HOW CHALLIS CALLED ON MISS ARKROYD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. A SPRAINED
ANKLE. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE. KING SOLOMON AND HIS DJINN BOTTLE
Mr. Elphinstone, responsible for No. 101, Grosvenor Square, and
the morals and dignity of the family that dwelt in it, was not
without uneasiness about the literary and artistic circles that
his two young ladies had elected to move in. This description is
superficial; it judges from externals. Say that Mr. Elphinstone's
appearance conveyed that he, like Atlas, had the whole house on his
shoulders--was practically answerable for the honourable repute of
all his subordinates, and morally for that of his superiors. That was
the construction Alfred Challis felt obliged to put on such flawless
shaving; such a weighty deference to the slightest personalities--his
own, for instance--on production of adequate credentials; such a
hypnotic suggestion of having foregone an episcopate elsewhere to take
service with a beloved family whose interests he had at heart. It was
a construction not free from the derision Mr. Challis was in the habit
of meting out to dignitaries of all sorts. In this case he may not
have been free from personal feeling; for he must have been aware that
Elphinstone regarded him as an interloper--one who outraged the sacred
traditions of the household, calling at unearthly hours in a soft felt
hat, and smoking on the doorstep until compelled to throw away too much
cigar by hearing that the family was at home.
This is substantially what was happening about two hours after Mr.
Eldridge had declined to shed any light on anything at all, and his
wife had departed enjoining silence about Heaven-knows-what. Challis,
_désoeuvré_ by the mystification, had found himself unable to invent
any single thing a Scythian mercenary would have been likely to say in
English blank verse, and an approach towards Marianne of a conciliatory
sort was met by, "I must see Steptoe now about the dinner."
Unfortunately, this speech was absolutely passionless; if it had only
been tempersome, there might have been a row. And a row--as the Press
delights to phrase it--might have spelt salvation. But Challis could
see in it nothing that justified more than a languid "All right!" on
his part. And he had departed to the banks of the Danube again, with no
better success than before.
Presently his wife knocked at his door in an excluded, ostracised sort
of way, and he got up to open it. She was dressed for going out. "I
won't disturb you," she said. "Don't come out. I only wanted to say
that if the man comes about the gas you had better see him, because he
won't believe Steptoe, and the meter is certainly out of order. That's
all."
It was one of those queer little turning-points of existence. Challis
was not ready with any reply that would have caused a moment's delay
and saved the situation. Before he could manage more than general
assent, Marianne was gone, too far for anything short of demonstrative
recall. He did not see his way to this, and the chance was lost.
He was unable to work, and wanted to go out. But he had been, as it
were, put in bond on account of the gas-man, who wouldn't believe. He
failed to console himself by an accusation of Sadduceeism against that
functionary, and repeated Blake--
"The bat that flits at close of eve
Comes from the brain that won't believe"
--without benefit to his ill-temper. Then he impatiently wrote a note
about the meter to leave with Steptoe, to whom he said with immovable
gravity: "Is it a Sapphic or an Alcaic meter, do you know?" Aunt
Stingy's reply, without a shadow of suspicion in her voice, "I could
not say, myself, sir, but The Man would be sure to know," put him in
a much better humour. He actually chuckled as soon as he was sure the
good woman was out of hearing.
He wanted a book from the London Library, and could get it easily and
come back to lunch. He really did not admit to himself, when he left
home, that he had any good grounds for suspecting that he meant to call
in Grosvenor Square to inquire about that sprained ankle. He took pains
to disbelieve in any such intention till he had got the volume he was
in want of from the Library, and then it occurred to him that it would
be unfeeling not to inquire after the victim of an accident which might
prove serious, after all. His image of the injury done became very bad
as he told his cabman to drive to 101, Grosvenor Square. Was he aware
that he welcomed this solicitude about the sprained ankle because it
disguised, for the comfort of his conscience, his disposition to call
upon its owner?
