A voice spoke from behind a half-opened door--

'Is that you, Claire?'

'Yes, mother; I've come back to pack. They want me to go to

Southampton to-night to take up Claudia Winslow's part.'

'What train are you catching?'

'The three-fifteen.'

'You will have to hurry.'

'I'm going to hurry,' said Claire, clenching her fists as two

simultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos,

proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a

sunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under the

infliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting

for the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She

meant to get her packing done in record time and escape from this

place. She went into her bedroom and began to throw things

untidily into her trunk. She had put the letter in her pocket

against a more favourable time for perusal. A glance had told her

that it was from her friend Polly, Countess of Wetherby: that

Polly Davis of whom she had spoken to Lord Dawlish. Polly Davis,

now married for better or for worse to that curious invertebrate

person, Algie Wetherby, was the only real friend Claire had made

on the stage. A sort of shivering gentility had kept her aloof

from the rest of her fellow-workers, but it took more than a

shivering gentility to stave off Polly.

Claire had passed through the various stages of intimacy with her,

until on the occasion of Polly's marriage she had acted as her

bridesmaid.

It was a long letter, too long to be read until she was at

leisure, and written in a straggling hand that made reading

difficult. She was mildly surprised that Polly should have written

her, for she had been back in America a year or more now, and this

was her first letter. Polly had a warm heart and did not forget

her friends, but she was not a good correspondent.

The need of getting her things ready at once drove the letter from

Claire's mind. She was in the train on her way to Southampton

before she remembered its existence.

It was dated from New York.

MY DEAR OLD CLAIRE,--Is this really my first letter to you? Isn't

that awful! Gee! A lot's happened since I saw you last. I must

tell you first about my hit. Some hit! Claire, old girl, I own New

York. I daren't tell you what my salary is. You'd faint.

I'm doing barefoot dancing. You know the sort of stuff. I started

it in vaudeville, and went so big that my agent shifted me to the

restaurants, and they have to call out the police reserves to

handle the crowd. You can't get a table at Reigelheimer's, which

is my pitch, unless you tip the head waiter a small fortune and

promise to mail him your clothes when you get home. I dance during

supper with nothing on my feet and not much anywhere else, and it

takes three vans to carry my salary to the bank.

Of course, it's the title that does it: 'Lady Pauline Wetherby!'

Algie says it oughtn't to be that, because I'm not the daughter of

a duke, but I don't worry about that. It looks good, and that's

all that matters. You can't get away from the title. I was born in

Carbondale, Illinois, but that doesn't matter--I'm an English

countess, doing barefoot dancing to work off the mortgage on the

ancestral castle, and they eat me. Take it from me, Claire, I'm a

riot.

Well, that's that. What I am really writing about is to tell you

that you have got to come over here. I've taken a house at

Brookport, on Long Island, for the summer. You can stay with me

till the fall, and then I can easily get you a good job in New

York. I have some pull these days, believe me. Not that you'll

need my help. The managers have only got to see you and they'll

all want you. I showed one of them that photograph you gave me,

and he went up in the air. They pay twice as big salaries over

here, you know, as in England, so come by the next boat.

Claire, darling, you must come. I'm wretched. Algie has got my

goat the worst way. If you don't know what that means it means

that he's behaving like a perfect pig. I hardly know where to

begin. Well, it was this way: directly I made my hit my press

agent, a real bright man named Sherriff, got busy, of course.

Interviews, you know, and Advice to Young Girls in the evening

papers, and How I Preserve My Beauty, and all that sort of thing.

Well, one thing he made me do was to buy a snake and a monkey.

Roscoe Sherriff is crazy about animals as aids to advertisement.

He says an animal story is the thing he does best. So I bought

them.

Algie kicked from the first. I ought to tell you that since we

left England he has taken up painting footling little pictures,

and has got the artistic temperament badly. All his life he's been

starting some new fool thing. When I first met him he prided

himself on having the finest collection of photographs of

race-horses in England. Then he got a craze for model engines.

After that he used to work the piano player till I nearly went

crazy. And now it's pictures.

I don't mind his painting. It gives him something to do and keeps

him out of mischief. He has a studio down in Washington Square,

and is perfectly happy messing about there all day.

Everything would be fine if he didn't think it necessary to tack

on the artistic temperament to his painting. He's developed the

idea that he has nerves and everything upsets them.

Things came to a head this morning at breakfast. Clarence, my

snake, has the cutest way of climbing up the leg of the table and

looking at you pleadingly in the hope that you will give him

soft-boiled egg, which he adores. He did it this morning, and no

sooner had his head appeared above the table than Algie, with a kind

of sharp wail, struck him a violent blow on the nose with a teaspoon.

Then he turned to me, very pale, and said: 'Pauline, this must

end! The time has come to speak up. A nervous, highly-strung man

like myself should not, and must not, be called upon to live in a

house where he is constantly meeting snakes and monkeys without

warning. Choose between me and--'

We had got as far as this when Eustace, the monkey, who I didn't

know was in the room at all, suddenly sprang on to his back. He is

very fond of Algie.

Would you believe it? Algie walked straight out of the house, still

holding the teaspoon, and has not returned. Later in the day he

called me up on the phone and said that, though he realized that a

man's place was the home, he declined to cross the threshold again

until I had got rid of Eustace and Clarence. I tried to reason with

him. I told him that he ought to think himself lucky it wasn't

anything worse than a monkey and a snake, for the last person Roscoe

Sherriff handled, an emotional actress named Devenish, had to keep a

young puma. But he wouldn't listen, and the end of it was that he

rang off and I have not seen or heard of him since.

I am broken-hearted. I won't give in, but I am having an awful time.

So, dearest Claire, do come over and help me. If you could possibly

sail by the _Atlantic_, leaving Southampton on the twenty-fourth of

this month, you would meet a friend of mine whom I think you would

like. His name is Dudley Pickering, and he made a fortune in

automobiles. I expect you have heard of the Pickering automobiles?

Darling Claire, do come, or I know I shall weaken and yield to

Algie's outrageous demands, for, though I would like to hit him

with a brick, I love him dearly.

Your affectionate

POLLY WETHERBY

Claire sank back against the cushioned seat and her eyes filled

with tears of disappointment. Of all the things which would have

chimed in with her discontented mood at that moment a sudden

flight to America was the most alluring. Only one consideration

held her back--she had not the money for her fare.

Polly might have thought of that, she reflected, bitterly. She

took the letter up again and saw that on the last page there was a

postscript--

PS.--I don't know how you are fixed for money, old girl, but if

things are the same with you as in the old days you can't be

rolling. So I have paid for a passage for you with the liner

people this side, and they have cabled their English office, so

you can sail whenever you want to. Come right over.

An hour later the manager of the Southampton branch of the White

Star Line was dazzled by an apparition, a beautiful girl who burst

in upon him with flushed face and shining eyes, demanding a berth on

the steamship _Atlantic_ and talking about a Lady Wetherby. Ten

minutes later, her passage secured, Claire was walking to the local

theatre to inform those in charge of the destinies of The Girl and

the Artist number one company that they must look elsewhere for a

substitute for Miss Claudia Winslow. Then she went back to her hotel

to write a letter home, notifying her mother of her plans.

She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. Back in West

Kensington a rich smell of dinner would be floating through the

flat; the cook, watching the boiling cabbage, would be singing "A

Few More Years Shall Roll"; her mother would be sighing; and her

little brother Percy would be employed upon some juvenile

deviltry, the exact nature of which it was not possible to

conjecture, though one could be certain that it would be something

involving a deafening noise.

Claire smiled a happy smile.

4

The offices of Messrs Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols were

in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The first Nichols had been dead since the

reign of King William the Fourth, the second since the jubilee

year of Queen Victoria. The remaining brace were Lord Dawlish's

friend Jerry and his father, a formidable old man who knew all the

shady secrets of all the noble families in England.

Bill walked up the stairs and was shown into the room where Jerry,

when his father's eye was upon him, gave his daily imitation of a

young man labouring with diligence and enthusiasm at the law. His

father being at the moment out at lunch, the junior partner was

practising putts with an umbrella and a ball of paper.

Jerry Nichols was not the typical lawyer. At Cambridge, where Bill

had first made his acquaintance, he had been notable for an

exuberance of which Lincoln's Inn Fields had not yet cured him.

There was an airy disregard for legal formalities about him which

exasperated his father, an attorney of the old school. He came to

the point, directly Bill entered the room, with a speed and levity

that would have appalled Nichols Senior, and must have caused the

other two Nicholses to revolve in their graves.

'Halloa, Bill, old man,' he said, prodding him amiably in the

waistcoat with the ferrule of the umbrella. 'How's the boy? Fine!

So'm I. So you got my message? Wonderful invention, the

telephone.'

'I've just come from the club.'

'Take a chair.'

'What's the matter?'

Jerry Nichols thrust Bill into a chair and seated himself on the

table.

'Now look here, Bill,' he said, 'this isn't the way we usually do

this sort of thing, and if the governor were here he would spend

an hour and a half rambling on about testators and beneficiary

legatees, and parties of the first part, and all that sort of rot.

But as he isn't here I want to know, as one pal to another, what

you've been doing to an old buster of the name of Nutcombe.'

'Nutcombe?'

'Nutcombe.'

'Not Ira Nutcombe?'

'Ira J. Nutcombe, formerly of Chicago, later of London, now a

disembodied spirit.'

'Is he dead?'

'Yes. And he's left you something like a million pounds.'

Lord Dawlish looked at his watch.

'Joking apart, Jerry, old man,' he said, 'what did you ask me to

come here for? The committee expects me to spend some of my time

at the club, and if I hang about here all the afternoon I shall

lose my job. Besides, I've got to get back to ask them for--'

Jerry Nichols clutched his forehead with both hands, raised both

hands to heaven, and then, as if despairing of calming himself by

these means, picked up a paper-weight from the desk and hurled it

at a portrait of the founder of the firm, which hung over the

mantelpiece. He got down from the table and crossed the room to

inspect the ruins.

Then, having taken a pair of scissors and cut the cord, he allowed

the portrait to fall to the floor.

He rang the bell. The prematurely-aged office-boy, who was

undoubtedly destined to become a member of the firm some day,

answered the ring.

'Perkins.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Inspect yonder _souffle_.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You have observed it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You are wondering how it got there?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I will tell you. You and I were in here, discussing certain legal

minutiae in the interests of the firm, when it suddenly fell. We

both saw it and were very much surprised and startled. I soothed

your nervous system by giving you this half-crown. The whole

incident was very painful. Can you remember all this to tell my

father when he comes in? I shall be out lunching then.'

'Yes, sir.'

'An admirable lad that,' said Jerry Nichols as the door closed.

'He has been here two years, and I have never heard him say

anything except "Yes, sir." He will go far. Well, now that I am

calmer let us return to your little matter. Honestly, Bill, you

make me sick. When I contemplate you the iron enters my soul. You

stand there talking about your tuppenny-ha'penny job as if it

mattered a cent whether you kept it or not. Can't you understand

plain English? Can't you realize that you can buy Brown's and turn

it into a moving-picture house if you like? You're a millionaire!'

Bill's face expressed no emotion whatsoever. Outwardly he appeared

unmoved. Inwardly he was a riot of bewilderment, incapable of

speech. He stared at Jerry dumbly.

'We've got the will in the old oak chest,' went on Jerry Nichols.

'I won't show it to you, partly because the governor has got the

key and he would have a fit if he knew that I was giving you early

information like this, and partly because you wouldn't understand

it. It is full of "whereases" and "peradventures" and "heretofores"

and similar swank, and there aren't any stops in it. It takes the legal

mind, like mine, to tackle wills. What it says, when you've peeled

off a few of the long words which they put in to make it more

interesting, is that old Nutcombe leaves you the money because

you are the only man who ever did him a disinterested kindness--and

what I want to get out of you is, what was the disinterested kindness?

Because I'm going straight out to do it to every elderly, rich-looking

man I can find till I pick a winner.'

Lord Dawlish found speech.

'Jerry, is this really true?'

'Gospel.'

'You aren't pulling my leg?'

