PART II

[Cover Illustration]

_The Land of_

_Afternoon_

A SATIRE

BY

_Gilbert Knox_

OTTAWA

THE GRAPHIC PUBLISHERS

_Copyright, 1924_

_By Gilbert Knox_

PRINTED IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_The Land of Afternoon_

_By_ GILBERT KNOX

PART ONE ...................................THEY CAME.

PART TWO ....................................THEY SAW.

PART THREE ..............................THEY CONQUERED.

“Courage,” he said, and pointed to the land.

“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon,”

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

—_The Lotus Eaters_

_Foreword_

However this novel may be classified by readers or librarians, it is

frankly intended to be a satire upon some phases of social and political

life in Canada. Satire is properly a criticism of human folly or

unworthiness in a class or in the mass, and the exact limning of people

in real life is no part of its metier. When it makes such an attempt, it

ceases to be satire and tends to become biography seasoned with

defamation—a sad misuse of what is broadly regarded as a medium for the

regeneration of society.

* * * * *

But however satire is regarded in the abstract by his readers, the

author desires it to be clearly understood that all the characters upon

his stage are purely imaginary. While he thought it necessary to occupy

himself with some unpleasant minor types, on the other hand, he felt an

optimistic joy in the creation of his protagonist. He feels that

“Raymond Dilling” is no false start with the practical ethics of

Superman. On the contrary, he believes that there are many men with whom

we mingle in every-day contact, who, if put to the test, would react

with a moral firmness and fineness quite measurable with “Dilling’s”

conduct.

First Imprint, October, 1925

Second Imprint, December, 1925

THE

LAND OF AFTERNOON

THEY CAME

CHAPTER 1.

Byward Market had been freshened during the night by a heavy fall of

powdery snow, that knew no peace from a bitter wind which drove it, in

stinging clouds, up and down the street. The thermometer had made its

record drop of the season.

Marjorie Dilling stood on the outskirts of a tight-packed group and

shivered. The strangeness of the scene struck her afresh; the sense of

loneliness was almost overpowering. She simply could not bring herself

to push and jostle as the other women did—and a few men,

too!—consequently she was always thrust away from the curb and

prevented from seeing what lay beneath the furs and blankets and odd

bits of cloth in the carts. Only now and again could she catch a glimpse

of a tower of frozen beef, or rigid hogs which were trundled by their

hind legs through the thronged streets, in a manner strongly suggestive

of a wheelbarrow. Or, as the crowds broke and parted, she could

occasionally see a stiff fringe of poultry and rabbits strung across the

ends of the wagons. Eggs, butter, vegetables and cream were well

covered, and spared in so far as possible, the rigours of the morning.

Byward was an open market which attracted farmers from districts as

remote as the Upper Gatineau—across the river, in the Province of

Quebec. Behind the line of carts or sleighs—automobiles, now!—there

ran a row of nondescript buildings that rarely claimed the attention of

the marketers; a confusion of second-hand stores, an occasional produce

shop, and third-rate public houses, whose broad windows revealed a

cluster of dilapidated chairs flanked by battered _crachoirs_, which had

seen many years of unspeakable service. Behind these, a narrow passage

led to the abode of spirits, of the kind latterly and peculiarly called

departed. Here, the farmers gathered for warmth in winter and coolness

in summer, and to slake—or intensify—their thirst in either season,

while their women-folk remained in discomfort outside, and attended to

the practical issues of the day.

The sigh that fluttered from Marjorie’s lips took form like a ghostly

balloon and floated away on the frosty air. Her basket was light and her

spirits were heavy. She found it incredibly difficult to shop in the

Ottawa market. She simply dreaded Saturday mornings.

At the corner, where the wind whipped down the street and few people

cared to linger, she found herself standing before an ancient crone, who

sat amid an assortment of roughly-cured hides, and under a huge,

weather-stained umbrella. At her feet lay a rusty pail overflowing with

a curious mass that looked like bloated sausages in the last stages of

decay.

“What—what is that?” asked Marjorie, in her soft timid voice.

The old woman made unintelligible sounds from between toothless gums.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I tol’ you, it is _sang pouding_. ’Ow much you want?”

“I don’t want any, thank you,” answered Marjorie. “I was looking for

some sweetbreads. Have you any?”

“Sweet _bread_?” echoed the ancient, grumpily. “Well, why you don’ look

on de store, hein? W’at you t’ink I am—de baker’s cart?”

Although unaware of the complexities of the French tongue and the French

character, Marjorie perceived a rebuff in the old woman’s words. She

apologised hastily and moved away. What, she kept asking herself, could

she substitute for sweetbreads? Chickens were expensive and eggs, a

fabulous price. Nobody in Ottawa seemed to keep hens . . .

“Have _you_ any sweetbreads?”

She began to feel a little hysterical. It _was_ a funny question! No

wonder the old woman answered her crossly. Have you any sweetbreads?

_How_ many times had she asked it? She thought of the game the children

played—_Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?_ And what on earth

should she get in place of sweetbreads? Raymond was so difficult about

his food. He had such a tiny and pernickety appetite . . .

By wriggling, she gained the curb before another cart.

“Have _you_ any sweetbreads?”

No one paid her the slightest heed. The centre of the stage was held by

a tall, spare woman with a stridulous voice. Marjorie knew her slightly.

Two weeks ago she had called—not as people called at home, in Pinto

Plains—but sternly and coldly, neither giving nor receiving pleasure by

the visit, save when she had laid three bits of pasteboard on the corner

of the table and left the house. Mrs. Pratt was the wife of a cheerfully

ineffectual professional man with political aspirations, and she felt

her position keenly. So did Marjorie; and she backed away while

summoning her courage to speak.

“A dollar and a half?” Mrs. Pratt was saying. “Outrageous! I can’t think

what you people are coming to! I’ll give you a dollar and a quarter, and

not one penny more.” She indicated a pair of frozen chickens, each with

a large mauve face, that lay exposed on an old red blanket.

“Can’t do it, lady,” said the farmer, with chattering teeth, “it cost me

mor’n that to feed them this three year,” and he winked heavily at the

surrounding circle.

“Oh, they’re fowl! Well then, of course, they’re not worth that much!

There’s a woman across the road,”—Mrs. Pratt swept her muff vaguely

towards the horizon and unconsciously disarranged Marjorie’s hat,—“who

is selling her fowl for eighty cents!”

“_I’ll_ take them,” cried a woman at this juncture. “It’s too cold to

haggle over a few cents. Giv’um to me!” She thrust a dollar and a half

into the man’s hand, seized the chickens and started off.

“Those are mine!” called Mrs. Pratt, in a tone that rivalled the

sharpness of the atmosphere.

“You take the others at eighty cents,” returned the woman, amid a ripple

of laughter.

“Impertinence!” snapped Mrs. Pratt, as she turned away.

Marjorie drifted on, her basket still empty. These awful Saturday

mornings! They seemed to accentuate her loneliness. Of course, the cold

discouraged long conversations and the exchange of tittle-tattle that

makes shopping, to some people, so delightful, but she was aware of the

greetings that passed between women as they met—a tip, perhaps, as to

some bargain, or a brief reference to some impending social

function—and she would have been grateful for even the smallest sign of

friendly recognition. Frequently, she saw people who had called upon

her, but evidently she had made too little impression to be remembered.

How different from Pinto Plains, where everybody knew her and cordiality

was mutual!

She noticed that many of the ladies who came into church richly dressed

on Sundays, wore the most dreadfully shabby clothes at market, but it

was not until long afterwards, she understood that this was part of a

scheme for economy—for beating the farmers at their own game. They

disguised themselves that they might give no hint as to the fatness of

their bank account, thus implying that well-to-do shoppers were asked a

higher price than those of obviously modest means. These same

shabbily-clad ladies never seemed to buy very much, and Marjorie often

wondered how it was worth their while to spend the morning with so

little result. In those days, she didn’t realise that they had left

their motors round the corner, and that their parcels were transferred,

two or three at a time, to a liveried chauffeur who sat in a heated car

and read stimulating items from the _Eye-Opener_.

Others, she learned, dragged overflowing baskets into one of the “Market

Stores,” whose prices were known to be a few cents in excess of those

demanded by the owners of the carts. Here, they made an insignificant

purchase, thereby placing the onus of free delivery on the shoulders of

the management. The degree to which this practice was employed varied

with the temperament of the shopper. Those of a less sensitive nature,

felt no hesitation in asking Lavalee, the aristocratic Purveyor of Sea

Food and Game, to send home six dollars’ worth of marketing with a pound

of smelts. Likewise, Smithson suffered the exigencies of trade, not only

delivering the type of foodstuffs that he didn’t keep, but every week of

the year he was asked to send home the very things that were purchasable

in his own store and which had been bought for a few cents less, half a

block away. Seeing the baskets of produce that were piled high on the

sidewalk every Saturday morning, Marjorie wondered how it was worth

while for him to carry on his business or maintain his livery, at all!

Having made a few purchases, she set off down Mosgrove Street for the

tram as fast as her burden would permit, when she came for the second

time upon Mrs. Pratt, still searching for a bargain in chickens.

“One seventy-five?” she was saying. “Sheer piracy! I refused a much

better pair for a dollar fifty!”

“Call it a dollar fifty, ma’am,” agreed the farmer, between spasms of

coughing. “The wife’ll give me the devil, but I’m ’most dead with cold,

and I wanta go home.”

Pity for the man, coupled with a touch of innocent curiosity, tempted

Marjorie to linger close at hand and see the end of the transaction.

“But that’s what I’m telling you,” cried Mrs. Pratt. “They’re not worth

a dollar fifty. They’re miserable things. Half fed . . .” Her eyes

rested upon the owner resentfully, as though emphasising a definite

resemblance between him and his produce. “I’ll give you a dollar and a

quarter and not one penny more!”

“Oh, lady! I’ve gotta live!”

Something in the man’s tone told the astute lady that he was weakening,

that he needed the money, that the chickens were hers. She pushed a

dollar and a quarter into his hand, seized her purchase, and disappeared

round the corner, into a waiting limousine.

* * * * *

A little later that same morning, Marjorie, finding that the children

were all right in the care of Mrs. Plum, who “charred” her on Saturdays,

went down town to The Ancient Chattellarium. Her errand was simple. She

wished to have a piece of furniture repaired. It had been broken in the

moving, and one of her callers had given her this address.

The Chattellarium could not, even by the most vulgar, be called a shop.

It was an opulent apartment where elegant furniture was displayed—and

sold—at dignified prices. Marjorie Dilling paused uncertainly on the

threshold, feeling that she must, through error, have strayed into

someone’s residence.

But she hadn’t! A lady glanced over the rim of a lampshade she was

making, and invited her to enter.

“Just looking around?” she asked, with the instinct of one who

recognises the difference between a shopper and a buyer. “I’ve got some

rather nice things just unpacked,” and she went on sticking pins into

the dull-rose silk with which she was covering a huge wire frame.

“Thank you, very much,” answered Marjorie, stealing a timid glance over

her shoulder, “but I haven’t a great deal of time, and I really came to

see—if—if—to ask about getting a piece of furniture repaired. I was

told that I might have it done, here.”

The young lady took several pins from her mouth and looked up. She was

quite pretty and had a pleasant manner in spite of her way of addressing

most people as though they were her inferiors, and a few very prominent

people as though they were her equals. She talked incessantly, and it

had become her custom to illumine her speech with Glittering

Personalities.

She discovered Marjorie’s name and that her husband was a

recently-elected Back Bencher from an obscure little Western town, as

well as the nature of the repairs required, so cleverly, that she seemed

to be answering questions instead of asking them, and she was ever so

kind in promising to help.

“Of course, I _don’t_ do this sort of thing as a rule,” she explained,

“I simply _couldn’t_! My men are dreadfully overworked as it is, and we

are three months behind in our orders. But because I have just recently

repaired a dressing-table for Government House, and repolished a china

cabinet for Lady Elton, at Rockcliffe, I haven’t the conscience to

refuse _you_.”

Marjorie was rather uncomfortable after this speech. She had no earthly

wish to ask a favour, and felt unduly exalted by “being repaired” in

such impressive company. She tried to make this clear, and urged the

young lady to suggest some much more humble establishment or person.

“I feel at such a loss,” she explained, “not knowing where to turn

. . .” and then, when Miss Brant had insisted upon helping her out of

the difficulty, she said, “I wouldn’t dare trust it to just anyone, you

know. It’s such a lovely thing! Solid mahogany, a sort of what-not

design, with some of the little compartments enclosed in glass, and

mirrors at the back—and each shelf ending in a decoration like a wee,

little carved steeple. It’s one of the steeple things that is broken,

and one of the glass doors. I told Mr. Dilling,”—the young lady winced

when she spoke of her husband as “Mr. Dilling”—“that it reminded me of

a beautiful doll’s house, and that we would have to collect heaps of

souvenir spoons and things to fill it.”

