who had created the
hat.

Mr. Poploy was delighted with life. The companionship of the young
things in love enchanted him.

At this happy moment a servant appeared bearing heavily a picture in a
dirty gilt frame, and a letter. She leaned the picture against a sofa
and handed the letter to Mr. Poploy. The picture was the Snyders; it
looked the richest thing, even in the electric light. Mr. Poploy
opened the letter, which was a bill: "To 'Birds in Landscape'
attributed to Snyders, 50." All Mr. Poploy's enthusiasm for the work
of art was suddenly revived, glowing within him and shining in his
eyes. Further, he had the intense satisfaction of having beaten down
the wily Jewess to his own price.

The three of them gazed upon the picture in concert.

"Not so bad," said Arthur dutifully, but not without condescension.

"It's what I call a _work_, that is!" said Mr. Poploy, trying to
disguise his praise, but not succeeding very well in the attempt.

"One of your bargains, I suppose," said Arthur.

"You may say so," Mr. Poploy agreed.

Arthur, having done his duty, then left the picture, but Pauline
continued to gaze at it.

"There's a peacock in it," she murmured, at length, and glanced at her
Arthur as if for moral support in an ordeal.

"Yes," said Mr. Poploy.

There was indeed a peacock in it, not in the fore-ground, but plainly
discernible, spreading its fine tail against a mass of dark foliage.

"Yes," said Pauline.

"What about it?"

"Oh, nothing! Only peacocks are dreadfully unlucky."

"Never heard that before," said Mr. Poploy negligently. His attitude
towards superstitions was always placidly disdainful.

"But they are," insisted Pauline, her sensible, agreeable face subdued
to an unusual gravity.

"You don't mean to say you really believe that, my dear?" said Mr.
Poploy, amazed.

"Well, dad. It's well known that peacocks _are_ unlucky. Isn't it,
Arthur?"

"I believe it is," said Arthur, who was a moral coward.

Mr. Poploy turned on him.

"Do you mean to say _you've_ heard of it before?"

"Of course."

"Not in _my_ house, anyway," said Mr. Poploy.

The dinner was somehow mournful. The gloom might have been due to a
telephone message received at the last moment from Annette to say that
she was dining with her beloved, who would bring her home about ten
o'clock. Or it might have been due to Pauline's conviction concerning
the mysterious influence of peacocks on human destiny. Mr. Poploy was
disappointed in his sensible darling Pauline. Was it possible that
there was a single woman so clever and sagacious as Pauline, who could
maintain that a peacock, and a painted peacock at that, was baneful to
persons in its vicinity? It was not possible, but there it was.

After dinner Mr. Poploy left the betrothed pair together at table; he
was always considerate. Half an hour later Arthur came into the
drawing-room alone.

"Where's Pauline?" asked Mr. Poploy.

"She's gone home. I've just put her into a taxi."

"Gone home? What for?"

"Look here, dad," said Arthur, facing his parent brusquely. "Hadn't
you better get rid of that picture?"

'"Why? What do you mean?" Mr. Poploy challenged his son defiantly. "I
don't know what you mean?"

"It makes Pauline uneasy."

"How does it make her uneasy?"

"Well, she doesn't like to be in the same house with it."

"Is that why she's gone home?"

"Yes."

"Listen, my boy. You'd better take your young woman in hand."

"That's all very well," Arthur blushed.

"I'm positively staggered."

"But you know what they are," said the lad, as one man deeply
experienced in women to another.

"Know what who are?"

"Girls. If they have these feelings about anything, they have them.
And there you are! You can't argue it out with them. _You_ know that."

"I know I'm not going to get rid of that picture--to please anybody,"
said Mr. Poploy, and meant what he said.

"She'll never come to live here," said Arthur. "And she'd be miserable
if she did. But she won't."

Arthur spoke quite calmly. But Mr. Poploy was thunderstruck.

"Do I understand," he demanded--and it was as though water was boiling
under a surface of ice, and working its way upwards to the surface
with terrible rapidity. "Am I to understand that all our plans are to
be altered because that chit has a silly footling notion about
peacocks?"

Arthur, hands sunk in pockets, walked to and fro. Then he fronted his
father again.

"You are," said he.

"But it's insane!" said Mr. Poploy, furiously carried away.
"It's--it's---- Anyhow, whatever happens I'm not going to get rid of
that picture. Is it clear? There's a limit. I say, there's a limit."

Arthur left the room.


IV

Having announced that she would return about ten o'clock, of course
Annette returned about eleven o'clock. It was generally thus. With her
came her beloved, known in the household as Arcturus, in order to
avoid confusion, became his name was Arthur, like Annette's brother.
Annette was a feminine version of her brother, but both of them denied
any likeness, and indeed always warmly resented the mere suggestion of
it. Arcturus had a small estate in Berkshire, which estate he was
seriously 'developing,' and the development thereof was the occupation
of his life. He was sedate, and much more urbane and cautious in
demeanour than the twins: a handsome youth, not only well-dressed but
well groomed.

"I say, look here, dad," Annette very briskly demanded. "What on earth
do you mean by refusing that car?"

"What car?" asked Mr. Poploy, defensive. "How d'ye do, Arcturus?" To
himself he was saying: "Can I possibly have been so mistaken in
Pauline? Her attitude is ridiculous." During the previous hour and
half he had gone over the Pauline-peacock incident about a thousand
times in his mind. He was gravely and uncomfortably preoccupied.

"The Spink-Stratton."

"Oh, _that_!" Mr. Poploy's tone was negligent, contemptuous. And to
himself: "Now how the deuce do _they_ know about the Spink-Stratton?
Of course if Pauline really is like that, it'll be better if she
doesn't come to live here."

"Yes, _that_!"

"Who told you about it?"

"It was advertised in _The Autocar_. Arcturus saw it, and he's been to
look at it. So have I. Your card was lying in it, and the man told us
you'd tried it and didn't like it."

"True," Mr. Poploy admitted. And to himself: "Is it conceivable that
any woman in her senses could suppose for a single instant that a
peacock ... a painted peacock ... I daresay that there may be some
kind of a superstition about peacocks being.... Preposterous! It's
unthinkable that there can be such minds. Won't come to live here,
won't she? Well she'd better not."

"But it's a terrific bargain. Arcturus thinks so. So do I. It's
exactly the thing you want."

"You mean _you_ want, my child. I don't want it. I'm not going gadding
about in any Spink-Stratton. I'd sooner have a Ford. And I must say
that I'm a bit startled that you, with your theories about society,
are prepared to ride in a Spink-Stratton. After all you've said! And
all I've said!" And to himself: "No. I'm hanged if I'll part with the
picture! It's a question of principle. If one is to give in to these
grotesque notions--well, it simply means general insanity."

Annette's 'theories of society' to which Mr. Poploy had referred, were
of what is called an 'advanced' nature. Socialistic. Destructive of
class-distinctions, anti-vested-interest, anti-Parliamentary, slightly
revolutionary, ever so slightly Soviet. Arthur shared them. Arcturus
shared them. Arcturus was developing his land on modern lines, and
being as anti-landlord as a landlord could be expected to be. They all
three seemed to hanker after a great row in the land. The majority of
young people known to Mr. Poploy seemed to hanker after a great row in
the land.

"Spink-Stratton indeed!" he repeated.

"Now, dad!" Annette warned her father. "Please don't talk like that. A
joke's a joke. But this is serious. What on earth can it matter what's
the name of your car? If it's a good car it's a good car. And an
All-Weather Spink-Stratton is very rare. You mightn't find another one
for six months or a year. People must have cars, I suppose."

"Let them," said Mr. Poploy. "But I won't have a Spink-Stratton. Is it
clear?"

The strange, sad thing was that Mr. Poploy had not originally refused
the Spink-Stratton because it was a Spink-Stratton, but out of
caprice, and to show that he was not going to be bullied by his
children into buying any car whatever.

Father and daughter argued vivaciously, and with increasing
bitterness, for some time. Arcturus, wise and incurably polite,
maintained a certain reserve.

"And you, Arcturus, what do you say?" Mr. Poploy attacked the youth
pointedly.

"Well, sir," Arcturus replied. "I quite see your argument."

"Yes, you would, you would!" Annette suddenly exploded. "You're a
proper coward, you are! Do you think I haven't been noticing you all
this while? You _would_ go against me. And yet you know perfectly well
I'm quite right. And you'd agree with me if father wasn't here. It's
just like you. Here there's a splendid car for sale very cheap, you
say yourself it's a bargain; but because it's a Spink-Stratton and all
the plutocrats and snobs in London have Spink-Strattons, _we_ mustn't
have one. Can you imagine anything more utterly ridiculous? Might as
well say we mustn't go to the opera because they do. I'm off to bed.
Good night."

Annette had lost her temper. She dashed from the room. Arcturus
followed her. Mr. Poploy heard his daughter continuing her tirade on
the landing. Then, through the half-open doors he heard her run
upstairs to the second-storey, and Arcturus slowly descend to the
ground-floor.

The incident was excessively surprising and tiresome. He glanced
gloomily at the picture, which neither Annette nor Arcturus had even
noticed. Already he was at loggerheads with a resentful son; Pauline
had revealed the hitherto unsuspected weakness of her character, and
was certainly estranged from him; Annette was estranged from him; and
worst of all, Annette was estranged from her beloved. And yet he, Mr.
Poploy, obstinately denied that a painted peacock could bring ill-luck
to a house!


V

A gloomy and wakeful night! Neither of Mr. Poploy's children was
visible at breakfast, for which Mr. Poploy himself was late. The
parlourmaid informed him that they had both already gone out.

A hat, Pauline's, lay at the unoccupied end of the breakfast-table.

"What's that?" asked Mr. Poploy, striving to hide a general state of
irritability.

The parlourmaid replied:

"Mr. Arthur said that you would know about it, sir."

"Oh, did he?" said Mr. Poploy. He pretended to himself that this
message was like Arthur's infernal cool cheek. But in fact he was
pleased, and to some extent relieved, by the message, which was at
any rate a proof that the triangular relations between himself, Arthur
and Pauline were not entirely broken off.

After breakfast he rang.

"Where's the box for that hat?"

"I haven't seen one, sir."

"Can't you find something to put it in?"

"I'll try, sir."

While the parlourmaid was looking for something in which to envelope
the hat Mr. Poploy passed into the drawing-room, which was being
dusted, and surveyed anew the Snyders picture. It was marvellous in
the morning light.

"No," he said to himself. "I'll see 'em all at the deuce before I let
the thing go."

In due course, and without hurrying himself, he went off with the hat.
It was in a brown-paper bag immensely too large for it; the brown
paper had a pink border and bore in large characters the name of a
huge, popular, cheap department store, which Mr. Poploy had never
entered, and for which he felt a high contempt. In ordinary
circumstances he would have refused to be seen in the street with such
a package; but the circumstances were not ordinary; they were such as
to make it clear to him that the aspect of a parcel held between
finger and thumb could have no real influence upon his reputation, and
that indeed nothing mattered in comparison with his grievances against
his family.

At South Kensington Underground Station he entered a cage which
instantly sank away with him into the subterranean magic of the
Piccadilly Tube Railway. He walked in a gale of wind along tunnels,
guided by painted hands and illuminated signs, and came to a platform
opposite arched announcements of the wonderful pleasures, foods, and
drinks of the upper world. A roar was born out of nothing; it grew
louder; it grew deafening; the platform shook; everything shook. A
train rushed formidably at him, missed him, and halted, with carriage
doors exactly opposite him. The doors magically slipped apart. A
number of passengers sprang out of the crowded carriages, forcing him
backward. Thousands of passengers seemed to be savagely determined to
escape from the carriage, which nevertheless remained uncomfortably
full.

Mr. Poploy at last stepped into the carriage, trailing his fragile,
huge parcel behind him. He pulled at the parcel and was checked. He
turned resentfully to upbraid the parcel. The magic doors had silently
closed, and the major and more important portion of the parcel was
hanging outside the train. The train started, and in an instant was
moving at fantastic speed. Never did a respectable man find himself in
such a predicament. Happily the horde of passengers were too tightly
uncomfortable and too worried by their own affairs to notice what had
happened to Mr. Poploy. The doors, of course, were absolutely
immovable. Mr. Poploy had between his gloved fingers a substantial
corner of the parcel, and he could feel between the papers a bit of
the hat. Though he need not have done so, for the parcel was held by
the doors as in a vice, he clung desperately to his piece of it, and
waited for the headlong, flying train to stop at Brompton Road
station.

It did not stop at Brompton Road station. It fled past the coloured
posters and the tiled walls of Brompton Road station as if the
pestilence dwelt there. Knightsbridge was the next station, distant
about half a mile, and the train, still travelling like a shell from a
gun, seemed to Mr. Poploy to be about half an hour in reaching it.