'Pulling your leg? Of course I'm not pulling your leg. What do you

take me for? I'm a dry, hard-headed lawyer. The firm of Nichols,

Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols doesn't go about pulling people's

legs!'

'Good Lord!'

'It appears from the will that you worked this disinterested gag,

whatever it was, at Marvis Bay no longer ago than last year.

Wherein you showed a lot of sense, for Ira J., having altered his

will in your favour, apparently had no time before he died to

alter it again in somebody else's, which he would most certainly

have done if he had lived long enough, for his chief recreation

seems to have been making his will. To my certain knowledge he has

made three in the last two years. I've seen them. He was one of

those confirmed will-makers. He got the habit at an early age, and

was never able to shake it off. Do you remember anything about the

man?'

'It isn't possible!'

'Anything's possible with a man cracked enough to make freak wills

and not cracked enough to have them disputed on the ground of

insanity. What did you do to him at Marvis Bay? Save him from

drowning?'

'I cured him of slicing.'

'You did what?'

'He used to slice his approach shots. I cured him.'

'The thing begins to hang together. A certain plausibility creeps

into it. The late Nutcombe was crazy about golf. The governor used

to play with him now and then at Walton Heath. It was the only

thing Nutcombe seemed to live for. That being so, if you got rid

of his slice for him it seems to me, that you earned your money.

The only point that occurs to me is, how does it affect your

amateur status? It looks to me as if you were now a pro.'

'But, Jerry, it's absurd. All I did was to give him a tip or two.

We were the only men down there, as it was out of the season, and

that drew us together. And when I spotted this slice of his I just

gave him a bit of advice. I give you my word that was all. He

can't have left me a fortune on the strength of that!'

'You don't tell the story right, Bill. I can guess what really

happened--to wit, that you gave up all your time to helping the

old fellow improve his game, regardless of the fact that it

completely ruined your holiday.'

'Oh, no!'

'It's no use sitting there saying "Oh, no!" I can see you at it.

The fact is, you're such an infernally good chap that something of

this sort was bound to happen to you sooner or later. I think

making you his heir was the only sensible thing old Nutcombe ever

did. In his place I'd have done the same.'

'But he didn't even seem decently grateful at the time.'

'Probably not. He was a queer old bird. He had a most almighty row

with the governor in this office only a month or two ago about

absolutely nothing. They disagreed about something trivial, and

old Nutcombe stalked out and never came in again. That's the sort

of old bird he was.'

'Was he sane, do you think?'

'Absolutely, for legal purposes. We have three opinions from leading

doctors--collected by him in case of accidents, I suppose--each of

which declares him perfectly sound from the collar upward. But a

man can be pretty far gone, you know, without being legally insane,

and old Nutcombe--well, suppose we call him whimsical. He seems to

have zigzagged between the normal and the eccentric.

'His only surviving relatives appear to be a nephew and a niece.

The nephew dropped out of the running two years ago when his aunt,

old Nutcombe's wife, who had divorced old Nutcombe, left him her

money. This seems to have soured the old boy on the nephew, for in

the first of his wills that I've seen--you remember I told you I

had seen three--he leaves the niece the pile and the nephew only

gets twenty pounds. Well, so far there's nothing very eccentric

about old Nutcombe's proceedings. But wait!

'Six months after he had made that will he came in here and made

another. This left twenty pounds to the nephew as before, but

nothing at all to the niece. Why, I don't know. There was nothing

in the will about her having done anything to offend him during

those six months, none of those nasty slams you see in wills about

"I bequeath to my only son John one shilling and sixpence. Now

perhaps he's sorry he married the cook." As far as I can make out

he changed his will just as he did when he left the money to you,

purely through some passing whim. Anyway, he did change it. He

left the pile to support the movement those people are running for

getting the Jews back to Palestine.

'He didn't seem, on second thoughts, to feel that this was quite

such a brainy scheme as he had at first, and it wasn't long before

he came trotting back to tear up this second will and switch back

to the first one--the one leaving the money to the niece. That

restoration to sanity lasted till about a month ago, when he broke

loose once more and paid his final visit here to will you the

contents of his stocking. This morning I see he's dead after a

short illness, so you collect. Congratulations!'

Lord Dawlish had listened to this speech in perfect silence. He now

rose and began to pace the room. He looked warm and uncomfortable.

His demeanour, in fact, was by no means the accepted demeanour of

the lucky heir.

'This is awful!' he said. 'Good Lord, Jerry, it's frightful!'

'Awful!--being left a million pounds?'

'Yes, like this. I feel like a bally thief.'

'Why on earth?'

'If it hadn't been for me this girl--what's her name?'

'Her name is Boyd--Elizabeth Boyd.'

'She would have had the whole million if it hadn't been for me.

Have you told her yet?'

'She's in America. I was writing her a letter just before you came

in--informal, you know, to put her out of her misery. If I had

waited for the governor to let her know in the usual course of red

tape we should never have got anywhere. Also one to the nephew,

telling him about his twenty pounds. I believe in humane treatment

on these occasions. The governor would write them a legal letter

with so many "hereinbefores" in it that they would get the idea

that they had been left the whole pile. I just send a cheery line

saying "It's no good, old top. Abandon hope," and they know just

where they are. Simple and considerate.'

A glance at Bill's face moved him to further speech.

'I don't see why you should worry, Bill. How, by any stretch of

the imagination, can you make out that you are to blame for this

Boyd girl's misfortune? It looks to me as if these eccentric wills

of old Nutcombe's came in cycles, as it were. Just as he was due

for another outbreak he happened to meet you. It's a moral

certainty that if he hadn't met you he would have left all his

money to a Home for Superannuated Caddies or a Fund for Supplying

the Deserving Poor with Niblicks. Why should you blame yourself?'

'I don't blame myself. It isn't exactly that. But--but, well, what

would you feel like in my place?'

'A two-year-old.'

'Wouldn't you do anything?'

'I certainly would. By my halidom, I would! I would spend that

money with a vim and speed that would make your respected

ancestor, the Beau, look like a village miser.'

'You wouldn't--er--pop over to America and see whether something

couldn't be arranged?'

'What!'

'I mean--suppose you were popping in any case. Suppose you had

happened to buy a ticket for New York on to-morrow's boat,

wouldn't you try to get in touch with this girl when you got to

America, and see if you couldn't--er--fix up something?'

Jerry Nichols looked at him in honest consternation. He had always

known that old Bill was a dear old ass, but he had never dreamed

that he was such an infernal old ass as this.

'You aren't thinking of doing that?' he gasped.

'Well, you see, it's a funny coincidence, but I was going to

America, anyhow, to-morrow. I don't see why I shouldn't try to fix

up something with this girl.'

'What do you mean--fix up something? You don't suggest that you

should give the money up, do you?'

'I don't know. Not exactly that, perhaps. How would it be if I

gave her half, what? Anyway, I should like to find out about her,

see if she's hard up, and so on. I should like to nose round, you

know, and--er--and so forth, don't you know. Where did you say the

girl lived?'

'I didn't say, and I'm not sure that I shall. Honestly, Bill, you

mustn't be so quixotic.'

'There's no harm in my nosing round, is there? Be a good chap and

give me the address.'

'Well'--with misgivings--'Brookport, Long Island.'

'Thanks.'

'Bill, are you really going to make a fool of yourself?'

'Not a bit of it, old chap. I'm just going to--er--'

'To nose round?'

'To nose round,' said Bill.

Jerry Nichols accompanied his friend to the door, and once more

peace reigned in the offices of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and

Nichols.

The time of a man who has at a moment's notice decided to leave

his native land for a sojourn on foreign soil is necessarily taken

up with a variety of occupations; and it was not till the

following afternoon, on the boat at Liverpool, that Bill had

leisure to write to Claire, giving her the news of what had

befallen him. He had booked his ticket by a Liverpool boat in

preference to one that sailed from Southampton because he had not

been sure how Claire would take the news of his sudden decision to

leave for America. There was the chance that she might ridicule or

condemn the scheme, and he preferred to get away without seeing

her. Now that he had received this astounding piece of news from

Jerry Nichols he was relieved that he had acted in this way.

Whatever Claire might have thought of the original scheme, there

was no doubt at all what she would think of his plan of seeking

out Elizabeth Boyd with a view to dividing the legacy with her.

He was guarded in his letter. He mentioned no definite figures. He

wrote that Ira Nutcombe of whom they had spoken so often had most

surprisingly left him in his will a large sum of money, and eased

his conscience by telling himself that half of a million pounds

undeniably was a large sum of money.

The addressing of the letter called for thought. She would have

left Southampton with the rest of the company before it could

arrive. Where was it that she said they were going next week?

Portsmouth, that was it. He addressed the letter Care of The Girl

and the Artist Company, to the King's Theatre, Portsmouth.

5

The village of Brookport, Long Island, is a summer place. It

lives, like the mosquitoes that infest it, entirely on its summer

visitors. At the time of the death of Mr Ira Nutcombe, the only

all-the-year-round inhabitants were the butcher, the grocer, the

chemist, the other customary fauna of villages, and Miss Elizabeth

Boyd, who rented the ramshackle farm known locally as Flack's and

eked out a precarious livelihood by keeping bees.

If you take down your _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Volume III,

AUS to BIS, you will find that bees are a 'large and natural

family of the zoological order Hymenoptera, characterized by the

plumose form of many of their hairs, by the large size of the

basal segment of the foot ... and by the development of a "tongue"

for sucking liquid food,' the last of which peculiarities, it is

interesting to note, they shared with Claude Nutcombe Boyd,

Elizabeth's brother, who for quite a long time--till his money ran

out--had made liquid food almost his sole means of sustenance.

These things, however, are by the way. We are not such snobs as to

think better or worse of a bee because it can claim kinship with

the _Hymenoptera_ family, nor so ill-bred as to chaff it for

having large feet. The really interesting passage in the article

occurs later, where it says: 'The bee industry prospers greatly in

America.'

This is one of those broad statements that invite challenge.

Elizabeth Boyd would have challenged it. She had not prospered

greatly. With considerable trouble she contrived to pay her way,

and that was all.

Again referring to the 'Encyclopaedia,' we find the words: 'Before

undertaking the management of a modern apiary, the beekeeper

should possess a certain amount of aptitude for the pursuit.' This

was possibly the trouble with Elizabeth's venture, considered from

a commercial point of view. She loved bees, but she was not an

expert on them. She had started her apiary with a small capital, a

book of practical hints, and a second-hand queen, principally

because she was in need of some occupation that would enable her

to live in the country. It was the unfortunate condition of Claude

Nutcombe which made life in the country a necessity. At that time

he was spending the remains of the money left him by his aunt, and

Elizabeth had hardly settled down at Brookport and got her venture

under way when she found herself obliged to provide for Nutty a

combination of home and sanatorium. It had been the poor lad's

mistaken view that he could drink up all the alcoholic liquor in

America.

It is a curious law of Nature that the most undeserving brothers

always have the best sisters. Thrifty, plodding young men, who get

up early, and do it now, and catch the employer's eye, and save

half their salaries, have sisters who never speak civilly to them

except when they want to borrow money. To the Claude Nutcombes of

the world are vouchsafed the Elizabeths.

The great aim of Elizabeth's life was to make a new man of Nutty.

It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport,

with--unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at the

store--its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pull

him together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. She

liked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in the

next room with a broom and a dustpan, for in the simple lexicon of

Flack's there was no such word as 'help'. The privy purse would

not run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombe

the housework.

Several days after Claire Fenwick and Lord Dawlish, by different

routes, had sailed from England, Elizabeth Boyd sat up in bed and

shook her mane of hair from her eyes, yawning. Outside her window

the birds were singing, and a shaft of sunlight intruded itself

beneath the blind. But what definitely convinced her that it was

time to get up was the plaintive note of James, the cat,

patrolling the roof of the porch. An animal of regular habits,

James always called for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp.

Elizabeth got out of bed, wrapped her small body in a pink kimono,

thrust her small feet into a pair of blue slippers, yawned again,

and went downstairs. Having taken last night's milk from the ice-box,

she went to the back door, and, having filled James's saucer,

stood on the grass beside it, sniffing the morning air.

