A PAIR OF GLOVES
"Piers! Where the devil are you, Piers?"
There was loud exasperation in the query as Sir Beverley halted in the
doorway of his grandson's bedroom.
There was a moment's pause; then Victor the valet came quickly forward.
"But, _Monsieur Pierre_, he bathe himself," he explained, with beady eyes
running over the gaunt old figure in the entrance.
Sir Beverley growled at him inarticulately and turned away.
A moment later he was beating a rousing tattoo on the bathroom-door.
"Piers! Let me in! Do you hear? Let me in!"
The vigorous splashing within came to a sudden stop. "That you, sir?"
called Piers.
"Of course it's me!" shouted back Sir Beverley, shaking the door
with fierce impatience. "Damn it, let me in! I'll force the door if
you don't."
"No, don't, sir; don't! I'm coming!"
There came the sound of a splashing leap, and bare feet raced across the
bathroom floor. The door was wrenched from Sir Beverley's grasp, and
flung open. Piers, quite naked, stood back and bowed him in with
elaborate ceremony.
Sir Beverley entered and glared at him.
Piers shut the door and took a flying jump back into the bath. The room
was dense with steam.
"You don't mind if I go on with my wash, do you?" he said. "I shall be
late for dinner if I don't."
"What in thunder do you want to boil yourself like this for?" demanded
Sir Beverley.
Piers, seated with his hands clasped round his knees, looked up with the
smile of an infant. "It suits my constitution, sir," he said. "I freeze
myself in the morning and boil myself at night--always. By that means I
am rendered impervious to all atmospheric changes of temperature."
"You're a fool, Piers," said Sir Beverley.
Piers laughed, a gay, indifferent laugh. "That all?" he said lightly.
"No, it isn't all." Sir Beverley's voice had a curious forced ring,
almost as if he were stern in spite of himself. "I came to ask--and I
mean to know--" He broke off. "What the devil have you done to your
shoulders?"
Piers' hands unlocked as if at the touch of a spring. He slipped down
backwards into the bath and lay with the water lapping round his black
head. His eyes, black also, and very straight and resolute, looked up at
Sir Beverley.
"Look here, sir; if there's anything you want to know I'll tell you after
dinner. I thought--possibly--you'd come to shake hands, or I shouldn't
have been in such a hurry to let you in. As it is,--"
"Confound you, Piers!" broke in Sir Beverley. "Don't preach to me! Sit up
again! Do you hear? Sit up, and let me look at you!"
But Piers made no movement to comply. "No, sir; thanks all the same. I
don't want to be looked at. Do you mind going now? I'm going to splash."
His tone was deliberately jaunty, but it held undoubted determination.
He kept his eyes unswervingly on his grandfather's face.
Sir Beverley stood his ground, however, his black brows fiercely drawn.
"Get up, Piers!" he ordered, his tone no longer blustering, but curtly
peremptory. "Get up, do you hear?" he added with a gleam of humour. "You
may as well give in at once, you young mule. You'll have to in the end."
"Shall I?" said Piers.
And then suddenly his own sense of humour was kindled again, and he
uttered his boyish laugh.
"We won't quarrel about it, what?" he said, and stretched a wet hand
upwards. "Let's consider the incident closed! There's nothing whatever to
be fashed about."
Sir Beverley's thin lips twitched a little. He pulled at the hand, and
slowly Piers yielded. The water dripped from his shoulders. They gleamed
in the strong light like a piece of faultless statuary, godlike, superbly
strong. But it was upon no splendour of form that Sir Beverley's
attention was focussed.
He spoke after a moment, an odd note of contrition in his voice. "I
didn't mean to mark you like that, boy. It was your own doing of course.
You shouldn't have interfered with me. Still--"
"Oh, rats!" said Piers, beginning to splash. "What's a whacking more or
less when you're used to 'em?"
His dark eyes laughed their impudent dismissal to the old man. It was
very evident that he desired to put an end to the matter, and after a
moment Sir Beverley grunted and withdrew.