The only palliative to the disgust of that doorstep in Grosvenor
Square--to which it is time to return--was that this time Mr. Challis
was not actually smoking on its brink; as, when his cab pulled up,
he was descried, before he had time to descend, by Mr. Elphinstone
himself, who had come out tentatively into the Universe to look round
at it, with a sense upon him of possible sudden retractation through
the open door, like a hermit-crab. A Piccadilly hansom, equal to
bespoke for Royalty, had in this case levelled its occupant up. Even
so a growler of the deepest dye, lurching, springless, effluvial,
knacker-destined as to its horse, drags down the noblest blood that
dares to ride in it--yes! even a Duke's; but who can cite a case in
point? Only, when Mr. Elphinstone crossed the pavement, he did it to
confer with the contents of the cab, as such; not with Mr. Alfred
Challis, thank you!
He was reassuring about the ankle; a slight strain that with care--his
own and Sir Rhyscombe Edison's--would disappear in a day or two. Oh
no!--in answer to inquiry--Miss Arkroyd had not been compelled to
keep her bed; a phrase that entered a respectful protest against
"stop in bed," the coarse, familiar expression Mr. Challis had made
use of. But he was, after all, a married man with a family, so it
might be overlooked, this once. He went on to say that Miss Arkroyd,
he believed, was up, though nursing the injured limb on a sofa. He
arrived, after responsible doubts, at the conclusion that he might
send Mr. Challis's card up, in case of any message. Delicacy dictating
a female emissary, Samuel was despatched with it to Miss Arkroyd's
maid; who presently, being an unpolished sample from the dairy at
Royd, came down and said briefly that Mr. Challis was to come up. Mr.
Elphinstone's expression was well-restrained protest.
But it may not have been so much the little dairy-maiden's bluntness
that provoked it, as an indescribably small shade of demeanour of Mr.
Challis's. As the girl came along the passage, and before she spoke,
Challis threw his cigar away, or the two-thirds that was left of it.
Such a little matter! But unless he had known what she was going to
say, he surely would have kept it till he did, to finish at leisure.
How came he to be so positive?
Anyhow, there it was!--the cigar--not half smoked, on the pavement when
the house door closed. And the cabman's eye rested on it. And he spoke
thus to a butcher's boy, who appeared from an area: "Wipe your fingers
on your apron, young dripping, and just hand me up that cigar, and I'll
see if I'll smoke it. I ain't proud. Only don't you discharge off any
of your natural grease upon it!"
To be addressed, even in disparaging terms, by such a hansom, was
flattering to this butcher-boy's vanity, and he did not resent it.
"Licked, but not busted, that I can see!" was his comment as he handed
the cigar up to the cabman, who went on with it, contentedly.
It is two months of the story since it saw, or rather heard of, Miss
Arkroyd and Mr. Challis driving up to this door after midnight in
another hansom. All that it said, or implied, at that time amounted to
little more than that a not very strait-laced lady and gentleman had
been rather free and easy over some theatrical schemes interesting to
both, and that the lady's sister, being less free or less easy, had
intimated that the conduct of the two might be laced a little more
straitly, with advantage. It is over six months of the story since they
discussed "The Spendthrift's Legacy" and "Ziz" in the garden at Royd.
If Charlotte Eldridge, as an authority, had been asked, "On which of
these two occasions, madam, should you suppose the chances were best of
this gentleman and lady supplying you with a story made to your hand,
akin to the one Robert Browning never went on with?" what would her
answer have been?
Our own impression is that at this present date of writing, when
Challis, smelling rather strongly of tobacco, is following the little
ex-dairymaid up the second flight of stairs to what is known as the
young ladies' sitting-room--at this very moment, with the cabman
making the most of his inherited Havana, and Judith forming to receive
visitors, the position would have been much less likely to supply copy
for Mrs. Eldridge than the previous one, but for one thing. Challis's
relations with Marianne were, at the moment--say--of the parroquets,
intact. What were they now?...