“How interesting,” observed the other.

“And the association counts for so much, you see. The townspeople—our

friends—gave it to us when we left Pinto Plains; a kind of testimonial

it was, in the church. They said such beautiful things, I’ll never

forget it.” Her voice was husky.

“Charming,” murmured the young lady, wondering how such a pretty woman

could be so plain.

Marjorie asked to be given some idea of the price, but her enquiry was

waved airily aside. “Oh, don’t bother about that,” she was told. “It

will only be a matter of my workman’s time—” an implication that

translated itself to Mrs. Dilling in the terms of cents, but which to

the young lady resolved itself into about fifteen dollars.

Marjorie’s thanks were cut short by the entrance of two Arresting

Personalities.

One of them was Lady Fanshawe, the wife of a retired lumber magnate, and

the other—Mrs. Blaine—assisted her husband to discharge his social

duties as a Minister of the Crown.

“Well, well,” cried Miss Brant, assuming her other manner, “this _is_ a

surprise! I’m simply _thrilled_! Only yesterday, I was saying to Lady

Elton that I hadn’t seen you since the House opened. I’m _dying_ to tell

you all about my trip in England, and my _dear_, such things as I’ve

brought back! That’s one!” She indicated a red lacquer table. “Isn’t it

a perfect _dream_? And there’s another—no, no—not the mirror, the

table! It was positively and absolutely taken from Bleakshire Castle

where Disraeli used to visit, and there he sat to write some of his

marvellous speeches! Isn’t it _thrilling_?”

The ladies agreed that she had done very well, and moved about the

apartment under the spur of her constant direction. Marjorie, feeling

that she ought to go, but not knowing whether to slip away unnoticed or

to shake hands and say goodbye, had just decided upon the former course,

when Mrs. Pratt made a flamboyant entrance.

Seeing the group at the farther end of the room, she bewildered Marjorie

with a nod that was like a rap over the knuckles, and rustled

self-consciously forward.

“Good morning,” she cried, so graciously that Marjorie could scarcely

recognise her voice. “Cold, isn’t it? I’ve just come from market. It was

simply perishing down there—perishing!” She left an entire syllable out

of this word, pronouncing it as though speaking the name of a famous

American General, then continued, “I’m a perfect martyr when it comes to

marketing! I can’t overcome a sense of duty towards the _fermers_, who

depend on us for encouragement and support; and when all’s said and

done, the only char’ty worth while is the kind that helps people to help

themselves. Don’t you agree with me, Lady Fanshawe?”

Lady Fanshawe supposed so, and turned to the examination of a Meissen

bowl. Mrs. Blaine caught sight of an old French print on the far wall

and appeared to lose interest in all else. Miss Brant discovered a

blemish of some sort on the red lacquer table and bent anxiously over

it, using the corner of her handkerchief in lieu of a duster.

No one considered Marjorie at all. Each was engrossed in her part,

playing a little scene in the successful _Comédie Malice_ which has been

running without a break since June 8th, 1866, in the Capital.

If Mrs. Pratt was conscious of any lack of cordiality in the attitude of

the others, she gave no sign. Hers was an ebullient part. All she had to

do was to gush over the people who snubbed her, and to inveigle them

into her house (making sure that their visits were chronicled in the

Press). Incidentally, she had to provide them with as much as they

wished to drink, and more than they wished to eat, and to acquire the

reputation for liberal spending when and where her extravagance would be

noted and commented upon.

Lady Fanshawe and Mrs. Blaine were cast in simpler parts. They had

merely to preserve an air of well-bred disdain, merging now and again

into restrained amazement.

Miss Brant, on the other hand, had a very difficult role to play.

Marjorie scarcely realised how difficult. It devolved upon her to take

advantage of Mrs. Pratt’s effort to impress the others, to sell her the

most expensive and unsaleable articles in the establishment, and, at the

same time, to convey subtly to Lady Fanshawe and Mrs. Blaine, her

contempt for this monied upstart.

The conversation progressed in this vein:

Mrs. Pratt.—Now, _do_ help me pick up some odds and ends for my new

home.

Miss Brant.—Oh, have you moved?

Mrs. Pratt.—Dear me, yes! Our old house was much too cramped for

entertaining.

Miss Brant (_Half confidentially to Lady Fanshawe_).—Speaking of

entertaining, shall I see you, by any chance, at the Country Club,

to-morrow?

Lady Fanshawe (_Distantly_).—I am going to Mrs. Long’s luncheon, if

that is what you mean.

Miss Brant (_Burbling_).—It’s _exactly_ what I mean! I’m _so thrilled_

at being asked—humble little me—with all you impressive personages.

Mrs. Long was the wife of the owner of The Chronicle and it was

suspected that she found the columns—both social and

political—of her husband’s paper a convenient medium for the

maintaining of discipline and the administration of justice. She

was naturally held in very high esteem, and persons of

astuteness made much of her.

“I never know what’s going on,” she was fond of saying, “for I

can’t endure the sight of a newspaper. It’s so much easier to

blame than to read them,” she said, paraphrasing Dr. Johnson.

Notwithstanding her professed disinterestedness, however, the

arm of coincidence seemed longer than usual when it was observed

that the recently-distinguished Lady Elton, who had overlooked

her when issuing invitations to a reception in honour of her

husband’s knighthood, appeared on the following day as “Mrs.

Elton”. And, furthermore, that on the day succeeding this, her

letter of protest, which was never intended for other than

editorial eyes, was published under the heading “Regrettable

Error in ignoring a New Tittle!” This was only one of many such

incidents that entertained the subscribers and suggested that

there might be a subtle influence behind the typographical

errors which occurred in the composing room.

Mrs. Pratt’s voice rolled like a relentless sea over that of the others,

as she announced: “We’ve bought the Tillington place.”

Miss Brant.—Oh, that charming old house! Tudor, isn’t it? I used to go

there as a child. They had some _wonderful_ things. I recall the

bookcase especially, that stood opposite the bow-window in the library.

Er—er—something like that one, it was. And one knob was off the

drawer—I remember it distinctly.

Mrs. Pratt (_examining the piece indicated_).—I think I’ll take this

one.

Miss Brant (_evidently much embarrassed_).—Oh, _really_ now—I didn’t

mean to suggest—this is really _too_ dreadful! I assure you, I was only

reminiscencing.

Mrs. Pratt.—Well, I’ll take it. It’s much more suitable than my old

one. Do _you_ like it, Lady Fanshawe?

Lady Fanshawe (_as though not having heard the question_).—Delightful!

Miss Brant.—Well, you’re awfully good, I’m sure! I’m really ever so

glad you’ve got it. It’s rather a good thing, you know—only, I don’t

want you to think . . . However, if you change your mind after you get

it home, of course, I’ll take it back. I mean, you _may_ find it out of

tune with your old—er—er—your _own_ things.

Mrs. Pratt.—What would you suggest in the way of a chair, and a table,

perhaps?

Miss Brant (_tearing herself from a whispered pæon on the subject of

Mrs. Blaine’s hat_).—Well, of course, if you want something good,

that’s rather nice! A little heavy for the modern home, but _the_ thing

for the Tillington library. And there’s rather a decent chair—see, Lady

Fanshawe? Isn’t that cross-stitch adorable?—that harmonises perfectly

with the other two pieces. I don’t deny that it would be a bit stiff for

the tired business man to sit in, but for the person who can _afford_ to

have a well-balanced room . . .

Mrs. Pratt (_promptly_).—I’ll take the chair!

Quietly, Marjorie left the room, and as the door closed behind her, Mrs.

Pratt was saying in an attempt at playful graciousness.

“A hundred and seventy-five? Vurry reasonable! And it’s such a

satisfaction to get the best! I hope, Lady Fanshawe, and you, too, Mrs.

Blaine, that you’ll drop in on Tuesday afternoon for a cuppa-tea, and

tell me how you like my new home!”

CHAPTER 2.

The Dillings had come to Ottawa joyously, eager to accept its invitation

and to become identified with its interests. They were less flattered by

the call than elated by it. Neither of them expected merely to skim the

pleasures offered by life in the Capital; they were acutely alive to

their responsibilities, and were ready to assume them. They hoped to

gain something from the great city, it is true, but equally did they

long to give. Everyone who was privileged to live in Ottawa must, they

imagined, have something of value to contribute to their country, and

the Dillings welcomed the opportunity to serve rather than be served.

But when Marjorie thought of Pinto Plains, of its gay simplicity and

warm friendliness, the three months that marked her absence from it,

stretched themselves out like years. On the other hand, when she

considered how little progress she had made in adapting herself to the

formal ways of the Capital, they shrunk into so many days; hours,

indeed. So far as happy transplanting was concerned, she might even now

be stepping off the train, a stranger.

Raymond Dilling, a country schoolmaster still in his thirties, had

strong predilections towards politics, and saw in this move a coveted

opportunity for the furtherance of his ambitions. Yet the idealist who

shared his mortal envelope believed with Spencer: “None can be happy

until all are happy; none can be free until all are free,” and he fought

sternly to crush a budding and dangerous individualism. With a little

less ambition and response to the altruistic urge—public service—he

would have remained a country schoolmaster to the end of his days. As it

was, he heard the evocation of Destiny for higher things, read law as an

avenue to what seemed to him the primrose path of politics, and grasped

the hand of opportunity before it was definitely thrust towards him. He

lived in the West during its most provocative period—provocative, that

is, for a man of imagination—but he never caught the true spirit of the

land, he never felt his soul respond to the lure of its fecundity, its

spaciousness, its poignant beauty. The sun always set for him behind the

grain elevators, and it never occurred to him to lift his eyes to the

eternal hills . . .

Dilling was scarcely conscious of his soul. Had he been, he would have

set about supplying it with what he conceived to be its requirements. Of

his mind, on the other hand, he was acutely aware, and he fed it freely

on Shakespeare, Milton, and the King James’ Bible, copies of which were

always to be found on the parlour table save between the hours of six

and seven in the morning, when he held them in his abnormally long, thin

hands. By following the example of those two great figures, Daniel

Webster and Rufus Choate, Dilling hoped to acquire a similarly spacious

vocabulary and oratorical persuasiveness.

He was a bit of a dreamer, too, believing in Party as the expression of

the British theory of Government. He was simply dazed when he heard the

ante-bellum ideas of group government, the talk of Economic Democracy

and the Gospel of the I.W.W., which was merely Prudhon’s epigram—“_La

Propriété c’est vol_,” writ large.

He had secured nomination for Parliament through the finesse of the Hon.

Godfrey Gough, who recognised his dialectical supremacy over that of any

other man in the West. Gough was the _âme damnée_ of the vested

interests, and so clever was his advocacy that it captivated Dilling

into whole-hearted support of their political stratagems, and made it

easy for him to bring them into alignment with his conscience. But he

did so without hope of pecuniary reward. He was honest. During his

entire career, he held temptation by the throat, as it were, determined

that no selfish advantage or gain should deflect him from unremitting

endeavour for the Nation’s good. No parliamentary success attained, nor

honours received, should be less than a meed for a faithful adherence to

high principles.

He had never talked much with politicians, but he had been talked to by

them. On these occasions, it was not apparent to him that they were

striving to maintain politics on its lowest plane, rather than to

achieve the ideal commonwealth that is supposed to be the end and aim of

their profession. He read into their speeches and conversations the

doctrine with which he, himself, was impregnated, and the thought of

working side by side with these men, aroused in him an emotion akin to

consecration . . .

For years Marjorie had pictured Ottawa much as she had pictured

Bagdad—The City of Mystery and a Thousand Delights—a place of gracious

boulevards and noble architecture, where highly intelligent people

occupied themselves with the performance of inspired tasks. And she

thought of it as the Heart of the Great Dominion, as necessary to the

national body as the human heart is essential to the physical body,

transmitting the tide of national life to the very finger-tips of

civilisation.

And often, down in the secret places of her self, she had even a more

solemn thought—that Ottawa was the Chalice of a Nation’s Hopes, and

that merely to look upon it would produce an effect like that of

entering some Holy Temple. Sin and sadness would disappear, and even the

most degenerate must be led there to spiritual refreshment and

transfiguration.

Nor did she stand alone; most of her friends were of the same opinion.

They linked themselves to the Capital as closely as they were able, and

informed themselves minutely concerning its activities, by careful study

of the daily press. They read the Parliamentary news first—this was a

sacred duty; they wrote papers on politicians and politics for their

clubs, and spoke with a certain reverent intimacy of the People in the

Public Eye. But most of all they enjoyed the social notes, the

description of the gowns, and the tidbits of gossip that crept into the

columns of their papers! Even the accidents, the obscure births and

deaths that occurred in Ottawa, were invested with a stupendous

importance in their eyes.