The train slowed; it stopped; while a magic voice in the ceiling
talked of Hyde Park Corner and Dover Street, the magic doors slid
apart. Mr. Poploy saw what he saw. Most of the paper of the parcel had
vanished; the hat remained; it would be more accurate to say that what
had once been a hat remained; it was black, torn, and shapeless,
horrible to look at. Mr. Poploy, cutting his loss with prompt courage,
unobtrusively dropped the hat with the fragments of paper, and it fell
between the train and the platform.

The peacock! The sinister, powerful peacock, acting disastrously, and
at so great a distance too!

He swore that there was nothing in the affair but pure coincidence.
But who--and what woman--would accept the coincidence theory? Did he,
honestly, accept it himself? Could there, after all, be something in
these so-called superstitions? And was anybody, even the most
enlightened, entirely free from the empire of superstition?

Mr. Poploy was now on the platform. No use in proceeding further. He
let the train go on without him. He walked back home, where he
immediately began to consult the telephone-directory.

"I say," he was soon addressing the transmitter. "My name is Poploy.
About that Spink-Stratton car you offered me yesterday. My daughter
would like--" And so on.

And a few minutes later he was addressing the transmitter again:

"Poploy. P-o-p-l-o-y. Yes. About that Snyders picture. You told me it
was by Snyders. But in your invoice you only say 'attributed to
Snyders.' ... No, certainly not! That is not good enough for me....
I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to send for it."

At any rate, the pretext was good enough to save his face in his own
home. Yes, he would save his face. Let them have the Spink-Stratton if
they wanted it. Why not? And he could not bear the prospect of his
home without his admired Pauline permanently resident therein as a
daughter-in-law. She must be made happy. He would buy her a new hat to
begin with.

But he was a defeated man, and knew it.




DREAM

I


It occurred in July. In no other month could it have occurred, for
solitude and summer heat were both necessary for it. In July, on Lake
Garda, the heat is intense, but the season has not started. An
Englishman of about forty (which of course means forty-five), blond,
touristic in appearance, was slowly driving a small car on the steep
road, full of hairpin turns, leading from the east shore of the great
lake to the village of St. Zeno-in-the-mountains, a couple of thousand
feet up. He overtook an Englishwoman, blonde, decidedly younger than
himself, also touristic in appearance--for though she was dressed in
flimsiest white, she carried a red guide-book. The woman walked, and
she was hot. The man stopped his car, raised his straw hat.

"Let me give you a lift," he suggested.

The woman smiled.

"I'm nearly there." She pointed to the village, apparently a stone's
throw above their heads.

"You'd be nearly there if you were a bird," said the man. "But
walking, it's still a good mile." He opened the door of the car.

"You're very kind," said the woman, getting in.

These two were guests at a solitary pension on the lake shore. They
were the only guests. The woman had been staying there for a week, the
man for four days. Being very English and socially prudent, they had
bowed but not spoken. They ate their meals in silence at separate
tables in the charming empty dining-room. Nevertheless they knew quite
a lot about each other. For in Italy foreigners have to fill up
detailed forms for the police; landladies read the forms before
delivering them to the authorities; and landladies are communicative.
The man knew that the woman was single and that her name was Anna
Thistleton. The woman knew that the man was single and that his name
was Richard Richardson. The woman had observed that the man received
no letters. The man had observed that the woman in four days had
received only one letter. Each had observed that the other was
addicted to reading and could swim pretty well. The man had heard the
woman remark to the waitress that she was rather afraid of the
entirely harmless snakes that infested the warm water of Garda.

Arrived at the somnolent village in the full blaze and glory of the
afternoon sun, they descended from the car and stood surveying the
scene. The village priest, under a large umbrella, was walking to and
fro in front of the church of St. Zeno, reading his breviary.

"I suppose that's the village priest," said Mr. Richardson.

"Yes, I suppose it must be," Miss Thistleton answered.

They gazed across the breadth of the lake, upon which a steamer was
crawling like a white insect. Huge coloured mountains with jagged
granitic tops! White villages here and there lying like toy-villages
at the vast feet of the mountains! Shimmer of the lake! A small island
with a rococo palace and a little forest thereon! Roads looped like
long, white ribbons on the distant slopes. Hum and whirr of insects
all around! And the sun pouring down sheets and cataracts of pale
golden light upon the whole panorama!

A marvellous spectacle. The contact with the almighty, ruthless sun
was immediate and intimidating. Anna and Richard felt that they were
in the midst of nature herself, and also that they were an extremely
trifling, negligible part of nature. Profoundly impressed, they kept
silence.

At last the man said:

"Garda isn't merely the biggest of the Italian lakes; it's the finest,
too. Como is nothing to it; Como's a picture postcard compared to
Garda. And yet everyone goes to Como."

"Yes," said Anna. "Why is it?"

"It's because people are sheep and as silly as sheep," said Richard.

"I daresay that must be the reason," said Anna.

"It _is_ the reason," said Richard masterfully.

He did not invite Anna to return to the shore in the car. He got in;
she got in; and no word uttered. They scarcely spoke on the drive
down.

Still, at dinner, though they continued to sit at different tables,
they conversed freely across the dining-room--about nothing. They were
aware that the emotion shared on the flank of the mountain had somehow
created a certain intimacy between them. And later, in the moonlit,
sweltering, lovely night, when a dark moving shadow saw a white shadow
moving mysteriously in the terraced garden sentinelled by cypresses,
both were aware that the intimacy was increasing of its own accord
without the help of speech. The white shadow approached the dark.

"I came in your car," said the white shadow, with surprising vivacity.
"You come in my row-boat."

"Thanks," said the dark shadow.

In ten minutes they were far out on the lake. The pension was naught
but a line of electric lights. The distant shores, east, west, and
south, sparkled with tiny groups of flickering light--villages. Except
these, there was nothing but the moon, the heat, the flat, unrippled
water, the row-boat alone on the water, and themselves alone in the
row-boat. Not the faintest sigh of wind. Anna had ceased to pull.

"I suppose you're here for a holiday," Richard murmured, as it were
confidentially.

"No," Anna replied. "I'm here because a great misfortune happened to
me a few years ago."

"Oh! Sorry to hear that."

"Yes," Anna continued. "I used to have an antique shop in Beauchamp
Place. It was a struggle to live. Then I came into money. Well, nearly
a thousand a year. That was the misfortune. It was too much for me. I
mean for my character. I gave up my shop. My life is all holidays now.
Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Frightful, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," said Richard curtly, not softening the words with a
smile.

"And you?" Anna questioned.

"Me?"

"Yes. Are you here for a holiday?"

"No," said Richard. "My life is all holidays. Has been for six years.
I never have a holiday from holidays. But I'm not like you. I always
had a bit of money."

Each examined the other's face and discerned comeliness, sedateness,
kindliness and sense thereon. Both were thrilled. Both knew that the
intimacy had multiplied fivefold in half a minute. The next half-hour
was wonderful.

"A misfortune?" Anna suggested.

"No. Not at all," Richard answered.

Anna, letting the oar-blades sink beneath the surface of the lake,
would say no more.

"I'll tell you, if you'd care to hear," said Richard.

Anna, silent, gazed at the water.

Richard was thinking: "This is no ordinary woman."

And Anna was thinking: "This is no ordinary man."

Anna thought: "Is he going to tell me? He must know I'd care to hear.
Anyhow, I won't say I'd care to hear. I'll die first."

Here is what Richard told, after a pause so long that Anna began to
fear she might have to die.


II

"I must warn you, Miss Thistleton," Richard opened rather formally,
"it's a very strange story, very strange indeed. But you'll have no
difficulty in believing it. It begins with a dream. I dreamt I saw a
beautiful young woman at a party. Dressed in white, same as you. She
had tawny hair, and small ears, and brown eyes, and high
cheek-bones--a bit Russian in fact, she looked. She was tall and not
too thin, and she did not smile much: but when she did--However, I
can't describe her. Descriptions aren't any good. Except the high
cheek-bones. The cheek-bones seemed to be rising up to meet the
eyebrows, which matched her hair. I said to myself I must be
introduced to that young woman; but I didn't like to ask. I thought if
I did it would make me feel self-conscious, and I hate feeling
self-conscious. Still, I shouldn't have been satisfied if I hadn't
been introduced to her.

"Later in the evening the hostess came up to me and said she wanted to
introduce me to her daughter's friend Emily. Emily was the girl. There
she was sitting by herself in a corner. So I was introduced to her
and I sat down close to her. She talked. Not me. I mean I didn't talk
at first, but I did afterwards. She had a very quiet, clear voice. I
couldn't be sure whether or not I cared so much for her. All I felt
was that I'd never met anybody in the least like her. I probably had,
but you know how men do feel--women too perhaps. Or possibly you don't
know. Anyway, you see what I mean. I won't go on describing my
feelings. Might get sentimental. Ass--you know."

In the moonlight Anna, with her fixed, unsmiling stare on him, noticed
a glimmer of a smile on his worn, intelligent face.

"Well, my dream broke off there. But it went on again immediately, and
the next thing was I was sitting on a bench in a park or something,
and the girl was beside me. Dressed in green--evening-dress. It was
night. She was like you--she didn't smile a lot. We'd grown intimate.
I didn't know how; but I knew we had. For one thing I was calling her
'Emily'; but she didn't call me by my Christian name. Well, in this
dream I asked her to marry me. I wondered whether I was doing right. I
even wondered if I was really in love with her. I couldn't be certain.
But I did ask her to marry me, because--oh well, I can't explain. I
did. She said she would. Then I put my hands on her shoulders and
kissed her, and she _did_ smile, and she kissed _me_, and her face and
body were very close to mine. She just breathed 'Richard.' I can't
imagine why I'm telling you all these details. Yes, I can. You'll see.

"Well, it was all right. Yes, it was more than all right. I felt about
a thousand times happier than I'd ever felt before, and I could feel
she was happy. I thought it was all too good to be true. The dream
went on all through our engagement. It was tremendously long--I mean
my dream was--but there was nothing special about the engagement. It
went perfectly smoothly. Her parents--I had none--were charming. They
liked me. Presents began to arrive. Yes, it was all smooth, except one
thing. The day before the wedding the clergyman fell ill and died, or
if he didn't die before the wedding he died soon afterwards. The dream
was a bit vague here. Emily was upset about the clergyman. Talked
about it being unlucky and so on. But she soon pulled herself
together. We got another clergyman and we were married, and we went
off on our honeymoon, and the whole thing was splendid. We didn't have
a lot of money, but we had enough, and Emily was full of sense--more
than I was.

"And the dream went on and on. And then I was in the bedroom, and
Emily was lying on the bed, and the doctor and the nurse were there.
And then suddenly Emily lifted her head and she said in a loud
voice--louder than I'd ever heard her--she almost shouted: 'What a
shame! What a shame!' And she dropped back, and I knew she was dead. I
didn't need the doctor to tell me she was dead. I knew--in myself.
When she said 'What a shame!' Emily meant what a shame it was she
should have to die when we were so happy together. And the child born,
too.

"I sat still for hours--it seemed hours. I was alone in the room,
except for Emily. Then the door opened very quietly and the doctor
came in again. I knew what he had to tell me. He said: 'They will be
buried together.' The child was dead.

"I jumped up and knocked myself against the door and the latch of the
door clicked. And I woke. A servant had come into my bedroom with my
morning tea, and she'd shut the door behind her, and it was the click
of the door that had wakened me. So all my dream had passed in a
fraction of a second, and yet it seemed to have lasted a couple of
years. They say all dreams are like that--instantaneous. But this
dream was so real to me, even after I woke, that for at least five
minutes I could hardly believe that it was a dream. It was the most
real dream I've ever had, either before or since. Only of course by
the time I'd drunk my tea I'd recovered from it, and I knew it was
only a dream and I sort of laughed at it."

"Not easy to laugh at it," said Anna Thistleton, moveless on the
thwart of the boat. Her features were stern, because she had been
spellbound. "A terrible story I call it."

"Oh!" said Richard lightly. "That's not the _story_. That's only the
dream. I'm coming to the story now."

He spoke without any trace of feeling.

Anna pulled one stroke and then let the oar-blades sink again. The
row-boat glided a few yards until very gradually it came to rest. No
tide. No wind. The ripples due to the stroke smoothed themselves out.
The lake was utterly flat once more. The lights of the villages still
endlessly twinkled. The immense moon was climbing with majestic
deliberation higher into the sky.


III

Richard Richardson continued:

"The next day after the dream--mind you, the very next day--I had a
late invitation to a party for the same evening. I didn't expect it,
and I had arranged to stay at home and read. I went. I knew the
hostess fairly well. About five-and-twenty guests in the drawing-room.
When I shook hands with the hostess she said I seemed very pale, and
asked me what I was looking at. I said I felt perfectly all right and
I wasn't looking at anything in particular. Two fibs, I admit. I had
caught sight of a girl who reminded me of the Emily of my dream. She
was talking to some other people. She had high cheek bones and tawny
hair. She wore white. She was beautiful. I couldn't be sure that she
was exactly like Emily, but anyhow there was a very marked
resemblance. I did my best to think that she wasn't like Emily. But
she was. No wonder I'd turned pale, eh? It's not too much to say I was
a bit frightened. I thought I'd leave at once.

