Nevertheless the last word remained to be spoken, and it was destined
to be heard by Sir Julian when he made casual enquiry of Fairfax Fuller
on Monday morning.
"Have you settled the day that Miss Marchrose leaves us?"
"Yes, Sir Julian."
"Well?" enquired Sir Julian, after a moment, as his subordinate
appeared quite indisposed to make any further communications.
"She's not coming back here at all."
"Is that with your sanction?" said the surprised Julian.
"I talked it over with her on Saturday evening, Sir Julian."
"Then you did find her?"
"Down by what they call the sea-wall."
Fuller, his dark face marvellously heated, looked full at his chief.
"I've asked the girl to marry me, Sir Julian," he remarked.
* * * * *
Some weeks later, Julian wrote a letter, and addressed it to Miss
Marchrose in London.
_My dear Pauline Marchrose_,
_Since you ask for my opinion, I send it to you for what it is
worth, admitting that, as you say, I stand committed to a certain
degree of officiousness already. That, however, is not the word of
which you made use. Thank you, on the contrary, for the expressions
that you have selected._
_I am glad that you are marrying Fuller. He is a good fellow
through and through, and the other side of his bulldog tenacity
is a very real and dependable loyalty. I think that that loyalty
will be of great service to you. And don't think that you are
relinquishing the abstract ideal of which we spoke one afternoon
down by the sea-wall. You were never false to your standards for
a moment, and to recognise defeat is not always an implication
of weakness. It may, as in your case, denote the courage of a
perfectly sincere outlook. Humbug is the only thing to be afraid
of. You have eliminated that, and Fairfax Fuller is not prone to
illusion or self-deception. Besides, your intercourse took place
at a time and in circumstances which admitted of the luxury of
sincerity. For that, and for the fact that Fuller knows something
of the extent of his incredible good fortune, I send you my
congratulations and I wish you luck._
Sir Julian paused for a long while.
The episode was over. His letter was a postscript merely.
"Are you coming upstairs, Julian?" said Edna's most forbearing tones,
full of fatigue.
"Is it late?"
"It's nearly twelve. It's the servants that I'm thinking of. I hate
keeping them up."
"It's quite unnecessary to keep any of them up. I am perfectly capable
of putting out the lights in the hall without Horber's assistance."
"I shall not ring for Mason. I never do ring for her if I'm later than
eleven o'clock. After all, it's a very little thing, when once one
realises that a maid is a sister-woman, when all's said and done...."
All was so far from being said that Julian, taking up his pen again,
slowly added the final sentence to his letter, unconsciously adjusting
his speed to words that struck upon his hearing and penetrated hardly
at all to his thoughts.
"I believe so much in _little_ things, in the immense power of a
thought, of a kind glance, of a smile...."
_If the Colonial scheme materialises rapidly, as I think it will, I
shall send Fuller out. It is largely owing to his management that
we have the funds in hand to extend the branches of the College,
and I can see both you and him as pioneers, in the near future._
"Sometimes I think that when one has not received very much oneself, it
only makes one readier to give. One knows the lack----"
_Keep up a very good courage--but that I believe you will always
do. You have got your scale of relative values clear, and, once
that's done, you can afford to accept truth. Nothing else matters._
"Perhaps one would be less tired at the end of the day if one gave out
less, but after all, it's all part of the great, wonderful, Divine
plan."
"Have you finished writing, Julian? 'Jorrocks' is on the table."
"Yes, quite finished," said Sir Julian, and, first signing his name, he
sealed his letter.
Cornwall, Jan., 1919.
Surrey, June, 1919.