To them, it was The Land of Afternoon.

And now, as she sat in her tiny drawing-room, denuded of its handsome

what-not, and waiting for possible callers, Marjorie tried to stifle a

sense of depression, a conviction that all was not right with the world.

She reproached herself for this attitude of mind, trying to remove the

trouble without searching for its origin or cause. The house was very

still. The children were outside, playing. Her thoughts were filled with

Pinto Plains and longing for her friends there.

She could almost guess what they were doing, especially Genevieve

Woodside, whose turn it would be, to-day, to entertain the Ladies’

Missionary Circle. A mist filled her eyes, and before she could control

herself, she was sobbing.

“I’ve just got to put an end to this nonsense,” she scolded herself.

“They’d be ashamed of me, at home. I’m ashamed of myself, big baby!

Whatever would Raymond say? I really am _very happy_. This is a _nice_

little house, and the people _are_ kind! A person couldn’t expect to

feel perfectly at home, even in Pinto Plains, all at once. They simply

couldn’t—and to think we are really living in Ottawa! Why, it’s too

wonderful to be true!”

The door-bell rang.

With a nervous glance at the tea table, covered with the handsome white

cloth embroidered in pink roses and edged with home-made lace that had

been such a work of love for her trousseau, Marjorie went into the tiny

hall and opened the door.

“Is Mrs. Dilling at home?” asked a frail, little person, in purple

velvet and ermine.

“I’m Mrs. Dilling, and I’m ever so glad to see you. Won’t you come in,

please?”

“Lady Denby,” murmured the other, stepping daintily past her.

Marjorie closed the door, feeling very small and very frightened. This

was the wife of the great Sir Eric Denby, the most perdurable public

figure of our time. The soundest of sound statesmen, he stood, to

Raymond Dilling, just a shade lower than God, Himself.

And the Dillings were profoundly religious people.

“Won’t you take off your things?” she asked, timidly, and upon receiving

a refusal, tinctured with a suggestion of reproach, excused herself and

went into the kitchen to make tea.

When she returned, Lady Denby and Althea were staring unsympathetically

at one another across the table.

“Why, darling,” Marjorie exclaimed, setting down the teapot, and

forgetting her social obligations in the pride of motherhood, “I didn’t

hear you come in. Dear, dear, what a very untidy little girl, with her

tam all crooked and her ribbon untied! This is Althea, Lady Denby.

You’ve no idea how helpful she can be—Go and shake hands, precious!”

Althea was obedient on this occasion. She marched round the table and

offered a grimy, wet mitten—the left one—from which the visitor shrank

with a movement of alarm.

“How do you do?” said Lady Denby, discovering, after an embarrassing

search, a spot upon the shoulder, dry enough, and clean enough, to be

touched by her white-gloved hand.

“Having a good time, darling?” asked Marjorie, glowing with joy in the

child’s loveliness. “Not playing too rough a game?”

“Cream, but no sugar,” said Lady Denby, significantly.

For a few awkward moments, Marjorie gave herself up entirely to the

duties of hostess, then turned again to her daughter.

“Where is Sylvester, and Baby? Are they all right, my pet?”

Althea nodded.

“Baby’s all covered with snow,” she explained. “Besser’s playing she’s a

egg and he’s a hen, and he’s sitting on her!”

“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Marjorie. “What a naughty boy! Bring them both

home at once, Althea—he’ll hurt Baby. Quick, now!”

Althea rushed off, leaving the front door open. Marjorie excused herself

to close it. She was surprised that Lady Denby exhibited neither

amusement nor concern in the family affairs. Indeed, she wondered if

deafness might not account for her curious austerity of manner. Old Mrs.

Kettlewell, at home, was like that, but everybody knew it was because

she couldn’t hear half of what was going on.

“Do let me give you some more tea,” she urged, her voice slightly

raised. Anxiety distracted her. She scarcely knew what she was doing.

Suppose the baby should be smothered in the snow? Suppose the children

couldn’t dig her out? She felt that she should go to the door, at least,

to make sure that Althea was successful in her mission. But something in

Lady Denby’s manner prevented her. She couldn’t explain it, yet she

simply couldn’t find an excuse to leave the room.

Her hands fluttered nervously over the table and her eyes haunted the

door.

“Cream, and no sugar, I think you said, Mrs.—er—er—”

“_Lady Denby_,” corrected the other, with gentle reproof.

Apologies. Increased nervousness. Desperate effort at self-control.

Where could they be, those children of hers? Sipping tea like this, when

anything might be happening out there in the snow! It was cruel, cruel!

“How many children have you?” The calm voice trickled over her

consciousness like a stream of ice-cold water.

“Three,” she answered, hurriedly. “Althea’s five, and Sylvester’s nearly

four—Besser, we call him, you know—and Baby, her name is really

Eulalie, is two and a half and simply huge for her age. Have you any

children?”

“No,” said Lady Denby, implying by her tone that the propagation of the

species was, in her opinion, a degraded and vulgar performance.

Marjorie tried other topics; church work, conundrums, Sir Eric’s health

and gastronomic peculiarities. She offered her favourite recipes, and

patterns for crocheted lace, interrupted, thank Heaven, by the entrance

of the snow-covered children and the consequent confusion that they

caused.

In her domestic activities she was perfectly at ease, hanging damp

garments on radiators to dry, wiping tear stains from ruddy cheeks, and

even arranging a juvenile tea-party in a corner of the room.

She chattered happily all the while, never for a moment realising that

in the Upper Social Circles, the last task in the world a woman should

undertake cheerfully is the care of her children; that even allowing

them to stay in the same room and breathe the rarified air with which

the exalted adults have finished, is a confession of eccentricity, if

not _bourgeoisisme_. She had no ideas that there were mothers, outside

of books—or possibly New York—who not only considered their children a

nuisance, but were ashamed to be surprised in any act of maternal

solicitude.

Had Ottawa been Pinto Plains, and Lady Denby one of her neighbours

there, she would have been helping to change the children’s clothing,

then she would have joined the juvenile tea-party, and later, would have

heard Althea count up to twenty, prompted Baby to recite “Hickory,

Dickory, Dock,” and would have played “Pease Porridge Hot,” with

Sylvester until her palms smarted painfully.

As it was, Lady Denby did none of these things. She sipped tea and

nibbled toast as though vast distances separated her from the rest of

them, distances that she had no wish to bridge. Marjorie came to the

conclusion that she was not only deaf, but suffering the frailties of

extreme age, her contradictory appearance notwithstanding. In this

kindly way did she account for her guest’s indifference. That her

visitor was a great and powerful lady, Marjorie well knew, but she had

no idea that it was necessary for the great and powerful to assume this

manner, as a means whereby they might display their superiority.

According to her simple philosophy, the more exalted the person, the

readier the graciousness. For what was greatness but goodness, and what

was goodness but love of humanity? Was not Queen Victoria sociability

itself, when she visited the humbler subjects of her Kingdom?

Other callers came; Mrs. Gullep, whose mission it was to visit newcomers

to the church; Mrs. Haynes, whose husband was also a Member from the

West, and two or three of the neighbours, with whose children Marjorie’s

children played. She had a somewhat confused recollection of the late

afternoon, but certain features of Lady Denby’s conversation recurred

with disturbing vividness.

She was amazed to learn that opening her own door was, in future, quite

out of the question. If she could not, or would not, engage the

permanent services of a domestic, she must, at least, have someone on

Wednesday afternoons to admit her callers. Furthermore, she must be

relieved—relieved was Lady Denby’s word—of all bother—(also Lady

Denby’s) with the children.

“They will stand between you and the possibility of making friends of

the right sort,” she warned, a viewpoint which was in direct opposition

to the theory Marjorie had always held. “At least once a week, social

duties demand your undivided attention.”

Again, without in the least having said so, Lady Denby managed to convey

the fact that she considered Marjorie a very pretty woman, and that it

would be wise, in view of her husband’s position, to make the most of

her good looks. In the Capital, she observed, much weight attached to

one’s appearance, and Marjorie would find herself repaid for dressing a

little more—another interesting word of Lady Denby’s—“definitely”. The

word was puzzling. Marjorie made all her own and the children’s clothes,

her husband’s shirts, his pyjamas and summer underwear, and she was

humbly proud of her accomplishment. She had no doubt as to her ability

to make more “definite” clothes, could she but understand exactly what

Lady Denby meant. There wasn’t anything very striking in a purple velvet

suit, even though it had a collar and cuffs of ermine. Besides, Marjorie

couldn’t wear purple velvet, it was too elderly.

Her own crepe-de-chine blouse was a definite pink. There could be no

possibility of mistaking it for green or blue. She had embroidered it

profusely in a black poppy design (copied from a pattern in the

needlework section of a fashion magazine) to harmonise with her black

velveteen skirt, the flaps of which were faced with pink crepe-de-chine

to harmonise with the blouse. Feminine Pinto Plains, calling singly and

in groups to inspect her “trousseau,” agreed that it was more than a

costume—it was a creation—and they prophesied that it would dazzle

Ottawa.

“So rich looking,” they said, “with all that hand-work!” Pinto Plains

set a great deal of store by hand-work. “With your lovely colour,

Marjorie, in that bright pink you’ll be charming!” And yet Lady Denby

thought that she should have more definite clothes!

Then there was another thing—and on this point Lady Denby spoke with

greater lucidity.

“I am sure you will find it convenient, my dear,” she had said, in a

whispered colloquy that took place in the hall, “to know some young girl

who would be flattered by your patronage, and gratified to be of service

to you. There are so many things the right sort of person could do—pour

tea, and have a general eye to the arrangements when you receive; give

you valuable hints as to the connections you should, or should not,

form; advise you as to tradesmen, and a dozen other minor matters that

must, for a stranger, be exceedingly confusing. It is quite the thing to

encourage such an association in the Capital, and I might add that it

lends an air of _empressement_ to Members of the Party. One must always

consider the Party, my dear.”

Lady Denby saw no difficulty in the fact that Marjorie knew of no such

person. “Leave it to me,” she said, with an air of brilliant finality,

“I have just such a girl in mind. Not pretty enough to be attractive,

and too clever to be popular; so her time is pretty much her own. She

would welcome the opportunity, I know, of shining in your reflected

glory. I’ll send her to you. Her name is Azalea Deane. And remember

always, in your associations, to maintain the dignity that is due to

your husband’s position. I would almost go so far as to say that

indiscriminate intimacies should be discouraged; they are so apt to be

embarrassing—in politics, you know . . .” Without exactly forming the

words, her lips seemed to pronounce Mrs. Gullep’s name. “Very estimable

people, I am sure, the very vertebræ of Church Societies, but in a small

_ménage_ like this, my dear, you must not waste your chairs!”

Marjorie lay awake that night reviewing the events of the day. Some cog

in the well-ordered machinery of her existence had slipped out of place,

and was causing unaccustomed friction. She didn’t know what was the

matter. Neither analytical nor introspective, she never got down to

fundamentals, and the results that showed on the surface were apt to

bewilder her. Consequently, she refused to admit disappointment with her

surroundings, and did not even remotely suspect that she was

experiencing the first, faint stirrings of disillusionment. She was a

little depressed, that she admitted, but the fault was hers; of that she

was thoroughly convinced, not only at the moment but throughout the

months and years that stretched ahead. Always she blamed herself for

failing to attain the state of mental and spiritual growth that would

enable her to fit comfortably into her environment.

Of course, she couldn’t put all this into words. She never could make

her feelings clear to other people—not even to Raymond. So, when,

somewhat impatient at her restlessness, he asked what was the matter,

she answered, with a little sigh.

“Oh, nothing, dearie . . . nothing that’s awfully important, I ought to

say. Only—only—I sometimes wonder . . . do _you_ ever feel that

Ottawa’s a difficult place to get acquainted?”

CHAPTER 3.

Dilling adapted himself to his new environment much more readily than

did his wife. He had not anticipated that the House of Commons would be

a glorified Municipal Council such as he had left in Pinto Plains, and

that his associations and activities would be virtually the same save on

a magnificent scale; whereas Marjorie had deluded

herself—subconsciously, it may be—with the thought that Ottawa would

be an idealised prairie town, and that she would live a beatified

extension of her old life, there. Differences in customs, in social and

moral codes, ever remained for her a hopeless enigma, just as Euclid’s

problems evade solution for some people. She never could master them

because she never could understand them. Black was black and white was

white, and neither sunshine nor shadow could convert either into gray.

No leopard ever possessed more changeless spots.

While, therefore, her husband was joyously engrossed in his work,

finding novelty and stimulation in every smallest detail, remodelling

himself to fit the mantle he had been called upon to adorn, Marjorie was

confronted with unexpected obstacles, bewildered by inexplicable ways,

homesick for familiar standards and people, and groping for something

stable to which she could cling and upon which she could build her

present life.