"However, I didn't, couldn't, because I got involved in talk with
friends. Later the hostess came up to me and said she wanted to
introduce me to her niece's friend Adelaide. Almost before I knew it I
said: 'Your daughter's friend, isn't it?' The hostess said: 'If you
choose. You know my youngest daughter is really my niece. You know my
husband and I adopted her when her parents died.'

"Well, I was led up to the corner where the girl was sitting and
introduced. I remarked to her how carelessly introductions were made
nowadays. She had heard my name, but I'd only heard the 'Adelaide'
part of her name. She said: 'My full name's Adelaide Emily Britten.
Some of my friends call me Adelaide and some Emily.' She had a
charming quiet voice. And I'd never met anyone like her before, except
the girl in my dream.

"Yes, I tell you I was frightened. And although I was very much taken
with her, I said to myself I wouldn't go on with the acquaintance. Not
at any price! Well, would you believe me, I met the girl afterwards in
all sorts of places. She was a friend of the Gurdons--my hostess. Yet
I'd never seen her before. And now I seemed to be constantly running
across her. Royal Academy. Theatres. Wimbledon. Restaurants. Even in
the streets. It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. Even if
I'd tried to avoid her I couldn't have done. But I doubt if I  should
have tried. You see, I thought she was wonderful. It wasn't anything
she said or did. And she probably wasn't the loveliest creature in
London. It was just--it was just _her_. We got quite friendly. Once I
asked her if she ever had dreams. She said she dreamt a lot, but
always forgot her dreams the moment she woke. She didn't ask me why
I'd asked her such a question and I didn't tell her.

"I continued to be frightened. But I said to myself it was ridiculous
to be frightened. There was nothing in dreams. Couldn't be. It was all
merely a coincidence. A very odd coincidence, but a coincidence.
Besides, I might have imagined the resemblance between the dream Emily
and the real Emily. Imagination does the strangest things. Moreover I
sort of enjoyed being frightened. Child playing with fire kind of
thing.

"One night I went to a concert. I never go to concerts, but I happened
to go to one that night. There she was, with her father and mother. In
the interval she beckoned to me. Yes. I had some chat with daughter
and parents. Delightful people the parents were. We met again in the
foyer going out, and the father asked me to have supper with them at a
restaurant. Said they hadn't dined, because concerts always began so
preposterously early; fortunately they ended early too! I had a
suspicion that Emily had told him to ask me. I ought to have said how
sorry I was I couldn't, on account of another engagement. But I
accepted--I was so flattered by the notion that she told her father to
ask me.

"During the supper she called me by my Christian name. She'd never
done it before. Of course I had to respond. I decided I would call her
'Adelaide,' but when the word came out it was 'Emily.' Our friendship
was on a different footing after that. I dined at the Brittens'
house. I lunched with Papa Britten at his club. So it continued for
months. But Emily and I were very seldom alone together, and when we
were we _never_ said anything that anybody mightn't hear.

"Then one night I was at a grand reception at a swell house in
Chelsea. A charity affair. Wholesale affair. I hardly knew the people
of the house. About midnight there was a simply terrific crowd in the
big drawing-room for a variety performance--juggling, comic minstrels,
and so on. The place was dreadfully hot. I was behind about ten rows
of people, and I couldn't see. So I went out into the garden. It was
illuminated. A few couples walking about--and Emily sitting on a bench
by herself! First time I'd seen her that night. For weeks I'd been
getting less and less frightened. Everything was so real and so nice.
Not at all like a dream. But when I saw that garden, I was suddenly
frightened again. The garden looked just like a park, and rather like
the park or whatever it was in my dream.

"She saw me. I went and sat down by her. I glanced at her dress. I
couldn't be sure whether it was green or blue. Artificial light
changes some colours. I asked her if it was green or blue. She said it
was a bit of both--shot silk. She said it was really electric blue,
but it often looked green. Well, she was so soft and melting--if you
know what I mean--it made my heart beat. I said to myself that I
mustn't propose to her. I couldn't be certain whether I was in love
with her or not. No. I mustn't ask her to marry me. I mustn't. I
mustn't. But I did. I couldn't stop myself. I asked her in spite of
myself. She said Yes. Then I said to myself I mustn't put my hands on
her shoulders. But I did. She smiled at last. We kissed. I knew then I
was in love with her. I felt amazingly happy. I was frightened. Oh,
very! But I didn't care. She was miraculous, and I shut my eyes to
everything else. I said to myself it was absolutely childish to be
frightened, and if I confessed to her that I was frightened and why I
was frightened, she'd laugh--because although she was miraculous, she
had quantities of common sense and no use whatever for spiritualism or
fortune-telling or anything queer.

"I drove her home that night and told her parents that we were
engaged. Everybody was pleased. The atmosphere of the house became
almost uproarious. Yes, I'm sure I was very happy, but outwardly I was
the least jolly person there. Well, so that was that."

Richard lit a cigarette.


IV

He then continued, in a lower voice:

"I was in favour of a short engagement, because I wanted to get the
wedding accomplished, over, done with. I wanted it to be something I
couldn't go back on. I wanted the business settled, so that I should
know where I was. Emily too was in favour of a short engagement, and
really there was no conceivable reason against it. The arrangements
went forward with what seemed to me incredible rapidity. Soon I
developed a tremendous passion for Emily. 'Passion' is the only word
for what I felt in regard to her. I had hours of bliss. I daresay I
seemed silly to some people.

"On the other hand, in the night, I had hours of fright. What was I
doing? I called myself a fool, a scoundrel, a desperado. Yes, and an
executioner! Not a murderer, an executioner. These hours passed, and I
was in bliss again. I still didn't say a word to a soul about what was
troubling me. I could never have even begun to frame the sentences.
And who would have listened to them seriously? Perhaps I ought to
have told. But I wasn't capable of it; therefore I didn't try.

"My happiness was intense--and it was terrible. I had to discuss
clothes, times, seasons, breakfasts, rings, receptions, trains,
honeymoons, new homes. And I did discuss them. And I chose my best
man. Once Emily did say to me, in the sweetest way: 'You aren't
unwell, are you?' That question gave me a shock. It showed that Emily
had a suspicion--no doubt only a very tiny suspicion--that something
was a bit wrong somewhere. But I laughed, easily. I kept my nerve. And
I managed to kill the suspicion. Presents came in, first one or two,
then a lot. The furnishing of our new flat was nearly finished. Then
it was quite finished as far as it could be finished until the
honeymoon was over and we had got into the place. I'll tell you what I
was like. I was like a fly on a pin. Yet I was happy. I expect no
fianc was ever happier than I was--on my good days; but I'll take my
oath no fianc was ever unhappier. To describe my condition would be
impossible.

"Then it was the day before the wedding. I dined with the Brittens. My
best man and one of the bridesmaids were the only other guests. Emily
was told to go to bed early. Bill--that was my best man, Bill
Simpson--said that I must go to bed early. Bill was a regular jailer
to me. With a joke or two he left me at the lift to my old flat, which
was now half empty of furniture. Everything was organized, everything
in perfect order. I undressed and got into bed. I didn't sleep one
minute all night, but I smoked a whole packet of cigarettes. When
daylight came I did sleep, and I was asleep when Bill came along to
take me in charge for the ceremony.

"He cursed me like anything, but he laughed at me. He even
congratulated me on my powers of sleep. I got up and dressed myself
in the most correct manner. Bill had bought a flower for my
buttonhole, and he fixed it himself. For breakfast I had only a cup of
tea--and some more cigarettes. Just as I was finishing Bill said: 'I
was forgetting to tell you that you'll have to be content with being
married by a timid little curate, and I hope he won't make a mess of
it. The old rector's had a stroke, and they say he can't recover. I've
had a telephone message. Of course I've only told the Brittens he's
caught a chill and daren't go out. You know what women are.'

"I can hear Bill now saying those exact words. I said 'Poor chap!' in
an ordinary tone--casual, too casual. Then I said 'Half a second, my
lad. I won't be late; but I must just--' I walked out of the room,
snatched a soft hat, and ran down the stairs--I wouldn't ring for the
lift. In the street, the motor was waiting for us. I gave that motor a
miss. The chauffeur didn't see me. I think nobody saw me. I threw away
the flower. I took a 'bus to Victoria.

"I had some luck at Victoria, I mean in the way of trains; and it was
luck too that I had my passport in my pocket, and plenty of money, all
ready for my honeymoon journey. I reached Ostend that day. I thought
of them waiting and waiting at the church. And Emily! I thought what a
fearful humiliation it must have been for her. Yes, humiliation! But
I'd done the only thing I could do. If I'd gone to the church, it
would have been as good as executing Emily.

"The clergyman dying had been too much for me. It finished me, that
did! Anyhow, I'd stopped the end of the dream from coming true. It
didn't come true. She's married now, Emily is. I saw it in _The
Times_. She has two children. I've been holidaying ever since. I've
never felt equal to going back to England, and I never shall. I just
wander about. But I've got over it. Oh yes. I've got over it. You do
get over things, you know."

"I suppose you wrote and explained?" Anna demanded.

"Not at once. But after about a fortnight I wrote to Bill. No, I
didn't explain about my dream. I simply said I felt I oughtn't to
marry. I couldn't put that accursed dream down in writing. I gave no
address, so I didn't get any reply."

Richard threw the end of his cigarette into the water.


V

Silence.

The moon was now completely hidden by clouds; which indeed had covered
the entire hemisphere of the firmament. On the water there was a thin
haze, and through the haze the villages twinkled and flickered less
brightly than before. The first faint stirrings of the punctual
night-breeze slightly ruffled the surface of the lake. The boat lay
alone on the water, walled in by semi-diaphanous mist that further off
thickened into the opaque. The boat seemed to be not merely alone on
the water but alone in the world.

And in the little boat Anna and Richard sat still, one at either end.
They could discern each other's faces. Anna's was set, thoughtful,
almost stern. Richard's appeared to show an obscure shame, not for
what he had done or not done years ago--rather for the intimate
candour of his narration.

The cooling breeze strengthened; the ripples made a deeper pattern of
ridges on the flatness of the water. Anna thought she saw a vague
shape in the haze. It was something; it was nothing; it was something.
It moved towards the boat. It grew into the shape of a craft. It
defined itself. It bore down upon the row-boat. It drew nearer. It
solved itself into a long craft with two sails, one dark, the other
light. The upright bodies of three men were silhouetted against the
light sail. The speed of the craft increased. It swept close by the
row-boat. As it swiftly passed, cleaving the water with its prow, Anna
shivered, and Richard gave a start. It was gone. The sound of its
furrowing died away. The apparition was a vague shape again. It
vanished. It was nothing, it was something, it was nothing--nothing.
Utter silence. The passing of the sail-boat was like the visionary
passing of a spirit from the unknown into the unknown.

Anna Thistleton, her face unrelaxed, began to pull slowly towards the
shore. Richard nervously lit another cigarette, and another match
fizzled into extinction on the water.

"It's a terrible story," Anna muttered.

"I beg pardon," said Richard, not hearing.

"I say it's a terrible story," Anna repeated, a little harshly.

"Do you condemn me, then?"

"N-o," answered Anna, with indecision in her tone.

"You do."

"I think either you ought to have kept away from your Emily, or you
ought to have told her--and early in the proceedings, too," said Anna
acidly.

"I couldn't do either the one or the other. _Couldn't_!"

"Her unhappiness must have been simply frightful. And as you said, her
humiliation!"

"But it didn't last," said Richard. "The proof--she's a married woman
now with children. And even without her marriage, she'd had more
happiness than unhappiness. And I had had happiness. Not as much as
hers. But some. And I did save her life in the end. You should
remember what I think is a fact--that no man ever before was placed
in the position that I found myself in."

Anna, offering no reply, rowed on. The lights of the pension grew
brighter. The little landing pier became visible. The boat's nose
nudged it and recoiled a few inches from the impact.

"The painter's just behind you," said Anna with curt command. "Make
her fast, will you?"

The obedient Richard tied up the boat, and waited.

"No," said Anna, "you're nearest. You get out first."

Richard obeyed and stood high over the boat on the pier and held out
his hand. Anna shipped the oars, stood up, and stepped across the
thwart on which Richard had been sitting. She took his hand, and
sprang lightly on to the wooden pier. She did not loose his hand. She
squeezed it.

"Who am I to criticize you," she said softly, sympathetically,
comprehendingly. Her accents surprised him. "You couldn't act till you
were forced to act, and when you did act you acted rightly. It was not
your fault. You had an awful experience. But it was very wonderful,
too, wasn't it?"

She was still holding his hand, in a clasp firm and yet tender. But
her features had remained stern.

Richard nodded.

"Thank you," he breathed.

"I'm so sorry for you," Anna added.