He had not asked what he wanted to know; somehow it had not been
possible. He had desired to put his question in a whirl of righteous
indignation, but in some fashion Piers had disarmed him and it had
remained unuttered.
The very sight of the straight, young figure had quenched the fire of
his wrath. Confound the boy! Did he think he could insult him as he had
insulted him only that afternoon and then twist him round his little
finger? He would have it out with him presently. He would have the truth
and no compromise, if he had to wring it out of him. He would--Again the
vision of those strong young shoulders, with red stripes crossing their
gleaming white surface, rose before Sir Beverley. He swore a strangled
oath. No, he hadn't meant to punish the boy to that extent, his infernal
impudence notwithstanding. It wasn't the first time he had thrashed him,
and, egad, it mightn't be the last. But he hadn't meant to administer
quite such a punishment as that. It was decent of the young rascal not to
sulk after it, though he wasn't altogether sure that he approved of the
light fashion with which Piers had elected to treat the whole episode. It
looked as if he had not wholly taken to heart the lesson Sir Beverley had
intended to convey, and if that were the case--again Sir Beverley swore
deep in his soul--he was fully equal to repeating it, ay, and again
repeating it, until the youngster came to heel. He never had endured any
nonsense from Piers, and, by Gad, he never would!
With these reflections he stumped downstairs, and seated himself on the
black, oaken settle in the hall to await the boy's advent.
The fire blazed cheerily, flinging ruddy gleams upon the shining suits of
armour, roaring up the chimney in a sheet of flame. Sir Beverley sat
facing the stairs, the grim lines hardened to implacability about his
mouth, his eyes fixed in a stare that had in it something brutal. He was
seeing again that slim, straight figure of womanhood standing in his
path, with arms outstretched, and white, determined face upraised,
barring the way.
"Curse her!" he growled. "Curse 'em all!"
The vision grew before his gaze of hate; and now she was no longer
standing between him and a mere, defenceless animal. But there, on his
own stairs, erect and fearless, she withstood him, while behind her,
descending with a laugh on his lips and worship in his eyes, came Piers.
The stone-grey eyes became suffused; for a few, whirling moments of
bewilderment and fury, they saw all things red. Then, gradually, the mist
cleared, and the old man dropped back in a lounging posture with an ugly
sound in his throat that was like a snarl. Doubtless that was her game;
doubtless--doubtless! He had always known that a day would come when
something of the kind would happen. Piers was young, wealthy,
handsome,--a catch for any woman; but--fiercely he swore it--he should
fall a prey to no schemer. When he married--as marry eventually he
must--he should make an alliance of which any man might be proud. The
Evesham blood should mix with none but the highest. In Piers he would see
the father's false step counteracted. He thanked Heaven that he had never
been able to detect in the boy any trace of the piece of cheap prettiness
that had given him birth. He might have been his own son, son of the
woman who had been the rapture and the ruin of his life. There were times
when Sir Beverley almost wished he had been, albeit in the bitterness of
his soul he had never had any love for the child she had borne him.
He had never wanted to love Piers either, but somehow the matter had not
rested with him. From the arms of Victor, Piers had always yearned to his
grandfather, wailing lustily till he found himself held to the hard old
heart that had nought but harshness and intolerance for all the world
beside. He had as it were taken that unwilling heart by storm, claiming
it as his right before he was out of his cradle. And later the attachment
between them had grown and thriven, for Piers had never relinquished the
ground he had won in babyhood. By sheer arrogance of possession he had
held his own till the impetuous ardour of his affection and the utter
fearlessness on which it was founded had made of him the cherished idol
of the heart which had tried to shut him out. Sir Beverley gloried in the
boy though he still flattered himself that no one suspected the fact, and
still believed that his rule was a rule of stern discipline under which
Piers might chafe but against which he would never openly revolt.
He could not remember a single occasion upon which he had not been able
to master Piers, possibly after a fierce struggle but always with
absolute completeness in the end. And there was so much of sweetness in
the youngster's nature that, unruly though he might be, he never nurtured
a grievance. He would fight for his own way to the last of his strength,
but when beaten he always yielded with a good grace. To his grandfather
alone he could submit without any visible wound to his pride. Who could
help glorying in a boy like that?
