Amber ran upstairs to her room and threw herself not upon the little
sofa in her dressing-room but upon the bed in her bedroom. She was
guided in the right direction. She knew perfectly well that the cry
which was coming was too big for a sofa--it was a bed-sized cry.
She lay in her tears for more than an hour, and no one went near her
to disturb her. Emotions were recognised as possible in this
household--emotions and moods and sulks--and no member of the
household--ancillary or otherwise--was allowed to interfere with
another.
Her mother was fortunate in having been at one time of her life of the
same age as Amber, and she had a pretty good notion of how it was that
her daughter did not come downstairs for tea. Lady Severn had heard her
daughter’s comments upon the announcement of Josephine’s engagement, and
having herself noticed the expression on the faces of her guests at
The Weir on their return together from their stroll, she had no great
difficulty in understanding how it was possible that Amber might be
having a good cry after visiting her friend Josephine.
It was, however, Sir Creighton who, before dinner, asked Amber if
she had learned anything by her visit to Josephine. He appeared quite
anxious to know all that there was to be known on the subject of
Josephine’s engagement to Mr. Clifton; but for that matter he took quite
as much interest as his wife, in the incidents of their social life.
Even the humblest essays in elementary biology had a certain attraction
about them, he was accustomed to say.
Amber gave him a spasmodic account of her call upon Josephine, and of
her subsequent overtaking of Pierce and his confession during their
stroll in the Park.
“Just think of it,” she said by way of summing up. “Just think of it:
she acknowledged to Mr. Winwood on Monday that she loved him, and yet
to-day she allows it to be announced in the papers that she is to be
married to the other man! Was there ever anything so terrible since the
world began?”
“Never--never,” said he. “Nothing of such terrible significance to
Josephine and Winwood has been heard of since the world began. There is
a good deal in this business which is not easy to understand without the
aid of a trustworthy key to the motives of men and women and political
adventurers. If she had promised in secret long ago to marry Clifton,
the secret being kept a secret because of the unlikelihood of her
father’s giving his consent to the engagement, what, I should like to
know, has occurred during the past few days to make Clifton perceive
that her father would give his consent? You got a hint from Josephine on
this point--or that fool of a mother of hers--did she say nothing that
would suggest a compact--a reciprocal treaty, these politicians would
call it--between Mr. West and Mr. Clifton?”
Amber laughed scornfully.
“Lady Gwendolen talked about the new opera cloaks,” said she.
“A topic well within her grasp,” said Sir Creighton. “If I wished for
any information regarding the possibilities of longevity among certain
esoteric developments of the opera cloak I think I would apply to Lady
Gwendolen. She is, one might say, the actuary of the opera cloak: she
can calculate, upon the theory of averages, the duration of life of such
ephemera.”
“Yes; but what is to be done,” said Amber, who perceived the danger of
drifting into phrases and fancying that because a good sentence has been
made, there is no need for further action.
Sir Creighton walked to a window and stood in front of it with his hands
in his pockets.
“We can do a good deal,” he said, after a pause of considerable
duration. “I know, at any rate, that I can do a good deal in this
matter--yes, in certain circumstances I think that I have a good deal
of influence--moral influence of course, not the other sort,--to avoid
making use of an uglier word, we shall call it political influence. But
we must be certain first how we stand--exactly how we stand. Why should
West give his consent just now to his daughter’s engagement to Clifton
when both persons mainly concerned in the contract considered six
months ago that it would be quite useless to make an appeal to him. Why,
according to what you say Winwood told you, Josephine up to last
Monday felt certain that it would be ridiculous to expect that he would
entertain a thought of Clifton as a son-in-law. Now, what we need to
find out is, How did Clifton convince Josephine’s father that he was the
right man to marry his daughter?”
Amber could not see for the life of her what bearing this point had upon
the question of the destiny of Josephine, but she had a great deal of
confidence in her father.
“Mind you, my dear,” resumed Sir Creighton, “I do not say that Josephine
has not herself to thank for a good deal of this trouble. Why should she
allow herself to be persuaded into an underhand compact with that man?
And then, having entered into that compact, why does she allow herself
to fall in love with quite another man?”
“How could she prevent it?” cried Amber. “How is a girl to prevent
herself from falling in love with one particular man?”
“Possibly a course of higher mathematics might be prescribed,” said Sir
Creighton. “My dear Amber, I don’t think that Josephine is the heroine
of this romance. However, that is no reason why she should not be
happy--it is certainly no reason why Pierce Winwood should be unhappy.
He at least is blameless.”
This was the end of their conversation at that time, and Amber felt that
it had not been very helpful in the way of furthering the prospects of
Pierce Win-wood, and, incidentally, of Josephine West.