Then at last she dropped his hand.

They crossed the white, dusty road in a cloud of thick dust, having
waited for the passage of a flying automobile with two huge staring
eyes. It was gone, round a corner. The noise of the engine sank
diminuendo into silence. The dust settled.

"I think I'll sit down. I feel a bit faint," Anna murmured.

She sat down on the first bench in the gardens. Richard did not sit.
Cypresses and the vastness of the night and the mystery of human
existence were around them.

"No," said Anna, rising jerkily. "I shan't faint. I think I'll go in.
I'm quite capable of walking alone, thanks."

He followed her up the steps and slopes and along the terraces of the
dark garden until they reached the front-door, which was open and
which gave a glimpse of a homely interior furnished with easy-chairs
and ash-trays. The interior was a different world from the world of
the lake below and the lakeside.

Anna kept in the doorway, barring it to Richard. She gazed at him,
with a smile mocking, ambiguous, inscrutable, illegible. Richard could
not imagine what such a queer smile meant, what it foreboded for him,
how far it concealed, how far it revealed, her most secret thoughts.

"_I hope you didn't have any horrid old dream about ME last night_,"
she said suddenly, with a quite new sort of a smile--a smile, however,
which was even more enigmatic than the smile it replaced. And no
sooner had she made this notable remark than she scurried away like a
young girl through the hot lounge, through the drawing-room beyond,
through the corridor to her bedroom. Richard heard her door close.

In such a unique, odd manner did a fresh romance begin.




BACCARAT

I


Gracie and Oliver came round the bend and sat down in a corner of the
open-air but roofed terrace in front of the caf, and Oliver rang a
bell in the wall and ordered coffee for two.

"And what about a crme de menthe?" said Gracie.

"I never take liqueurs," Oliver answered. "Do you?"

"Of course I do. I like the colours of them."

"One crme de menthe," said Oliver, recalling the attendant.

"But you must have one too," Gracie protested.

"No thanks."

"But I can't drink a liqueur alone!" Gracie protested further.

"Why not? Are you afraid?" And Oliver, smiling at Gracie, repeated to
the attendant: "One crme de menthe."

Oliver was a tall and very personable young man, dressed with utter
correctness. No frilled evening shirts for Oliver. A shirt starched
into convex cast-iron. Plain gold cuff-links and studs. No fantasy in
the buttons of his white waistcoat. No pattern on his butterfly black
tie. His dark hair was perhaps a bit long, but not at the back nor at
the sides of his fine head. Only a tuft above the forehead. Age
twenty-seven or eight.

Gracie wore white, a demi-toilette--fairly in the fashion--with a
diamond-covered wrist-watch of the tiniest size, an erratic timepiece
which even when it consented to go was undecipherable without the aid
of a microscope. No rings. A coral necklace. Gracie's brown, shining
hair somewhat lacked discipline. Her brown flashing eyes, and her
gestures, showed impulsiveness and the will to dominate. She was
beautiful--or beginning to be beautiful; for she had barely reached
nineteen. She thought she was at life's apogee.

They began to smoke, Oliver holding the match. When the attendant
returned they drank. They put their heads together and talked with
extraordinary vivacity, about speed on land, on water, in the air. And
little that they said could have had the slightest interest for
anybody else. Only the manner in which they said what they said might
have been interesting to outsiders. Each was absorbed in the other.
They unconsciously divided the world into two parts: themselves--and
outsiders. This was a flirtation. That by a previous understanding
they had started dinner, at different tables of course, on the stroke
of seven, and hurried through it so that they could escape early and
get a few minutes undisturbed together before outsiders had finished
eating, was known to everyone in the ship.

For they were on board the _Ariadne_, a fifteen-thousand ton affair
pursuing what was called a "cruise de luxe" in the Mediterranean, and
now, having just left the region of Monte Carlo, on her way to Naples,
Syracuse, Athens, Constantinople, Crete, and such legendary places.
Six hundred passengers, all at leisure and all saloon. No
second-class, except for ladies' maids, valets and similar laborious
persons. Two hundred and fifty stewards who were on duty at 5.30 a.m.
and off duty at 11 p.m., except the swimming-pool attendant whose day
began at 3.45 a.m.--because the pool had to be emptied and cleaned
every morning.


II

A stout, tall old lady, waddling with the aid of a stick, appeared
round the corner and stopped opposite the pair. Oliver rose.

"Sit down," said the old lady.

Oliver sat.

The old lady was the illustrious Mrs. Julia Hobb, one of the world's
richest women, and queen-empress of the ship, by reason less of her
wealth than of her natural authority. Her aged features, and the hair
on her upper lip, were masculine; and like a man she had made her
millions. She had been a widow for over forty years. She was American
by birth and by marriage; but she had lost her American accent in
world-travel, though she had never troubled herself to learn any
foreign language. There were two suites de luxe in the _Ariadne_.
Julia Hobb had the starboard suite. She 'carried' two maids, one of
whom acted also as secretary. She was the chief patron of the wireless
operator and was continually receiving and sending messages about
stock-markets. Scarcely a day passed without some increase in her
wealth.

On the first morning of the cruise, the breakfast bugle was blown
along the corridors at 8 a.m., as it had always been blown on all the
ships of the old-fashioned line of which the _Ariadne_ was a minor
member. The strident bugle woke Julia Hobb. Her maids suffered. She
sent for the almighty purser. The breakfast bugle was never blown
again during that cruise. The official time for dinner was 7 p.m., and
few passengers dared to begin the meal later than 7-30 p.m. But Julia
Hobb would not dine at 7 p.m., an hour which she described as
preposterous. Nor at 7-30 nor at 8, nor at 8-30. But at 8-45. The
chief dining-room steward would wait outside her suite of a morning to
take her commands concerning the day's menus. When she arrived for
dinner in the dining-saloon the white cloths had been removed from
every table but hers. Often she dined alone, with four smiling
stewards around her, but sometimes she would invite acquaintances to
her table; but such companions were not consulted as to the menu. They
ate and drank what was put on their plates and in their glasses. She
was a firm old monument.

The _Ariadne_ had stayed twenty-eight hours in the region of Monte
Carlo. In that space of time Julia Hobb had taken 1,300,000 francs out
of the coffers of the International Sporting Club, at chemin de fer or
baccarat. 1,300,000 francs was nothing to her. Still, she took it
away, as a matter of form. No wonder she was the queen-empress of the
ship. No wonder she held the purser under one foot, and the commander
himself under the other.

"Gracie," said she now, in her deep, rich voice. "Rose Devizes tells
me you would like to play baccarat."

"I should simply love to, Mrs. Hobb," said Gracie, with girlish
ardour.

"Do you know how to play?"

"I think so."

"What do you mean, you 'think so'?"

"Well, I watched you play at the Sporting Club; and I do believe I've
got the hang of it."

"You may have got the hang of it," said Julia Hobb. "But have you got
the money to lose?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hobb."

"How much?"

"A hundred pounds," said Gracie calmly.

"To spare?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hobb."

"Your father spoils you. How's your aunt to-day?"

"About the same--not worse."

"Very well. You come to my room at ten o'clock to-night. Rose Devizes
will be there, and some others."

"It's awfully good of you, Mrs. Hobb."

Julia Hobb waddled away--tap, tap, tap on the deck. Beyond telling him
to sit down she had taken little notice of Oliver, who was nobody in
particular and belonged to no 'set.' Gracie was perhaps somebody. Her
father had a very brilliant if slightly precarious position in the
City of London. And Gracie with her invalid aunt, and one maid,
occupied the other suite de luxe, on the port side of the ship. The
invalid aunt was rarely seen--and never at meals.

Oliver resumed the flirtatious duologue, pretending that Julia Hobb's
demeanour had not snubbed him, and that if Mrs. Hobb imagined he cared
tuppence for her she was wrong.

"I touched 80 on the Oxford Road last week but one, and it's pretty
narrow," said he.

Gracie sniffed.

"That's not much. I've done a whole lap at Brooklands at nearly 100,"
said she.

"Yes," said Oliver, stung. "But Brooklands isn't the Oxford Road; and
besides your father gets special cars for you."

To which Gracie retorted:

"I can scarcely wait till ten o'clock. I'll have another crme de
menthe."

"You will not," said Oliver with force. "Have an orange juice
instead." And he smiled, to soften his force.

"You are a darling," said Gracie.

People began to stroll in from dinner, replete.

"Let's play ping-pong in the gym," Oliver proposed.

Gracie nodded. Entirely ignoring the soft beauty of the Mediterranean
night through which the _Ariadne_ was steaming, the pair ran off,
Gracie first, down to B deck, down further to C deck, across a bridge,
and into the gymnasium.


III

Gracie, having defeated Oliver at ping-pong by means of a new serve
which she had learnt from the gym steward, entered somewhat
triumphantly the precincts of Julia Hobb's suite at two minutes to
ten. One of the two maids was waiting in the corridor. Julia always
had a bodyguard.

"Am I late? Who's there?" Gracie whispered to the maid.

"Lady Devizes, Mr. Leopold Cheddar, Mr. Sacheverell Cheddar, Lord
Pertwee and Mrs. Penkethman, Miss."

Timidly and yet audaciously the young girl peeped round the open door
and went into the sitting-room, which had many flowers, an electric
fan, a long table, a sofa, and six chairs.

"Come along, child," Julia greeted her.

"This is no place for you," said the tall, beautiful Countess of
Devizes. "But what's the good of a girl who doesn't know how to play
baccarat?"

Rose, and the beautiful Mrs. Penkethman were busy shuffling nine or
ten packs of cards, an operation which they concluded with
prestidigitatory finger-movements as rapid and sure as those of a
conjuror. The handsome young Cheddars, brothers of Rose's absent
husband, looked on. Julia Hobb sat with her legs spread and her broad
ringed hands on her knees: a customary pose with her.

"I'll be banker," said Julia, and dragged her chair up to one end of
the table. "You'd better sit three a side."

The cards were inserted into the 'shoe' with sundry preliminary
manipulations which Gracie did not understand. Out of a large silver
box the banker distributed counters marked from 1 to 1/-, to the
total value of 5 per player. Julia ranged the 'shoe' in front of
herself. The game was about to begin, and Gracie was excited as she
had never been--not even at Brooklands with the wheel of a racing-car
under her hands.

"Smithson! Smithson!" growled Julia. The maid appeared. "Stop that
fan."

Smithson stopped the fan, and then the wash of Mediterranean waves
against the ship's sides could be faintly heard.

"Now," said Julia, looking at Gracie. "The maximum stake is ten
shillings."

Murmurs of protest. "Oh, Julia!" "Oh, Julia _darling_!" "Do make it a
pound, sweetie."

"The maximum stake is ten shillings," Julia repeated. "I know what
private baccarat is, or can be. It's very dangerous. Anyone can lose
50 on a couple of shoes with a ten shilling limit, and that's quite
enough. You know you haven't a cent, Rose. Neither have Leo and Sachy.
And Perty depends on his father. The only people here with any money
worth mentioning are Nancy and Gracie and me. Ten shillings maximum.
Put down your stakes."

There were five British aristocrats at the table, and Julia pleasantly
treated them all like dirt, and they all accepted the treatment.
Julia's place of origin was a village street in Kentucky. She had a
fancy for aristocrats because they had style and because it amused her
 to demonstrate that aristocrats by birth were the scum of the earth
in the presence of the autocracy of great wealth--backed by a powerful
individuality. Everybody put down a ten shillings counter except Nancy
Penkethman, who was content to imperil one shilling.

Julia dealt the first cards to Lord Pertwee (son of the Earl of
Daleham), who sat on her right. Next to him were Rose Devizes and then
Gracie. On the left side were Leo Cheddar, Nancy Penkethman and then
Sachy Cheddar. The Bank lost to the right side and won from the left.

"Sucks!" said Nancy gloomily.

"Now don't touch the stakes!" said Julia harshly. "Let nobody touch
the stakes. I'm banker." She threw down counters to the right side,
and with a rake gathered in the stakes from the left side. The game
had fairly begun.

Gracie had made the sum of ten shillings, in her first gamble. She was
intensely excited and intensely happy. She felt that she understood
the game; therefore that she had a head for cards. And she was playing
with some of the smartest people in London, people whose photographs
were always in the papers (except the plain old millionairess, who
would never allow herself to be photographed). Gracie's own name and
photograph had several times been printed, because of her unofficial
feats at Brooklands. But that was different. The others had done
absolutely nothing. (Nor did they show by a single word any
acquaintance with the fact that Gracie had done something.) They
simply _were_. Their mere existence entitled them to publicity. It was
all very wonderful.

She won another ten shillings. Then she lost ten shillings twice.
Even! Then the cards came to her. She started with a nine. Then she
called for a card and got nine again. Then she drew an eight. Then she
 won on a seven. Then, miraculously, she won on a four. Then she drew
a nine.