Elizabeth Boyd was twenty-one, but standing there with her hair

tumbling about her shoulders she might have been taken by a

not-too-close observer for a child. It was only when you saw her eyes

and the resolute tilt of the chin that you realized that she was a

young woman very well able to take care of herself in a difficult

world. Her hair was very fair, her eyes brown and very bright, and

the contrast was extraordinarily piquant. They were valiant eyes,

full of spirit; eyes, also, that saw the humour of things. And her

mouth was the mouth of one who laughs easily. Her chin, small like

the rest of her, was strong; and in the way she held herself there

was a boyish jauntiness. She looked--and was--a capable little

person.

She stood besides James like a sentinel, watching over him as he

breakfasted. There was a puppy belonging to one of the neighbours

who sometimes lumbered over and stole James's milk, disposing of

it in greedy gulps while its rightful proprietor looked on with

piteous helplessness. Elizabeth was fond of the puppy, but her

sense of justice was keen and she was there to check this

brigandage.

It was a perfect day, cloudless and still. There was peace in the

air. James, having finished his milk, began to wash himself. A

squirrel climbed cautiously down from a linden tree. From the

orchard came the murmur of many bees.

Aesthetically Elizabeth was fond of still, cloudless days, but

experience had taught her to suspect them. As was the custom in

that locality, the water supply depended on a rickety windwheel.

It was with a dark foreboding that she returned to the kitchen and

turned on one of the taps. For perhaps three seconds a stream of

the dimension of a darning-needle emerged, then with a sad gurgle

the tap relapsed into a stolid inaction. There is no stolidity so

utter as that of a waterless tap.

'Confound it!' said Elizabeth.

She passed through the dining-room to the foot of the stairs.

'Nutty!'

There was no reply.

'Nutty, my precious lamb!'

Upstairs in the room next to her own a long, spare form began to

uncurl itself in bed; a face with a receding chin and a small

forehead raised itself reluctantly from the pillow, and Claude

Nutcombe Boyd signalized the fact that he was awake by scowling at

the morning sun and uttering an aggrieved groan.

Alas, poor Nutty! This was he whom but yesterday Broadway had

known as the Speed Kid, on whom head-waiters had smiled and lesser

waiters fawned; whose snake-like form had nestled in so many a

front-row orchestra stall.

Where were his lobster Newburgs now, his cold quarts that were

wont to set the table in a roar?

Nutty Boyd conformed as nearly as a human being may to Euclid's

definition of a straight line. He was length without breadth. From

boyhood's early day he had sprouted like a weed, till now in the

middle twenties he gave startled strangers the conviction that it

only required a sharp gust of wind to snap him in half. Lying in

bed, he looked more like a length of hose-pipe than anything else.

While he was unwinding himself the door opened and Elizabeth came

into the room.

'Good morning, Nutty!'

'What's the time?' asked her brother, hollowly.

'Getting on towards nine. It's a lovely day. The birds are

singing, the bees are buzzing, summer's in the air. It's one of

those beautiful, shiny, heavenly, gorgeous days.'

A look of suspicion came into Nutty's eyes. Elizabeth was not

often as lyrical as this.

'There's a catch somewhere,' he said.

'Well, as a matter of fact,' said Elizabeth, carelessly, 'the

water's off again.'

'Confound it!'

'I said that. I'm afraid we aren't a very original family.'

'What a ghastly place this is! Why can't you see old Flack and

make him mend that infernal wheel?'

'I'm going to pounce on him and have another try directly I see

him. Meanwhile, darling Nutty, will you get some clothes on and go

round to the Smiths and ask them to lend us a pailful?'

'Oh, gosh, it's over a mile!'

'No, no, not more than three-quarters.'

'Lugging a pail that weighs a ton! The last time I went there

their dog bit me.'

'I expect that was because you slunk in all doubled up, and he got

suspicious. You should hold your head up and throw your chest out

and stride up as if you were a military friend of the family.'

Self-pity lent Nutty eloquence.

'For Heaven's sake! You drag me out of bed at some awful hour of

the morning when a rational person would just be turning in; you

send me across country to fetch pailfuls of water when I'm feeling

like a corpse; and on top of that you expect me to behave like a

drum-major!'

'Dearest, you can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long as

you get the fluid. We must have water. I can't fetch it. I'm a

delicately-nurtured female.'

'We ought to have a man to do these ghastly jobs.'

'But we can't afford one. Just at present all I ask is to be able

to pay expenses. And, as a matter of fact, you ought to be very

thankful that you have got--'

'A roof over my head? I know. You needn't keep rubbing it in.'

Elizabeth flushed.

'I wasn't going to say that at all. What a pig you are sometimes,

Nutty. As if I wasn't only too glad to have you here. What I was

going to say was that you ought to be very thankful that you have

got to draw water and hew wood--'

A look of absolute alarm came into Nutty's pallid face.

'You don't mean to say that you want some wood chopped?'

'I was speaking figuratively. I meant hustle about and work in the

open air. The sort of life you are leading now is what millionaires

pay hundreds of dollars for at these physical-culture places. It

has been the making of you.'

'I don't feel made.'

'Your nerves are ever so much better.'

'They aren't.'

Elizabeth looked at him in alarm.

'Oh, Nutty, you haven't been--seeing anything again, have you?'

'Not seeing, dreaming. I've been dreaming about monkeys. Why

should I dream about monkeys if my nerves were all right?'

'I often dream about all sorts of queer things.'

'Have you ever dreamed that you were being chased up Broadway by a

chimpanzee in evening dress?'

'Never mind, dear, you'll be quite all right again when you have

been living this life down here a little longer.'

Nutty glared balefully at the ceiling.

'What's that darned thing up there on the ceiling? It looks like a

hornet. How on earth do these things get into the house?'

'We ought to have nettings. I am going to pounce on Mr Flack about

that too.'

'Thank goodness this isn't going to last much longer. It's nearly

two weeks since Uncle Ira died. We ought to be hearing from the

lawyers any day now. There might be a letter this morning.'

'Do you think he has left us his money?'

'Do I? Why, what else could he do with it? We are his only

surviving relatives, aren't we? I've had to go through life with a

ghastly name like Nutcombe as a compliment to him, haven't I? I

wrote to him regularly at Christmas and on his birthday, didn't I?

Well, then! I have a feeling there will be a letter from the

lawyers to-day. I wish you would get dressed and go down to the

post-office while I'm fetching that infernal water. I can't think

why the fools haven't cabled. You would have supposed they would

have thought of that.'

Elizabeth returned to her room to dress. She was conscious of a

feeling that nothing was quite perfect in this world. It would be

nice to have a great deal of money, for she had a scheme in her

mind which called for a large capital; but she was sorry that it

could come to her only through the death of her uncle, of whom,

despite his somewhat forbidding personality, she had always been

fond. She was also sorry that a large sum of money was coming to

Nutty at that particular point in his career, just when there

seemed the hope that the simple life might pull him together. She

knew Nutty too well not to be able to forecast his probable

behaviour under the influence of a sudden restoration of wealth.

While these thoughts were passing through her mind she happened to

glance out of the window. Nutty was shambling through the garden

with his pail, a bowed, shuffling pillar of gloom. As Elizabeth

watched, he dropped the pail and lashed the air violently for a

while. From her knowledge of bees ('It is needful to remember that

bees resent outside interference and will resolutely defend

themselves,' _Encyc. Brit._, Vol. III, AUS to BIS) Elizabeth

deduced that one of her little pets was annoying him. This episode

concluded, Nutty resumed his pail and the journey, and at this

moment there appeared over the hedge the face of Mr John Prescott,

a neighbour. Mr Prescott, who had dismounted from a bicycle,

called to Nutty and waved something in the air. To a stranger the

performance would have been obscure, but Elizabeth understood it.

Mr Prescott was intimating that he had been down to the post-office

for his own letters and, as was his neighbourly custom on these

occasions, had brought back also letters for Flack's.

Nutty foregathered with Mr Prescott and took the letters from him.

Mr Prescott disappeared. Nutty selected one of the letters and

opened it. Then, having stood perfectly still for some moments, he

suddenly turned and began to run towards the house.

The mere fact that her brother, whose usual mode of progression

was a languid saunter, should be actually running, was enough to

tell Elizabeth that the letter which Nutty had read was from the

London lawyers. No other communication could have galvanized him

into such energy. Whether the contents of the letter were good or

bad it was impossible at that distance to say. But when she

reached the open air, just as Nutty charged up, she saw by his

face that it was anguish not joy that had spurred him on. He was

gasping and he bubbled unintelligible words. His little eyes

gleamed wildly.

'Nutty, darling, what is it?' cried Elizabeth, every maternal

instinct in her aroused.

He was thrusting a sheet of paper at her, a sheet of paper that

bore the superscription of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols,

with a London address.

'Uncle Ira--' Nutty choked. 'Twenty pounds! He's left me twenty

pounds, and all the rest to a--to a man named Dawlish!'

In silence Elizabeth took the letter. It was even as he had said.

A few moments before Elizabeth had been regretting the imminent

descent of wealth upon her brother. Now she was inconsistent

enough to boil with rage at the shattering blow which had befallen

him. That she, too, had lost her inheritance hardly occurred to

her. Her thoughts were all for Nutty. It did not need the sight of

him, gasping and gurgling before her, to tell her how overwhelming

was his disappointment.

It was useless to be angry with the deceased Mr Nutcombe. He was

too shadowy a mark. Besides, he was dead. The whole current of her

wrath turned upon the supplanter, this Lord Dawlish. She pictured

him as a crafty adventurer, a wretched fortune-hunter. For some

reason or other she imagined him a sinister person with a black

moustache, a face thin and hawk-like, and unpleasant eyes. That

was the sort of man who would be likely to fasten his talons into

poor Uncle Ira.

She had never hated any one in her life before, but as she stood

there at that moment she felt that she loathed and detested

William Lord Dawlish--unhappy, well-meaning Bill, who only a few

hours back had set foot on American soil in his desire to nose

round and see if something couldn't be arranged.

Nutty fetched the water. Life is like that. There is nothing

clean-cut about it, no sense of form. Instead of being permitted

to concentrate his attention on his tragedy Nutty had to trudge

three-quarters of a mile, conciliate a bull-terrier, and trudge

back again carrying a heavy pail. It was as if one of the heroes

of Greek drama, in the middle of his big scene, had been asked to

run round the corner to a provision store.

The exercise did not act as a restorative. The blow had been too

sudden, too overwhelming. Nutty's reason--such as it was--tottered

on its throne. Who was Lord Dawlish? What had he done to

ingratiate himself with Uncle Ira? By what insidious means, with

what devilish cunning, had he wormed his way into the old man's

favour? These were the questions that vexed Nutty's mind when he

was able to think at all coherently.

Back at the farm Elizabeth cooked breakfast and awaited her

brother's return with a sinking heart. She was a soft-hearted

girl, easily distressed by the sight of suffering; and she was

aware that Nutty was scarcely of the type that masks its woes

behind a brave and cheerful smile. Her heart bled for Nutty.

There was a weary step outside. Nutty entered, slopping water. One

glance at his face was enough to tell Elizabeth that she had

formed a too conservative estimate of his probable gloom. Without

a word he coiled his long form in a chair. There was silence in

the stricken house.

'What's the time?'

Elizabeth glanced at her watch.

'Half-past nine.'

'About now,' said Nutty, sepulchrally, 'the blighter is ringing

for his man to prepare his bally bath and lay out his gold-leaf

underwear. After that he will drive down to the bank and draw some

of our money.'

The day passed wearily for Elizabeth. Nutty having the air of one

who is still engaged in picking up the pieces, she had not the

heart to ask him to play his customary part in the household

duties, so she washed the dishes and made the beds herself. After

that she attended to the bees. After that she cooked lunch.

Nutty was not chatty at lunch. Having observed 'About now the

blighter is cursing the waiter for bringing the wrong brand of

champagne,' he relapsed into a silence which he did not again

break.