They were _something_, or Challis's last unspoken speech to himself on
the stairs would not have been, "At any rate, it isn't my fault!" It
needed the atmosphere of Judith--amused, if irritated, at her absurdity
in getting a sprained ankle--to enable him to shake free--though always
under protest--of the Hermitage.
"Wasn't it ridiculous of me!... No!--don't sit there; I can't see
you.... Wasn't it ridiculous of me to do this--just now of all times in
the year?"
"I thought you were a passive agent. I mean I didn't know that you
_did_ do anything."
"No more I did! No more than one does. You know what I mean?"
"Couldn't be better expressed! Like when one chokes and thinks one
could have helped it, and what a fool one is! But how did it happen?"
"Perfectly simple! I was getting down out of the carriage, and forgot
to think about my feet. Fenton Arkroyd was passing, and if he's not
taken notice of he's sensitive, because he married a laundress, or
something. So I forgot to think about my feet. It might have been so
easily avoided--with a little common-sense."
"So might so many things." Challis isn't the least clear how the
common-sense would act in the cases he is talking at--the plagues
that beset his own path. But what a capital thing to say!--on general
grounds, of course, with a little esoteric meaning all to oneself.
Judith, perhaps, thinks it too early in the morning for ethics, as
she changes the conversation. "How did you like my little maid?" she
says, keeping her eyes closed; which seems absurd after stipulating for
visibility on Challis's part. But it all belongs to a certain imperious
humour in the grain of her character. And rights of translation are
reserved. She can open them if she pleases.
"She's new, isn't she? Jolly little party!" Thus Challis.
"You're not warm enough! Didn't you want to kiss her?"
"Yes, badly--when she gave your message--half-way up...."
Judith opened her eyes. You can't laugh with your eyes shut; you
snigger. "She really gave it? Do tell me exactly! What did she say?"
she asks delightedly, keeping her eyes open to hear the answer.
"She turned round on the landing, and became for the moment a mere mass
of blooming conscience...."
"Is that--excuse me!--to be taken as _language_, or how?"
"No, no!--literally.... Blown flowers of intense truthfulness, and
buds on the burst.... Well!--she _said_, as near as I remember: 'Miss
Arkroyd said if Mr. Challis didn't smell too strong of smoke, only
Mr. Elphinstone wasn't to hear.' And then she got away up the second
flight with some alacrity. I thought she was afraid I might propose
investigation, and Elphinstone was still in the neighbourhood."
Judith is intensely amused. "I shall have to give that child one of
Sibyl's bead necklaces. Turquoise. It goes with her eyes exactly--they
have just the violet tinge." She closed her own again on the slight
subject, but it has suggested a weightier one. "Couldn't you give
Estrild a little Visigoth _ingénue_--I mean Ostrogoth--to wait upon
her?"
"What!--and train the little Rankshire beauty to the part? Think of her
parents--the stage!--merciful Heaven!..." But Challis stops suddenly,
discomposed by a discomposure in his hearer.
"Never mind," says she, shaking it off. "You didn't mean it. You're
forgiven! Go on."
"I naturally didn't think of it from that point of view. The cases are
so entirely different."
"Never mind!" Judith repeats her words with more emphasis. "You _are_
forgiven. Now go on about the Ostrogoths."
"I could put the little beauty in; she would be very useful as
a set-off to Estrild. Besides, I want to get rid of Isarnes the
Cappadocian, and she would work in...."
Judith interrupts him, calling to the little attendant, who comes in
answer from somewhere within hearing. "Child!" she says--"bring me
that hand-mirror off my dressing-table," and when it comes, continues,
interrupting a recommencement of the Cappadocian, "That's right!--give
it me. Now put your face over my shoulder and look in."
The order is complied with, but an inexplicable apology follows:
"Please, miss, I know. Because I looked. And I've tried monkey-soap,
and it won't wash out." The seriousness of the young voice is
heart-rending. Judith bursts out laughing, but consoles: "It wasn't
that, child! But I like you to be a funny little goose, so don't stop!