David the butler, a man of infinite respectability, came softly into the
hall and approached his master.
"Are you ready for dinner, Sir Beverley?"
"No," snapped Sir Beverley. "Can't you see Master Piers isn't here?"
"Very good, sir," murmured David, and retired decorously, fading into
the background without the faintest sound, while Caesar the Dalmatian
who had entered with him lay sedately down in well-bred silence at Sir
Beverley's feet.
There fell a pause, while Sir Beverley's eyes returned to the wide oak
staircase, watching it ceaselessly, with vulture-like intentness. Then
after the passage of minutes, there came the sound of feet that literally
scampered along the corridor above, and in a moment, with meteor-like
suddenness, Piers flashed into view.
He seemed to descend the stairs without touching them, and was greeted
at the foot by Caesar, who leapt to meet him with wide-mouthed delight.
"Hullo, you scamp, hullo!" laughed Piers, responding to the dog's
caresses with a careless hand. "Out of the way with you! I'm late."
"As usual," observed Sir Beverley, leaning slowly forward, still with his
eyes unblinkingly fixed upon his grandson's merry face. "Come here, boy!"
Piers came to him unabashed.
Sir Beverley got heavily to his feet and took him by the shoulder. "Who
is that woman, Piers?" he said, regarding him piercingly.
Piers' forehead was instantly drawn by a quick frown. He stood passive,
but there was a suggestion of resistance about him notwithstanding.
"Whom do you mean, sir?" he said. "What woman?"
"You know very well who I mean," snarled Sir Beverley. "Come, I'll have
none of your damn' nonsense. Never have stood it and never will. Who was
that white-faced cat that got in my way this afternoon and helped you to
a thrashing? Eh, Piers? Who was she, I say? Who was she?"
Piers made a sharp involuntary movement of the hands, and as swiftly
restrained himself. He looked his grandfather full in the face.
"Ask me after dinner, sir," he said, speaking with something of an
effort, "and I'll tell you all I know."
"You'll tell me now!" declared Sir Beverley, shaking the shoulder he
gripped with savage impatience.
But Piers put up a quick hand and stopped him. "No, sir, not now. Come
and dine first! I've no mind to go dinnerless to bed. Come, sir, don't
badger me!" He smiled suddenly and very winningly into the stern grey
eyes. "There's all the evening before us, and I shan't shirk."
He drew the bony old hand away from his shoulder, and pulled it
through his arm.
"I suppose you think you're irresistible," grumbled Sir Beverley. "I
don't know why I put up with you; on my soul, I don't, you impudent
young dog!"
Piers laughed. "Let's do one thing at a time anyway, and I'm ravenous for
dinner. So must you be. Come along! Let's trot in and have it!"
He had his way. Sir Beverley went with him, though half against his will.
They entered the dining-room still linked together, and a woman's face
smiled down upon them from a picture-frame on the wall with a smile
half-sad, half-mocking--such a smile as even at that moment curved Piers'
lips, belying the reckless gaiety of his eyes.
They dined in complete amicability. Piers had plenty to say at all times,
and he showed himself completely at his ease. He was the only person in
the world who ever was so in Sir Beverley's presence. He even now and
then succeeded in provoking a sardonic laugh from his grandfather. His
own laughter was boyishly spontaneous.
But at the end of the meal, when wine was placed upon the table, he
suddenly ceased his careless chatter, and leaned forward with his dark
eyes full upon Sir Beverley's face.
"Now, sir, you want to know the name of the girl who wasn't afraid of you
this afternoon, I mentioned her to you once before. Her name is Avery
Denys. She is a widow; and she calls herself the mother's help at the
Vicarage."
He gave his information with absolute steadiness. His voice was
wholly free from emotion of any sort, but it rang a trifle stern, and
his mouth--that sensitive, clean-cut mouth of his--had the grimness
of an iron resolution about it. Sir Beverley looked at him frowningly
over his wine.