Elizabeth was busy again in the afternoon. At four o'clock,

feeling tired out, she went to her room to lie down until the next

of her cycle of domestic duties should come round.

It was late when she came downstairs, for she had fallen asleep.

The sun had gone down. Bees were winging their way heavily back to

the hives with their honey. She went out into the grounds to try

to find Nutty. There had been no signs of him in the house. There

were no signs of him about the grounds. It was not like him to

have taken a walk, but it seemed the only possibility. She went

back to the house to wait. Eight o'clock came, and nine, and it

was then the truth dawned upon her--Nutty had escaped. He had

slipped away and gone up to New York.

6

Lord Dawlish sat in the New York flat which had been lent him by

his friend Gates. The hour was half-past ten in the evening; the

day, the second day after the exodus of Nutty Boyd from the farm.

Before him on the table lay a letter. He was smoking pensively.

Lord Dawlish had found New York enjoyable, but a trifle fatiguing.

There was much to be seen in the city, and he had made the mistake

of trying to see it all at once. It had been his intention, when

he came home after dinner that night, to try to restore the

balance of things by going to bed early. He had sat up longer than

he had intended, because he had been thinking about this letter.

Immediately upon his arrival in America, Bill had sought out a

lawyer and instructed him to write to Elizabeth Boyd, offering her

one-half of the late Ira Nutcombe's money. He had had time during

the voyage to think the whole matter over, and this seemed to him

the only possible course. He could not keep it all. He would feel

like the despoiler of the widow and the orphan. Nor would it be

fair to Claire to give it all up. If he halved the legacy

everybody would be satisfied.

That at least had been his view until Elizabeth's reply had

arrived. It was this reply that lay on the table--a brief, formal

note, setting forth Miss Boyd's absolute refusal to accept any

portion of the money. This was a development which Bill had not

foreseen, and he was feeling baffled. What was the next step? He

had smoked many pipes in the endeavour to find an answer to this

problem, and was lighting another when the door-bell rang.

He opened the door and found himself confronting an extraordinarily

tall and thin young man in evening-dress.

Lord Dawlish was a little startled. He had taken it for granted,

when the bell rang, that his visitor was Tom, the liftman from

downstairs, a friendly soul who hailed from London and had been

dropping in at intervals during the past two days to acquire the

latest news from his native land. He stared at this changeling

inquiringly. The solution of the mystery came with the stranger's

first words--

'Is Gates in?'

He spoke eagerly, as if Gates were extremely necessary to his

well-being. It distressed Lord Dawlish to disappoint him, but

there was nothing else to be done.

'Gates is in London,' he said.

'What! When did he go there?'

'About four months ago.'

'May I come in a minute?'

'Yes, rather, do.'

He led the way into the sitting-room. The stranger gave abruptly

in the middle, as if he were being folded up by some invisible

agency, and in this attitude sank into a chair, where he lay back

looking at Bill over his knees, like a sorrowful sheep peering

over a sharp-pointed fence.

'You're from England, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'Been in New York long?'

'Only a couple of days.'

The stranger folded himself up another foot or so until his knees

were higher than his head, and lit a cigarette.

'The curse of New York,' he said, mournfully, 'is the way

everything changes in it. You can't take your eyes off it for a

minute. The population's always shifting. It's like a railway

station. You go away for a bit and come back and try to find your

old pals, and they're all gone: Ike's in Arizona, Mike's in a

sanatorium, Spike's in jail, and nobody seems to know where the

rest of them have got to. I came up from the country two days ago,

expecting to find the old gang along Broadway the same as ever,

and I'm dashed if I've been able to put my hands on one of them!

Not a single, solitary one of them! And it's only six months since

I was here last.'

Lord Dawlish made sympathetic noises.

'Of course,' proceeded the other, 'the time of year may have

something to do with it. Living down in the country you lose count

of time, and I forgot that it was July, when people go out of the

city. I guess that must be what happened. I used to know all sorts

of fellows, actors and fellows like that, and they're all away

somewhere. I tell you,' he said, with pathos, 'I never knew I

could be so infernally lonesome as I have been these last two

days. If I had known what a rotten time I was going to have I

would never have left Brookport.'

'Brookport!'

'It's a place down on Long Island.'

Bill was not by nature a plotter, but the mere fact of travelling

under an assumed name had developed a streak of wariness in him.

He checked himself just as he was about to ask his companion if he

happened to know a Miss Elizabeth Boyd, who also lived at

Brookport. It occurred to him that the question would invite a

counter-question as to his own knowledge of Miss Boyd, and he knew

that he would not be able to invent a satisfactory answer to that

offhand.

'This evening,' said the thin young man, resuming his dirge, 'I

was sweating my brain to try to think of somebody I could hunt up

in this ghastly, deserted city. It isn't so easy, you know, to

think of fellows' names and addresses. I can get the names all

right, but unless the fellow's in the telephone-book, I'm done.

Well, I was trying to think of some of my pals who might still be

around the place, and I remembered Gates. Remembered his address,

too, by a miracle. You're a pal of his, of course?'

'Yes, I knew him in London.'

'Oh, I see. And when you came over here he lent you his flat? By

the way, I didn't get your name?'

'My name's Chalmers.'

'Well, as I say, I remembered Gates and came down here to look him

up. We used to have a lot of good times together a year ago. And

now he's gone too!'

'Did you want to see him about anything important?'

'Well, it's important to me. I wanted him to come out to supper.

You see, it's this way: I'm giving supper to-night to a girl who's

in that show at the Forty-ninth Street Theatre, a Miss Leonard,

and she insists on bringing a pal. She says the pal is a good

sport, which sounds all right--' Bill admitted that it sounded all

right. 'But it makes the party three. And of all the infernal

things a party of three is the ghastliest.'

Having delivered himself of this undeniable truth the stranger

slid a little farther into his chair and paused. 'Look here, what

are you doing to-night?' he said.

'I was thinking of going to bed.'

'Going to bed!' The stranger's voice was shocked, as if he had

heard blasphemy. 'Going to bed at half-past ten in New York! My

dear chap, what you want is a bit of supper. Why don't you come

along?'

Amiability was, perhaps, the leading quality of Lord Dawlish's

character. He did not want to have to dress and go out to supper,

but there was something almost pleading in the eyes that looked at

him between the sharply-pointed knees.

'It's awfully good of you--' He hesitated.

'Not a bit; I wish you would. You would be a life-saver.'

Bill felt that he was in for it. He got up.

'You will?' said the other. 'Good boy! You go and get into some

clothes and come along. I'm sorry, what did you say your name

was?'

'Chalmers.'

'Mine's Boyd--Nutcombe Boyd.'

'Boyd!' cried Bill.

Nutty took his astonishment, which was too great to be concealed,

as a compliment. He chuckled.

'I thought you would know the name if you were a pal of Gates's. I

expect he's always talking about me. You see, I was pretty well

known in this old place before I had to leave it.'

Bill walked down the long passage to his bedroom with no trace of

the sleepiness which had been weighing on him five minutes before.

He was galvanized by a superstitious thrill. It was fate,

Elizabeth Boyd's brother turning up like this and making friendly

overtures right on top of that letter from her. This astonishing

thing could not have been better arranged if he had planned it

himself. From what little he had seen of Nutty he gathered that

the latter was not hard to make friends with. It would be a simple

task to cultivate his acquaintance. And having done so, he could

renew negotiations with Elizabeth. The desire to rid himself of

half the legacy had become a fixed idea with Bill. He had the

impression that he could not really feel clean again until he had

made matters square with his conscience in this respect. He felt

that he was probably a fool to take that view of the thing, but

that was the way he was built and there was no getting away from

it.

This irruption of Nutty Boyd into his life was an omen. It meant

that all was not yet over. He was conscious of a mild surprise

that he had ever intended to go to bed. He felt now as if he never

wanted to go to bed again. He felt exhilarated.

In these days one cannot say that a supper-party is actually given

in any one place. Supping in New York has become a peripatetic

pastime. The supper-party arranged by Nutty Boyd was scheduled to

start at Reigelheimer's on Forty-second Street, and it was there

that the revellers assembled.

Nutty and Bill had been there a few minutes when Miss Daisy

Leonard arrived with her friend. And from that moment Bill was

never himself again.

The Good Sport was, so to speak, an outsize in Good Sports. She

loomed up behind the small and demure Miss Leonard like a liner

towed by a tug. She was big, blonde, skittish, and exuberant; she

wore a dress like the sunset of a fine summer evening, and she

effervesced with spacious good will to all men. She was one of

those girls who splash into public places like stones into quiet

pools. Her form was large, her eyes were large, her teeth were

large, and her voice was large. She overwhelmed Bill. She hit his

astounded consciousness like a shell. She gave him a buzzing in

the ears. She was not so much a Good Sport as some kind of an

explosion.

He was still reeling from the spiritual impact with this female

tidal wave when he became aware, as one who, coming out of a

swoon, hears voices faintly, that he was being addressed by Miss

Leonard. To turn from Miss Leonard's friend to Miss Leonard

herself was like hearing the falling of gentle rain after a

thunderstorm. For a moment he revelled in the sense of being

soothed; then, as he realized what she was saying, he started

violently. Miss Leonard was looking at him curiously.

'I beg your pardon?' said Bill.

'I'm sure I've met you before, Mr Chalmers.'

'Er--really?'

'But I can't think where.'

'I'm sure,' said the Good Sport, languishingly, like a sentimental

siege-gun, 'that if I had ever met Mr Chalmers before I shouldn't

have forgotten him.'

'You're English, aren't you?' asked Miss Leonard.

'Yes.'

The Good Sport said she was crazy about Englishmen.

'I thought so from your voice.'

The Good Sport said that she was crazy about the English accent.

'It must have been in London that I met you. I was in the revue at

the Alhambra last year.'

'By George, I wish I had seen you!' interjected the infatuated

Nutty.

The Good Sport said that she was crazy about London.

'I seem to remember,' went on Miss Leonard, 'meeting you out at

supper. Do you know a man named Delaney in the Coldstream Guards?'

Bill would have liked to deny all knowledge of Delaney, though the

latter was one of his best friends, but his natural honesty

prevented him.

'I'm sure I met you at a supper he gave at Oddy's one Friday

night. We all went on to Covent Garden. Don't you remember?'

'Talking of supper,' broke in Nutty, earning Bill's hearty

gratitude thereby, 'where's the dashed head-waiter? I want to find

my table.'

He surveyed the restaurant with a melancholy eye.

'Everything changed!' He spoke sadly, as Ulysses might have done

when his boat put in at Ithaca. 'Every darned thing different

since I was here last. New waiter, head-waiter I never saw before

in my life, different-coloured carpet--'

'Cheer up, Nutty, old thing!' said Miss Leonard. 'You'll feel

better when you've had something to eat. I hope you had the sense

to tip the head-waiter, or there won't be any table. Funny how

these places go up and down in New York. A year ago the whole

management would turn out and kiss you if you looked like spending

a couple of dollars here. Now it costs the earth to get in at

all.'

'Why's that?' asked Nutty.

'Lady Pauline Wetherby, of course. Didn't you know this was where

she danced?'

'Never heard of her,' said Nutty, in a sort of ecstasy of wistful

gloom. 'That will show you how long I've been away. Who is she?'

Miss Leonard invoked the name of Mike.

'Don't you ever get the papers in your village, Nutty?'

'I never read the papers. I don't suppose I've read a paper for

years. I can't stand 'em. Who is Lady Pauline Wetherby?'

'She does Greek dances--at least, I suppose they're Greek. They

all are nowadays, unless they're Russian. She's an English

peeress.'

Miss Leonard's friend said she was crazy about these picturesque

old English families; and they went in to supper.

* * * * *

Looking back on the evening later and reviewing its leading

features, Lord Dawlish came to the conclusion that he never

completely recovered from the first shock of the Good Sport. He

was conscious all the time of a dream-like feeling, as if he were

watching himself from somewhere outside himself. From some

conning-tower in this fourth dimension he perceived himself eating

broiled lobster and drinking champagne and heard himself bearing

an adequate part in the conversation; but his movements were

largely automatic.