Of the nature of Dilling’s work, she had but the sketchiest idea. His

conversation was becoming almost unintelligible to her, try as she would

to follow it. When, in the old days, they sat at the table or drew their

chairs around the fire, and he told her of Jimmy Woodside’s stupidity or

Elvira Mumford’s high average, she could take a vital interest in his

daily pursuits, but now, when he referred to Motions, and Amendments,

and Divisions, she had no idea of what he was talking about. He was

seldom at home, and upon those rare occasions he fortressed himself

behind a palisade of Blue Books and Financial Returns.

He abandoned himself to reading almost as a man abandons himself to

physical debauch, and Marjorie, furtively watching him, could scarcely

believe that the stranger occupying that frail, familiar shell was, in

reality, her husband. There was about him a suggestion of emotional

pleasure, an expression of ecstacy, as when a man gazes deep into his

beloved’s eyes.

“Ah,” he would murmur, “three thousand, six hundred and forty-two . . .

annually! Seventy-nine thousand less than . . . well, well!”

His cheeks would flush, his breathing would thicken, his forehead would

gleam with a crown of moisture, and he would lose his temper shockingly

if the children spoke to him or played noisily in the room.

Long afterwards, a rural wag observed that Prohibition touched few

persons less than Raymond Dilling, who could get drunk on Blue Books and

Trade Journals, any day in the year!

Marjorie got into the way of keeping the little ones shut up in the

kitchen with her. The house was too small to allow Dilling the privacy

of a library or study, and the three bedrooms were cold and cheerless.

So he appropriated the tiny drawing-room and converted it into what

seemed to her, a literary rubbish heap. Books, pamphlets, Hansards, and

more books . . . she was nearly crazy with them!

She had never been to the House of Commons save once, when Raymond took

the entire family on a tour of inspection. She had never seen Parliament

in Session, and had no idea that many of the women who accompanied their

husbands to Ottawa, spent all the time they could spare from bridge, in

the Gallery; not profiting by the progress of the Debates, but carrying

on mimic battles amongst themselves. Here was the cockpit, from which

arose the causes of bitter though bloodless conflicts—conflicts which

embroiled both the innocent and the guilty, and formed the base of

continuous social warfare.

However, on the afternoon that Dilling was expected to deliver his

maiden speech, she found her way to the Ladies’ Gallery with the aid of

a courteous official, and ingenuously presented her card of admission.

Without appearing to glance at it, the doorkeeper grasped the

information it bore.

“This way, please, Mrs. Dilling,” he said, with just the proper shade of

cordiality tempering his authority. “Here’s a seat—in the second row.

They are just clearing the Orders for your husband’s speech,” he added,

in an officious whisper.

Marjorie sank unobtrusively into the place he indicated and thanked him.

She wondered how he knew her name, not realising that he had held his

position for forty years by the exercise of that very faculty which so

amazed her. It was his duty to know not only all those who sought an

entrance through the particular portal that he guarded, but also to know

where to place them. Should he fail to recognise an applicant, he never

betrayed himself. She was presently to learn that as her husband

progressed nearer the front benches downstairs, she would be advanced to

the front, upstairs.

Her first sensation—could she have singled one out of the medley that

overwhelmed her—was not of exaltation at having entered into the

sanctuary of the Canadian Temple of Politics, and being in a position to

look down upon one of the clumsiest and most complex institutions that

ever failed to maintain the delusion of democracy, but of the immensity

of the place. The Green Chamber was at least four times as large as the

Arena in Pinto Plains! Its sombreness discomfited her. Although she had

read descriptions of the Commons, she never visualised the dullness of

the green with which it was carpeted and upholstered; she had rather

taken clusters of glittering candelabra for granted; indeed, it would

not have surprised her to find golden festoons catching dust from the

whirlwind of oratory which rose from the floor beneath. The unregality

of the place made her want to cry. She felt like a child standing before

a fairy king without his crown.

Directly opposite her sat the Speaker on his Throne—the chair which the

late King Edward had used when visiting the Colonies in 1860. Above the

Speaker, in a shallow gallery suspended below that reserved for the

Proletariat, several men were languidly trailing their pencils across

the stationery provided them by the generous taxpayers of the country.

These were the scribes of the Press, profundite scriveners, whose golden

words she had absorbed so often in her far-away prairie home.

On the floor of the House, at a long table in front of the Speaker, sat

the Clerk. At the other end of the table lay the Mace, the massive

bauble that aroused Oliver Cromwell’s choler, and which symbolises, by

its position, the functioning of the House. In splendid isolation sat

the Sergeant-at-Arms, an incumbent of the office for forty-three years,

during which time, it is said, he never changed the colour of his

overcoat, or his dog.

On the Speaker’s left sat His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, led by that

illustrious tribune of the people, the Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid

Laurier. Facing him, across the table, was the Right Honourable Sir

Robert Borden and the Members of his Cabinet, prominent among whom was

Sir Eric Denby, who dreamed of a Saharan drought for Canada, and

affirmed his stand on the Temperance question with the zeal of a Hebrew

prophet. Then, as a counterpoise to Sir Eric, there was the Honourable

Godfrey Gough, who sought to mould a policy for his Party that would

have made Machiavelli blush!

These were the notables; the rest were a jumble of tailenders.

Marjorie could not locate her husband, immediately, but after a little

she recognised the top of his head. He was sitting in a dim corner, in

the very last row under the Gallery that was devoted to the

accommodation of the ruck of our splendid democracy.

Then, before she was quite prepared for it, she saw him rise to his

feet. Her eyes filled with tears of terror, and for a moment he seemed

to stand alone—like a splendid column, islanded in a rolling sea.

Marjorie could not resist the impulse to inform the impassive lady

sitting beside her, that the speaker was her husband.

The lady looked surprised at being addressed.

“Indeed?” she replied, and her eyebrows added, “Well, what of it?”

Marjorie kept her hand pressed tightly over her heart. It thumped so

heavily, she could scarcely hear what Raymond was saying. If he should

forget his speech! If he should fail!

Gradually, the blur before her cleared, and she saw that he was standing

quite at ease, one hand resting on his hip—a favourite and familiar

attitude—and the other negligently grasping the back of his chair. His

flat voice, carrying well for all its lack of resonancy, was perfectly

steady, and his words were unhurried, clear; in fine, she realised that

Raymond had no dread of what to her, was a scarifying experience, and,

unimaginative though she was, there was borne upon her a strange, new

consciousness of her husband’s power.

For the formal test of his ability to command the attention of the

House, he had seized upon the Motion of a Representative from the West,

calling upon the Government to adopt a vigourous policy in the

construction of grain elevators and facilities for the transportation of

wheat—Canada’s prime commodity in the markets of the world.

“. . . As I stand here, enveloped by the traditions of the past,” she

heard him say, “listening to the echoes in this Chamber of the noble

words and sound policies that have builded this great structure that is

our Country, I am awed by the privilege that has come to me of taking a

part, however small, in directing the national welfare of this Dominion.

I seek not at this moment, Mr. Speaker, merely the glory of the Party to

which I have the honour to belong, but I am ambitious to maintain a

principle, to be worthy of the men who fashioned a nation out of chaos,

out of a wilderness of local and parochial interests. I shall strive to

be the force for good that such men would wish to see in every member in

this legislative body to-day . . .”

Although he had known that Marjorie would be in the Gallery that

afternoon, it was typical of Dilling to ignore the fact. Small acts of

pretty gallantry were utterly foreign to his nature. He could no more

have raised a woman’s glove to his lips before returning it to her, than

he could have manicured his fingernails. To himself he termed such

graces “_la-di-da_”, by which he probably meant foppish. If his personal

vanity revealed itself in any one direction it was that he might appear

superlatively masculine—even to the verge of brutality.

“. . . The cause I plead,” he continued, “is that which must appeal to

every thinking man, to-day. I plead an economical policy for the

guarding of our grain . . .”

“. . . Wheat!” she heard him say. “The West is crying for elevators, and

for freighting facilities in order that she may distribute her vast

resources. The East is crying for food. The world needs wheat. _Wheat!_

The very word rings with a strange magic, flares with a golden gleam of

prosperity.”

His eyes were fixed on his Chief’s profile, save when they leaped across

the aisle to the “White Plume” of the grand Old Man who bent over his

desk and scribbled with a slender yellow pencil, apparently quite

oblivious to Dilling’s existence. Marjorie saw him through brimming

eyes. She did not know that in the corridor men were saying, “Come on

in! Dilling’s got the floor. He’s talking a good deal of rhetorical

rot—as must be expected from an amateur—but the making of an orator is

there. . . Come on in!” She was too nervous to notice that the empty

benches which comprise the flattering audience usually accorded to a new

speaker, were rapidly filling, that Members who discovered some trifling

business to keep them in the Chamber, had stopped sorting the collection

of visiting cards, forgotten appointments, and notes with which their

pockets were stuffed. Laryngitical gentlemen forbore to snap their

fingers at the bob-tailed pages for glasses of water—in short, Raymond

was making an impression. He was receiving the attention of the House.

His concluding words were,

“I have come amongst you, a stranger, unversed in the ways of this great

assembly of a young, ardent and democratic people—of members whose

experience has been so much richer than my own. I trust that none of

you—even those whose views may be at variance with mine—will have

cause to resent my coming. I realise that a profound responsibility

devolves upon each and every one of us who steps across the threshold of

this Chamber, and that although our creeds may be translated

differently, their actuating principles are identical.

“I know, Mr. Speaker, that life lies in the struggle, that work—and not

its wage—brings us joy. The game is the important thing, not the score.

To gain the peak of the mountain is the climber’s ambition. If he be a

true man, a man who rejoices in service for others, he has no wish to

possess the summit. To serve the Empire at the cost of ease and leisure,

to expend one’s strength in the solving of her myriad problems, is the

sum total of an honest man’s desire.

“I submit that it is possible to spread peace and plenty throughout our

Dominion. The Government has but to build treasure-houses for the grain,

and lend assistance in the way of subsidies for transportation. A hungry

people make poor citizens, and will inevitably bring desolation to any

land, for, as Ruskin has said, ‘There is no wealth but life, and that

nation is the richest that breeds the greatest number of noble and happy

homes and beings’.”

His speech was short and admirably delivered. It hit the temper of the

House, and Dilling sat down amid a storm of applause.

Through a mist of tears Marjorie noted that Sir Robert was bending over

her husband with an air that was more than perfunctorily gracious.

Several other men also left their desks and offered him congratulations.

She felt a little faint with pride and the reaction of it all.

“A real triumph,” said the voice of the lady sitting next to her,

suddenly. “Your husband’s quite a speaker, isn’t he?” and Marjorie was

too grateful for these words of friendliness to sense that the lady (who

was Mrs. Bedford, wife of the Whip of the Liberal Party) would have been

much more gratified had Raymond Dilling made of his speech a bleak

failure.

CHAPTER 4.

The Hon. Member for Morroway did not wait for the adjournment of the

afternoon Session. With a gesture that the thirsty never fail to

recognise, he signalled two colleagues who occupied adjacent benches,

and led the way from the Green Chamber.

The Hon. Member was more than a little piqued at Marjorie Dilling’s

insensibility to his persistent Gallery-gazing. It was almost

unprecedented in his experience that a young woman should find the

sparsely-covered crown of her husband’s head more magnetic an objective

than his own luxuriant growth of silver hair. Looked at from above, the

leonine mane of Mr. Rufus Sullivan was in the midst of such hirsute

barrenness, as conspicuous as a spot of moonlight on a drab, gray wall.

The Hon. Member for Morroway disliked many things: work, religion,

temperance, ugly women, clever men, home cooking, cotton stockings, and

male stenographers, to mention only a few. But more than any of these,

he disliked being ignored by a girl upon whom he had focussed his

attention. Such occasions (happily rare!) always induced extreme warmth

that was like a scorching rash upon Mr. Sullivan’s sensitive soul, and

this, in turn, promoted an intense dryness of the throat. Mr. Sullivan

disliked being dry.

So, with admirable directness of movement, he led the way to his room,

unlocked a drawer marked “Unfinished Business,” and set a bottle upon

the desk at the same time waving hospitality towards his two companions.

For a space the silence was broken only by the ring of glass upon glass

and the cooling hiss of a syphon. Then, three voices pronounced, “Here’s

how!” and there followed an appreciative click of the tongue and a

slight gurgling.

“Ah . . .” breathed the trio.

The Hon. Member for Morroway closed one limpid brown eye and examined

his glass against the light. Although an incomparable picture stood

framed in the small Gothic window of his room, it did not occur to Mr.