"You little angel! You cherub. Now we _trust_ you. Don't fail us! Be
good! Be kind!" These and similar remarks were addressed to her by
Rose Devizes at each deal.

Gracie's successes were apparently without end. But the left side of
the table had been losing, and Nancy had used the word 'Sucks' several
times, and far worse words. Nobody seemed to mind the Nancy
vocabulary. As for Gracie, she admired it. It thrilled her. It
demonstrated to her that she was truly in the smart world.

She glanced at the fingernails of Rose and Nancy, which were as red as
the lips of Rose and Nancy. Her own fingernails were sadly behind the
times. At Naples she would buy the stuff to modernize them. Rose's
frock was appreciably above her knees. Observing which Gracie ceased
to pull her own frock down from time to time.

Then at length she lost; the sequence of nines was broken. No matter.
She collected five pounds from her counters and piled the discs
separate from the rest. The rest represented her gains. Marvellous!
What a life was this life! Her aunt never played cards. Nor her
father.

At the next deal Nancy was attending to her complexion and her lips.
Both Nancy and Rose inspected their faces about every five minutes.
Gracie, who would forget her face for hours together, perceived that
she must do likewise.

"End of play," growled Julia.

Everyone had staked except Nancy.

"Oh! Sorry!" said Nancy, waking up from the vision of her face, and
depositing five shillings.

"Take it back," growled Julia.

"But--"

"I said end of play."

"I know I should have won," said Nancy.

The fall of the cards proved that her instinct had been correct.
Nancy's lovely eyes filled with tears.

"If you gave half as much thought to your brain as you give to your
body," growled Julia pitilessly, "you'd get on better at cards and at
everything else."

"Yes, darling," Nancy concurred with tearful humility.

Gracie rather scorned Nancy Penkethman for this display of weakness.
But she scorned her more, and scorned Rose Devizes too, because they
were old. They were very old. They were at least twenty-nine, and
might be thirty. Whereas Gracie was young. With all their care for
their complexions, never could they match Gracie's! Her movements were
young. Everyone at the table felt her fresh youthfulness. The three
stylistic young men were obviously fascinated by her scintillating
youth.

The game proceeded. Undeniably it was monotonous--Julia slowly dealing
cards, Julia continually either throwing down counters or raking in
counters. No skill. All hazard. Nevertheless every moment was
thrilling for Gracie, who watched with sadness the gradual diminution
of the cards in the shoe. She wanted the shoe to be inexhaustible....
The shoe was empty.

"Do let's have another, Julia darling," pleaded Nancy.

"To-morrow night," Julia answered dryly.

Gracie felt grave disappointment. She would have played all night.

"Julia, dearest," said Rose Devizes. "We're simply frightfully
thirsty."

"Well," growled Julia. "You'll keep on being thirsty till I know how
we stand," and she took a piece of paper. "Gracie, your counters."
Julia reckoned them up. "A hundred and fifty."

Gracie had made 7 10s. Decidedly more than anyone else, for she alone
had not once staked less than ten shillings. The Bank had lost.

"Well," said Lord Pertwee to her, "you are my mascot for ever and
ever."

She was the cynosure of the table. She said:

"Give me a cigarette--Perty."

First time she had ventured to address the Viscount familiarly.

But in one matter Gracie was disconcerted. Winnings were not paid out,
nor losses demanded, by the Bank. A name or a figure on a piece of
paper represented Gracie's gain. She would have preferred to carry the
money out of the room. However, they would play every night until the
end of the cruise, and then she would receive a vast amount.

The young thing crept like a sinner into her aunt's suite de luxe. But
she was heard.

"Gracie, my dear."

The door of the prim spinster's sleeping cabin had been left ajar.
Gracie peeped into the darkened room.

"It isn't late, Auntie," said the gambler. "I've been with Mrs. Hobb."

"And who else was there?" Gracie catalogued the names, beginning with
that of the Viscount.

"That must have been very nice for you," said the tired voice, in a
tone to indicate satisfaction at the list of these celebrities.

"It was," said Gracie.

Not a word about gambling.

Leaving, she did not leave her aunt's door ajar. She shut it
carefully, and crept out again into the large freedom of the ship.
Oliver might be about. She had a desire to show herself to Oliver in
her glory. And Oliver was about. Oliver had been waiting. He thought
her more lovely, more dazzlingly attractive, than ever. And she in her
turn thought that he had points which neither Perty nor Leo nor Sachy
possessed, with all their inherited elegance.


IV

One night the passengers gave a concert. The crew had given a concert;
and now the passengers were giving a concert. The travellers had seen
Naples, Syracuse, Ithaca (home of Ulysses), Athens, the Parthenon,
Delphos, Olympia, Corinth, Milo, Santorin (the loveliest island in all
the Mediterranean), the Dardanelles, the site of Troy, Constantinople
itself. And now the ship was leaving the Golden Horn. The domes and
pinnacles of St. Sophia and other mosques were silhouetted in grandeur
against the light of a rising moon. Magic of the East. But the
passengers were giving a concert. The Social Saloon was packed, and
many people on deck were peering through the windows of the saloon and
listening to the passengers' concert. Nobody looked at the fading and
lessening domes. The ship was an entity in itself. And it was the same
entity whether in the Golden Horn or moored to a quay at Southampton.
The passengers were giving a concert.

Julia's party objected to the passengers' concert, partly because of
their dread of musical amateurishness, but more because it interfered
with baccarat, which had been played in Julia's parlour almost
nightly. Julia, however, was President of the Entertainments
Committee, and Lord Pertwee and Rose Devizes were two of the
Vice-Presidents. Therefore Julia had decreed that all her associates
must attend, and they did attend. And they sat in the first row. Even
Gracie's aunt heard the first part of the concert. Julia applauded
every item, and everybody else had to applaud every item. And Nancy
Penkethman, while applauding, used terrible language under her breath.
But even a passengers' concert ends, and this concert ended--at 11.15.

"Do let's have just one shoe, Julia darling," Nancy pleaded.

To the general astonishment, Julia agreed. The kindly Rose, exercising
due discretion, stealthily summoned Gracie, who had been helping to
settle her aunt for the night.

On A deck the band was playing for dancing, under electric Chinese
lanterns, and among the dancers was Oliver Skelton, whom all his
partners found to be rather absent-minded. Once Oliver retired for
perambulation and meditation, and conceivably it was not by accident
that he passed along the Deck C starboard corridor, upon which abutted
the great Julia's apartments. The outer door was closed. But Oliver
could catch the sound of laughter within. He could even distinguish
Gracie's laugh--a bit too loud, he thought, Gracie's laugh! When,
after varied wanderings around the hinterlands of the ship, he
regained A deck, the Chinese lanterns were out, the band was packing
up, the piano was being made fast, and two minutes later the deck was
deserted.

Oliver leaned over the side and gazed far down into the light foam
made by the slow passage of the liner through the waters leading to
the Sea of Marmora. One bell went. Half-past midnight. A touch on his
shoulder. Gracie's. He had not even heard the sound of her high heels
on the deck.

"Hello!"

"Hello!" Gracie began, in silence, to repair her face, which
nevertheless to Oliver seemed to be in no need of repair. Her
fingernails were dyed a brilliant red.

"I wish you wouldn't wait for me every night like this, my lad," said
Gracie, rather harshly, gazing into her hand-mirror.

"I don't, my girl," said Oliver, with a certain hostile firmness. "I
thought you were in bed."

"It looks so marked," Gracie continued. "Supposing anybody came
along?"

"Then why did you come up?" Oliver demanded. "You needn't have done.
Nobody asked you to."

"I came up to get a bit of air after all that stuffiness down below.
Besides, the whole ship doesn't belong to you, I hope."

"No," said Oliver. "And I hope it doesn't belong to you, either. If I
choose to stay on deck, that's my affair."

"And I expect you've been dancing with all the dowdy creatures in the
ship," Gracie went on. "Wasn't that chorus of girl-sailors at the
concert simply frightful?"

Oliver, ignoring the question, said:

"And I expect you've been gambling as usual."

"Well, why not? Everyone has a flutter."

"I don't," said Oliver.

"No," said Gracie, "but you're not normal, my lad."

"Well, if thinking gambling's a silly business is abnormal, I'm glad
I'm _not_ normal."

"You're very rude," said Gracie.

Oliver perceived that the conversation was getting out of hand. He
foresaw a row. But, animated by the desperation of a young man in
love, he cared not. He wished that he had not employed that word
'silly'. But at the same lime he was glad that he had employed it,
because it was a true word, and she had deserved it. He blamed her
severely in his heart, saying that she was reckless, flighty, idle,
good-for-nothing: a proper specimen of the idle rich girl with no
thought but pleasure and caprice, and no manners worth mentioning, and
a snob and a snare for fools. Still, he knew, while he strenuously
denied to himself, that he loved her. She was worthless, but she was
marvellous. No! She was not worthless, but she had become involved in
the wrong set, and was intoxicated by its superficial charms. He felt
sorry for her. He wanted to save her. Nevertheless he would not yield
an inch. And the conviction that she had come up on deck for the sole
reason that she could not keep away from him--_him_, Oliver--stiffened
his attitude towards her. He would not have any of her damned
nonsense. He would show her.

So he said coldly:

"And from the look of you I should say that you've been losing at this
ridiculous baccarat."

He anticipated that an explosion of girlish violence would be the
sequel to a remark so provocative, and he was prepared for it. He
thought, as most men under fifty think, that he knew all about women
and all about handling them. Gracie's response dashed both his
omniscience and his _savoir-faire_. She laughed easily. She lifted her
short skirts at the side and did a brief _pas seul_ for his benefit.
Her careless gaiety, her young beauty, her smile, were incredibly
attractive. He fought within himself against the attraction, and was
neither victorious nor vanquished. His face showed that he was at a
loss for the correct masculine demeanour in the situation.

"And how did you guess that, sweetie?" Gracie asked in an imploring
tone.

"I just guessed it," said Oliver weakly. The truth being that, taken
by surprise, he could invent nothing else to say. For he did not know
how he had guessed it.

"Well," said Gracie, ceasing to dance, and standing up to him close,
"you fancy yourself for a very clever youth. And perhaps you are--in
some ways. You must be, or you wouldn't be a Fellow of All Souls. You
were very remarkable in your discourses at Olympia and Troy and all
those places. Nearly as good as a professional guide, and quite as
conceited. Do you know that while you were lecturing us you just
looked as if you'd _made_ Olympia and Troy all by your little self? Do
you know that we winked at one another; Rose and Nancy and I, because
you were so wildly funny, without having the least notion how funny
you were? But as for being able to tell from a person's face whether
she's been losing or winning at cards you aren't worth the paper
you're written on. No, my sweetie, you'd better give the face-reading
stunt a miss in future. Be advised by one younger than yourself. I
don't say I've won at cards, and I don't say I've lost. That's one of
the things you'll never know--from me. But I can tell you this. If
I've won I don't spend my winnings on a feeding-bottle for you. And if
I've lost, I've got plenty of money to pay. Good night, sweetie,
_good_ night!" She picked up her skirt again, tripped a few fancy
steps, blew him a kiss, and ran off.

Oliver, alone once more on the long covered deck, was warmed by a
mixture of fury and shame. The shame was all his own. The fury was
directed equally against her and against himself. She was far cleverer
than he had ever suspected. She had beaten him in an encounter. Her
speech had been effective. What did she mean by the phrase 'not worth
the paper you're written on'? Was it a razor-blade wrapped up in a
piece of silk? Or was it a bit of tissue paper|wrapped round nothing
at all? Was she fond of him? Did she admire him? Or had _she_ been
playing with him during these mysterious weeks? Had she lost at cards
or had she won?

No one in the ship knew anything about the financial results of that
private baccarat. Her aunt, he surmised, did not even know that
baccarat was the regular evening pastime of the impulsive niece. The
baccarat party kept themselves to themselves, and very separate from
the rest of the passengers. They were bound together in a sort of
secret and nefarious society. But Gracie _did_ generally contrive a
meeting with him before going to bed. Therefore she must be drawn to
him. But was she drawn to him? Was she not merely amusing herself with
him out of naughtiness, out of a feminine desire to make a decent
honest fellow uneasy in his mind? Oliver was unhappy, dejected.

Two bells went. One o'clock! The ship slept, save for the officers and
the A.B. on the bridge. The ship steamed on, asleep, passing
shore-lights, passing now and then a lighthouse that winked.


V

Oliver walked slowly round and round the deck (no doubt to the
annoyance of various would-be sleepers in the cabins below). Strange
nature, Gracie! So different from the girls and women in the
University and London sets to which he had been accustomed! He had
undertaken the cruise de luxe partly because he had been medically
informed that he was in need of change and rest, and partly for
archaeological purposes. The archaeological purposes were being amply
fulfilled; and he looked forward to the excavated wonders of Crete.
Also he had certainly had a change, quite violent. He had met people,
and especially  women, of a kind entirely new to his experience. He
had actually learned to play ping-pong--most absurd of games!--and to
play it well.