* * * * *

Time passed. It seemed to Lord Dawlish, watching from without,

that things were livening up. He seemed to perceive a quickening

of the _tempo_ of the revels, an added abandon. Nutty was

getting quite bright. He had the air of one who recalls the good

old days, of one who in familiar scenes re-enacts the joys of his

vanished youth. The chastened melancholy induced by many months of

fetching of pails of water, of scrubbing floors with a mop, and of

jumping like a firecracker to avoid excited bees had been purged

from him by the lights and the music and the wine. He was telling

a long anecdote, laughing at it, throwing a crust of bread at an

adjacent waiter, and refilling his glass at the same time. It is

not easy to do all these things simultaneously, and the fact that

Nutty did them with notable success was proof that he was picking

up.

Miss Daisy Leonard was still demure, but as she had just slipped a

piece of ice down the back of Nutty's neck one may assume that she

was feeling at her ease and had overcome any diffidence or shyness

which might have interfered with her complete enjoyment of the

festivities. As for the Good Sport, she was larger, blonder, and

more exuberant than ever and she was addressing someone as 'Bill'.

Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon of the evening, as it

advanced, was the change it wrought in Lord Dawlish's attitude

toward this same Good Sport. He was not conscious of the beginning

of the change; he awoke to the realization of it suddenly. At the

beginning of supper his views on her had been definite and clear.

When they had first been introduced to each other he had had a

stunned feeling that this sort of thing ought not to be allowed at

large, and his battered brain had instinctively recalled that line

of Tennyson: 'The curse is come upon me.' But now, warmed with

food and drink and smoking an excellent cigar, he found that a

gentler, more charitable mood had descended upon him.

He argued with himself in extenuation of the girl's peculiar

idiosyncrasies. Was it, he asked himself, altogether her fault

that she was so massive and spoke as if she were addressing an

open-air meeting in a strong gale? Perhaps it was hereditary.

Perhaps her father had been a circus giant and her mother the

strong woman of the troupe. And for the unrestraint of her manner

defective training in early girlhood would account. He began to

regard her with a quiet, kindly commiseration, which in its turn

changed into a sort of brotherly affection. He discovered that he

liked her. He liked her very much. She was so big and jolly and

robust, and spoke in such a clear, full voice. He was glad that

she was patting his hand. He was glad that he had asked her to

call him Bill.

People were dancing now. It has been claimed by patriots that

American dyspeptics lead the world. This supremacy, though partly

due, no doubt, to vast supplies of pie absorbed in youth, may be

attributed to a certain extent also to the national habit of

dancing during meals. Lord Dawlish had that sturdy reverence for

his interior organism which is the birthright of every Briton. And

at the beginning of supper he had resolved that nothing should

induce him to court disaster in this fashion. But as the time went

on he began to waver.

The situation was awkward. Nutty and Miss Leonard were repeatedly

leaving the table to tread the measure, and on these occasions the

Good Sport's wistfulness was a haunting reproach. Nor was the

spectacle of Nutty in action without its effect on Bill's

resolution. Nutty dancing was a sight to stir the most stolid.

Bill wavered. The music had started again now, one of those

twentieth-century eruptions of sound that begin like a train going

through a tunnel and continue like audible electric shocks, that

set the feet tapping beneath the table and the spine thrilling

with an unaccustomed exhilaration. Every drop of blood in his body

cried to him 'Dance!' He could resist no longer.

'Shall we?' he said.

Bill should not have danced. He was an estimable young man,

honest, amiable, with high ideals. He had played an excellent game

of football at the university; his golf handicap was plus two; and

he was no mean performer with the gloves. But we all of us have

our limitations, and Bill had his. He was not a good dancer. He

was energetic, but he required more elbow room than the ordinary

dancing floor provides. As a dancer, in fact, he closely resembled

a Newfoundland puppy trying to run across a field.

It takes a good deal to daunt the New York dancing man, but the

invasion of the floor by Bill and the Good Sport undoubtedly

caused a profound and even painful sensation. Linked together they

formed a living projectile which might well have intimidated the

bravest. Nutty was their first victim. They caught him in

mid-step--one of those fancy steps which he was just beginning to

exhume from the cobwebbed recesses of his memory--and swept him

away. After which they descended resistlessly upon a stout

gentleman of middle age, chiefly conspicuous for the glittering

diamonds which he wore and the stoical manner in which he danced

to and fro on one spot of not more than a few inches in size in

the exact centre of the room. He had apparently staked out a claim

to this small spot, a claim which the other dancers had decided to

respect; but Bill and the Good Sport, coming up from behind, had

him two yards away from it at the first impact. Then, scattering

apologies broadcast like a medieval monarch distributing largesse,

Bill whirled his partner round by sheer muscular force and began

what he intended to be a movement toward the farther corner,

skirting the edge of the floor. It was his simple belief that

there was more safety there than in the middle.

He had not reckoned with Heinrich Joerg. Indeed, he was not aware

of Heinrich Joerg's existence. Yet fate was shortly to bring them

together, with far-reaching results. Heinrich Joerg had left the

Fatherland a good many years before with the prudent purpose of

escaping military service. After various vicissitudes in the land

of his adoption--which it would be extremely interesting to

relate, but which must wait for a more favourable opportunity--he

had secured a useful and not ill-recompensed situation as one of

the staff of Reigelheimer's Restaurant. He was, in point of fact,

a waiter, and he comes into the story at this point bearing a tray

full of glasses, knives, forks, and pats of butter on little

plates. He was setting a table for some new arrivals, and in order

to obtain more scope for that task he had left the crowded aisle

beyond the table and come round to the edge of the dancing-floor.

He should not have come out on to the dancing-floor. In another

moment he was admitting that himself. For just as he was lowering

his tray and bending over the table in the pursuance of his

professional duties, along came Bill at his customary high rate

of speed, propelling his partner before him, and for the first

time since he left home Heinrich was conscious of a regret that he

had done so. There are worse things than military service!

It was the table that saved Bill. He clutched at it and it

supported him. He was thus enabled to keep the Good Sport from

falling and to assist Heinrich to rise from the morass of glasses,

knives, and pats of butter in which he was wallowing. Then, the

dance having been abandoned by mutual consent, he helped his now

somewhat hysterical partner back to their table.

Remorse came upon Bill. He was sorry that he had danced; sorry

that he had upset Heinrich; sorry that he had subjected the Good

Sport's nervous system to such a strain; sorry that so much glass

had been broken and so many pats of butter bruised beyond repair.

But of one thing, even in that moment of bleak regrets, he was

distinctly glad, and that was that all these things had taken

place three thousand miles away from Claire Fenwick. He had not

been appearing at his best, and he was glad that Claire had not

seen him.

As he sat and smoked the remains of his cigar, while renewing his

apologies and explanations to his partner and soothing the ruffled

Nutty with well-chosen condolences, he wondered idly what Claire

was doing at that moment.

Claire at that moment, having been an astonished eye-witness of

the whole performance, was resuming her seat at a table at the

other end of the room.

7

There were two reasons why Lord Dawlish was unaware of Claire

Fenwick's presence at Reigelheimer's Restaurant: Reigelheimer's is

situated in a basement below a ten-storey building, and in order

to prevent this edifice from falling into his patrons' soup the

proprietor had been obliged to shore up his ceiling with massive

pillars. One of these protruded itself between the table which

Nutty had secured for his supper-party and the table at which

Claire was sitting with her friend, Lady Wetherby, and her steamer

acquaintance, Mr Dudley Pickering. That was why Bill had not seen

Claire from where he sat; and the reason that he had not seen her

when he left his seat and began to dance was that he was not one

of your dancers who glance airily about them. When Bill danced he

danced.

He would have been stunned with amazement if he had known that

Claire was at Reigelheimer's that night. And yet it would have

been remarkable, seeing that she was the guest of Lady Wetherby,

if she had not been there. When you have travelled three thousand

miles to enjoy the hospitality of a friend who does near-Greek

dances at a popular restaurant, the least you can do is to go to

the restaurant and watch her step. Claire had arrived with Polly

Wetherby and Mr Dudley Pickering at about the time when Nutty, his

gloom melting rapidly, was instructing the waiter to open the

second bottle.

Of Claire's movements between the time when she secured her ticket

at the steamship offices at Southampton and the moment when she

entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant it is not necessary to give a

detailed record. She had had the usual experiences of the ocean

voyager. She had fed, read, and gone to bed. The only notable

event in her trip had been her intimacy with Mr Dudley Pickering.

Dudley Pickering was a middle-aged Middle Westerner, who by thrift

and industry had amassed a considerable fortune out of automobiles.

Everybody spoke well of Dudley Pickering. The papers spoke well of

him, Bradstreet spoke well of him, and he spoke well of himself. On

board the liner he had poured the saga of his life into Claire's

attentive ears, and there was a gentle sweetness in her manner which

encouraged Mr Pickering mightily, for he had fallen in love with

Claire on sight.

It would seem that a schoolgirl in these advanced days would know

what to do when she found that a man worth millions was in love

with her; yet there were factors in the situation which gave

Claire pause. Lord Dawlish, of course, was one of them. She had

not mentioned Lord Dawlish to Mr Pickering, and--doubtless lest

the sight of it might pain him--she had abstained from wearing her

engagement ring during the voyage. But she had not completely lost

sight of the fact that she was engaged to Bill. Another thing that

caused her to hesitate was the fact that Dudley Pickering, however

wealthy, was a most colossal bore. As far as Claire could

ascertain on their short acquaintance, he had but one subject of

conversation--automobiles.

To Claire an automobile was a shiny thing with padded seats, in

which you rode if you were lucky enough to know somebody who owned

one. She had no wish to go more deeply into the matter. Dudley

Pickering's attitude towards automobiles, on the other hand, more

nearly resembled that of a surgeon towards the human body. To him

a car was something to dissect, something with an interior both

interesting to explore and fascinating to talk about. Claire

listened with a radiant display of interest, but she had her

doubts as to whether any amount of money would make it worth while

to undergo this sort of thing for life. She was still in this

hesitant frame of mind when she entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant,

and it perturbed her that she could not come to some definite

decision on Mr Pickering, for those subtle signs which every woman

can recognize and interpret told her that the latter, having paved

the way by talking machinery for a week, was about to boil over

and speak of higher things.

At the very next opportunity, she was certain, he intended to

propose.

The presence of Lady Wetherby acted as a temporary check on the

development of the situation, but after they had been seated at

their table a short time the lights of the restaurant were

suddenly lowered, a coloured limelight became manifest near the

roof, and classical music made itself heard from the fiddles in

the orchestra.

You could tell it was classical, because the banjo players were

leaning back and chewing gum; and in New York restaurants only

death or a classical speciality can stop banjoists.

There was a spatter of applause, and Lady Wetherby rose.

'This,' she explained to Claire, 'is where I do my stunt. Watch

it. I invented the steps myself. Classical stuff. It's called the

Dream of Psyche.'

It was difficult for one who knew her as Claire did to associate

Polly Wetherby with anything classical. On the road, in England,

when they had been fellow-members of the Number Two company of

_The Heavenly Waltz_, Polly had been remarkable chiefly for a

fund of humorous anecdote and a gift, amounting almost to genius,

for doing battle with militant landladies. And renewing their

intimacy after a hiatus of a little less than a year Claire had

found her unchanged.

It was a truculent affair, this Dream of Psyche. It was not so much

dancing as shadow boxing. It began mildly enough to the accompaniment

of _pizzicato_ strains from the orchestra--Psyche in her training

quarters. _Rallentando_--Psyche punching the bag. _Diminuendo_--Psyche

using the medicine ball. _Presto_--Psyche doing road work. _Forte_--The

night of the fight. And then things began to move to a climax. With

the fiddles working themselves to the bone and the piano bounding

under its persecutor's blows, Lady Wetherby ducked, side-stepped,

rushed, and sprang, moving her arms in a manner that may have been

classical Greek, but to the untrained eye looked much more like the

last round of some open-air bout.