Now take away the glass, and let the monkey-soap alone, for Heaven's
sake!... You got a good view, Mr. Dramatist?... Well!--you saw what I
mean. Now, tell me what you were saying about the Cappadocian."
"Why, you see, he ought to make a showy end, after dyeing his hands in
the blood of so many inoffensive persons, and killing a Sarmatian bison
with a single blow in the arena. He might be just giving a hideous
laugh of triumph, and his innocent victim might be struggling vainly in
the grasp of a giant--it would be Jack Potter; you know what a biceps
he has--and a sudden arrow would be shot from across the Danube and
pierce his brain through the eye...."
"Of course--shot by What's-his-name?--the man that wouldn't embrace
Christianity, but does heroic deeds. You know, Challis, you'll have to
make him embrace Christianity. What _is_ the use of being unpopular?"
"Of course he embraces Christianity in the end. The high-priest or
bishop elevates a crucifix. I've been trying to think of a good name
for him. Ingomar or Anthrax...."
"That won't do. It's what the sheep die of. How would Zero do?"
"Something between Zeno and Nero. Very good name, only the
thermometer's been beforehand with us...." And so the conversation
ran on for a little, throwing an interesting light on the human drama
in its connection with Gibbon. But it was a conversation that murmured
continually: "You know you did not allow me to go my own way because
you thought I was going to be disagreeable. Finish me piecemeal as I
arise, or take the consequence--misgiving on either part about what
the other did or didn't think." Judith, who, after all, was the one
responsible for the discontinuity, gave in to these murmurs first, and
harked back.
"I know you think, Challis, that I am keeping the _madre_ and papa in
the dark about what I mean to do. But I'm not, because Sibyl knows, and
_they_ can know perfectly well if they like; it's only that they don't
choose to know. Besides, what on earth _is_ the use of making scenes,
when I've made up my mind? I'll confess when the time comes."
The levity or laxity of Challis's voice is gone from it in his reply,
scarcely a sequel to the words just spoken: "When I said that about
your little maid, I had no thought that it could possibly apply in your
case. The child, remember, is under the legal control of parents. How
old is she?--sixteen?..."
"Yes, perhaps--not more, certainly. You mean that I'm...."
"Over twenty-one. I don't say you would assert a legal independence
against the wishes of your family. But it separates the two cases. I
wouldn't have any hand in getting a very young girl on the stage in
any case. And I think I should avail myself of the existing legal ...
well!--call it pretext, if you will ... to excuse myself from doing so."
"That's just like you, Challis! You really are a disciple of Mr.
Brownrigg's Groschenbauer--what's his name? You deride every existing
usage, merely because it exists, and then you make use of it for your
own purposes! You're just the same about the parsons, and all religion!
You tolerate it, or pose as tolerating it, because you dislike
wickedness on the whole, and can't see your way to a substitute--not
even to a Metaphysical Check."
Challis's laugh left his face twinkling with paradoxical intention.
"I believe I am the only known example," said he deliberately, "of
a person apparently of sound mind who has never once succeeded in
justifying a single position he has taken up...."
"Don't talk like Felixthorpe! At any rate, you can justify the position
you have taken up that I'm more than twenty-one."
"Because you told me!"
"Yes--the day after my birthday. I was twenty-six the day you came
to Royd. I remember telling you the day we went to the Rectory. Six
months ago! Oh dear!--how the time does run away!"
In obedience to a mysterious law, which dictates that no speech of
any good-looking woman to any passable man shall mean to him nothing
beyond its obvious meaning, this little reminiscence of Judith assumed
an identity. It reminded Challis of the existence of that soul-brush,
which had become--it is useless to deny it--so much a part of his
relation with Judith that he had ceased to hear the machinery. _He_
denied it, mind you!--denied it systematically. Yet he was indignant
with anything that reminded him that it was time to deny it. Plague
take this necessity for walking guardedly! How acceptable it would
have been to be able to say, "_How_ we enjoyed that walk back through
the sunset!" Another type of man--the type that says, "Let Charlotte
Eldridge do her worst, and be blowed!"--would have had no scruples
on the subject. But Challis was a nervous person, and his Self was
perplexing him--very especially now, with poor, dear, stupid Polly Anne
making life a weariness, with her tempers and her fancies.