Sullivan to look at the distant Laurentians slipping into the purple

haze of evening, to feast his soul upon the glory of soft river tones

and forest shades; to note the slender spire of silver that glowed like

a long-drawn-out star on a back-drop of pastel sky.

Mr. Sullivan was concerned only with the amber fluid in his glass, where

tiny bubbles climbed hurriedly to the surface and clung to the sides of

the tumbler. If he looked out of the window at all, it was to

investigate the possible charms of unattached maidens who strolled

towards Nepean Point ostentatiously enjoying the view. Sometimes, Mr.

Sullivan found the outlook enchanting, himself. This was when he was

stimulated by the enthusiasm of a pretty girl who invariably remarked

that it was a sin “to spoil the river shore with those hideous mills,

and poison good air with the reek of sulphite.”

Mr. Sullivan vehemently agreed, for he called himself an ardent

Nature-lover, unwilling to admit that Nature, for him, was always

feminine and young.

“Not much doubt as to the direction the wind blows from Pinto Plains,”

he observed, still intent upon his glass.

“Not a shadow,” agreed Howarth, sombrely. “Eastlake and Donahue have

certainly got that lad buffaloed to a standstill.”

“Railroaded, you mean,” amended Turner, essaying a wan jest. “I wonder

what his price was.” He drained his glass, set it on the table with a

thud, and cried, “I never saw their equal—that pair! Time after time,

we’ve thought they were down and out. Their subsidies were discounted,

banks closed down on ’em, credit was exhausted—you remember the

contractors we’ve fixed so that they wouldn’t operate?—even their own

supporters got weak in the knees . . . and they manage to find some

inspired spell-binder, who pours the floods of his forensic eloquence on

the sterile territory, so that first thing we know, a stream of currency

begins to trickle from the banks, subsidies are renewed . . . God! how

do they pull it off, boys? In a case like this, where do they get the

cash to pay Dilling, and what do they promise him? What’s his price, I’m

asking you, eh?”

Rufus Sullivan, feeling that two pairs of eyes were upon him, spoke.

“Do you know,” he said, slowly, “it wouldn’t surprise me much to learn

that young Dilling hasn’t been bought at all, that he gave himself to

the cause, and that all of that grandiose bunk he talked was truth to

him?”

“Good God!” breathed Howarth, and gulped loudly.

“’S a fact! I listened hard all the time he talked, and I watched him

some, and it struck me he wasn’t speaking a part he had learned at the

Company’s dictation, nor for a price . . .”

“—which means,” interrupted Turner, “that he’s another of those damned

nuisances with principles, and ideas about making politics clean and

uplifting for the man in the street.”

“Worse than that,” corrected Howarth. “It means that he’ll be a damsite

harder to handle, and more expensive to buy than a fellow who has no

definite convictions and finds mere money acceptable.”

“That’s right!” Sullivan set down his empty glass and spread his elbows

on the desk, facing them. “I don’t anticipate that Dilling will be any

bargain, but,” he thundered, “we’ve got to have him. Fortunately, we can

rely upon the incontrovertible fact that like every other man, he _has_

a price. It’s up to us to find out what it is!”

“But, damn it all, Sullivan,” cried Howarth, “I’m sick of paying prices!

Surely we can find some means of muzzling this altruistic western

stripling.”

“Nothing simpler,” returned the older man, with heavy sarcasm. “We’ve

only got to go to the country, defeat the Government, assassinate

Eastlake and Donahue, deport Gough as an undesirable . . . Godfrey

happens to be backing Dilling in his constituency don’t you forget

. . .”

“What?” asked Turner.

“What for?” from Howarth.

Sullivan spread out his large, fat hands. “For some dark purpose of his

own that is yet to be revealed . . . and then, we must squash the vested

interests. Suppose you take on this trifling job, Bill. I’m going to be

busy this evening.”

“Just the same,” cut in Turner, “I think Billy’s right. He ought to be

intimidated—Dilling, of course, I mean—not bought. These Young

Lochinvars ought not to be allowed to think they can run the country.”

“Buying or intimidating, it’s much the same thing in the end,” said

Sullivan. “You’ve got to find a price or a weapon.” He corked the

bottle, locked it away and strolled across the office to examine his

features in a heavy gilt mirror that hung on the wall. “Did either of

you remark Mrs. Dilling?” he enquired, attacking his mass of hair with a

small pocket comb.

“Mrs. Dilling?” echoed the others.

“Why not? She sat in the Gallery all afternoon.”

“How did you know her?” demanded Howarth.

“Why, I saw her come in, and noting that she was a stranger—”

“—and extremely pretty,” suggested Turner, “you took the trouble to

find out.”

“Well, she is pretty,” said the Member for Morroway, reflectively. “A

fair, childish face, like a wild, unplucked prairie flower.”

“Humph,” observed Turner, exchanging a significant look with Howarth

behind his host’s back.

“Beauty is an amazingly compelling force,” Sullivan continued,

sententiously. “I have a theory—shared by very few people, it is true,

but convincing to me, nevertheless—that Beauty wields a more powerful

influence than Fear. What do you think?”

“Never thought about it at all,” confessed Howarth, bluntly. “But what

has all this to do with Dilling’s price?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear fellow,” said Sullivan, airily, “nothing at all! I

was merely indulging in a moment’s reflection, inspired, as it were, by

Mrs. Dilling’s loveliness. You must meet her . . . We must see to it

that Ottawa treats her with cordiality and friendliness.”

“Do you know her, yourself . . . already?” asked Turner.

“Er—no. I have not been through the formality of an introduction, but I

know her sufficiently well to wager that she is the sort of little woman

who responds to the sympathetic word; who is lonely, and searching for

warmth rather than grandeur in her associations and who can be relied

upon to work for her husband’s advancement . . . when that good time

comes.”

A new light gleamed in the eyes of his two listeners. They gave up

trying to think of ways in which the new Member might be

intimidated—discredited with his constituents or sponsors; and waited

for the master mind to reveal itself. But Rufus Sullivan, M.P., was not

the man to discuss half-formulated plans. He changed the subject

adroitly, jotted down the Dilling’s address and excused himself on the

plea that he was dining with the Pratts for the purpose of laying the

foundations for a successful campaign.

“There’s an interesting type,” he declared. “Useful—most useful!”

“Pratt?” cried Turner. “Why, he’s a jolly old ass, in my opinion!”

“I mean Mrs. Pratt, of course,” was Sullivan’s mild reproof. “Don’t you

realise, my dear chap, that the women of our day are the chief factors

in our Government? We are harking back to the piping times of the ‘Merry

Monarch’.”

“Oh, rot!” contradicted Howarth, who was a married man.

“_Régime du cotillon_ . . . petticoat Government, eh?” Turner laughed.

Both he and Sullivan had evaded the snares of feminine hunters. “I don’t

know the lady, but take it that she, also, is easy on the eye.”

Sullivan shook his great white head. Mrs. Pratt, he explained, had not

been born to adorn life, but to emphasise it. Nature, in her wisdom, had

given to some women determination, and the callousness that must

accompany it.

“Purposeful,” said Mr. Sullivan, “grimly purposeful, with about as much

sensitiveness as you would find in a piece of rock crystal. She’s got

her mind set on having Gus in Parliament, and if Queen Victoria and her

attendant lion got off the pedestal outside there, they wouldn’t be able

to prevent her. She would repeal the B.N.A. Act if it stood in her way.

A very useful woman,” he repeated, and insinuated himself into his

overcoat.

“What’s he up to?” Howarth asked his companion as they bent their steps

towards the restaurant and dinner.

“God knows!” answered Turner. “But there’s a load taken off my mind by

the knowledge that he’s got something up his sleeve. And it won’t be all

laughter either, if I know him.”

Howarth paused in the corridor. His dulled conscience was trying to

shake off its political opiate and prompt him to play the man in this

thing, but its small voice was speedily hushed by the animated scene

about him. Pages were scurrying around; Members, released from the

tension of debate, were greeting each other noisily; the _omnium

gatherum_ of the Galleries was debouching upon the Main lobby, so that

the very air he breathed was vibrant with a _scherzo_ of human voices.

“I say,” he cried, “let’s ask Dilling to feed with us. Under the

intoxication of triumph, he may loosen up a bit—become loquacious. You

get a table. I’ll get him!”

CHAPTER 5.

“It isn’t the thing, my dear!” Or, “It’s quite the thing, you know!”

The thing! THE THING! What on earth did it mean?

Marjorie first heard the phrase on the lips of Lady Denby, and gradually

she recognised it as a social influence that was as powerful as it was

mysterious. It was one of the most elusive of her problems, for, while

she understood vaguely, the significance of the term, she failed

entirely to apply its principles to the exigencies of her new life.

“Besides,” she said to herself, “one discovers what _is_ the thing, only

to find presently, that it isn’t . . . or the other way round. There

doesn’t seem to be any fixed rule.”

It was hers to learn in the hard school of experience, that Ottawa in

the twentieth century, was controlled by a social code quite as

remorseless in its way as the tribal etiquette which governed the

Algonquins when Champlain visited its site, three hundred years before.

Wherever she went, the attitude of the people from Government House down

to those who moved on the very periphery of its circle, was such as to

repress and chill the frank and unquestioning impulse for friendliness

that lent much charm to her character. She developed a curious sort of

nervousness—an inner quaking, that disconcerted her, and made her feel

unnatural. She became so fearful of offending people, that her manner

was frequently described as obsequious. Now and then, she knew she was

being criticised, but could not, for the life of her, fathom the reason.

The Thing . . . of course, but what _was_ The Thing?

She had tried to break the children of saying “ma’am”. Lady Denby told

her it wasn’t _the thing_.

“No nice people speak like that, Althea, darling,” Marjorie declared.

“You should say, ‘Yes, mother,’ or ‘No, Lady Denby,’ or ‘I don’t know,

Miss Deane,’—as the case may be, but please, darling, don’t say

‘ma’am’!” And yet to her astonishment, she heard Miss Leila Brant

address no less a personage than the Lady of Government House in this

ill-bred manner!

“This, ma’am,” said she, “is one of the forks used at the Carlyle table.

It’s really rather a good thing, and I was _thrilled_ at having picked

it up.”

“You have some very interesting bits,” observed The Lady, graciously.

“Oh, _ma’am_! How can I ever thank you for those words,” cried Miss

Brant. “Even the slightest breath of praise from you, means—well, it

means more than you can possibly realise.”

Ma’am . . . ma’am . . . Why, Marjorie could scarcely believe that she

wasn’t dreaming.

She left the Ancient Chattellarium in a despondent frame of mind. Why,

in Ottawa, must she appear so stupid? Why could she not make friends?

Would she be humiliated forever, by the lifted eyebrow and the open

reproof . . . “It isn’t the thing, my dear?”

It was not her nature, however, to be melancholy, so she thrust dark

thoughts away and gave herself up to ingenuous excitement in

anticipation of her first party at Rideau Hall.

The Skating Parties held at Government House on Saturday afternoons

during January and February were very much THE THING; in fact,

geographically speaking, Rideau Hall was its very source, its essence,

the spot from which it emanated and seeped into virtually every other

residence in the Capital. Scarcely a person from a master plumber down,

but felt and yielded to its malison.

Owing to the intense and protracted cold, there was excellent ice as

late as the middle of March, and Their Royal Highnesses extended the

hospitality of the rink considerably beyond the date specified on the

original invitations.

Not that the majority of the people went to the Skating Parties to

skate, or even to toboggan—the thoughtful alternative suggested on the

large, square card—about two inches below the Royal Coat of Arms.

Sufficiently difficult were the performances already expected of

them—the curvettings, gyrations and genuflexions demanded at the moment

of their presentation to the Vice-Regal party. Sebaceous dowagers

teetered dangerously in their endeavour to achieve a court curtsey,

occasionally passing the centre of bouyancy and plunging headlong

between the two pairs of august feet.

A crowd larger than usual massed in the skating pavilion and fought

politely for the mulled claret, tea, coffee, cake and sandwiches that

were being served from long, narrow trestles. His Royal Highness, the

Duke of Connaught, and the picturesque Princess Pat had come in from the

open-air rink below, and without removing their skates, had led the way

to the tea-room, whereupon several hundred people unleashed their

appetites, sampled the various refreshments, and disposed of the vessels

from which they had eaten on the floor, window-sills or chairs, if any,

that had been vacated.

In a corner, removed as far as possible from the disordered tea-tables

sat three ladies, eating, drinking and conversing as though they were

spectators at some bizarre entertainment. They stared with frank

insolence about them, looking through many persons who came hopefully

within their vicinage, and warning a few by the manner of their

salutation that they must approach no nearer. They had been

distinguished by receiving a welcome from the Duke and Duchess, who

called each by name and hoped that their health was good. After this

distinction, the ladies withdrew from the commonalty into their corner,

exalted and envied.