It was half-way through the exhibition, when you could smell the

sawdust and hear the seconds shouting advice under the ropes, that

Claire, who, never having seen anything in her life like this

extraordinary performance, had been staring spellbound, awoke to

the realization that Dudley Pickering was proposing to her. It

required a woman's intuition to divine this fact, for Mr Pickering

was not coherent. He did not go straight to the point. He rambled.

But Claire understood, and it came to her that this thing had

taken her before she was ready. In a brief while she would have to

give an answer of some sort, and she had not clearly decided what

answer she meant to give.

Then, while he was still skirting his subject, before he had

wandered to what he really wished to say, the music stopped, the

applause broke out again, and Lady Wetherby returned to the table

like a pugilist seeking his corner at the end of a round. Her face

was flushed and she was breathing hard.

'They pay me money for that!' she observed, genially. 'Can you

beat it?'

The spell was broken. Mr Pickering sank back in his chair in a

punctured manner. And Claire, making monosyllabic replies to her

friend's remarks, was able to bend her mind to the task of finding

out how she stood on this important Pickering issue. That he would

return to the attack as soon as possible she knew; and the next

time she must have her attitude clearly defined one way or the

other.

Lady Wetherby, having got the Dance of Psyche out of her system,

and replaced it with a glass of iced coffee, was inclined for

conversation.

'Algie called me up on the phone this evening, Claire.'

'Yes?'

Claire was examining Mr Pickering with furtive side glances. He

was not handsome, nor, on the other hand, was he repulsive.

'Undistinguished' was the adjective that would have described him.

He was inclined to stoutness, but not unpardonably so; his hair

was thin, but he was not aggressively bald; his face was dull, but

certainly not stupid. There was nothing in his outer man which his

millions would not offset. As regarded his other qualities, his

conversation was certainly not exhilarating. But that also was

not, under certain conditions, an unforgivable thing. No, looking

at the matter all round and weighing it with care, the real

obstacle, Claire decided, was not any quality or lack of qualities

in Dudley Pickering--it was Lord Dawlish and the simple fact that

it would be extremely difficult, if she discarded him in favour of a

richer man without any ostensible cause, to retain her self-respect.

'I think he's weakening.'

'Yes?'

Yes, that was the crux of the matter. She wanted to retain her

good opinion of herself. And in order to achieve that end it was

essential that she find some excuse, however trivial, for breaking

off the engagement.

'Yes?'

A waiter approached the table.

'Mr Pickering!'

The thwarted lover came to life with a start.

'Eh?'

'A gentleman wishes to speak to you on the telephone.'

'Oh, yes. I was expecting a long-distance call, Lady Wetherby, and

left word I would be here. Will you excuse me?'

Lady Wetherby watched him as he bustled across the room.

'What do you think of him, Claire?'

'Mr Pickering? I think he's very nice.'

'He admires you frantically. I hoped he would. That's why I wanted

you to come over on the same ship with him.'

'Polly! I had no notion you were such a schemer.'

'I would just love to see you two fix it up,' continued Lady

Wetherby, earnestly. 'He may not be what you might call a genius,

but he's a darned good sort; and all his millions help, don't

they? You don't want to overlook these millions, Claire!'

'I do like Mr Pickering.'

'Claire, he asked me if you were engaged.'

'What!'

'When I told him you weren't, he beamed. Honestly, you've only got

to lift your little finger and--Oh, good Lord, there's Algie!'

Claire looked up. A dapper, trim little man of about forty was

threading his way among the tables in their direction. It was a

year since Claire had seen Lord Wetherby, but she recognized him

at once. He had a red, weather-beaten face with a suspicion of

side-whiskers, small, pink-rimmed eyes with sandy eyebrows, the

smoothest of sandy hair, and a chin so cleanly shaven that it was

difficult to believe that hair had ever grown there. Although his

evening-dress was perfect in every detail, he conveyed a subtle

suggestion of horsiness. He reached the table and sat down without

invitation in the vacant chair.

'Pauline!' he said, sorrowfully.

'Algie!' said Lady Wetherby, tensely. 'I don't know what you've

come here for, and I don't remember asking you to sit down and put

your elbows on that table, but I want to begin by saying that I

will not be called Pauline. My name's Polly. You've got a way of

saying Pauline, as if it were a gentlemanly cuss-word, that makes

me want to scream. And while you're about it, why don't you say

how-d'you-do to Claire? You ought to remember her, she was my

bridesmaid.'

'How do you do, Miss Fenwick. Of course, I remember you perfectly.

I'm glad to see you again.'

'And now, Algie, what is it? Why have you come here?' Lord

Wetherby looked doubtfully at Claire. 'Oh, that's all right,' said

Lady Wetherby. 'Claire knows all about it--I told her.'

'Then I appeal to Miss Fenwick, if, as you say, she knows all the

facts of the case, to say whether it is reasonable to expect a man

of my temperament, a nervous, highly-strung artist, to welcome the

presence of snakes at the breakfast-table. I trust that I am not

an unreasonable man, but I decline to admit that a long, green

snake is a proper thing to keep about the house.'

'You had no right to strike the poor thing.'

'In that one respect I was perhaps a little hasty. I happened to

be stirring my tea at the moment his head rose above the edge of

the table. I was not entirely myself that morning. My nerves were

somewhat disordered. I had lain awake much of the night planning a

canvas.'

'Planning a what?'

'A canvas--a picture.'

Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.

'I want you to listen to Algie, Claire. A year ago he did not know

one end of a paint-brush from the other. He didn't know he had any

nerves. If you had brought him the artistic temperament on a plate

with a bit of watercress round it, he wouldn't have recognized it.

And now, just because he's got a studio, he thinks he has a right

to go up in the air if you speak to him suddenly and run about the

place hitting snakes with teaspoons as if he were Michelangelo!'

'You do me an injustice. It is true that as an artist I developed

late--But why should we quarrel? If it will help to pave the way

to a renewed understanding between us, I am prepared to apologize

for striking Clarence. That is conciliatory, I think, Miss

Fenwick?'

'Very.'

'Miss Fenwick considers my attitude conciliatory.'

'It's something,' admitted Lady Wetherby, grudgingly.

Lord Wetherby drained the whisky-and-soda which Dudley Pickering

had left behind him, and seemed to draw strength from it, for he

now struck a firmer note.

'But, though expressing regret for my momentary loss of self-control,

I cannot recede from the position I have taken up as regards the

essential unfitness of Clarence's presence in the home.'

Lady Wetherby looked despairingly at Claire.

'The very first words I heard Algie speak, Claire, were at

Newmarket during the three o'clock race one May afternoon. He was

hanging over the rail, yelling like an Indian, and what he was

yelling was, "Come on, you blighter, come on! By the living jingo,

Brickbat wins in a walk!" And now he's talking about receding from

essential positions! Oh, well, he wasn't an artist then!'

'My dear Pau--Polly. I am purposely picking my words on the

present occasion in order to prevent the possibility of further

misunderstandings. I consider myself an ambassador.'

'You would be shocked if you knew what I consider you!'

'I am endeavouring to the best of my ability--'

'Algie, listen to me! I am quite calm at present, but there's no

knowing how soon I may hit you with a chair if you don't come to

earth quick and talk like an ordinary human being. What is it that

you are driving at?'

'Very well, it's this: I'll come home if you get rid of that

snake.'

'Never!'

'It's surely not much to ask of you, Polly?'

'I won't!'

Lord Wetherby sighed.

'When I led you to the altar,' he said, reproachfully, 'you

promised to love, honour, and obey me. I thought at the time it

was a bit of swank!'

Lady Wetherby's manner thawed. She became more friendly.

'When you talk like that, Algie, I feel there's hope for you after

all. That's how you used to talk in the dear old days when you'd

come to me to borrow half-a-crown to put on a horse! Listen, now

that at last you seem to be getting more reasonable; I wish I

could make you understand that I don't keep Clarence for sheer

love of him. He's a commercial asset. He's an advertisement. You

must know that I have got to have something to--'

'I admit that may be so as regards the monkey, Eustace. Monkeys as

aids to publicity have, I believe, been tested and found valuable

by other artistes. I am prepared to accept Eustace, but the snake

is worthless.'

'Oh, you don't object to Eustace, then?'

'I do strongly, but I concede his uses.'

'You would live in the same house as Eustace?'

'I would endeavour to do so. But not in the same house as Eustace

and Clarence.'

There was a pause.

'I don't know that I'm so stuck on Clarence myself,' said Lady

Wetherby, weakly.

'My darling!'

'Wait a minute. I've not said I would get rid of him.'

'But you will?'

Lady Wetherby's hesitation lasted but a moment. 'All right, Algie.

I'll send him to the Zoo to-morrow.'

'My precious pet!'

A hand, reaching under the table, enveloped Claire's in a loving

clasp.

From the look on Lord Wetherby's face she supposed that he was

under the delusion that he was bestowing this attention on his

wife.

'You know, Algie, darling,' said Lady Wetherby, melting completely,

'when you get that yearning note in your voice I just flop and take

the full count.'

'My sweetheart, when I saw you doing that Dream of

What's-the-girl's-bally-name dance just now, it was all I could

do to keep from rushing out on to the floor and hugging you.'

'Algie!'

'Polly!'

'Do you mind letting go of my hand, please, Lord Wetherby?' said

Claire, on whom these saccharine exchanges were beginning to have

a cloying effect.

For a moment Lord Wetherby seemed somewhat confused, but, pulling

himself together, he covered his embarrassment with a pomposity

that blended poorly with his horsy appearance.

'Married life, Miss Fenwick,' he said, 'as you will no doubt

discover some day, must always be a series of mutual compromises,

of cheerful give and take. The lamp of love--'

His remarks were cut short by a crash at the other end of the

room. There was a sharp cry and the splintering of glass. The

place was full of a sudden, sharp confusion. They jumped up with

one accord. Lady Wetherby spilled her iced coffee; Lord Wetherby

dropped the lamp of love. Claire, who was nearest the pillar that

separated them from the part of the restaurant where the accident

had happened, was the first to see what had taken place.

A large man, dancing with a large girl, appeared to have charged

into a small waiter, upsetting him and his tray and the contents

of his tray. The various actors in the drama were now engaged in

sorting themselves out from the ruins. The man had his back toward

her, and it seemed to Claire that there was something familiar

about that back. Then he turned, and she recognized Lord Dawlish.

She stood transfixed. For a moment surprise was her only emotion.

How came Bill to be in America? Then other feelings blended with

her surprise. It is a fact that Lord Dawlish was looking

singularly uncomfortable.

Claire's eyes travelled from Bill to his partner and took in with

one swift feminine glance her large, exuberant blondeness. There

is no denying that, seen with a somewhat biased eye, the Good

Sport resembled rather closely a poster advertising a revue.

Claire returned to her seat. Lord and Lady Wetherby continued to

talk, but she allowed them to conduct the conversation without her

assistance.

'You're very quiet, Claire,' said Polly.

'I'm thinking.'

'A very good thing, too, so they tell me. I've never tried it

myself. Algie, darling, he was a bad boy to leave his nice home,

wasn't he? He didn't deserve to have his hand held.'

8

It had been a great night for Nutty Boyd. If the vision of his

sister Elizabeth, at home at the farm speculating sadly on the

whereabouts of her wandering boy, ever came before his mental eye

he certainly did not allow it to interfere with his appreciation

of the festivities. At Frolics in the Air, whither they moved

after draining Reigelheimer's of what joys it had to offer, and at

Peale's, where they went after wearying of Frolics in the Air, he

was in the highest spirits. It was only occasionally that the

recollection came to vex him that this could not last, that--since

his Uncle Ira had played him false--he must return anon to the

place whence he had come.

Why, in a city of all-night restaurants, these parties ever break

up one cannot say, but a merciful Providence sees to it that they

do, and just as Lord Dawlish was contemplating an eternity of the

company of Nutty and his two companions, the end came. Miss

Leonard said that she was tired. Her friend said that it was a

shame to go home at dusk like this, but, if the party was going to

be broken up, she supposed there was nothing else for it. Bill was

too sleepy to say anything.