Was Judith Arkroyd aware, all the time, that this man's bark was in
troubled waters, while she was floating in a secure haven--secure, at
least, for now? Did she ask herself any questions?
Or was Challis just a shade priggish to show a stony front to such a
very meek little reminiscence? His actual reply was: "I thought it was
a good deal more, since my visit to Royd, I mean."
"I hope you'll pay us another visit." Judith thought to herself
that two could play that game. And Challis immediately felt chilly,
illogically; rather as though the soul-brush had slacked off. He would
have to say something serious now, to merge this little fault in the
stratification of their conversation.
"I hope to, certainly. Well!--what were we saying?... Oh yes!--you told
me your age, you know. But even then I had misgivings about Aminta
Torrington. I can't say I wasn't glad when old Magnus put his foot
down. It's an odious part, and it wouldn't have suited you. Thyrza
Schreckenbaum won't look so well on the stage, but it's more her part
than yours."
"I should have thought Estrild was wicked enough for anything."
"So she is. But it's mediæval--good, honest, outrageous atrocity. It's
almost Scriptural. Suppose, now, you had to apologize to the papa of
your little tire-maiden for putting her on the stage, think how much
easier it would be if she was only to play Messalina or Lucrezia Borgia
than if it was Frou-frou, for instance!"
"That little sugar-plum--just fancy! No, I shouldn't like her to play
Frou-frou at all. The atmosphere is purer in the other cases. How
ridiculous one is! But point your moral, Mr. Dramatist."
"Let me see!--what are we talking about?" For Challis had forgotten.
"I believe I'm on a line of self-justification. Didn't I tell you I
never succeeded? I believe I'm creeping round to a sneaking apology for
having offered you Aminta Torrington at all. I wouldn't have written
the part for you--even then. But there it was, and you asked for the
chance, and it was the only thing I had to offer."
Judith's laugh rang out. She had a capital stage laugh, musical but
penetrating. "Nobody's finding fault with you, stupid man! But why
'even then'? It's not four months since. Where is the difference?" She
had opened her eyes full on him to laugh at him, and now closed them
again to wait for an answer. Had Challis been at his best, observing
nature with a view to copy, he would have noticed that last time she
laughed--about the sugar-plum's message--she had left her eyes open,
full flash on him.
But he was too busy with a difficulty to do his duty by human nature,
that it behoved him to know, like Peter Ronsard. That unfortunate "even
then" that he had blundered out had brought him face to face with a
fact that--so it struck him now--he had never felt properly ashamed
of. How came it that, up to this moment, he had scarcely seen in it
a matter to be ashamed of at all; and now, almost involuntarily, he
had drawn a distinction between _now_ and _then_ that seemed to place
Judith Arkroyd _then_ on a lower level? It was actually true that three
months ago he was trying for all he was worth to negotiate this girl
into the good graces of his stage Jupiter; to get her on the boards to
represent a woman whose wickedness he had specially invented, thereby
to fall into the fashion of a time that he himself accounted an age of
stark fools. For he had never come across an Aminta Torrington; but
he conceived, for all that, when he put her on the stage, and set Mr.
Guppy and Dick Swiveller off being up-to-date about her, that he was
performing his part in the dance--the dance of fools! He felt he was
in difficulties, and even for a moment contemplated an appeal to the
Artist's Love for His Work, as an excuse for his own attempt to get
the help of Judith's beauty for his _corps dramatique_. He hesitated,
negatived it, and said to himself uncandidly that--thank God!--he had
not fallen as low as that. But he never suspected, as this story has
begun to do, that his sense of shame was due to the fact that this lady
had become less cheap to him in these three months--dangerously less.