"The woman who threw a pail of water over you once, eh?" he said, after
a moment. "I suppose she has become a very special friend in
consequence."
"I doubt if she would call herself so," said Piers.
The old man's mouth took a bitter, downward curve. "You see, you're
rather young," he observed.
Piers' eyes fell away from his abruptly. "Yes, I know," he said, in a
tone that seemed to hide more than it expressed.
Sir Beverley continued to stare at him, but he did not lift his eyes
again. They were fixed steadily upon the ruby light that shone in the
wine in front of him.
The silence lengthened and became oppressive. Sir Beverley still watched
Piers' intent face. His lips moved soundlessly, while behind his silence
the storm of his wrath gathered.
What did the boy mean by treating him like this? Did he think he would
endure to be set aside thus deliberately as one whose words had no
weight? Did he think--confound him!--did he think that he had reached
his dotage?
A sudden oath escaped him; he banged a furious fist upon the table. He
would make himself heard at least.
In the same instant quite unexpectedly Piers leaped to his feet with
uplifted hand. "What's that?"
"What do you mean?" thundered Sir Beverley.
Piers' hand descended, gripping his arm. "That, sir, that! Don't
you hear?"
Voice and gesture compelled. Sir Beverley stopped dead, arrested in full
career by his grandson's insistence, and listened with pent breath, as
Piers was listening.
For a moment or two he heard nothing, then, close outside the window,
there arose the sound of children's voices. They were singing a hymn, but
not in the customary untuneful yell of the village school. The voices
were clear and sweet and true, and the words came distinct and pure to
the two men standing at the table.
"He comes, the prisoners to release
In Satan's bondage held,
The gates of brass before Him burst,
The iron fetters yield."
Piers' hand tightened all-unconsciously upon Sir Beverley's arm. His face
was very white. In his eyes there shone a curious hunger--such a look as
might have gleamed in the eyes of the prisoners behind the gates.
Again came the words, triumphantly repeated:
"The gates of brass before Him burst,
The iron fetters yield."
And an odd sound that was almost a sob broke from Piers.
Sir Beverley looked at him sharply; but in the same moment he drew
back, relinquishing his hold, and stepped lightly across the room to
the window.
There was a decided pause before the next verse. Piers stood with his
face to the blind, making no movement. At last, tentatively, like the
song of a very shy angel, a single boy's voice took up the melody.
"He comes, the broken heart to bind,
The bleeding soul to cure,
And with the treasures of His grace
To bless the humble poor."
Sir Beverley sat down again at the table. Half mechanically his eyes
turned to the pictured face on the wall, the face that smiled so
enigmatically. Not once in a year did his eyes turn that way. To-night he
regarded it with half-ironical interest. He had no pity to spare for
broken hearts. He did not believe in them. No man could have endured more
than he had had to endure. He had been dragged through hell itself. But
it had hardened, not broken his heart. Save in one respect he knew that
he could never be made to suffer any more. Save for that charred
remnant, there was nothing left for the flame to consume.
And so through all the bitter years he had borne that smiling face upon
his wall, cynically indifferent to the beauty which had been the rapture
and the agony of his life,--a man released from the place of his torment
because his capacity for suffering was almost gone.
Again there were two children's voices singing, and that of the shy angel
gathered confidence. With a species of scoffing humour Sir Beverley's
stony eyes travelled to the window. They rested upon his boy standing
there with bent head--a mute, waiting figure with a curious touch of
pathos in its pose. Sir Beverley's sudden frown drew his forehead. What
ailed the youngster? Why did he stand as if the whole world were resting
on his shoulders?
He made an impatient movement. "For Heaven's sake," he said testily,
"tell those squalling children to go!"
Piers did not stir. "In a moment, sir!" he said.
And so, clear through the night air, the last verse came unhindered
to an end.
"Our glad hosannas, Prince of peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And Heaven's eternal arches ring
With Thy beloved Name.