The Good Sport lived round the corner, and only required Lord

Dawlish's escort for a couple of hundred yards. But Miss Leonard's

hotel was in the neighbourhood of Washington Square, and it was

Nutty's pleasing task to drive her thither. Engaged thus, he

received a shock that electrified him.

'That pal of yours,' said Miss Leonard, drowsily--she was

half-asleep--'what did you say his name was?'

'Chalmers, he told me. I only met him to-night.'

'Well, it isn't; it's something else. It'--Miss Leonard

yawned--'it's Lord something.'

'How do you mean, "Lord something"?'

'He's a lord--at least, he was when I met him in London.'

'Are you sure you met him in London?'

'Of course I'm sure. He was at that supper Captain Delaney gave at

Oddy's. There can't be two men in England who dance like that!'

The recollection of Bill's performance stimulated Miss Leonard

into a temporary wakefulness, and she giggled.

'He danced just the same way that night in London. I wish I could

remember his name. I almost had it a dozen times tonight. It's

something with a window in it.'

'A window?' Nutty's brain was a little fatigued and he felt

himself unequal to grasping this. 'How do you mean, a window?'

'No, not a window--a door! I knew it was something about a house.

I know now, his name's Lord Dawlish.'

Nutty's fatigue fell from him like a garment.

'It can't be!'

'It is.'

Miss Leonard's eyes had closed and she spoke in a muffled voice.

'Are you sure?'

'Mm-mm.'

'By gad!'

Nutty was wide awake now and full of inquiries; but his companion

unfortunately was asleep, and he could not put them to her. A

gentleman cannot prod a lady--and his guest, at that--in the ribs

in order to wake her up and ask her questions. Nutty sat back and

gave himself up to feverish thought.

He could think of no reason why Lord Dawlish should have come to

America calling himself William Chalmers, but that was no reason

why he should not have done so. And Daisy Leonard, who all along

had remembered meeting him in London, had identified him.

Nutty was convinced. Arriving finally at Miss Leonard's hotel, he

woke her up and saw her in at the door; then, telling the man to

drive to the lodgings of his new friend, he urged his mind to

rapid thought. He had decided as a first step in the following up

of this matter to invite Bill down to Elizabeth's farm, and the

thought occurred to him that this had better be done to-night, for

he knew by experience that on the morning after these little

jaunts he was seldom in the mood to seek people out and invite

them to go anywhere.

All the way to the flat he continued to think, and it was

wonderful what possibilities there seemed to be in this little

scheme of courting the society of the man who had robbed him of

his inheritance. He had worked on Bill's feelings so successfully

as to elicit a loan of a million dollars, and was just proceeding

to marry him to Elizabeth, when the cab stopped with the sudden

sharpness peculiar to New York cabs, and he woke up, to find

himself at his destination.

Bill was in bed when the bell rang, and received his late host in

his pyjamas, wondering, as he did so, whether this was the New

York custom, to foregather again after a party had been broken up,

and chat till breakfast. But Nutty, it seemed, had come with a

motive, not from a desire for more conversation.

'Sorry to disturb you, old man,' said Nutty. 'I looked in to tell

you that I was going down to the country to-morrow. I wondered

whether you would care to come and spend a day or two with us.'

Bill was delighted. This was better than he had hoped for.

'Rather!' he said. 'Thanks awfully!'

'There are plenty of trains in the afternoon,' said Nutty. 'I

don't suppose either of us will feel like getting up early. I'll

call for you here at half-past six, and we'll have an early dinner

and catch the seven-fifteen, shall we? We live very simply, you

know. You won't mind that?'

'My dear chap!'

'That's all right, then,' said Nutty, closing the door. 'Good

night.'

9

Elizabeth entered Nutty's room and, seating herself on the bed,

surveyed him with a bright, quiet eye that drilled holes in her

brother's uneasy conscience. This was her second visit to him that

morning. She had come an hour ago, bearing breakfast on a tray,

and had departed without saying a word. It was this uncanny

silence of hers even more than the effects--which still lingered--of

his revels in the metropolis that had interfered with Nutty's

enjoyment of the morning meal. Never a hearty breakfaster, he had

found himself under the influence of her wordless disapproval

physically unable to consume the fried egg that confronted him. He

had given it one look; then, endorsing the opinion which he had

once heard a character in a play utter in somewhat similar

circumstances--that there was nothing on earth so homely as an

egg--he had covered it with a handkerchief and tried to pull

himself round with hot tea. He was now smoking a sad cigarette and

waiting for the blow to fall.

Her silence had puzzled him. Though he had tried to give her no

opportunity of getting him alone on the previous evening when he

had arrived at the farm with Lord Dawlish, he had fully expected

that she would have broken in upon him with abuse and recrimination

in the middle of the night. Yet she had not done this, nor had she

spoken to him when bringing him his breakfast. These things found

their explanation in Elizabeth's character, with which Nutty, though

he had known her so long, was but imperfectly acquainted. Elizabeth

had never been angrier with her brother, but an innate goodness of

heart had prevented her falling upon him before he had had rest and

refreshment.

She wanted to massacre him, but at the same time she told herself

that the poor dear must be feeling very, very ill, and should have

a reasonable respite before the slaughter commenced.

It was plain that in her opinion this respite had now lasted long

enough. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she had

closed the door, then leaned a little forward and spoke.

'Now, Nutty!'

The wretched youth attempted bluster.

'What do you mean--"Now, Nutty"? What's the use of looking at a

fellow like that and saying "Now, Nutty"? Where's the sense--'

His voice trailed off. He was not a very intelligent young man,

but even he could see that his was not a position where righteous

indignation could be assumed with any solid chance of success. As

a substitute he tried pathos.

'Oo-oo, my head does ache!'

'I wish it would burst,' said his sister, unkindly.

'That's a nice thing to say to a fellow!'

'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have said it--'

'Oh, well!'

'Only I couldn't think of anything worse.'

It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too.

As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far down

as he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and wounded

sort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation.

'Nutty,' she said, 'I've struggled for years against the

conviction that you were a perfect idiot. I've forced myself,

against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, but

now I give in. I can't believe you are responsible for your

actions. Don't imagine that I am going to heap you with reproaches

because you sneaked off to New York. I'm not even going to tell

you what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, letting

me know where you were. I can understand all that. You were

disappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and I

suppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just run

away and come back again with a headache, I'd have treated you

like the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are too

much, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for an

indefinite period is one of them. I'm not saying anything against

Mr Chalmers personally. I haven't had time to find out much about

him, except that he's an Englishman; but he looks respectable.

Which, as he's a friend of yours, is more or less of a miracle.'

She raised her eyebrows as a faint moan of protest came from

beneath the sheets.

'You surely,' she said, 'aren't going to suggest at this hour of

the day, Nutty, that your friends aren't the most horrible set of

pests outside a prison? Not that it's likely after all these

months that they are outside a prison. You know perfectly well

that while you were running round New York you collected the most

pernicious bunch of rogues that ever fastened their talons into a

silly child who ought never to have been allowed out without his

nurse.' After which complicated insult Elizabeth paused for

breath, and there was silence for a space.

'Well, as I was saying, I know nothing against this Mr Chalmers.

Probably his finger-prints are in the Rogues' Gallery, and he is

better known to the police as Jack the Blood, or something, but he

hasn't shown that side of him yet. My point is that, whoever he

is, I do not want him or anybody else coming and taking up his

abode here while I have to be cook and housemaid too. I object to

having a stranger on the premises spying out the nakedness of the

land. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty,

my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindly

think up at your earliest convenience some plan for politely

ejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--because

if you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.'

And, completely restored to good humour by her own eloquence,

Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was a trait in her character

which she had often lamented, that she could not succeed in

keeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end.

Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse would

tickle her sense of humour, or the appearance of her victim would

become too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion it

was the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath the

bedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weak

attempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound of

her laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm after

a thunderstorm.

'I mean it,' she said. 'It really is too bad of you! You might

have had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if we

are in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I'm going to

make myself very unpopular with this Mr Chalmers of yours. By this

evening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I am

about to persecute him.'

'What do you mean?' asked Nutty, alarmed.

'I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of the

hives.'

'For goodness' sake!'

'After that I shall--with his assistance--transfer some honey. And

after that--well, I don't suppose he will be alive by then. If he

is, I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do,

after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful.'

A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth did

not hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs.

Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds.

It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come upon

him. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under the

same roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and it

should be simple to establish such friendly relations as would

enable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider her

refusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle's money. He

had seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night,

but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was something

about the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a man

at his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he liked

Elizabeth, and he liked this dwelling-place of hers. He was quite

willing to stay on here indefinitely.

Nature had done well by Flack's. The house itself was more

pleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owing

to the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventional

flattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so many

improvements that the general effect was unusually delightful.

Bill perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. He

threw away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight, she

was more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat and

wholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard's friend. And

such was the reaction from what might be termed his later

Reigelheimer's mood that if he had been asked to define feminine

charm in a few words, he would have replied without hesitation

that it was the quality of being as different as possible in every

way from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification.

She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to which

it was a joy to listen.

'I was just admiring your place,' he said.

'Its appearance is the best part of it,' said Elizabeth. 'It is a

deceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can't bathe in

it because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren't

go near them because of the ticks.'

'Ticks?'

'They jump on you and suck your blood,' said Elizabeth, carelessly.

'And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors after

dusk because of the mosquitoes.' She paused to mark the effect of

these horrors on her visitor. 'And then, of course,' she went on,

as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag and

catch the next train, 'the bees are always stinging you. I hope you

are not afraid of bees, Mr Chalmers?'

'Rather not. Jolly little chaps!'

A gleam appeared in Elizabeth's eye.

'If you are so fond of them, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming and

helping me open one of the hives?'

'Rather!'

'I'll go and fetch the things.'

She went into the house and ran up to Nutty's room, waking that

sufferer from a troubled sleep.

'Nutty, he's bitten.'

Nutty sat up violently.

'Good gracious! What by?'

'You don't understand. What I meant was that I invited your Mr

Chalmers to help me open a hive, and he said "Rather!" and is

waiting to do it now. Be ready to say good-bye to him. If he comes

out of this alive, his first act, after bathing the wounds with

ammonia, will be to leave us for ever.'

'But look here, he's a visitor--'

'Cheer up! He won't be much longer.'

'You can't let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive.

When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out of

myself for a week.'

'That was because you had been smoking. Bees dislike the smell of

tobacco.'

'But this fellow may have been smoking.'

'He has just finished a strong cigar.'

'For Heaven's sake!'

'Good-bye, Nutty, dear; I mustn't keep him waiting.'

Lord Dawlish looked with interest at the various implements which

she had collected when she rejoined him outside. He relieved her

of the stool, the smoker, the cotton-waste, the knife, the

screwdriver, and the queen-clipping cage.

'Let me carry these for you,' he said, 'unless you've hired a

van.'

Elizabeth disapproved of this flippancy. It was out of place in

one who should have been trembling at the prospect of doom.

'Don't you wear a veil for this sort of job?'

As a rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy with

her bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but until

to-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter was

that, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar and

friendly with her by this time and recognized that she came among

them without hostile intent, it might well happen that among so

many thousands there might be one slow-witted enough and obtuse

enough not to have grasped this fact. And in such an event a veil

was better than any amount of explanations, for you cannot stick

to pure reason when quarrelling with bees.

But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herself

in this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor,

and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards.

'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Are

you?'

'Rather not!'

'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'

'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I could

leave most of the doing to the bee.'

Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.

She did not speak again until they reached the hives.

In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What,

heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at close

quarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--bees

sallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, bees

trampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to pass

the time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic.

Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniature

high-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of being

tremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actual

work. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and it

pleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump.

'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have no

stings.'

'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'

'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seven

thousand eight hundred nostrils, you know.'

'That gives him a sporting chance of smelling a cigar--what? I

mean to say, if he misses with eight hundred of his nostrils he's

apt to get it with the other thirty-seven thousand.'