But he could not leave that "Why _even then_?" unanswered, with his
questioner waiting there behind her closed eyelids for whatever excuse
he might see his way to. _Why_ even then? He felt he was flushing a
little, and hoped she would not open her eyes. But his speech hung fire
too long; and when they turned on him suddenly to see what it was going
to be, he was caught, and could only see his way out through frankness.
"I know," he said--"I know. Of course, I was wrong to suggest it.
Still, it was the only thing that came to hand. It was either that or
nothing. And you wished it ... and besides...."
"I am not blaming you. Go on ... 'and besides'...." The beautiful eyes
that were to make so much mischief on the Danube were almost cruel in
the way they waited for what Challis felt he had better not have begun
to say.
But there was no help for it now. He had to continue, and did so:
"... And besides, I did not know you so well as I do now.... I mean,
I saw the thing differently...." He was getting deeper and deeper in
the mire, and the eyes showed no signs of letting him off. "No; it's
no use," he said abruptly. "I did wrong. But then, can you understand
me?--how could I know it was _you_?" Then he made a weak attempt to
_dispersonalize_ his words. "No one of us remains the same." And then,
feeling he wasn't shining, settled to hold his tongue. But he did not
look Judith in the face over it.
She, for her part, being perfectly collected and thoroughly mistress
of herself, only saw in his confusion a clear token that she was also
mistress of the situation. She had done this sort of thing before--love
of power being always her chief incentive--and had come out scathless.
If a doubt now crossed her mind that she might be playing with edged
tools, it was not strong enough to stop her.
"How true that is! Do you know, Challis"--please note this habit of
address; it has somehow become natural to Judith--"I was thinking only
just now, before you came in, how completely you have changed your
identity since those days. Do you remember when we played chess?...
Well, I'm almost ashamed to tell you how I thought of you then...."
"You owe it me. See how I've been at the confessional myself!" Challis
submits to the soul-brush without protest. It is no use. Why resist?
"You were merely an author whose works I hadn't read--yes!--that's
true; authors never have any idea what a lot of people haven't read
their books. I thought you would just come and go, like the rest of
them. But I fancied you seemed at a loose end, and I would take pity on
you. I never thought...."
"Never thought what?"
"Don't look so _empressé_ over it, Challis!" Really, this woman's
faculty for going close to precipices, foot-sure, is something
perfectly marvellous. Tenderness outright seemed the only natural
sequel just now. But she will get back to safety, after gazing coolly
over the edge. Trust her! "I couldn't say it all in one word, you
see.... Never thought that in six months you would be writing a tragedy
for me to play in. That's all that it comes to. At any rate, you
seemed quite a different person then." Had she recoiled too abruptly
from the precipice? Is there slight concession, just to accommodate a
working equilibrium, in her last words? Her own working equilibrium,
mind you;--in which to dangle her victim over that precipice at
leisure, and yet to keep able to deny its proximity undisturbed, or
pooh-pooh it altogether, at choice. For a thorough-paced female flirt
enjoys driving her quarry mad best, when she knows she has plausible
innocent unconsciousness enough left in the cellar to quench any fever
of self-accusation of her own. "Who ever said a word, or thought a
thought, about love-making?..." Don't we know the sort of thing?
Challis's own frame of mind--for the story must needs try to define it,
however difficult it is to deal with--was one of a sort of thankfulness
that he had perturbation of feeling all to himself. Therein lay
his safety; he could keep it secret. He could and would pay for it
by additional tenderness to poor dear Polly Anne--who _was_ Polly
Anne, after all, mind you!--when this last stupid bit of purposeless
quarrelsomeness should have cleared away. But he wanted security that
the conflagration whose smouldering he could not disguise from himself
would be local. He had just, only just, stamped out a spark that might
have become a flame at that precipice-edge, now a moment since. He was
willing to go great lengths in persuading himself that there were no
fires smouldering elsewhere; for to what end, in Heaven's name, should
he recognize them?