And Heaven's eternal arches ring
With Thy beloved Name."
Piers threw up his head with a sudden, spasmodic movement as of a
drowning man. And then without pause he snatched up the blind and flung
the window wide.
"Hi, you kiddies! Where are you? Don't run away! Gracie, is that you?"
There was a brief silence, then chirpily came the answer. "Pat did the
solo; but he's gone. He would have gone sooner--when we saw your shadow
on the blind--only I held him so that he couldn't."
Piers broke into a laugh. "Well, come in now you are here! You're not
afraid anyhow, what?"
"Oh no!" laughed Gracie. "I'm not a bit afraid. But I'm supposed to be in
bed; and if Father finds out I'm not--" She paused with her customary
sense of the dramatic.
"Well?" laughed Piers. "What'll happen then?"
"I shall cop it," said Gracie elegantly.
Nevertheless she came to him, and stood on the grass outside the window.
The lamplight from within shone on her upturned face with its saucy,
confiding smile. Her head was uncovered and gleamed golden in the
radiance. She was wearing a very ancient fur cloak belonging to her
mother, and she glowed like a rose in the sombre drapery.
Piers stooped to her with hands invitingly outstretched. "Come along,
Pixie! We shan't eat you, and I'll take you home on my shoulder
afterwards and see you don't get copped."
She uttered a delighted little laugh, and went upwards into his hold like
a scrap of floating thistledown.
He lifted her high in his arms, crossed the room with her, and set her
down before the old man who still sat at the table, sardonically
watching. "Miss Gracie Lorimer!" he said.
"Hullo, child!" growled Sir Beverley.
Gracie looked at him with sparkling, adventurous eyes. As she had told
Piers, she was not a bit afraid. After the briefest pause she held out
her hand with charming _insouciance_.
"How do you do?" she said.
Sir Beverley slowly took the hand, and pulled her towards him, gazing at
her from under his black brows with a piercing scrutiny that would have
terrified a more timid child.
Timidity however was not one of Gracie's weaknesses. She gave him a
friendly smile, and waited without the smallest sign of uneasiness for
him to speak.
"What have you come here for?" he demanded gruffly at length.
"I'll tell you," said Gracie readily. She went close to him, confidingly
close, looking straight into the formidable grey eyes. "You see, it was
my idea. Pat didn't want to come, but I made him."
"Forward young minx!" commented Sir Beverley.
Gracie laughed at the compliment.
Piers, smoking his cigarette behind her, stood ready to take her part,
but quite obviously she was fully equal to the occasion.
"Yes, I know," she agreed, with disarming amiability. "But it wouldn't
have mattered a bit if you hadn't found out who it was. You won't tell
anyone, will you?"
"Why not?" demanded Sir Beverley.
Gracie pulled down her red lips, and cast up her dancing eyes. "There'd
be such a scandal," she said.
Piers broke into an involuntary laugh, and Sir Beverley's thin lips
twitched in a reluctant smile.
"You're a saucy little baggage!" he observed. "Well, get on! Let's hear
what you've come for! Cadging money, I'll be bound."
Gracie nodded in eager confirmation of this suggestion. "That's just it!"
she said. "And that's where the scandal would come in if you told. You
see, poor children can go round squalling carols to their hearts' content
for pennies, but children like us who want pennies just as much haven't
any way of getting them. We mayn't carry hand-bags, or open
carriage-doors, or turn cart-wheels, or--or do anything to earn a living.
It's hard luck, you know."
"Beastly shame!" said Piers.
Sir Beverley scowled at him. "You needn't stick your oar in. Go and
shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let's have the truth, so far
as any female is capable of speaking it! You've come here for pennies,
you say. Don't you know that's a form of begging? And begging is
breaking the law."
"I often do that," said Gracie, quite undismayed. "So would you, if you
were me. I expect you did too when you were young."
"I!" Sir Beverley uttered a harsh laugh, and released the child's hand.
"So you break the law, do you?" he said. "How often?"