“Who in the world _are_ all these people?” asked Lady Elton. She spoke

fretfully, with an edge of desperation on her voice. A stranger might

have imagined that she was required by the statutes to learn the name

and history of each member of the throng, and that she found the task

inexpressibly irksome.

Of course, such was not the case. It didn’t matter whether she knew any

of these people or not—at least, it only mattered to the people

themselves, many of whom would have been glad to be known by her or any

other titled person. She asked the question because it was the thing

_to_ ask at Government House, because it was one of those intellectual

insipidities that have supplanted conversation and made it possible for

a group of persons without visible qualifications, according to the

standards of yesterday, to exchange an absence of ideas, and form

themselves into a close corporation known as Society.

Mrs. Chesley shook her head. “Isn’t it amazing?” she breathed. “Only a

few years ago it was such a pleasure to come down here—one knew

everybody—and now . . .”

“Sessional people, I suppose?” interrupted Miss de Latour, with just the

faintest movement of her nose as though she was speaking of a

drain-digger, or some other useful class of citizen who, by reason of

necessity, moved in the effluvia occasioned by his work.

Captain the Honourable Teddy Dodson approached at this moment to ask if

the ladies were satisfactorily served.

“Do let me get you some more tea,” he begged. “I’m afraid no one’s

looking after you—this awful mob, you know.” He pushed a collection of

discarded cups aside and seated himself on the edge of a chair, leaning

forward with an air of flattering confidence. “Cross your hearts and

hope you may die,” he whispered, “and I’ll tell you what we call these

beastly tea fights.”

The trio playfully followed his instructions and encouraged him to

reveal the limit of his naughtiness.

“We call them ‘slum parties’,” confided the young Aide, and while the

ladies shrieked their appreciation of his wicked wit, he clumped away on

his expensive skates, balancing three cups quite cleverly as he elbowed

a passage to the table.

“How do you suppose these people get invitations?” Miss de Latour

demanded, indignantly. “Look at that woman over there—no, no, the one

in the purple hat. Isn’t that the awful Pratt creature who’s pushing

herself into everything?”

“My husband,” said Mrs. Chesley, “calls her the Virginia Creeper.

However, she’ll get on. They say she’s been left a disgusting lot of

money, and that her husband’s going to run for Parliament.”

“That’s no reason why she should be here,” said the other. “Are there no

impregnable bulwarks left to protect Society?”

“Why, Pamela,” cried Mrs. Chesley, “how clever of you to remember that!

I read it, too, in Lady Dunstan’s Memoirs, but I’ve no memory—I can’t

quote things . . .”

“. . . as though they were your own!” finished Lady Elton, and laughed

at the neatness of her thrust.

Miss de Latour’s question as to how people secured their invitations was

merely an echo of her friend’s banality. There was no secret about the

matter; no bribery or corruption. Anyone—almost anyone—desiring to be

insulted by the Lady Eltons, Mrs. Chesleys, and Miss de Latours of

Ottawa, or to be snubbed of their acquaintances, had only to proceed to

the Main Entrance of Rideau Hall, pass beneath the new facade—so

symbolic of fronts, both physical and architectural, that had suddenly

been acquired all over the City in honour of the Royal

Governor-General—and there, in the white marble, red-carpeted hall,

sign a huge register, under the eye of two supercilious, scarlet-coated

flunkeys, who regarded each newcomer with all the antagonism of their

class. This unique procedure was known as “calling at Government House,”

and within a few days of the delightful and friendly visit, His

Majesty’s Mails conveyed a large, rich-looking card to the door and one

learned that “Their Royal Highnessess had desired the A.D.C. in Waiting

to invite Mr. and Mrs. Van Custard and the Misses Van Custard for

Skating and Toboganning between the hours, etc., etc.”. Thereupon, one

wrote to rural relations or foreigners of one kind and another, and

mentioned carelessly that one had been “entertained at Government

House”.

“There’s Mrs. Long,” announced Lady Elton. “Who’s the man?”

“Oh, some newspaper person, I think—an American,” volunteered Miss de

Latour. Obviously it was bad enough in her opinion to be any kind of a

newspaper person, but to be an American newspaper person offered an

affront to Society that was difficult to condone. Pamela de Latour was

intensely proud of her father’s legendary patrician lineage, her

capacity for avoiding friendships, and her mother’s wealth. She was well

aware of the fact that she was regarded as a person whom “one should

know.”

“He’s not bad looking,” murmured Lady Elton, charitably, “and he must be

rather worth while, Pam. She’s introducing him to everyone. Let’s wander

over and see what we can see.”

But Mrs. Long, watching them from the corner of her very alert brown

eyes, and anticipating this move, beat a strategic retreat, and soon

lost herself and her newspaper man in the dense crowd. Lady Elton, Mrs.

Chesley and Miss de Latour looked significantly at one another as though

to say,

“Ah-ha! What do you think of that? Something queer about this affair, if

you ask me!”

An expression of their thoughts was denied them, however, for the moment

they left the shelter of their corner they were like the Romans

advancing across the Danube—a target for the surrounding barbarian

hordes.

Almost immediately they were attacked by the Angus-McCallums, two

sisters with generous, florid cheeks and rotund figures, who, to quote

Azalea Deane, seemed to lie fatly on the surface of every function,

rather like cream on a pan of milk.

Their grandfather was a Bytown pioneer whose first task, after complying

with the formalities imposed upon all immigrants by the various

government officials, had been to find a house—a house, that is to say,

requiring the services of a stone mason.

Now Masonry, whether Free or Stone, has always offered signal advantages

to those who labour in its interests, and the present case was no

exception to the rule. Not only did prosperity attend the twilight years

of old Thaddeus McCallum, but especial privileges descended to his

progeny, the most conspicuous being the Freedom of Government House

grounds which the Misses Angus-McCallum enjoyed. That is to say, the

young ladies were at liberty to pass unchallenged within the sacrosanct

limits of this estate, whenever whim or convenience dictated . . . an

inconceivably rich reward for the excellence of the fine old man’s

chisel-drafting and hammer-dressing! They seemed, however, to lose sight

of the patriotic service he had rendered to the nation, in an

unremitting search for families on whom, without demeaning themselves,

they could call.

“Who is . . .,” dominated their every conscious thought.

“Ah, Effie,” cried the elder sister, addressing Lady Elton, “I thought

you would be skating.”

“For Heaven’s sake, hush!” warned Lady Elton, severely. “Weren’t you

here last week to see me crash to the ice with H.R.H.? I dared not risk

another such fall!”

“But with the uncle of a King,” murmured Miss Mabel Angus-McCallum,

“such an honour, my dear!”

Helena Chesley laughed.

“That’s not bad for you, Mabel. It’s a pity Mrs. Long didn’t overhear

it,” she said.

Between her and the Angus-McCallums there existed an almost perceptible

antagonism which was regarded variously as a source of amusement and

uneasiness by their friends. Such traditional antipathy was not at all

unusual, and marked the relation between many of the “old” families in

the Capital.

Before her marriage to the scholarly young man, whose nimble wit and

charm of manner had won him a permanent place in the Vice-Regal

entourage, Helena Chesley had been a Halstead, and the Halsteads had

owned the estate upon which such discomfiting evidences of Thaddeus

McCallum’s craftsmanship rose up to confound his descendants. Whether

they imagined it or not, is difficult to state, but the Angus-McCallums

always felt the condescension of the landed proprietor to the day

labourer in Helena Chesley’s cynical smile, while the latter resented

the patronising air which the others assumed as a cloak for the

inherited resentfulness of Industry towards Capital.

Miss Mabel Angus-McCallum’s retort was cut short by the arrival of Mrs.

Hudson, who, metaphorically speaking, embraced the ladies as Crusoe

might have taken Friday to his bosom.

“My dears,” she breathed, “I’m so glad to find you! Did anyone ever see

such a mob, and _such_ people? Who do you suppose brought me my tea?”

and without waiting for an answer to the question, she continued, “That

awful Lennox man! You remember, he used to be the stenographer in Sir

Mortimer Fanshawe’s office!”

“Did you drink it?” asked Mrs. Chesley.

Mrs. Hudson’s social position was triumphant and secure. She could sit

on the top rung of the steep and slippery ladder (if one finds an apt

metaphor in so comfortless a recreation) and look down upon a mass of

struggling, straining, pushing microcosms who clutched, and climbed, and

slid and fell in an effort to reach the pinnacle she had attained; for

just what reason or by what right, no one was prepared to explain. True,

she was a frank snob, which was partially accountable. Also, she was

wealthy, and “entertained” in a pleasantly formal manner that lent an

air of importance to the least important sort of functions.

Had breakfast been served in Mrs. Hudson’s small but well-regulated

_ménage_, indubitably it would have been announced with an impressive

opening of double doors, and served by respectful, liveried attendants.

Moreover, there would have been a correctly morning-coated gentleman for

each lady of the party, for the express and especial purpose of offering

her his arm and escorting her to the card-marked table!

Nor was that all. There were those who called Mrs. Hudson a “bug

specialist,” and attributed her social success to this interesting form

of enthusiasm. Her entomological research was conducted with

considerable originality and on lines that differed radically from the

method of the late Dr. Gordon Hewitt, similarly called by a large group

of affectionate and admiring associates. In Mrs. Hudson’s case, “bug

specialising” signified an ardent (and inconstant) pursuit of a fad, or

a person, or a combination of both. Rarely did a stranger with any claim

whatever to renown, escape from Ottawa without enjoying her hospitality,

and it must not be forgotten that she frequently dragged absolute

obscurities out of their gloom and played most happily with them for a

time.

Azalea Deane said that Mrs. Hudson was the most recent development of

The Big Game Hunter—game and bug being interchangeable, if not

synonymous in her mind. The truth of the matter was, she made a serious

study of the state of being termed Society. She attacked the problems

and the methods of succeeding in it, with the same energy and

concentrated purpose that a man gives to a great commercial enterprise.

It was her business and she made it pay. Mob psychology and

regimentation of thought were the fountains from which she derived her

source of supply, and judicious investment added to her power. People

often wondered how Mrs. Hudson had achieved social eminence when women

with superior claims had failed. The answer lies just here—her life was

spent in a conscious striving for it. Never a move, an invitation, an

acceptance, a salutation on the street, was made without forethought.

She made Society her tool. Most people are tools, themselves. Usually,

Mrs. Hudson was described as a “character”, which meant that she was

different from ordinary people. Her peculiarities—and she wore them

consciously, like a crown—were called odd; her vulgarities, original.

She was clever enough to keep the fact that she _was_ clever from being

realised, and many people were sorry for her! She had married a man

several years her junior, and loved to confess that he was an answer to

prayer!

“I saw him first at a concert,” she was wont to remark, “and the moment

my eyes fell upon his dear, unsuspecting head, I said to myself, ‘Thank

God! I have found the man I intend to marry, and need look no further!’

I went home, and prayed for him, and I got him!”

What effect this disclosure may have had upon the spiritual trend of the

community, what intensity of supplication or increase of attendance at

the churches, there is, unfortunately, no means of estimating. It can

scarcely have failed, however, to have exerted some marked influence

upon the spinsters of the Capital, and many a married woman, I am told,

bent a devout knee because of it, arguing hopefully, that if the Lord

could give, He could also take away!

Mrs. Hudson loved her husband with a sort of cantankerous affection that

was like the rubbing of a brass bowl to make it shine. She was always

prodding him, or polishing him, or smacking at him with her hands or her

tongue. Marriage had robbed her of the joy of believing him a genius,

but she was fond of him in her peculiar, rasping way.

“Is anyone else here?” she enquired, wiping out the hundreds of people

about her with a gesture.

“Mrs. Long,” she was told, “and a strange man.”

“Ah-h-h!” cried Mrs. Hudson. “Speaking of Mrs. Long, have you heard

. . . can’t we sit down, my dears? They say,” she continued, after the

group had recaptured their corner, “that her bridge winnings are simply

fabulous; and that if she can’t get money, she’ll take the very clothes

off your back. Of course, you’ve heard what happened at the Country

Club, the other afternoon?”

The group drew in closer, and Mrs. Hudson set forth on the most

dangerous of all adventures, the telling of a half-truth.

“She invited Mrs. Knowles, Madam Valleau and little Eva Leeds to lunch,

at which, my dears, _they say_, far too much Burgundy was served,

(especially for Eva, who is not used to it) and afterwards, of course,

they settled themselves at the bridge table. I’m not saying that Eva is

free from blame. Indeed, I have spoken to her most frankly on the

subject, and she knows that I think her behaviour most culpable.

Gambling amongst women who can afford it is bad enough, but that those

who can’t, should be given an opportunity to imperil their husband’s

meagre Civil Servant’s salary, is a crime that should be punishable by

law.”