Elizabeth was feeling annoyed with her bees. They resolutely

declined to sting this young man. Bees flew past him, bees flew

into him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly in

front of him, as who should say, 'What have we here?' but not a

single bee molested him. Yet when Nutty, poor darling, went within

a dozen yards of the hives he never failed to suffer for it. In

her heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was because

Nutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completely

and behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dream

of Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the moment

she put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness which

does so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed her

annoyance with her unbidden guest.

Without commenting on his last remark, she took the smoker from

him and set to work. She inserted in the fire-chamber a handful of

the cotton-waste and set fire to it; then with a preliminary puff

or two of the bellows to make sure that the conflagration had not

gone out, she aimed the nozzle at the front door of the hive.

The results were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who were

doing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily back

into the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as other

bees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials with

foolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and more

pronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directed

more smoke through the crack. This done, she removed the cover,

set it down on the grass beside her, lifted the super-cover and

applied more smoke, and raised her eyes to where Bill stood

watching. His face wore a smile of pleased interest.

Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She resented his smile. She

hung the smoker on the side of the hive.

'The stool, please, and the screw-driver.'

She seated herself beside the hive and began to loosen the outside

section. Then taking the brood-frame by the projecting ends, she

pulled it out and handed it to her companion. She did it as one

who plays an ace of trumps.

'Would you mind holding this, Mr Chalmers?'

This was the point in the ceremony at which the wretched Nutty had

broken down absolutely, and not inexcusably, considering the

severity of the test. The surface of the frame was black with what

appeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of some

sort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had been

lighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparent

to the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of

mass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered and

jostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking City

men trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-past

five in the afternoon.

Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, dropped

the frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreat

expedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, more

prudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seething

frame with interest, but without apparent panic.

'I want you to help me here, Mr Chalmers. You have stronger wrists

than I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly.'

'I've got it.'

'Jerk it down as sharply as you can to within a few inches of the

door, and then jerk it up again. You see, that shakes them off.'

'It would me,' agreed Bill, cordially, 'if I were a bee.'

Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumps

and by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation did

not daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey,

would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it down

with a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had never

been able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower,

asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entrance

to the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate the

cause of the earthquake.

Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.

'It has always been a mystery to me,' he said, 'why they never

seem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them.

They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose the

only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly

dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for

home that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it's

a ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I know

when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would

bury my remains or cremate them.'

'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly.

'Have you done it before?'

Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.

'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent a

year on a bee-farm once, learning the business.'

For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabeth

was conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she had

schemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity of

doing what he had done a thousand times before!

And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed that

there are certain things in life which shall act as hoops of

steel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one of

these; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest of

all is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Not

even a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion.

The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between man

and man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed to

them that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice,

hatred, and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look into

each other's eyes and say 'My brother!'

The effect of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. They

crashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosive

shell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at the

farm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to his

becoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking and

washing-up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. She

reflected that he was there. He could stay there as long as he

liked, the longer the better.

'You have really kept bees?'

'Not actually kept them, worse luck! I couldn't raise the capital.

You see, money was a bit tight--'

'I know,' said Elizabeth, sympathetically. 'Money is like that,

isn't it?'

'The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish to

try anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through.

Some very decent old boys got me another job.'

'What job?'

'Secretary to a club.'

'In London, of course?'

'Yes.'

'And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!'

Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.

'I should have liked it,' said Bill, wistfully. 'London's all

right, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have a

whacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere--'

He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himself

forgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past few

weeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about not

being able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buy

dozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this business

of being a millionaire.

'That's my ambition too,' said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was the

very first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty's views on

farming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to an

enthusiast. 'If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, and

in the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, and

take them out to it and let them wallow in it.'

'Wouldn't they do a lot of damage?'

'I shouldn't mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage.

If they ruined the place beyond repair I'd go and buy another.'

She laughed. 'It isn't so impossible as it sounds. I came very

near being able to do it.' She paused for a moment, but went on

almost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimate

troubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? 'An

uncle of mine--'

Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had a

sense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done some

particularly low crime and was contemplating another.

'--An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all the

farms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord. I wonder if

you have heard of him?--Lord Dawlish--got hold of uncle somehow

and induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him.'

She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that he

was crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take other

people's misfortunes to heart like that.

'I don't know how he managed it,' she went on. 'He must have

worked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn't a weak sort

of man whom you could do what you liked with. He was very

obstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing it

somehow, and then'--her eyes blazed at the recollection--'he had

the insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half.

I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally I

refused it.'

'But--but--but why?'

'Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don't think I was going to

accept charity from the man who had cheated me?'

'But--but perhaps he didn't mean it like that. What I mean to say

is--as charity, you know.'

'He did! But don't let's talk of it any more. It makes me angry to

think of him, and there's no use spoiling a lovely day like this

by getting angry.'

Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be so

difficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he had

not revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point of

doing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why that

curt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer's letter. Well,

there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time might

accomplish something.

'What do you want me to do next?' he said. 'Why did you open the

hive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?'

Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had but

one motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him.

She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided.

Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive a

brother-mason.

She faced him bravely.

'I didn't want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I opened

that hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brother

did, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would drive

you away, because I thought then that I didn't want you down here.

I'm ashamed of myself, and I don't know where I'm getting the

nerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on--on and on and

on.'

Bill was aghast.

'Good Lord! If I'm in the way--'

'You aren't in the way.'

'But you said--'

'But don't you see that it's so different now? I didn't know then

that you were fond of bees. You must stay, if my telling you

hasn't made you feel that you want to catch the next train. You

will save our lives--mine and Nutty's too. Oh, dear, you're

hesitating! You're trying to think up some polite way of getting

out of the place! You mustn't go, Mr Chalmers; you simply must

stay. There aren't any mosquitoes, no jellyfish--nothing! At

least, there are; but what do they matter? You don't mind them. Do

you play golf?'

'Yes.'

'There are links here. You can't go until you've tried them. What

is your handicap?'

'Plus two.'

'So is mine.'

'By Jove! Really?'

Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes dancing.

'Why, we're practically twin souls, Mr Chalmers! Tell me, I know

your game is nearly perfect, but if you have a fault, is it a

tendency to putt too hard?'

'Why, by Jove--yes, it is!'

'I knew it. Something told me. It's the curse of my life too!

Well, after that you can't go away.'

'But if I'm in the way--'

'In the way! Mr Chalmers, will you come in now and help me wash

the breakfast things?'

'Rather!' said Lord Dawlish.

10

In the days that followed their interrupted love-scene at

Reigelheimer's Restaurant that night of Lord Dawlish's unfortunate

encounter with the tray-bearing waiter, Dudley Pickering's

behaviour had perplexed Claire Fenwick. She had taken it for

granted that next day at the latest he would resume the offer of

his hand, heart, and automobiles. But time passed and he made no

move in that direction. Of limousine bodies, carburettors,

spark-plugs, and inner tubes he spoke with freedom and eloquence,

but the subject of love and marriage he avoided absolutely. His

behaviour was inexplicable.

Claire was piqued. She was in the position of a hostess who has

swept and garnished her house against the coming of a guest and

waits in vain for that guest's arrival. She made up her mind what

to do when Dudley Pickering proposed to her next time, and

thereby, it seemed to her, had removed all difficulties in the

way of that proposal. She little knew her Pickering!

Dudley Pickering was not a self-starter in the motordrome of love.

He needed cranking. He was that most unpromising of matrimonial

material, a shy man with a cautious disposition. If he overcame

his shyness, caution applied the foot-brake. If he succeeded in

forgetting caution, shyness shut off the gas. At Reigelheimer's

some miracle had made him not only reckless but un-self-conscious.

Possibly the Dream of Psyche had gone to his head. At any rate, he

had been on the very verge of proposing to Claire when the

interruption had occurred, and in bed that night, reviewing the

affair, he had been appalled at the narrowness of his escape from

taking a definite step. Except in the way of business, he was a

man who hated definite steps. He never accepted even a dinner

invitation without subsequent doubts and remorse. The consequence

was that, in the days that followed the Reigelheimer episode, what

Lord Wetherby would have called the lamp of love burned rather low

in Mr Pickering, as if the acetylene were running out. He still

admired Claire intensely and experienced disturbing emotions when

he beheld her perfect tonneau and wonderful headlights; but he

regarded her with a cautious fear. Although he sometimes dreamed

sentimentally of marriage in the abstract, of actual marriage, of

marriage with a flesh-and-blood individual, of marriage that

involved clergymen and 'Voices that Breathe o'er Eden,' and

giggling bridesmaids and cake, Dudley Pickering was afraid with a

terror that woke him sweating in the night. His shyness shrank

from the ceremony, his caution jibbed at the mysteries of married

life. So his attitude toward Claire, the only girl who had

succeeded in bewitching him into the opening words of an actual

proposal, was a little less cordial and affectionate than if she

had been a rival automobile manufacturer.

Matters were in this state when Lady Wetherby, who, having danced

classical dances for three months without a break, required a

rest, shifted her camp to the house which she had rented for the

summer at Brookport, Long Island, taking with her Algie, her

husband, the monkey Eustace, and Claire and Mr Pickering, her

guests. The house was a large one, capable of receiving a big

party, but she did not wish to entertain on an ambitious scale.

The only other guest she proposed to put up was Roscoe Sherriff,

her press agent, who was to come down as soon as he could get away

from his metropolitan duties.

It was a pleasant and romantic place, the estate which Lady

Wetherby had rented. Standing on a hill, the house looked down

through green trees on the gleaming waters of the bay. Smooth

lawns and shady walks it had, and rustic seats beneath spreading

cedars. Yet for all its effect on Dudley Pickering it might have

been a gasworks. He roamed the smooth lawns with Claire, and sat

with her on the rustic benches and talked guardedly of lubricating

oil. There were moments when Claire was almost impelled to forfeit

whatever chance she might have had of becoming mistress of thirty

million dollars and a flourishing business, for the satisfaction

of administering just one whole-hearted slap on his round and

thinly-covered head.

And then Roscoe Sherriff came down, and Dudley Pickering, who for

days had been using all his resolution to struggle against the

siren, suddenly found that there was no siren to struggle against.

No sooner had the press agent appeared than Claire deserted him

shamelessly and absolutely. She walked with Roscoe Sherriff. Mr

Pickering experienced the discomfiting emotions of the man who

pushes violently against an abruptly-yielding door, or treads

heavily on the top stair where there is no top stair. He was

shaken, and the clamlike stolidity which he had assumed as

protection gave way.

Night had descended upon Brookport. Eustace, the monkey, was in

his little bed; Lord Wetherby in the smoking-room. It was Sunday,

the day of rest. Dinner was over, and the remainder of the party

were gathered in the drawing-room, with the exception of Mr

Pickering, who was smoking a cigar on the porch. A full moon

turned Long Island into a fairyland.

Gloom had settled upon Dudley Pickering and he smoked sadly. All

rather stout automobile manufacturers are sad when there is a full

moon. It makes them feel lonely. It stirs their hearts to thoughts

of love. Marriage loses its terrors for them, and they think

wistfully of hooking some fair woman up the back and buying her

hats. Such was the mood of Mr Pickering, when through the dimness

of the porch there appeared a white shape, moving softly toward

him.

'Is that you, Mr Pickering?'

Claire dropped into the seat beside him. From the drawing-room

came the soft tinkle of a piano. The sound blended harmoniously

with the quiet peace of the night. Mr Pickering let his cigar go

out and clutched the sides of his chair.

Oi'll--er--sing thee saw-ongs ov Arrabee,

Und--ah ta-ales of farrr Cash-mee-eere,

Wi-ild tales to che-eat thee ovasigh

Und charrrrm thee to-oo a tear-er.

Claire gave a little sigh.

'What a beautiful voice Mr Sherriff has!'

Dudley Pickering made no reply. He thought Roscoe Sherriff had a

beastly voice. He resented Roscoe Sherriff's voice. He objected to

Roscoe Sherriff's polluting this fair night with his cacophony.

'Don't you think so, Mr Pickering?'

'Uh-huh.'

'That doesn't sound very enthusiastic. Mr Pickering, I want you to

tell me something. Have I done anything to offend you?'

Mr Pickering started violently.

'Eh?'