Gracie's laugh followed his like a silvery echo. "I shan't tell you 'cos
you're a magistrate. But we weren't really begging, Pat and I. At least
it wasn't for ourselves."
"Oh, of course not!" said Sir Beverley.
She looked at him with her clear eyes, unconscious of irony. "No. We
wanted to buy a pair of gloves for someone for Christmas. And nice
gloves cost such a lot, don't they? And we hadn't got more than
tenpence-halfpenny among us. So I said I'd think of a plan to get more.
And--that was the plan," ended Gracie, with her sweetest smile.
"I see," said Sir Beverley, with his eyes still fixed immovably upon her.
"And what made you come here?"
"Oh, we came here just because of Piers," said Gracie, without hesitation.
"You see, he's a great friend of ours."
"Is he?" said Sir Beverley. "And so you think you'll get what you can out
of him, eh?"
"Sir!" said Piers sharply.
"Be quiet, Piers!" ordered his grandfather testily. "Who spoke to you?
Well, madam, continue! How much do you consider him good for?"
Piers pulled a coin impetuously from his pocket and slapped it down on
the table in front of Gracie. "There you are, Pixie!" he said. "I'm good
for that."
Gracie stared at the coin with widening eyes, not offering to touch it.
"Oh, Piers!" she said, with a long indrawn breath. "It's a whole
sovereign! Oh no!"
He laughed a reckless laugh, while over her head his eyes challenged his
grandfather's. "That's all right, Piccaninny," he said lightly. "Put it
in your pocket! And I'll come round with the car to-morrow and run you
into Wardenhurst to buy those gloves."
But Gracie shook her head. "Gloves don't cost all that," she said
practically. "And besides, you won't have any left for yourself. Fancy
giving away a whole sovereign at a time!" She addressed Sir Beverley. "It
seems almost a tempting of Providence, doesn't it!"
"The deed of a fool!" said Sir Beverley.
But Piers, with a sudden hardening of the jaw, stooped over Gracie. "Take
it!" he said. "I wish it."
She looked up at him. "No, Piers; I mustn't really. It's ever so nice of
you." She rubbed her golden head against his shoulder caressingly.
"Please don't be cross! I do thank you--awfully. But I don't want it.
Really, I don't."
"Rot!" said Piers. "Do as I tell you! Take it!"
Gracie turned to Sir Beverley. "I can't, can I? Tell him I can't!"
But Piers was not to be thwarted. With a sudden dive he seized the coin
and without ceremony swept Gracie's hair from her shoulders and dropped
it down the back of her neck.
"There!" he said, slipping his hands over her arms and holding her while
she squealed and writhed. "It's quite beyond reach. You can't in decency
return it now. It's no good wriggling. You won't get it up again unless
you stand on your head."
"You're horrid--horrid!" protested Gracie; but she reached back and
kissed him notwithstanding. "Thank you ever so much. I hope I shan't lose
it. But I don't know what I shall do with it all. It's quite dreadful to
think of. Please don't be cross with him!" she said to Sir Beverley.
"It's--awfully--kind."
Sir Beverley smiled sardonically. "And whom are the gloves for? Some
other kind youth?"
"Oh no!" she laughed. "Only Aunt Avery. She tore hers all to bits this
afternoon. I expect it was over a dog fight or something, but she
wouldn't tell us what. They were nice gloves too. She isn't a bit rich,
but she always wears nice gloves."
"Being a woman!" growled Sir Beverley.
"Don't you like women?" asked Gracie sympathetically. "I like men best
too as a rule. But Aunt Avery is so very sweet. No one could help loving
her, could they, Piers?"
"Have an orange!" said Piers, pulling the dish towards him.
"Oh, thank you, I mustn't stop," Gracie turned to Sir Beverley and lifted
her bright face. "Good-bye! Thank you for being so kind."
There was no irony in her thanks, and even he could scarcely refuse the
friendly offer of her lips. He stooped and grimly received her farewell
salute on his cheek.
Piers loaded her with as many oranges as she could carry, and they
finally departed through the great hall which Gracie surveyed with eyes
of reverent admiration.