“It might be done, too,” murmured Lady Elton, who was an agitative

member of the National Council. “If we can prohibit the sale of liquor

to a drunken man, I don’t see why we can’t restrict gambling to persons

of a certain income.” The sum which occurred to her was, of course,

amply covered in her own case and that of her companions. “But, go

on—what happened then?”

“Well, Eva lost, and lost, and _lost_! But do you think that Hattie Long

would stop playing? Not a bit of it! At last—this really is too awful,

my dears, you’ll never believe me—”

The ladies had already foreseen this possibility, but like everyone else

they liked the colourful romance of Mrs. Hudson’s stories, so they urged

her to continue.

“Very well,” she agreed, “but mind, not a breath of this must go any

further! To make a long story short, when they stopped, Eva was so badly

in the hole that she couldn’t cover her loss by an I.O.U. for Tom Leeds’

_monthly cheque_!”

“Horrible!” whispered the group, genuinely shocked.

“What did she do?” asked Lady Elton.

“It seems that a few days before, she had bought from Leila Brant an

Empire table. How she buys these things, I’ve no idea. The point is,

that Hattie Long was crazy about that same table, too, and fully

expected to have it. When she found Eva had got ahead of her she was

simply wild, and offered almost double the price—certainly more than

the thing was worth.”

“And Eva refused it?”

“I’m obliged to say she did. No one can admire her for doing so. I

repeat, I don’t think she has behaved properly, but the point is that

she had the table Hattie Long wanted, and so, when she had been driven

into this quagmire of debt from which she could not possibly extricate

herself, Hattie, with devilish finesse, suggested that she should give

up the table and call the matter settled.”

“She didn’t do it?”

“She had to! Her I.O.U.’s for . . .” Mrs. Hudson had the grace to pause

“. . . such a sum were utterly valueless! So, bright and early the

following morning there was a transfer at her door and now the table

decorates Harriet’s reception room.”

At that instant the crowd parted, and before either faction could avoid

an encounter, Mrs. Long and her newspaper man stood beside them.

Elaborately amiable greetings were exchanged. Mr. Reginald Harper was

introduced. Inured as they were to association with the owners of great

names, there was not a member of the group who escaped a sudden

palpitation upon meeting this world-famed monarch of newspaperdom. It

was not easy to keep gratification out of their manner when

acknowledging the introduction, but by tacit agreement they were

obligated to flick Mrs. Long over his innocent head.

“Are you living in Ottawa, Mr. Carter?” asked Lady Elton, deliberately

mis-calling his name, but with a charming show of interest.

Mr. Harper had only arrived the day previous, for a brief stay.

“The place is full of strangers,” volunteered Miss de Latour. “It

scarcely seems like home, any more.”

“It’s the fault of the Government,” declared Mrs. Hudson. “New people

are always getting in. I don’t understand how they work it, but there

you are. Are you connected with the Government?” she asked the stranger,

coyly.

Mrs. Long flashed a sharp look at the questioner and answered for her

guest. “Only to the extent of financing our poor little country,” she

replied. “Mr. Harper,”—she turned to him, archly—“I suppose I may tell

it? . . . Mr. Harper has just concluded a loan for a few paltry millions

which a New York syndicate is advancing, so that the salaries of the

Civil Service,”—her glance rested for a fraction of a second on the

trio—“will be paid as usual.”

The elder Miss Angus-McCallum hurriedly changed the subject. “How

stunning you look, Hattie,” she said. “But then, you’ve a style of your

own and can wear those inexpensive things. _I_ saw that costume in

Hammerstein’s window, and thought it charming.”

Hammerstein was an obscure costumer of Semitic origin, who had recently

benefited by one of his frequent fire-sales, and the implication that

Mrs. Long’s exclusive tailor-made had been purchased there was so

obvious as to border on crudity. Mrs. Hudson could have done much

better!

Mrs. Long ignored the thrust. “There seem to be so few men at these

parties, nowadays,” she observed, at no one in particular. “But when one

looks at the women, one can hardly blame them.”

“If we had a little gambling,” said Miss de Latour, “no doubt they would

find it more attractive.”

“But there would be complications.” Mrs. Hudson objected.

“In what way?” prompted Miss Mabel Angus-McCallum.

“Well, my dear, they couldn’t play for the Vice-Regal furniture, could

they? They’d get into immediate trouble with such stakes, for the

furniture belongs to the taxpayers of Canada and is not negotiable.”

In the sharp silence, Mrs. Long flushed slightly, realising that the

incident to which this remark referred had been grossly distorted under

Mrs. Hudson’s capable and imaginative manipulation. She was about to

make a stinging retort when she thought better of it, promising herself

a day of reckoning in the future. Just how, did not at the moment occur

to her, but time would show her the way.

“There’s Captain Teddy beckoning us, Mr. Harper,” she said. “We must

go,” and over her shoulder she explained, “Mr. Harper has never enjoyed

the delicious terrors of toboganning. The Princess is going to take him

down. Goodbye!”

“That’s that,” snapped Miss de Latour. “Now, look out for yourself, Mrs.

Hudson!”

The well-known purple velvet and ermine of Lady Denby caught Mrs.

Chesley’s attention. “She’s got Azalea with her this afternoon, and who

in Heaven’s name is _that_?”

Lady Denby did not leave them long in doubt. “You must all know Mrs.

Dilling,” she said. “Mrs. Raymond Dilling, from Pinto Plains. Her

husband is a Member, you know, and one of the most promising young

speakers in the Party.”

The ladies bowed frostily, not because they bore any particular grudge

against Marjorie, but because they could not afford to miss this golden

opportunity for expressing their dislike of Lady Denby, who, though

glorified by a title, was not “of their set”. They looked upon her as an

“uplifter”, living well within her husband’s income, and exuding an

atmosphere, not only of economy, but frugality; one who allied herself

with organizations for the benefit of the human race, notably of women

and children, and preached the depressing doctrine, that “Life is real,

Life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal!”

Marjorie was embarrassed. She had been embarrassed all the afternoon,

and something inside of her old fur coat ached intolerably. She noticed

that an air of hostility prevailed over the entire throng. She did not

realise, however, its fundamental cause; that the acknowledgments of

friendships was a delicate matter within the grounds of Government

House, for, as a man is known by the company he keeps, so the guests

were desirous of being ranked in a higher classification than that in

which they ordinarily moved. Which is to say, that although Mrs.

Polduggan and Mrs. Crogganthorpe were friendly neighbours, and quite

ready to acknowledge one another on their own verandahs, the moment they

entered the skating pavilion their vision became blurred, and they saw

for the most part, only the Ministers’ wives, persons who were

especially prominent, or, better than all, chatted with the wife of a

Foreign Consul who was too polite, or too ignorant of Western

conditions, to take a decided stand with regard to class distinctions.

“Dilling, did she say?” asked Mrs. Chesley, as Lady Denby and her

protegées moved away. “What an impossible person!”

“Who is she?” asked Miss Angus-McCallum. “Should we call?”

Pamela de Latour shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t anything to do on

Wednesday afternoon.”

“Lunch with me,” said Lady Elton. “We’ll all go together.”

“One never knows . . .”

The crowd had thinned perceptibly by the time Lady Denby released

Marjorie from the strain of constant introductions, and went away to

have a moment’s chat with Miss Denison-Page, the statuesque

Lady-in-Waiting.

Marjorie indicated a tall, florid gentleman with a shock of silver hair,

who loitered at the doorway in a manner that suggested he was waiting

for someone to go home.

“Who is that?” she whispered to Azalea.

“Where? Oh, that’s Rufus Sullivan, the Member for Morroway,” answered

the girl. “I meant to have pointed him out to you earlier in the

afternoon, only I had no chance. He’s Lady Denby’s pet aversion. One

dares not mention his name in her presence.”

“But why?”

“Lots of reasons. He’s quite a character, you know. Heavens, how he

stares!”

Marjorie turned away with flaming cheeks. She was loath to admit that he

had not only been staring, but that he had been at her elbow during the

entire afternoon. This distressed her, for, according to the ethics of

Pinto Plains, a man impressed his attentions only upon the woman who

encouraged him, and Marjorie felt that something in her manner must have

been very misleading. She resented his pursuit less than she felt

ashamed of herself for inspiring it, and was inexpressibly relieved when

he finally left the room.

The terrible disorder of the pavilion sickened her housekeeper’s soul,

and she turned to Azalea, impetuously.

“Just look at this place! Isn’t it disgusting to expect any human being

to clean it up?” Then, a little afraid of her own daring, “Wouldn’t you

just love to open the back door and let a drove of pigs come in?”

“Yes,” answered Azalea, shortly, “after you’d opened the front door and

let them out!”

CHAPTER 6.

Marjorie was far from happy. The experience at Government House haunted

her. Incidents that she had scarcely noted at the time, recurred in the

pitiless glare of a good memory to harry her and rob her of her peace of

mind. It had all been so different from what she expected!

Sunday dragged wearily on. The children seemed fretful and unusually

difficult. The roast was tough and the furnace went out, so that Raymond

was obliged to devote most of his precious afternoon to re-lighting it.

By the time, therefore, that the children had sung their evening hymn,

had each chosen a Bible story to be read aloud, and had been put to bed,

Marjorie felt that she could bear no more, and she invaded the

disorderly “drawing-room,” too troubled to be repulsed by the

unwelcoming expression in her husband’s eyes.

“Well, what is it, my dear?” Dilling closed the volume upon his long,

thin finger, and tapped it with a slender pencil. “Is anything

especially the matter?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Marjorie. “That’s just what I want to ask you,

dear. Something _must_ be wrong, somewhere, only I can’t find it! I seem

to be so stupid here, Raymond, and people don’t like me. I know I

oughtn’t to bother you, dear,” she said, noticing how his eyes strayed

back to the book that at the moment she almost hated, with its chrome

leather binding, its overwhelming contents, and the voluptuous

overpowering odour that reflected the literary richness of its

substance, “and I won’t stay long, but _can’t_ you help me, and tell me

what to do, so that I’ll be more like the Ottawa people?”

Dilling stared down into the mist-blurred eyes, only half seeing them.

His thoughts were snared by his own problems and he could not free them

immediately. His casual words of encouragement carried no comfort to his

wife, who stumbled on,

“You’re so clever, dearie! If you aren’t sure of a thing, you always

know where to learn all about it. . . and that’s all I’m asking you,

Raymond—to tell me some book that will explain these queer things that

I don’t seem to understand.”

“What kind of things?”

The question was not exactly brusque, but to anyone less troubled it

would have suggested a definite desire for a brief interview. Marjorie

raised her hands and let them fall to her sides helplessly.

“Hundreds—hundreds!” she began. “All sorts . . .”

“Give me a concrete illustration. Tell me one.”

“Well, I never do anything _right_! Yesterday—you _do_ shake hands with

people when you meet them, don’t you?—well, yesterday, Lady Denby took

me to the Skating Party at Government House. I thought it was going to

be so nice, Raymond. We always thought so at home, you know, but it

wasn’t just like what we imagined—in fact, it was awfully different.”

“Yes, yes. But the point of the story, Marjorie?”

“I’m trying to tell you, dearie. You see, if you haven’t been there,

it’s so difficult to understand the queer customs of the place. I’d been

introduced to Captain Dodson—he called out the names, you know,

standing just beside Their Royal Highnesses—and when we got into the

room where they were receiving, Lady Denby went first, and I came

second, and Miss Deane last, and you understand, Raymond, I couldn’t see

whether Lady Denby spoke to him or not, and so when I came along and he

saw me and sort of smiled, I said, ‘How do you do, Captain Dodson?’ and

held out my hand. You _do_ shake hands with people, don’t you, Raymond?”

“Never mind just now. Go on.”

“Well, he didn’t shake hands with me! Worse than that, he put his hands

behind his back and said, ‘Mrs. Raymond Dilling,’ in an awful voice, and

Miss Deane simply _pushed_ me past him! I didn’t know what to do when I

got there in front of the Duke and the Duchess. I didn’t know whether to

shake hands or not, and I’m—I’m afraid, darling, that I behaved like a

terrible simpleton. It was easy enough to see that Lady Denby was

frightfully annoyed. She said that to shake hands with Captain Dodson

was _not_ the thing, and to shake hands with Their Royal Highnesses,

_was_ the thing, and altogether, I’m so muddled, I don’t know what to

do! Raymond, what on earth _is_ THE THING?”

Dilling drew his finger definitely from his book, laid the volume on the

table, and gave his attention to the question.

“Well, Marjorie,” he said, “although I’ve never formed a considered

opinion on this subject, I’ll lay the facts before you, and we’ll reason

it out together.”

