He paused in front of her. "Eh, bien, there is something else; and," he
added, tapping his forehead sharply, "I'll be hanged if I know what it
is."
She was about to say something more when the sound of the shutting of
the street door stopped her. There was much puffing and stamping, with
shouts for Jane to come and take an umbrella.
"I say, that's your governor. I'll go and talk to him."
He went without another look at her. She steadied herself with the tips
of her fingers on the tea-table, in order not to swoon. She knew she
wouldn't swoon; she only felt like it, or like dying. But all she could
do was limply to pour herself out an extra cup of tea and drink it.
* * * * *
In the library Ashley was taking heart of grace. He had come to ask
advice, but he was really pointing out the things that were in his
favor. He repeated Drusilla's summing-up of them almost word for word.
"You see, as far as that goes, I've everything my own way. No question
will be raised unless I raise it. The fellow has taken himself off; the
Marquise has most generally assumed the family liabilities; and Olivia
is ready to come to church with me and be married on the first
convenient day. I should be satisfied with that, now shouldn't I?"
The old man nodded. "Your difficulties do seem to have been smoothed
out."
He sat, fitting the tips of his fingers together and swinging his leg,
in his desk-chair. The light of the green-shaded desk-lamp alone lit up
the room. In the semi-obscurity porcelains and potteries gleamed like
crystals in a cave. Ashley paced the floor, emerging from minute to
minute out of the gloom into the radiance of the lamp.
"I'm not called on to go poking behind things to see what's there, now
am I?"
"Not in the least."
"I'm willing to consider every one, and I think I do. But there are
limits, by Jove! Now, really?"
"The minute we recognize limits it's our duty not to go beyond them.
It's thus far and no farther--for the man who knows the stretch of his
tether, at any rate. The trouble with Peter is that his tether is
elastic. It'll spin out as far as he sees the need to go. For the rest
of us there are limits, as you say; but about him there's
something--something you might call limitless."
Ashley rounded sharply. "You mean he's so big that no one can be
bigger."
"Not exactly. I mean that very few of us _need_ to be as big as that.
It's all very well for him; but most of us have to keep within the
measure of our own capacity."
"And sit down under him, while he looms up into God knows where?"
"Well, wouldn't that be your idea?"
"Can't say that it is. My idea is that when I take my rights and keep
them, I'm as big as any one."
"Quite so; as big as any one--who takes his rights and keeps them.
That's very true."
Ashley stopped, one hand behind him, the other supporting him as he
leaned on the desk. "And that's what I propose to do," he said,
aggressively.
"It's a very high ideal."
"I propose to accept the status quo without asking any more questions."
"I should think that would be a very good plan. A wise man--one of the
wisest--wrote, apropos of well-disposed people who were seeking a
standard of conduct: 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that
thing which he alloweth.' I should think you'd have every reason for
that kind of self-approval."
"Do you mean that, sir? or are you--trying it on?"
"I'm certainly not trying it on. The man who takes his rights and keeps
them can be amply justified. If there's a counsel of perfection that
goes beyond that standard--well, it isn't given to all men to receive
it."
"Then you think it isn't given to me. You'd put me down as a good sort
of chap who comes in second best."
"What makes you think I should do that?"
"Because--because--hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead of
me--why, I _should_ come in second best."
"You say _keep_ ahead of me. Do you think he's ahead of you now?"
Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He's got a pull,
by Jove! He made that journey to France--and cracked me up to the
Marquise--and wheedled her round--when all the while he must have known
that he was hammering nails into his own coffin. He did it, too, after
I'd insulted him and we'd had a row."
"Oh, that's nothing. To a fellow like him that sort of thing comes
easy."
"It wouldn't come easy to me, by Jove!"
"Then it would be all the more to your credit, if you ever did anything
of the kind."
The Englishman bounded away. Once more he began to pace the floor
restlessly. The old man took his pipe from a tray, and his
tobacco-pouch from a drawer. Having filled the bowl, with meditative
leisure he looked round for a match. "Got a light?"
Ashley struck a vesta on the edge of his match-box and applied it to the
old man's pipe.
"Should you say," he asked, while doing it, "that I ought to attempt
anything in that line?"
"Certainly not--unless you want to--to get ahead."
"I don't want to stay behind."
"Then, it's for you to judge, my son."
There was something like an affectionate stress on the two concluding
monosyllables. Ashley backed off, out of the lamplight.
"It's this way," he explained, stammeringly; "I'm a British officer and
gentleman. I'm a little more than that--since I'm a V.C. man--and a
fellow--dash it all, I might as well say it!--I'm a fellow they've got
their eye on--in the line of high office, don't you know? And I can't--I
simply _can't_--let a chap like that make me a present of all his
chances--"
"Did he have any?"
Ashley hesitated. "Before God, sir, I don't know--but I'm inclined to
think--he had. If so, I suppose they're of as much value to him as mine
to me."
"But not of any more."
He hesitated again. "I don't know about that. Perhaps they are. The Lord
knows I don't say that lightly, for mine are--Well, we needn't go into
that. But I've got a good deal in my life, and I don't imagine that he,
poor devil--"
"Oh, don't worry. A rich soil is never barren. When nothing is planted
in it, Nature uses it for flowers."
Ashley answered restively. "I see, sir, your sympathies are all on his
side."
"Not at all. Quite the contrary. My certainties are on his side. My
sympathies are on yours."