But as for rest--well, no man can have rest who has fallen in love.
There was no sense in his falling in love with a girl such as Gracie.
She had no interest in the things which Oliver regarded as serious.
She was a frivolous egoist, interested only in her own pleasures. No
proper helpmeet for an earnest and resolute man. Likely to make a mess
of any such man's career. In short, no good!

And yet, in her composition there was something that he had found in
no other girl! He knew not what it was. He simply knew that she
fascinated him. He could not eject her from his mind. Night after
night he would wait for the conclusion of her evening baccarat, on the
chance of a talk--a talk in which she often showed her worst
qualities, and a lot of that impoliteness which girls permit
themselves to young men. Yes, she was clever. She was even formidable.
Had she not knocked him down with a single speech? Unforgettable
sentences in that speech! Her image refused to leave his mind. It
inhabited his mind, filled nearly the whole of it. Curse her!

Thus reflecting, he leaned for a long time over the starboard rail,
watching the white gleams in the dim water that slid ceaselessly by.
Five bells. Half past two. The deck-lights had been extinguished,
except one on either side. He yawned. He must go to bed. He yawned.
Yes, he must go to bed, if not to sleep. Just one more round of the
deck, and then....

As he turned the corner to the port side, he saw, forward, a girl who
appeared to be climbing on to the rail. She climbed higher. It was
Gracie. He hesitated. He took a couple of seconds to realize the
incredible fact that Gracie was about to cast herself overboard, to
fall down into the ruthless, careless sea, to commit suicide. He ran
towards her at top speed on the toes of his almost silent pumps, and
seized her as she put one foot on the broad rail. He seized her round
the waist. She clung wildly to the rail. She twisted her head and
tried to bite him. She used an astounding strength. But he managed to
wrench her off the rail. He threw her down. She lay on her side on the
deck, without moving. Then she sobbed. He stood over her.

His heart was thumping. But for a mere hazard of destiny she would
have been in the water far below at that moment, soaked, struggling in
spite of herself for breath, perhaps hit and maimed by one of the
propellers. He was furious with her.

"You d----d little fool!" he muttered. "What do you think you were
doing?"

She began to sob. Then tears came into his eyes. He was intensely,
painfully, unbearably sorry for her. What dreadful calamity could it
have been that had forced her to affront death? She nineteen! She
beautiful, intelligent, clever, brilliant, with a rich father and
smart friends!

For a moment he could not speak again. Then he said thickly:

"What's the meaning of it?" The narrow expanse of deck seemed to be
half a mile long, and he and she were the sole living beings on it.
"What's the meaning of it, you d----d little fool?" he repeated.

In his fury he felt happy.

"Why couldn't you leave me alone? I'm no good," Gracie sobbed.

"Yes, you are some good!" Oliver roughly contradicted her, at the same
time contradicting his own previous thoughts concerning her. "A nice
thing if you'd gone overboard! It's so selfish and mean to go and
commit suicide when you're in a scrape of your own making. What about
your aunt and your father and your friends here that you've been
spending every night with? How nice for all of them!" he sniffed.

Gracie retorted bitterly:

"Auntie! She's the most selfish old woman ever born. Fancies she's an
invalid, which she isn't really; and never, never, never thinks of
anything but her own disgusting convenience. As for father, he'd have
forgotten me in a week after the funeral."

"There wouldn't have been any funeral," Oliver put in.

"Well, after it had been in the newspapers. And shouldn't I have been
in the papers! Shouldn't I just! More than any of them--Rose and Nancy
and all that lot! And serve them right too! They led me into it. They
did it. They let me play, didn't they?"

"Then you have been losing at your rotten baccarat!" said Oliver.

"Did I ever say I hadn't!"

"How much have you lost? Now tell me."

Gracie sat up.

"Tell me!" Oliver insisted.

Gracie hung her head.

"Ninety-four pounds, if you want to know."

"But I heard you tell the old Hobb creature you'd got a hundred pounds
to play with."

"Well, I hadn't. I hadn't got anything to play with. I've always had
everything I wanted except ready money. Father never gave me that, and
Auntie took her cue from him."

"Then you jolly well lied?"

"Yes, I did!" said Gracie stoutly. "And why not? I wasn't going to be
trod on by old Julia. I won't be trod on by anybody. I'd just as soon
be dead as alive. Yes, I would! And you needn't believe me if you
don't want to. My life's my own. It's _my_ life I was taking, not
anybody else's. And if I choose to be drowned, that's my business. It
isn't theirs, and it isn't yours."

She jumped up. Oliver seized her wrist. But he was admiring her.

"I do wish you hadn't interfered!" she exclaimed, facing her saviour.
"What sucks for them if you hadn't! Don't I know what they'd have felt
like!" She gave a terrible short laugh. Then added defiantly: "And
what are you going to do about it?"

Oliver replied:

"Ninety-four pounds, you say? I suppose you ought to pay immediately.
Debt of honour and so on."

"To-morrow morning," said Gracie. "It's the last of the month
to-night, and it seems they have a rule of settling their debts every
month. So I said I'd pay up to-morrow morning."

"You shall pay up to-morrow morning," said Oliver grandly. "I've got a
packet of traveller's cheques, and the purser will cash them. I'll put
the notes in an envelope, and hand them over to you on this very spot
after breakfast to-morrow."

"But I won't take them!"

"Oh yes, you'll take them," said Oliver.

"Who'll make me?"

"I will. You'll take them and you'll hand 'em over to old Julia as if
ninety odd pounds was nothing at all. I'm not going to have any
nonsense from you."

"But you can't afford it!"

"You have a nerve to say I can't afford it, I must confess! How the
deuce do you know I can't afford it? I undertake to say I'm a dashed
sight more solvent than some of your smart friends down there."

Gracie bent her head again. Tears dripped down her face. She was very
beautiful in distress. Oliver seized her other wrist. Then he loosed
both wrists and pushed the sinful girl away.

"You get to bed," he ordered her. "Get away now! And no more
hanky-panky! Quick!" He wanted to kiss her; but he was too proud, too
full of his own chivalry.

Gracie obeyed meekly. But after she had walked half a dozen yards she
suddenly turned back and faced Oliver once more. Not a couple of feet
between their faces! She was not crying, though her cheeks were still
wet.

"What now?" Oliver inquired, in an unsteady voice.

"Do you know what's the matter with _you_?" said Gracie coldly.

"What?"

"You're too much of a ridiculous English gentleman."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"What do I mean? I mean you're dying to kiss me. But you think I
should think you were taking advantage of your noble generosity if you
did. And so you won't try."

Her face softened, became heavenly sweet in its relaxing gentleness.
She put her thin arms round his neck; and her reddened fingernails met
behind him; and she kissed him several times tenderly.

She murmured:

"I do love you, Oliver darling. I do love you, although I _am_ a
rotter."

"You are _not_ a rotter!" he swore. "You are magnificent. No girl who
was a rotter could be as magnificent as you are." And he clasped her
tightly, and returned all and more than all her kisses.




THE MOUSE AND THE CAT

I


Eva Plym stood by the bed in Lady Helen Stanger's room. She was
twenty-four, in a black demi-toilette, with a plain gold wrist-watch
and no jewellery. Her face had a certain plumpness, like her figure.
It was neither fair nor dark. Her brown eyes mingled kindliness with
firmness, seeming now and then to issue a reminder to whomever it
might concern: Worms will turn. Not tall and not short, she stood
sturdily on her feet, her attitude and restrained gestures indicating
capability and efficiency. Lady Helen Stanger would occasionally admit
to her friends that Eva was a 'treasure.'

Lady Helen Stanger was in bed, sitting up, several pillows behind her,
an Italian newspaper spread in front of her, a shawl round her
shoulders, and eye-glasses acrobatically balancing themselves on her
long, fine nose. Her years were sixty--at any rate they were not
seventy. She had the smooth, calm blandness of one who had never done
a day's work, never worried, never inquired about the meaning of life
nor tackled the riddle of the universe, never fended for herself even
in the smallest detail, never hesitated to say what she wanted and
almost never failed to get it, never considered anyone but herself.

"I think that is all, my dear," said Lady Helen, charmingly. "Oh!
There's one thing--"

"Yes, Lady Helen?"

There was a trifling point in which Lady Helen had failed to get what
she wanted. She had a secret desire that Eva should address her as 'my
lady.' Eva never did. Sometimes she said 'Lady Helen,' and sometimes
she used no form of address.

"I was wondering whether you wouldn't hear me just as well if I
knocked on the head of the bed instead of on the wall. It would save
me bending over and uncovering myself. _Would_ you mind going into
your room and listening?"

Lady Helen's tone was supplicatory, favour-extracting, but in her
faint undertone was autocratic command and the perfect assurance of
being obeyed.

Eva went next door, and Lady Helen knocked on the wood of the
bed-head.

"Yes, I can hear it quite well," said Eva, returning.

"I'm _so_ glad, my dear. Thank you _so_ much. Is my cream here? Yes.
Last night I forgot to put it on. One can't afford to do that." (Lady
Helen would not apply her face-cream until she was definitely alone
for the night.) "Now do go straight to bed, my dear. Do think of your
health. I don't expect for a _moment_ I shall have to knock for you,
but if I should I'd like to feel that you'd begun with a good sleep.
If I wake up, only my hot food will send me off again, and I
particularly want a good night because of my bridge-party to-morrow
afternoon. So _do_ go to bed, my dear. _Do_ oblige me."

"Oh, I will," Eva replied, with an acquiescent smile.

Lady Helen nodded a benevolent and bright dismissal.

"D--n the old hag!" Eva murmured indifferently to herself in her own
room. "She had me up at three this morning, and she'll have me up at
three to-morrow morning. D--n the old hag!"

Then the wicked, unscrupulous, deceitful girl took a blue feather
flower out of a drawer, pinned it on her left shoulder, put a necklace
round her neck, and crept from the chamber. She hesitated at the head
of the staircase; the sound of dance-music was ascending from the far
depth below. She tripped down, storey after storey.... She was at
large in the freedom, the colour, the movement, the well-bred noise of
the huge, fashionable hotel.


II

In the same hotel, but in another bedroom, separated from Eva's by
scores of yards of carpeted corridors flanked with white numbered
doors and pairs of boots and sleepy, seated attendants awaiting the
sound of bells, and by broad staircases, and by cushioned lifts that
reduced the staircases to mere sloping survivals of an earlier
civilization--in this other bedroom stood a man named Fonting (M.D.,
M.R.C.P., M.R.C.S.), hesitant.

He glanced round the room, and remarked to himself in his observant
sociological way how in all great capitals and cities of pleasure, all
hotel-bedrooms were alike: same bedstead, same bedding, same curtains,
same illumination, same sofas, same easy-chair, same gadgetty
wardrobe, same lavatory basin, with same bright taps, same
bell-pushes, same radiator, same bare walls without fireplace, and
same admonitions to visitors incorrectly composed and printed in three
languages. The whole very convenient, warm, dry as the Sahara,
unventilated and unhygienic--and described as the last syllable of
luxury and priced accordingly.

Dr. Fonting had had a severe attack of influenza in Queen Anne Street,
London, W.1. He had prescribed for himself one month's holiday. He
had found a satisfactory _locum tenens_ to take care of his
interesting and unusual practice (in which electricity played an
important part.) And he was spending his holiday in a tour of personal
inspection of those continental health-resorts which he had never
before seen but to which for years he had been 'ordering' wealthy
patients on the strength of information gathered from books. He had
curiously examined the French and Italian Rivieras, and the loftier
hotel centres of Switzerland, and now he was in Northern Italy.

A bachelor aged forty, he was travelling alone. Unlike most people, he
enjoyed travelling alone. There was much to see and learn--especially
from servants; he had the art of talking easily to strangers,
especially women; true, he was snubbed now and then, but he received a
devil of a lot of smiling response from innumerable persons--the
lively, the adventurous, or the desperately bored.

To-night, somewhat fatigued and preoccupied, he had retired early to
his monastic cell. He gazed at himself in the mirror of the cedar
wardrobe, thoughtfully doffed his dinner-jacket and pulled to pieces
the smart bow of his black necktie. Then he stopped the process of
undressing, and walked about, and looked at his watch.

"It's only ten-twenty," said he to himself. "She may appear in the
ballroom yet."

In the afternoon an incident had happened to him in front of the
hotel. An old lady and a young one had driven up in a sleigh. When
they had extricated themselves from the rugs of the sleigh, Dr.
Fonting had seen a handbag lying on the ground. Nobody else had seen
it. Dr. Fonting had picked it up. "Oh, your bag!" the young lady had
exclaimed, turning round at the same moment. She had slipped, and the
jerk had  disarranged her tam-o'-shanter of coloured wools,
disclosing the disposition of her glossy brown hair, which alluringly
descended lower on one side of her forehead than on the other. She had
taken the bag from the offering hand of Dr. Fonting, and thanked him
with a bow and a most beautiful smile. A very ordinary incident,
extending over a period of perhaps ten seconds, an incident such as
might happen to any man. Nothing! But the smile and the alluring
disposition of the hair had remained steadfast in Dr. Fonting's
receptive mind.