She could not even see why her father should laugh the laugh of a man
who is gratified on receiving a proof of his own shrewdness, when the
following morning he pointed out to her in one of the newspapers,
under the heading of Changes in the Cabinet, the announcement that the
Minister of the Annexation Department had agreed to go to the Exchequer
on the resignation owing to his increasing deafness of the Chancellor,
and that Mr. Carew West, the Under Secretary for the Arbitration Office,
had accepted the portfolio thereby rendered vacant, with a Seat in the
Cabinet.
Every paper in the kingdom contained a leading article or a note under
the leading article, referring to this important change and offering
congratulations to the new Minister. But the paper which Sir Creighton
showed to his daughter went rather more into the details of the Cabinet
Changes, and explained that it was thought by many people that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer would not resign until a seat had been found
for Mr. Eardley, who had had a seat in the last Cabinet of the existing
Government, but who had failed to be returned for his old constituency
at the General Election. The Government had, however, been advised that,
owing to the attitude of the electors of the Arbroath Burghs in regard
to the war, the return of Mr. Eardley for that fickle constituency could
not be relied on, and therefore the Under Secretary at the Arbitration
Office had got his seat in the Cabinet rather sooner than might have
been expected.
“There is the explanation of it all,” said Sir Creighton. “I wondered
how it was that Clifton could get into his hands the wires that affected
West, for every one knows that West’s seat is a perfectly safe one,
and Clifton is only a wire-puller among the constituencies. But now the
whole thing is clear to me. The Chancellor has made a fool of himself
and the Government want to unload him. They want their old colleague
Eardley back, and they ask Clifton about the Arbroath Burghs. If Clifton
says ‘safe,’ the Chancellor will wait until Eardley is returned; if he
says ‘unsafe’ the vacant place will be given to West. Clifton then goes
to West and says ‘Would you care to get into the Cabinet? I can put you
into the Cabinet to-morrow.’ ‘What’s your price?’ cries West, perceiving
that the object of his ambition is within reach, and hoping that Clifton
will be as reasonable as Mephisto was to Faust, and only say, ‘Your
Soul.’ But Clifton knows that the soul of an Under Secretary is quoted
low in the Market, but that a daughter is a perfectly negotiable
security--oh, the whole thing is clear.”
“Quite clear,” acquiesced Amber, “but where does Mr. Winwood come in?”
Her father roared with laughter.
“You are surely the most practical young woman that lives,” he
said. “Here have I been romancing away in the vaguest fashion and so
overwhelmed with a sense of my own cleverness that I lose sight of the
true objective--the phrase is one of the multitudinous military critics,
my dear--but you, you hold me down to the dry details of the matter in
hand.”
“You see, my dear father, I have not yet been able to understand how
much is gained by your knowing that Mr. West had some reason for giving
his consent to Josephine’s engagement with Mr. Clifton,” said Amber.
“It was necessary for me to see if Mr. Clifton held debenture stock
in the Soul of Julian Carew West or only ordinary shares,” said Sir
Creighton. “And have you found that out?”
“I have found that he holds merely preference shares. And now that the
Soul of Mr. West is going into allotment it is just possible that I
may be successful in getting in on the ground floor, as your friend Mr.
Galmyn would say.”
“I don’t understand even yet.”
“Better not try for a few days yet. Give the man a chance of settling
down in his place in the Cabinet and feeling comfortable in regard
to his future. A man who has just managed to crawl into a high office
should not be bothered by people making enquiries as to the marks of mud
on the knees of his trousers. There is no crawling through mud without
getting a stain or two. But do not forget that I am the inventor of the
only time fuse in existence.”
He left his daughter to ponder over that dark saying. Exploding mines
were so well known that even the members of his own family had heard of
them. But what did her father who was the least egotistical man on the
face of the earth, mean by referring to that special invention of his?
She was annoyed by his attitude of mystery, and when the afternoon
came she was still further annoyed, when in the course of giving Arthur
Galmyn a cup of nice tea, he begged of her to marry him, confessing
that he had gone on the Stock Exchange only out of love for her, and
threatening to go back to the poetry once more if she refused him.
Regardless of this pistol held to her head, she told him that he had
disappointed her. She had always looked on him as a true friend.
He hurried away at the entrance of Mr. Willie Bateman, and before Mr.
Bateman had eaten his second hot cake, he had assured her that if she
were good enough to marry him she might depend upon his making her the
most celebrated woman in England. He had a plan, he said--an advertising
system that could not possibly fail, and if she rejected him he would
communicate it to the Duchess of Manxland who was at her wit’s end to
find some new scheme of advertising herself--she had exhausted all the
old ones.
But even the force of this threat did not prevent Amber from telling
him that he had disappointed her. She had always looked on him as a true
friend.
When he had gone away in a huff, she ate the remainder of the hot cakes
and reflected that she had received four proposals of marriage within
the week.
This was excessively flattering and annoying, and the truth began to be
impressed upon her that Platonic Friendship was all that Josephine had
said it was and that it was in addition a perpetual encouragement to a
timorous lover.