"Because you think I need them."
"Because I think you may."
"In case I--"
"In case you should condemn yourself in the thing you're going to
allow."
"But what's it to be?"
"That's for you to settle with yourself."
He was silent a minute. When he spoke it was with some conviction. "I
should like to do the right thing, by Jove!--the straight thing--if I
only knew what it was."
"Oh, there'll be no trouble about that. In the Street called Straight,
my son, there are lights to show the way."
* * * * *
"Rum old cove," was Ashley's comment to himself as he went back to
Boston. "Got an answer to everything."
From the hotel he telephoned an excuse to Olivia for his unceremonious
departure from Tory Hill. "Had an upset," was the phrase by which he
conveyed his apologies, leaving it to her to guess the nature of his
mischance. As she showed no curiosity on the point, he merely
promised to come to luncheon in the morning.
During his dinner he set himself to think, though, amid the
kaleidoscopic movement of the hotel dining-room, he got little beyond
the stage of "mulling." Such symptoms of decision as showed themselves
through the evening lay in his looking up the dates of sailing of the
more important liners, and the situation of the Carral country on the
map. He missed, however, the support of his principle to be Rupert
Ashley at his best. That guiding motto seemed to have lost its force
owing to the eccentricities of American methods of procedure. If he was
still Rupert Ashley, he was Rupert Ashley sadly knocked about, buffeted,
puzzled, grown incapable of the swift judgment and prompt action which
had hitherto been his leading characteristics.
He was still beset by uncertainties when he went out to Waverton next
morning. Impatient for some form of action, he made an early start. On
the way he considered Rodney Temple's words of the previous afternoon,
saying to himself: "In the Street called Straight there are lights to
show the way, by Jove! Gad! I should like to know where they are."
[Illustration: ASHLEY GOT THE IMPRESSION THAT THEIR CONVERSATION WAS
EARNEST, CONFIDENTIAL.]
Nevertheless, it had a clarifying effect on his vision to find, on
walking into the drawing-room at Tory Hill, Miss Guion seated in
conversation with Peter Davenant. As he had the advantage of seeing them
a second before they noticed him, he got the impression that their
conversation was earnest, confidential. Olivia was seated in a corner of
the sofa, Davenant in a low chair that gave him the appearance of being
at her feet.
It was exactly the stimulus Ashley needed to bring his faculties into
action. He was at once in possession of all his powers. The feeling
inspired by the sight of them together transformed him on the instant
into the quick, shrewd, diplomatic officer in whom he recognized
himself. It was a feeling too complicated to be called jealousy, though
jealousy might have been in it as an ingredient pang. If so, it was
entirely subordinate to his new sense--or rather his old sense--of being
equal to the occasion. As he crossed the room he felt no misgiving, no
hesitation. Neither did he need to forecast, however rapidly, his plan
of speech or action, since he knew that in urgent cases it was always
given him. If he had to define this sudden confidence he might have said
that Rupert Ashley at his best had been restored to life again, but even
that would not have expressed the fullness of his consciousness of
power.
He nodded to Davenant before shaking hands with Miss Guion. "Hello! Back
again?"
Davenant got up from his low chair with some embarrassment. Ashley bowed
over Olivia's hand with unusual courtliness. He seated himself in the
other corner of the sofa, as one who had a right to the place.
"I had to come East on business," Davenant explained, at once.
Olivia hastened to corroborate this statement. "Aunt Vic wanted Mr.
Davenant to come--to settle up all the things--"
"And I had another reason," Davenant interrupted, nervously. "I was just
beginning to tell Miss Guion about it when you came in. I've a job out
there--in my work--that would suit Mr. Guion. It would be quite in his
line--legal adviser to a company--and would give him occupation. He'd be
earning money, and wouldn't feel laid aside; and if he was ill I could
look after him as well as any one. I--I'd like it."
Olivia looked inquiringly at Ashley. Her eyes were misty.
"Hadn't you better talk to _him_ about it?" Ashley said.
"I thought I'd better speak to you and Miss Guion first. I understand
you've offered to--to take him--"
"I shouldn't interfere with what suited him better, in any case. By the
way, how did you like the _Louisiana_?"
Davenant's jaw dropped. His blue eyes were wide with amazement. It was
Olivia who undertook to speak, with a little air of surprise that Ashley
should make such an odd mistake.
"Mr. Davenant wasn't on the _Louisiana_. It was Aunt Vic. Mr. Davenant
has just come from the West. You do that by train."
"Of course he was on the _Louisiana_. Landed on the--let me see!--she
sailed again yesterday!--landed on the 20th, didn't you?"
"No, no," Olivia corrected again, smiling. "That was the day Aunt Vic
landed. You're getting every one mixed."
"But they came together," Ashley persisted. "He brought her. Didn't
you?"
The look on Olivia's face frightened Davenant. He got up and stood
apologetically behind his chair. "You'll have to forgive me, Miss
Guion," he stammered. "I--I deceived you. I couldn't think of anything
else to do."
She leaned forward, looking up at him. "But I don't know what you did,
as it is. I can't understand--what--what any one is saying."
"Then I'll tell you, by Jove! All the time you thought he was out there
at Michigan he was over in France, following up the Marquise. Tracked
her like a bloodhound, what? Told her the whole story--how we'd got to a
deadlock--and everything. Made her think that unless she came and bailed
us out we'd be caught there for the rest of our lives."