He had had one glimpse of the girl in the crowded dining-room.

Dr. Fonting slowly re-tied his cravat, resumed his dinner-jacket, and
left the bedroom, smiling all the time. Because he wanted not to hurry
he chose the staircase in preference to the lift. And on the staircase
he paused to collect his ideas and discover precisely what his ideas
were: and stared out of a long window. Snow! Mountain peaks! Moon!
Stars! Gleaming electric lights! Black fir-trees! White roofs!

The village was a village of hotels, lost in the heights of mountains.
To be exact, 4,200 feet above sea-level. Miles and miles from
anywhere. But the jazzy sounds of the hotel orchestra ascended from
the depths of the well of the staircase.

The contrast between the exterior and the interior phenomena provoked
sociological thought. So that the astounding organism of expensive
pleasure might exist and smoothly function, everything was brought
daily from the distant plains below: foods, fuel, cigarettes, cigars,
newspapers, saxophones sometimes, all luxuries, all apparatus. Amid
the surrounding frost and snow, in which unprotected humanity would
perish in a night, ices were made in the hotel kitchens to finish off
a six-course meal. The very stones and wood and metal of which the
hotels were constructed had been dragged up the mountain-sides load by
load.

A complete microcosm and example of a highly complex material
civilization had been implanted on the wide polar waste. And Dr.
Fonting had seen dozens of such microcosms and examples, some on the
sea-shore, others on the high hills. It was as if half the world
consisted of such microcosms and examples, in which money was spent
furiously, hysterically, madly, while the other half was given to hard
work in circumstances of squalor and drudgery.

"Something wrong!" said Dr. Fonting to himself. "Trouble ahead! But
it's very agreeable."

He went down the staircase, thinking of this and of that, and at the
bottom, in the great foyer, on the corresponding staircase which
served the other wing of the hotel, he saw the girl of the hair and
the smile. She was in black, with a blue feather flower on the left
shoulder. An even more delicious fact: she was alone; she looked
alone.

Fate seemed to be working quite symmetrically.


III

Eva saw descending the opposite staircase the man who had handed her
the bag at the hotel-entrance in the late afternoon. She was glad that
she had planted the flower on her shoulder. She had put it there so
that if she met a certain man he might see it and be agreeably
impressed by her appearance as thereby enhanced. Here was the man. She
felt that after all not everything was wrong with the world. A dark
man, a very dark man for an Anglo-Saxon. Dark eyes. Black, shining
hair. Blue chin. She liked a man's chin to be blue; masculine quality
in a blue chin! Not tall, nor short: a good figure and a good
carriage; firm tread on the stairs. Nice features. A pleasant
expression, if a bit masterful, but if masterful, benevolent in its
masterfulness. Age? Under forty. Yes, he must be under forty, because
she desired that he should be under forty. Probably only thirty-five.
Bachelor? Of course. He had the virginal, nave look which no married
man can preserve for a week; but which a bachelor, any and every
bachelor, is capable of carrying to the grave. No woman had ever with
the voice of authority told that man that he ought to go and get his
hair cut. Not that his hair did need attention; it was perfect. A
barrister? Something of the sort, no doubt. But supposing that he was
one of those hotel adventurers who lived on their wits; they were
reputed to be very ingratiating! Well, she didn't care, for the
moment, if he was. She tasted the moment and was satisfied.

He smiled, frankly, openly, and bowed. No nonsense about him. She
could do no less than return the greeting.

The band ceased to play dance music, suddenly, in the middle of a bar,
and became martial.

"Is it the national anthem?" he suggested, as they approached one
another.

"Not ours," she replied.

This remark seemed somehow, to Eva's fancy, to make them comrades in a
foreign world.

"No," said he.

He was new to the hotel. She explained that the princes must be
entering the ballroom. There were three princes, with a couple of
princesses, and suites. Had he not noticed them in the dining-room?
No? Well, they had a long table in the corner. Ate there just like
other people. No fuss, except that when they came in, or went out,
other people rose. Yes, the princes were quite democratic; danced with
all sorts of women; but their partners, except the princesses,
curtsied to them at the end of each dance.

"I'm talking a lot," thought Eva. "Nervousness." She fell silent.

"I'd like to see them," said the man.

The national anthem ended, and the dance-tune was resumed.

By a common impulse they moved towards the ballroom. A rather splendid
apartment, simply but effectively decorated with huge balls of light,
and yellow and red streamers that hung from the high ceiling to
symbolize flames. White tables all round the room, with glasses and
carafes and women's bags and newspapers and things. Many glittering
frocks, some of them extremely smart. The dancers circled about a
tissue-paper pillar of yellow light that had been created on the
centre of the parquet floor. A rich, noisy scene! Heated, excited
atmosphere!

"There they are," said Eva, as she and the dark man peeped between
black shoulders and pink shoulders. The royal party was assembled in
an alcove at the end of the room. A girl was in the very act of
curtseying to an old white-moustached prince. The old prince politely
and negligently took her girlish hand. Vienna! Versailles! Really
rather piquant.

"Can't I find you a seat?" the dark man suggested, after they had
watched for a while. "There's an empty table over there."

Eva thought:

"He's a bit casual. As if I could be seen sitting there with a
stranger! This must be checked."

She said, pointing to the sofas behind them on the raised border which
surrounded the dancing-floor:

"Perhaps here would be better."

They sat down upon an empty sofa, from which they could see only the
moving heads of dancers across a hedge of tables and seated figures.
Neither spoke.

Eva thought:

"How ridiculous it is that people have to keep on talking! I don't
want to talk. Only you can't be mum without feeling awkward. I've no
business to be here. I wish I'd never come. No, I don't. Why doesn't
he say something?" Nervously she patted the feather flower.

The man said:

"Those prince fellows must have rather a thin time, surely. Always
being curtsied to. And nothing to do, really. Especially the young
ones. In these days."

Eva responded instantly, with warmth:

"Oh! I often think of it. Especially the young ones. It must be a
terrible life. But it's a terrible life for everyone here. Nearly
everyone," she modified her assertion.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, idling about. Plenty of them never do anything but go on from
place to place; and all the places are the same. Spending money that
other people have earned. The boredom! They're all selfish. How could
they be anything else?"

"I suppose all the places _are_ the same," said the man reflectively.

"You know them of course."

"Yes," said he. And named a dozen resorts which he had visited.

Eva felt the chill of disappointment. For all his nice smile and
deportment the man was merely another of the eternal loungers and
wasters. She stiffened in her original attitude instead of changing it
to suit his case. A pause. The man's eyes twinkled obscurely. The
expression of his face had lost none of its attractiveness.

"But _you_ go to all of them, too," he remarked, gazing straight at
her.

"Ah!" she answered firmly, almost bitterly. "Only because I'm paid
to."

"Are you a journalist, may I ask?"

"No. I'm companion to Lady Helen Stanger."

"Lady Helen Stanger? Never heard of her."

Eva thought:

"He's inclined to be rather free. But wouldn't the old hag have hated
to hear that! And his tone too!"

"You saw me with her this afternoon. She's a widow, and very rich and
getting old. She's one of those that are always going on from place to
place. But naturally it's different for old people. I was thinking of
the young ones. Look at that smart young man there. He's a lovely
dancer, and a fine ski-er. But why isn't he at work somewhere, and not
idling here week after week?"

"Do you know him? Who is he?"

"Haven't the slightest idea, and I don't want to know him. Only I
can't help seeing him."

She gave a short laugh. But the kind look had momentarily vanished
from her features.


IV

At this point of the conversation Dr. Fonting began to perceive that
he was up against something solid--namely a girl of character.

Said he to himself:

"She's a nice girl, a very nice girl, a girl you could count on if
there was any trouble about. Only she's at loggerheads with her world,
which really oughtn't to be her world. She's serious and a fighter,
and I should imagine she's a fanatic for work, and here she finds
herself in a world of idleness and frivolity. But she's certainly a
bit free with her tongue. She's got hold of the wrong end of the stick
with me. She thinks I'm one of the wasters, and she's preaching at me.
Unless of course, she's putting me amongst the old and excusing me on
that score!"

He laughed easily in his heart, because he did not feel any older than
Eva looked. He was too proud, or too mischievous, to tell her the
truth about himself. He liked fun, and he would be the cat to her
mouse--but a benevolent cat. And there was the possibility that,
though a mouse, she might turn on him and defend herself with the
ferocity of a rat. The prospect pleased him.

And he was slightly and not at all disagreeably piqued by her fearless
demeanour before him--him a professional medical woman-tamer, who was
accustomed by voice and glance and the use of vast experience to tear
away the masks of hysteria, neurasthenia, self-indulgence, vice, and
compel his fashionable patients to acknowledge, humbled and broken,
that they were what they in fact were. He had seen many elegant ladies
in moral defeat. His method was, when their resistance was smashed, to
build up their confidence again in a new way, with assurances and
benevolences and all understanding sympathy. None could be sterner,
but none could be kinder, than he.

Eva said:

"It's a mystery to me why a lot of these people come here,
particularly the men. They could just as well dance and drink
cocktails and stay up till two o'clock in the morning at home as
here."

"The snow?"

"Snow!"

"The ice?"

"Ice! Why? There's only one pond about as big as a small garden. And
they have it lit by electricity so that they can skate by moonlight! And
boys to put their skates on for them. And women to serve them drinks by
the side of the pond. And as for the snow, they go up a hill in the
sleigh and slide down it on skis. And they tumble all the time, and they
don't brush the snow off their clothes because it makes them look so
sporting. And if they go out of sight of the hotels they take a guide
with them to keep them safe. I can understand Alpine-climbing--there's
something in that, some hard work and some danger. But this! I should
like to see one of these beautiful young dancing-men go for an excursion
alone. I should like to see him out alone in a snow-storm. Why! He'd die
of fright before he died of cold."

She was savage.

"Do you go out alone, may I ask?"

"I'm not a man. And I've never had the chance to learn to ski. Yes, I
do go out alone. Every Thursday afternoon. That's my afternoon off,
when Lady Helen arranges one of her numerous bridge-parties. Next
Thursday I shall go by the Teleferica railway--aerial, you know--to
the Belvedere on the Maiola peak, and I shall walk down."

"But supposing it's snowing?"

"I shall go."

"Dangerous, wouldn't it be?"

"That's why I love it."

"Seems to me, if I may say so, you've chosen the wrong vocation."

Her face softened into a sudden smile. She was her beautiful self
again.

Dr. Fonting thought:

"She's got a sense of humour, anyhow. I've talked to about a thousand
girls in forty hotels, and this one's the first of her brand I've come
across."

"I didn't choose my vocation," she said. "It chose me. I doubt if I
was brought up to choose vocations."

Then the concierge of the hotel came vaguely along with searching eye,
and his eye lighted on Eva. He bent over her, and murmured in an
accent half-Austrian and half-Italian:

"Lady Helen Stangers has sent a message."

Eva's face set hard once more. She rose and bowed rather awkwardly to
the doctor.

"Good night."

"Er--good night," said the cat, disappointed at the unexpected escape
of his mouse.


V

On her Thursday afternoon Eva, clad chiefly in the wool of sheep, with
ribbed indiarubber under the soles of her feet, sat in the three
o'clock Teleferica car which by means of steel cables--one supporting
it and the other pulling it--swam slantingly over fields of snow and
over the tops of larch trees up to the Maiola peak where was a
Belvedere and a restaurant. The small car was nearly filled with
'natives' of the higher villages, but there were two or three male
'visitors' whose skis and ski-sticks had been deposited in the
baggage-carrier that trailed behind on pulleys of its own.

The telephone-bell had rung a signal from the Belvedere summit, and
the car was just starting when the dark man appeared and jumped into
the car. This apparition presented itself to the 'natives' as merely
another specimen of the incalculable 'visitor,' but into Eva's heart
it struck a species of alarm, even of terror. She had some, if not
all, of the feelings appropriate to a great crisis in her life. She
felt as though fate had got her into a corner, as though she was being
implacably hunted, as though her safety depended on a presence of mind
which she could not possibly command. And yet at the same time she
felt triumphant, condescending, and mistress of a most marvellous
situation.

She said to herself:

"What an extraordinary and exciting coincidence!"

But she also said to herself:

"He has been tracking me. He is here because I am here, because I
happened to tell him that this afternoon I should be going up to the
Maiola. He didn't seem to be taking any particular notice when I told
him. But he did take notice. He's been thinking about coming and now
he actually has come!"

And then again she said to herself:

"I am an idiot. Of course it's sheer chance. Everybody goes up in the
Teleferica to the Maiola peak sooner or later."