"It's as big as a church," she said, in an awed whisper.
Sir Beverley followed them to the front-door, and saw them out into the
night. Gracie waved an ardent farewell from her perch on Piers' shoulder,
and he heard the merry childish laugh more than once after they had
passed from sight.
The night air was chilly, and he turned inwards at length with an
inarticulate growl, and shut the door.
Heavily he tramped across to the old carved settle before the fire, and
dropped down upon it, his whole bearing expressive of utter weariness.
David came in with stealthy footfall and softly replenished the fire.
"Shall I bring the coffee, Sir Beverley?" he asked him.
"No," said Sir Beverley. "I'll ring."
And David effaced himself without sound.
Half an hour passed, and Sir Beverley still sat there motionless as a
statue, with thin lips drawn in a single bitter line, and eyes that gazed
aloofly at the fire. The silence was intense. The hall seemed desolate
as a vault. Over in a corner a grandfather's clock ticked the seconds
away--slowly, monotonously, as though very weary of its task.
Suddenly in the distance there came a faint sound, the opening of a door;
and a breath of night-air, pure and cold, blew in across the stillness.
In a moment there followed a light, elastic step, and Piers came into
view at the other end of the hall. He moved swiftly as though he trod
air. His head was thrown back, his face rapt and intent as though he saw
a vision. He did not see the lonely figure sitting there before the
hearth, but turned aside ere he neared it and entered an unlighted room,
shutting himself gently in.
Again the silence descended, but only for a few seconds. Then softly it
was dispelled, as through it there stole the tender, passionate-sweet
harmonies of a Chopin nocturne.
At the first note Sir Beverley started, almost winced as at the sudden
piercing of a nerve. Then as the music continued, he leaned rigidly back
again and became as still as before.
Very softly the music thrilled through the silence. It might have come
from somewhere very far away. There was something almost unearthly about
it, a depth and a mystery that seemed to spread as it were invisible
wings, filling the place with dim echoes of the Divine.
It died away at last into a silence like the hush of prayer. And then the
still figure of the old man before the fire became suddenly vitalized. He
sat up abruptly and seized with impatience a small hand-bell from the
table beside him.
David made his discreet appearance with the coffee almost at the
first tinkle.
"Coffee!" his master flung at him. "And fetch Master Piers!"
David set down the tray at his master's elbow, and turned to obey the
second behest. But the door of the drawing-room opened ere he reached
it, and Piers came out. His dark eyes were shining. He whistled softly
as he came.
David stood respectfully on one side, and Piers passed him like a man in
a dream. He came to his grandfather, and threw himself on to the settle
by his side in silence.
"Well?" said Sir Beverley. "You took that chattering monkey back,
I suppose?"
Piers started and seemed to awake. "Oh yes, I got her safely home. We had
to dodge the Reverend Stephen. But it was all right. She and the boy got
in without being caught."
He stirred his coffee thoughtfully, and fell silent again.
"You'd better go to bed," said Sir Beverley abruptly.
Piers looked up, meeting the hard grey eyes with the memory of his dream
still lingering in his own.
Slowly the dream melted. He began to smile. "I think I'd better," he
said. "I'm infernally sleepy, and it's getting late." He drank off his
coffee and rose. "You must be pretty tired yourself, sir," he remarked.
"Time you trotted to bed too."
He moved round to the back of the settle and paused, looking down at the
thick white hair with a curious expression of hesitancy in his eyes.
"Oh, go on! Go on!" said Sir Beverley irritably. "What are you
waiting for?"
Piers stooped impulsively in response, his hand on the old man's
shoulder, and kissed him on the forehead.
"Good-night, sir!" he said softly.
The action was purely boyish. It pleaded for tolerance. Sir Beverley
jerked his head impatiently, but he did not repulse him.
"There! Be off with you!" he said. "Go to bed and behave yourself!
Good-night, you scamp! Good-night!"
And Piers went from him lightfooted, a smile upon his lips. He knew that
his tacit overture for peace had been accepted for the time at least.