But suppose he should be forced to! Suppose he should find one day
that he could no longer parade before his mind this creed that was his
security--this impossibility that he was ever present in his absence to
this woman; as he had to confess perforce, struggle as he might against
growing conviction, she was so often--nearly always--present to him. He
built this faith upon a rock of friendship, genial and firm, but always
cold, that an exaggerated respect for her character--which really
did him honour--chose to assign as the only leasehold her heart could
accommodate him with. Perhaps unfounded hallucinations about the beauty
of Judith's character were the most dangerous features of the disease
Alfred Challis was sickening for, if it had not developed already.
All this may seem too many words about a simple thing. Perhaps Sibyl's
way of disposing of the subject was more intelligible--saved trouble,
certainly. "That man admires you too much, Judith, for it to be safe
to play tricks with him. You'll do this sort of thing once too often.
And then you'll be sorry." However, it was clear that there could be no
real danger as long as the lady remained detached, and very little as
long as the gentleman was convinced that she was so.
And he may have been so convinced--one would have said--when he
found himself able to answer Judith with a philosophical, "Have you
ever known a new acquaintance not to change completely in the first
six months?" And she may have thought he was running too much to
abstractions when she said, "I did not say you had changed completely";
as though she would not have him suppose her too unconcerned. He was
not to slip from the web she was weaving round him by a device of
gossipy discussion. Her remark just met the case; and the soul-brush,
which had got a little out of gear, got to work again.
They went back to the tragedy, and talked of it so long that at length
it came to measuring the minutes by his watch. Then Judith said to him,
as though she had but just recollected it: "You found my letter, I
suppose?" No, he had not--had she written? Oh yes!--it was posted last
thing last night. There was nothing in it, or she would have spoken
about it. The fact that she had written lubricated that soul-brush. But
he must go, or he would be late. A few more words, mostly about how
last night's entertainment had missed her presence, and the lady the
Ross Tarbets had brought in her stead had proved a failure, and then
Challis was standing beside her to say adieu--her hand in his. Really
inevitable, if you think of it, on the supposition that the forms of
civilization are to continue to hold good.
It was a perversity of Fate that chose this very moment for the only
other frequenter of that room to open the door unheard. Judith could
not see her sister through Challis as he stood there. He turned to go.
"Oh, Mr. Challis. I did not see it was you. Perhaps you are talking
business. Don't let me disturb you."
"Not at all. I am just going."
"Stop one minute, Mr. Challis." Thus Judith. "Never mind Sibyl! You
_must_ try to persuade Mrs. Challis to come and see us. Now promise you
will!" She had not referred to Marianne before, by the way.
"I'll try what I can do. But my wife goes her own way. Good-bye!
Good-bye, Miss Sibyl!"
* * * * *
"How long had he been here?"
"Over an hour. I can't say exactly. You must ask Elphinstone when he
came, if you want to know."
"It doesn't matter to me when he came."
"You asked." Sibyl made no reply. A lunch-gong sounded below, and she
vanished, but presently returned.
"You are not coming down to lunch?" she said. "At least, are you? Or
not?"
"Of course not! How could I, without flying in Sir Rhyscombe's face?"
But Sibyl's question had been mere conversation-making, or
skirmish-seeking. She said what she meant directly after. "I suppose
it's perfectly useless _my_ saying anything. But you know what I think."
"I know what you think, dear! Go to lunch."
"Very well, Judith!" And Sibyl departed for lunch as Judith sounded her
bell for her little handmaid, the reputed sugar-plum.
* * * * *
"How long will it take you to get to Wimbledon?" Challis asked the
driver of the waiting cab.
"A tidy long time, the rate I'm going now!" was the reply. "Jump in!"
Challis, feeling he was in the hands of a master-mind, obeyed without
question, and the cab was off, at speed. Presently the master-mind said
briefly, through his orifice above--as King Solomon may have spoken
to the evil djinn he bottled--"Within the hour," and closed it on his
fare for that period. The djinn was in for a lifer, and was immortal;
so thought Challis to himself. That was too long, but short of that,
something over an hour would not be unwelcome--just to think things
over a little!