Reasoning a subject out together between Marjorie and her husband was a

merest euphemism for a philosophical lecturette with Dilling on the

platform and his wife supplying the atmosphere. With his characteristic

gesture when entering upon a discussion of some remote topic that

interested him—an upward sweep of the right arm with the sensitive

fingers coming to rest on his rapidly-thinning chevelure—he proceeded

to instruct her.

“_The Thing_, my dear girl, as I see it, is one of the forms of what the

Polynesians call ‘Tabu’. In the large, ‘tabu’ may be said to be negative

magic—that is, abstention from certain acts in order that unpleasant or

malefic results may not ensue. Do you follow, so far?”

“Yes, dear . . . I think so . . . a kind of rule, you mean, don’t you?

One can see that, but what puzzles me, is that it works both ways. How

does one learn _when_ it is right, and when it is wrong? Isn’t there

some starting point?”

“Most certainly! ‘Tabu’ originated in religion, and was rooted in fear.

Moreover, it was common to all peoples in their tribal beginnings. It is

associated with the Totem of the North American Indian and the Fetish of

the African races; it oppressed the alert Greek mind for an astonishing

period, and prevailed amongst the Romans. Some day, you must read about

the Flamen Dialis—a member of the priestly caste, who stood next the

King in sacerdotal rank.”

“I was thinking especially of shaking hands,” murmured Marjorie.

But Dilling ignored her. He slipped easily into his Parliamentary

manner, as though addressing Mr. Speaker, and his political associates.

Furthermore, he was enjoying this opportunity to open doors that led

into little-used rooms in the treasure-house of his mind.

“So rigid were the laws that governed the Flamen’s conduct—er—so

drastic was the discipline of The Thing—that even a knot in the thread

of his clothing was practically a crime against the State! Can you

imagine it? He couldn’t spend a night outside the City. He was forbidden

to ride—even touch—a horse. He . . . well, I could continue at length,

but this is sufficient to show you that The Thing, as you term it, is no

new, prohibitive measure, designed for your particular embarrassment.”

“Oh, I didn’t think that . . .”

“I forgot to mention that it was not The Thing for the Flamen to suffer

marriage a second time—an historical statement, my dear, which has no

personal application, I assure you! You see, the wife of the Flamen

became sacrosanct, and passed, also, under the iron rule of the ‘Tabu’.”

Marjorie nodded hopefully, and urged her husband to explain how women

were affected.

“If you are thinking of the Flaminica,” returned Dilling, “she was

affected very severely. I seem to remember that she was forbidden to

comb her hair at certain intervals; also, she became unable to discharge

her religious duties unless purified by a sacrifice, after hearing

thunder. Upon my word,” he broke off suddenly, “I shouldn’t wonder if

the wide-spread fear of electric storms may have taken its root from

this very law! You have provoked a most interesting train of thought, my

dear!”

“I’m ever so glad,” was Marjorie’s quick response. “But do you remember

anything about her shaking hands?”

“Not at the moment. However, I venture this opinion . . . the Flaminica

was the foundress of those social ‘Tabus’ which have held the minds of

women in bondage for so many ages; that she was the dictatrix of moral

and social etiquette, to-day. You can readily understand how ladies,

supporting this distinguished but irksome office, would seek to mitigate

its rigours by using their rank to the discomfiture of less favoured

members of their sex.” He began to chuckle. “In short, I believe that

Mrs. Grundy and Queen Victoria were her lineal descendants.”

“Queen Victoria?” echoed Marjorie.

“I mean, my dear, that the Flaminica was the mother of Snobocracy, the

divine High Priestess of the Order, whose code is expressed in the

cryptic formula, ‘It is—or is not—The Thing!’.”

The alarum of the kitchen clock startled them both. Marjorie frowned.

Althea must have been naughty again. She had been distinctly forbidden

to touch it.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it at that, my dear,” said Raymond, as he

opened his book. Its peculiar odour enveloped her like a puff of smoke.

“This report is somewhat more tricky than I had anticipated. But you

have the main facts of the case—haven’t you? To-morrow, I’ll bring you

a book from the Library.”

As Marjorie closed the door, a sharp whirr sounded from the telephone.

“Hello,” she said, wondering whether Raymond would mind being called.

“Is Mrs. Dilling at home?” asked a mellow voice at the other end of the

wire. It was a voice that vibrated, and struck some unfamiliar chord

within her consciousness; a voice that unreasonably disturbed her.

“I am Mrs. Dilling,” answered Marjorie, and waited.

“My name is Sullivan,” the voice continued. “Rufus Sullivan, the Member

for Morroway.”

“Oh!” cried Marjorie, startled. Then, “Oh, yes?”

“I am wondering if you will allow me the pleasure of calling on you,

Mrs. Dilling. I have been a fervent admirer of your husband ever since I

heard his speech in the House, last week, and I’m very eager to meet

you. It is scarcely necessary for me to tell you that we have not had

Dilling’s equal in Parliament for many years.”

“You’re awfully kind,” murmured Dilling’s wife, to the accompaniment of

a pounding heart. She didn’t know why, but she was trembling.

“Well, I’m not sure about being kind,” laughed the Hon. Member easily,

“but I confess that I am desperately jealous. There’s something about a

man of Dilling’s calibre that accuses us old chaps of unappreciated

opportunities and wasted youth. One begins to taste the ashes of

discouragement.”

“Nobody should be discouraged,” returned Marjorie, feeling the words

inadequate, but not knowing what else to say.

“No, no! You’re right, of course! As Walpole tells us, ‘It’s not life

that matters; it’s the courage you put into it.’ Just the same, courage

is acquired rather less by an effort of will, than by inspiration, don’t

you think so?”

“Ye-es,” returned Marjorie, not very sure after all.

“I was wondering, Mrs. Dilling,” the Hon. Member went on in a lighter

tone, “if I might be admitted to the list of your acquaintances? If you

would permit me to call?”

“I should be very pleased.”

“Thank you . . . thank you . . . I can’t say more! Are you busy this

evening, or have you other guests? It goes without saying that I should

not care to intrude.”

Marjorie explained that she was quite free and that a call would not be

the slightest intrusion, but that “Mr. Dilling” seemed to be very much

engrossed in a book, and she wasn’t quite certain—

“Don’t think of it!” cried Sullivan. “I understand perfectly, and

wouldn’t allow you to disturb him for the world. Just let me slip in

quietly, and when he has finished, perhaps he will join us. I do want to

know your husband better, Mrs. Dilling, but it’s quite impossible to

form any intimate contacts up there on the Hill, and in the midst of the

turmoil of our every-day existence. I won’t say any more, however,

through the medium of this unsatisfactory instrument. I will be with you

in a moment.”

He was. Before Marjorie had decided whether or not it was The Thing to

entertain a Member of Parliament in the dining-room (where the table was

set for breakfast) she was summoned to the door by a discreet tinkle of

the bell.

Although his enormous bulk nearly filled the tiny passage, Sullivan’s

handclasp was very gentle and his voice was low.

“No words, Mrs. Dilling, can convey to you my gratitude for this

privilege! I am a lonely man, a shy man for all my huge body, and I do

not readily make friends!”

The house seemed to quiver as he followed her to the dining-room, and

Marjorie was distressed at her failure to regain her composure and to

still the strange quaking within herself. She had never been affected

like this, before.

“What a cosy little nest!” exclaimed her guest. “And are there _three_

birdlings?”

His fine brown eyes turned from the children’s places—where neat

oilcloth bibs and porridge bowls stood ready for the morning—back to

her face.

“Yes, we have three children—two girls and a boy.”

“Wonderful little woman,” he breathed, reverently, “and she’s only a

slip of a girl, herself.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” declared Marjorie.

“A golden age,” he sighed. “But tell me about the children—do! One of

the bitterest disappointments of my life is that I haven’t half a dozen

. . . I’m a lonely old bachelor, Mrs. Dilling. Few people realise just

_how_ lonely.”

It flashed through Marjorie’s mind that he had lost his sweetheart years

ago. Perhaps she had died. Perhaps she had married someone else. In

either case, Mr. Sullivan had remained true to her memory. She liked him

for his constancy. Her embarrassment faded a little.

“It’s dreadful to be lonely,” she said, feeling that it would not be

polite to ask why he had not married. “I’ve been a little lonely,

myself, since we came to Ottawa.”

“Poor child!”

Mr. Sullivan pressed Marjorie’s hand with bland sympathy. The gesture

reminded her of Uncle Herbert, whose comfort, in the face of any trial,

expressed itself by a clicking of the tongue and that same spasmodic

crushing of the hand. Indeed, now that she grew more at ease with him,

Marjorie noticed that Mr. Sullivan was quite an old man and she

attributed that mysterious something in his manner to the eagerness of a

lonely man to make friends. She smiled, brightly.

“Oh, you mustn’t pity me,” she cried. “I like Ottawa. All my life I have

dreamed of coming here, and now the dream has come true. But, it is only

natural that I miss some of my dearest friends. I wouldn’t be a really

nice person if I didn’t, now, would I?”

Mr. Sullivan knitted his brows and said that, try as he would, he could

not imagine her being anything but a fine friend. There was just the

slightest suggestion of a pause before he added—

“You remind me of the noblest woman I ever knew.”

“Did—did she—die?”

The great, white head sank slowly. Again, Mr. Sullivan sought her hand.

“She was just twenty . . . I was a youngster, too. Life has never been

the same . . . But there! I mustn’t burden you with my sorrows. You were

going to tell me about the children. I don’t suppose you would let me

peep at them—just a little tiny peep, if I promise not to wake them?”

“Would you really like to see them?” asked Marjorie, now thoroughly at

ease with her guest.

“I can’t tell you how much.”

“Then, of course, you may!”

With an unconsciously coquettish gesture, she laid her finger on her

lips and led the way up the creaking stairs. Her thoughts were of the

children. Had she been careful to wash all the jam from Baby’s rosebud

mouth? Althea, she remembered, had pulled the button off her Teddies and

she had found it necessary to resort to the ubiquitous safety pin. And

Sylvester—well, there was no prophesying what might have happened to

Sylvester since she heard his “Now-I-lay-me,” and kissed him.

The thoughts of Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand, were concerned with

almost everything but the children. He was wondering why that door at

the foot of the stairs did not open and a voice ask what the devil he

was doing, prowling through the house. He was trying to decide whether

Marjorie had advised her husband of his coming and he was being

deliberately ignored, or whether Dilling habitually shrouded himself

with aloofness, and indifference to the affairs of the home and the

personnel of his wife’s callers.

At the landing, Marjorie turned to whisper.

“Please don’t look at the room. It’s so hard to be tidy with babies, you

know.”

Mr. Sullivan hung yearningly over the cots where Althea and Sylvester

were sleeping. He did it very well, and Marjorie was delighted.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, and he indicated that he found a strong

resemblance to her.

Beside the baby’s little crib he was overcome with emotion, and

Marjorie’s heart went out to him as he groped hastily for his

handkerchief and passed it across his eyes. “The cherub,” he whispered,

“the exquisite little flower. She has her father’s cast of features,

but—” transferring his expression of adoration to the face nearer his

“—but I’ll wager she has her mother’s eyes!”

When they creaked their way downstairs again they were on the

friendliest terms, and Marjorie could scarcely reconcile this kind,

elderly gentleman and his interested, avuncular air, with the debonair

gallant who had caught and held her attention so unpleasantly at

Government House.

“It only shows,” she reproved herself, “how you can misjudge a person.

And he’s old enough to be my father . . .” which state was always

synonymous to her with extreme rectitude and respectability.

He would not hear of her disturbing Raymond, nor would he allow her to

make cocoa for him, fond of it as he avowed himself to be. But he made

her promise that she would let him come soon again, when the children

were awake, and that when he was especially lonely, he might telephone

her; and moreover, that once in a while she would have tea with him in

order that he might prove what an excellent and handy man he would have

been . . . under different circumstances!

“This has been for me a wondrous night,” he said, holding her hand and

looking affectionately down at her, “and one that I shall never forget.

There is little I can do to prove my gratitude for a glimpse of real

home life, and the joy that has eluded me, but perhaps there may come a

time when you feel that I can serve you. Will you put me to the test,

then, Mrs. Dilling?” he queried, softly.

Touched, Marjorie nodded. “I am very pleased to have had you come in

like this—”

“‘_Sans ceremonie_,’ as our French friends say,” interrupted Sullivan,

looking furtively over her head at the closed door behind which he knew

that Dilling sat. “The strength of the weak,” he murmured, “the courage

to endure the emptiness of solitary days and weary evenings. I’ve been

through it. I understand. God bless you, little woman! But there can be

no more loneliness for us so long as we are . . . friends!” He pressed

her hand and was gone.

As she went upstairs, Marjorie wondered whether or not she had imagined

a shade of difference in him as he left her.

PART II

They Saw