The dark man saw her and greeted her. He held out his hand, which she
took in a carefully non-committal manner. She had not see him, except
quite momentarily at a distance, since their interrupted conversation
in the ballroom. She knew not who he was, nor anything about him; for
she had made no inquiry--partly because, having been almost
continuously attached to the offended person of Lady Helen, she had
had no opportunity to inquire.

Besides, how could she have inquired? Was she to have bluntly demanded
information from the concierge? Unthinkable. Had she known the number
of his room she might have discovered his name from the visitors'
board that flanked the concierge's desk. But she had no notion of the
number of his room. And if she could not ask for his name, a million
times less could she ask for the number of his room. No! If you are a
single young woman in a hotel, you can remain ignorant for ever in the
midst of knowledge.

Eva had one of the two seats abutting on the front platform of the
car. The dark man stood on the front platform, leaning over the side.
She regretted that he wore a moustache, but was glad that he was not
arrayed in the absurd, wild, mountaineering costume affected by young
men who refrained from mountaineering. He was in an ordinary thick
tweed suit, with a leather waistcoat beneath the coat, a vast muffler
round his neck, and boots not unlike her own.

"I'm surprised to see you here in this thing," he said, leaning his
head sideways towards her and over her.

She had a very near view of his blue chin, which, however, in her
opinion, looked better further off.

"What a fib!" she thought, and said aloud: "Then you've forgotten I
told you I should go up by it this afternoon to the Maiola peak." She
could be firm.

"Oh! Did you? I'm sorry. I remember you said you were going up to the
what's-its-name Peak one day. But I thought with your athletic tastes
you'd walk up as well as down."

"It's a question of daylight," she answered, primly, ignoring his free
quizzicalness. "I can't get away before two-thirty, and if I walked up
I should have to come down in the dark--and you can't."

"Then why not walk up and come down in the car?"

"Because it's nicer to walk down," she said coldly.

She had no desire to speak with coldness; an instinct compelled her to
do so. She defeated the instinct by ending with a very friendly,
semi-humorous smile. She would have wished to be dazzlingly brilliant
in repartee; but she had all she could do to keep her head; and a
machine was thumping loudly in her breast. Fortunately the grating
noise of the pulleys on the supporting cable and the straining of the
tractor-cable made it impossible for anyone but herself to hear the
noisy, uncontrollable machine within. The car swayed slightly as it
advanced through the keen air. Some of the natives were chatting
vivaciously in their incomprehensible tongue. The dark man leaned over
the parapet of the platform.

A pause.

"It's funny to see trees from the top," said he.

"Yes," she agreed. "I don't like to look over. Makes me giddy; and I
can't help thinking what would happen if the cable broke."

The dark man smiled indulgently, without looking at her. Another
pause. The dark man gazed up at the sky.

"Snow?" he questioned, facing her now.

"I hope not."

"Looks a bit like it."

"Oh! I don't think so."

"Supposing it does snow?"

"Well," she retorted. "Supposing it does?"

"Shall you walk down in the snow?"

"Why not?"

Some disdain in her voice--disdain of the waster, the idler who
flitted from hotel to hotel in the cities of pleasure. But the disdain
was not unmixed with a warm appreciation of, and delight in, the
sympathetic quality of his facial play and his voice. Perhaps, indeed,
she was only simulating disdain for her own satisfaction.

"We're flying over a village now," said the man.

"Yes."

More pauses.

"By Jove!" said the man. "This last piece is a shade steep, isn't it?"

"Yes, I believe it is."

They seemed to be ascending parallel with the front of a jagged
precipice in whose ledges lay thick white snow. The car swam to the
terminus, ceased to roll, pitched for a few seconds and then lay
still. The passengers got out.

"Those are ski-ers, I suppose," said the man, pointing to tiny flying
black shapes far down the snowy slopes.

"Yes."

"Snow," said the man, as if mischievously.

It had indeed begun to snow.

"It's all fearfully romantic," said the man.

She thought she detected the tremor of a thrill in his voice.


VI

Dr. Fonting did not ask Eva whether he might walk down the mountain
with her; he assumed the permission. And she seemed to expect him to
assume it. Nor did he ask her whether she intended to walk down
despite the snow. He assumed the intention.

He said to himself:

"If she wants to withdraw and return by the Teleferica, let her say
so. I won't make the suggestion--not if it snows elephants and
hippopotamuses."

She did not withdraw.

"Now," said she. "There are two ways down. The sleigh road, which is
very long because it winds all round the mountain, and the path, which
is steeper but much shorter. I suppose you'd prefer the sleigh road. I
always take the path."

"Let's take the path, then," he replied carelessly. He was gazing at
her as she stood in front of him--short-skirted, booted, socked (with
a bright-coloured border), stockinged, tam-o'-shantered, a scarf
thrown over her shoulder, stick in gloved hand; and such a firm,
benevolent, slightly satirical, utterly delicious look on her rosy
face. All in the dancing, flitting snow.

Not a word did she utter about the snow, nor about the first faint
shades of dusk that were heralding the night.

He said to himself:

"This is a great moment. And I don't care a d--n what happens."

Things very soon began to happen. The path was exceedingly steep, and
now and then slippery even to ribbed indiarubber soles. In places it
did not descend--it fell; and Dr. Fonting thought fit to proceed
crab-wise. Twice the path divided into two, but the girl showed no
hesitation in choosing her way.

He asked himself:

"How many miles of this?"

In quite a few minutes the two were alone in a world of snow. There
was nothing but the path above and the path below, a black tree here
and there, white wastes, and the hovering snow. Also the light had
already considerably failed in the hollows of the mountain where the
path led.

Dr. Fonting had meant to talk to her, to worm himself into the
interesting privacies of the girl's mind. But there was not the least
chance to do so. They could not walk side by side for lack of room on
the path. She was always in front. Moreover, all his faculties were
monopolized by the business of keeping his feet while in motion. Every
step had to be considered.

Then that happened which might well happen. The girl stumbled and
fell; and her stick flew over the edge of the path into the snow
field. She rolled and reached equilibrium on her back. Dr. Fonting had
a sense of triumph. Not he, but she, had fallen. She did not move. He
reached her and bent over her. Through the flickering veil of snow he
saw her give a difficult smile. He knelt. Her face twitched.

"I think I've broken my ankle. Or sprained it."

"Which one?"

"The left.... No, please don't touch me."

He withdrew his approaching hands.

Time passed.

"Well," he asked. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Don't know."

Night would soon be closing down on them.

"I'd better go for help."

"You'll never find the way."

"I could go back."

"You'll get mixed up in the turns."

"Then down."

"Just as difficult. If you got into the snowfield you'd never get out
again."

"Are you in any pain?"

"A bit."

"Have a cigarette."

They both smoked. The flame of the match was friendly, enheartening,
but it was gone in a moment.

"Look here," said Dr. Fonting, "we can't stay here like this for
ever." He was beginning to feel very cold. The dark of her costume was
whitening. "There must be some village not far off. I shall see a
light somewhere."

"But you mayn't be able to reach it. Don't I say you'd never get out
of the snowfield if you lost your way. There's four feet of snow.
You'd sink into it, and you couldn't move. Don't I know?"

Dr. Fonting was now seriously perturbed.

"But I could try. Anyhow, there's no earthly point in waiting like
this."

"But I don't want to be left alone. I might be alone all night."

"Somebody might come down--or up."

"Not by this path."

"All right then," said Dr. Fonting.

He started to shovel snow from the banked edge of the path over her
legs.

"To keep you warm," said he.

The cigarettes were finished and thrown away, regretfully, almost
tragically. Dr. Fonting stamped his feet for warmth and exercised his
arms.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Dr. Fonting answered grimly:

"Well, what do you think I'm going to do? I shan't leave you."

"But you must!" she said, contradicting herself. "You might be frozen
to death."

"I shall be frozen to death then," he agreed, and gruffly laughed.

She made no remark. More time passed.

"Listen," he said. "I've got to examine that ankle of yours, before
it's quite dark. I'm a doctor."

She sat up, startled, deranging the snow with which he had covered
her.

"There's nothing wrong with the ankle, so far as I can see," he said,
after he had carefully felt it.

"Isn't there?"

"There isn't. It's all imagination. Auto-suggestion. Please stand up."

She stood up.

"I believe you're right," she said.

They proceeded in the thickening gloom down the mountain.

Just before they came to the hotel Dr. Fonting said:

"One moment. I'm leaving to-morrow morning early. Perhaps I shan't see
you to-night. You thought I was a rotter and you'd test me. I hope
you're satisfied, miss."

Without a word, the mouse ran into the hotel.

"Yes," he called angrily after her. "I can see through you plain
enough." Then he added: "But you're a bit of the right stuff, after
all."


VII

The next morning at an early hour Lady Helen Stanger was wakened by
unusual noises in her companion's room. Lady Helen accordingly knocked
on the wall, and within a few seconds was startled almost out of her
grand, ineffable calm by the appearance of Eva in full travelling
costume.

"I was just coming in to you, my lady," Eva greeted her employer.

The form of address provided a further shock for Lady Helen.

"My _dear_!" said Lady Helen benevolently. "What _is_ the matter?"

"My trunk and suit-case going downstairs, my lady."

"But why?"

"I'm going with them."

"Where?"

"Home to my mother and sister."

"To London?"

"Yes. North Kensington."

"But why?"

"Because from the way your ladyship spoke to me the other night when
you sent for me, I thought that I wasn't giving you satisfaction."

"But you can't leave me like this!"

"Why not, my lady? A month's wages will be due to me to-morrow. Your
ladyship must keep them instead of notice."

"But what am I to _do_?"

"Your ladyship will do without me."

"I am an old woman."

"Yes, my lady. You are old. But your ladyship has a magnificent
constitution, and your health is perfect. Good-bye, my lady. I haven't
a moment to lose."

"_Well!_ Of all the--! What _are_ things coming to? I--"

Eva did not hear the rest.

The sleighs of Dr. Fonting and Eva drew up at the station within half
a minute of each other, and just as the dawn was completing itself.

"What!" Dr. Fonting exclaimed with obvious joy.

"I've been called straight back to London to my mother," Eva said
untruthfully. "It's very fortunate, in a way, because I did want to
tell you how ashamed I am--about last night."

"Ashamed?" repeated Dr. Fonting. "But I never admired a young woman
more. Have you had my letter?"

"Your letter? No. I haven't had any letter." At word of a letter she
could no more conceal her bliss than the dark man concealed his.

"That's that rotten concierge! However, it doesn't matter. Now can I
help you about registering your luggage? Or will you help me in
registering mine?"

In such wise did the long idyll begin.




  _Made and Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis and Son, Limited,
  The Trinity Press, Worcester, and London_.
  F.63.831




WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR


  _NOVELS_

  A MAN FROM THE NORTH
  ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
  WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
  BURIED ALIVE
  THE OLD WIVES' TALE
  THE GLIMPSE
  HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
  THE LION'S SHARE
  CLAYHANGER
  HILDA LESSWAYS
  THESE TWAIN
  THE ROLL-CALL
  THE STRANGE VANGUARD
  IMPERIAL PALACE
  LEONORA
  A GREAT MAN
  THE PRICE OF LOVE
  THE CARD
  THE REGENT
  THE PRETTY LADY
  MR. PROHACK
  LILIAN
  RICEYMAN STEPS
  LORD RAINGO
  ACCIDENT


  _FANTASIAS_

  THE GHOST
  THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
  TERESA OF WATLING STREET
  THE LOOT OF CITIES
  HUGO
  THE GATES OF WRATH
  THE CITY OF PLEASURE


  _SHORT STORIES_

  TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  ELSIE AND THE CHILD
  THE WOMAN WHO STOLE EVERYTHING


  _BELLES-LETTRES_

  JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
  FAME AND FICTION
  HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
  THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
  MENTAL EFFICIENCY
  HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
  THE HUMAN MACHINE
  FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
  HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF LIFE
  SELF AND SELF-MANAGEMENT
  THOSE UNITED STATES
  PARIS NIGHTS
  BOOKS AND PERSONS
  THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT
  FROM THE LOG OF THE "VELSA"
  OUR WOMEN
  THINGS THAT HAVE INTERESTED ME (3 SERIES)
  JOURNAL 1929
  MARRIED LIFE
  LITERARY TASTE
  LIBERTY
  OVER THERE: WAR SCENES
  MEDITERRANEAN SCENES


  _DRAMAS_

  THE SAVOUR OF LIFE
  POLITE FARCES
  WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
  THE HONEYMOON
  JUDITH
  SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
  THE LOVE MATCH
  DON JUAN
  CUPID AND COMMON SENSE
  THE TITLE
  THE GREAT ADVENTURE
  BODY AND SOUL
  THE BRIGHT ISLAND


  _In Collaboration with Edward Knoblock_

  MILESTONES
  LONDON LIFE
  MR. PROHACK


  _In Collaboration with Eden Phillpotts_

  THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE
  THE STATUE: A ROMANCE


[End of _The Night Visitor and Other Stories_ by Arnold Bennett]
