CHAPTER VIII

ROUND THE CORNER 311

The Illustrations by

W.D. Stevens

"I'M SORRY," TABS APOLOGIZED. "I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING

UNKIND." (Page 33) _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

TABS EXTENDED HIS HAND. BRAITHWAITE MADE NO MOTION

TO TAKE IT. 130

"MRS. LOCKWOOD, WHY CAN'T YOU LET ADAIR ALONE?" 172

"I WAS AFRAID YOU HAD LEFT" 324

_The_ Kingdom Round the Corner

CHAPTER THE FIRST

AN ALTERED WORLD

I

It was on a blustering March morning in 1919 that Tabs regained his

freedom. His last five months had been spent among doctors, having

sundry bullets extracted from his legs. He walked with a limp which was

not too perceptible unless he grew tired. His emotions were similar to

those of a man newly released from gaol: he felt dazed, vaguely happy

and a little lost. He felt dazed because he hadn't remembered that the

world was so wide and so complicated. He felt lost because he was

discovering that this wasn't the same old world that he had left in

1914. It hadn't paid him the compliment of marking time during his

absence; it had marched impolitely forward. He would have to hurry to

overtake it. What made him feel most lost at the moment was the fact

that he had only just realized how his bravest years had been escaping.

The reason for this realization was Terry. He had been accustomed to

think of himself as in the first flush of manhood, with all life's

conquests still lying ahead; it was therefore a little disconcerting to

be told, as a matter of course, that he had only four more years to go

till he was forty. "I'll be there at the station to meet you," Terry had

written him. And then, she had added laughingly, "Father orders me to

say that he only gives his permission because you're such an old friend

and nearly middle-aged."

Middle-aged! He, Tabs, middle-aged! The thought was appalling. It was a

slander so almost true as to be incapable of disproving. He had to-day,

to-morrow, and the next day; after that people would have the right to

say of him that he was middle-aged. That was the real sacrifice that he

had made in the war--he had given to it the last of his youth. And he

had not been aware of this until he had received that letter.

Now that he was aware of it, he rebelled against the sacrifice. He

refused to be robbed. He would not allow himself to become middle-aged.

Why, he hadn't begun to live yet. He'd only been experimenting up to the

point when the war had started. He'd been thirty-one then, a man full of

promise, and now he was dubbed middle-aged. He remembered with

indignation the theory that men of forty ought to be chloroformed to

make room for the younger generation. "But, hang it, one's years have

nothing to do with it," he protested; "in my spirit I belong to the

younger generation." So, to the rumbling accompaniment of the train, he

argued his claims passionately. Had he formed them into a petition he

would have prayed, "God, make me young again." It would have been

because of Terry that he would have prayed.

And yet he was happy--vaguely happy, as any man must be to whom the

right to live has been restored. For the past half decade his horizon,

and that of all the men with whom he had intimately associated, had been

dwarfed by the thought of dying. Throughout that period he had dared to

hope for nothing personal; he had belonged body and soul to unseen

forces which had hurried him without explanation from one hell to

another. He had had to subdue his pride to their authority and to train

his courage to contemplate the shock of annihilation. Now, at the end of

almost five years, the will and the body which had been so ruthlessly

snatched from him, had been as ruthlessly flung back into his own

keeping. All of a sudden, after having been enslaved in every detail,

his will and body were set free and no one cared what became of them.

They could be his playthings; he was allowed to do with them what he

liked. But what did he like? It was a problem. He could so easily spoil

them. When he reminded himself of how easily he could spoil them the

fear of death, which would never again trouble him, was replaced by the

fear of failure. He was furious to find that he was still capable of

fearing. He had so confidently believed that, whatever the past five

years had stolen from him, they had at least brought him the reward of

never again knowing fear of any sort.

That morning by the earliest train he had shaken off the dust of camps

and started in civilian dress as his own master on the new journey. It

was characteristic of him to start early and to slip out of his latest

phase with so little fuss. For the first two years of his service, while

men of his class were gaining high promotions, he had served in the

ranks. He had done it as a uselessly proud protest. In the ranks one did

the real work, faced most of the danger and won the fewest decorations.

He had loved the ranks for their quiet self-effacement and had preferred

to be reckoned in their number.

It had been dawn when he had started. From the top of the hill above the

camp he had gazed back at the huddled, sleeping rows of hutments. How

lacking in individuality they were! How wilfully ugly! You could see

their like in the rear of all armies. The military mind seemed incapable

of appreciating differences and beauty. How stereotyped the past five

years had been; yes, and, while the danger had threatened, how ennobled

with duty! So ennobled that there had been times when it had almost

seemed that he was on the point of finding his kingdom.

What he hadn't expected was that he would be alive to-day. With that

thought gratitude had bubbled up and he had limped away, whistling,

through dim lanes and budding hedgerows to the little wayside country

station.

But once on board the train to London, he began to feel more like a

fugitive escaping than a hero returning. This wasn't the end of

soldiering that imagination had painted. There had been strident bands

and hysteric shouting to start him on his way to the conflict. There

had been pictorial challenges to his courage pasted on every hoarding.

There had been extravagant promises of the welcome which would await him

if he survived. Who remembered them to-day? He hummed over the words of

the latest promise, "If you come back, and you will come back, the whole

world's waiting for you." Was it? He doubted. There was something

unpleasantly furtive about the way in which men were being stripped of

their outward signs of valor and dribbled back into civilian life. It

almost seemed that statesmen had discovered something to be ashamed of

in the unforeseen heroism by which the world had been rescued.

What did it matter? The world had been saved, and he had helped to save

it. No one could deprive him of that knowledge. His joy leapt up. What

did it matter if other people considered him nearly middle-aged? He and

Terry must prove to them the contrary. He was free; that was what

counted. Free to reckon his life by more than stretches of twenty-four

hours. Free to rise or go to bed when he liked. Free to travel to the

ends of the earth. Free to speak his mind without the dread of a

court-martial. Never again would he be compelled to issue orders which

he knew to be unwise; never again would he be compelled to obey them. He

was free. And there was Terry----

II

Across the carriage-windows landscapes went leaping: the bleak clearness

of brisk March skies; the shining grayness of meadows from which mists

were slowly rising; the faint flush of greenness which was gathering in

hedges; the shy pageant of spring unfolding, with the promised certainty

of new summers which are never ending. The world looked young. As the

train dashed by, new-born lambs, unused to such disturbances, tottered,

bleating, after their mothers. Buds were bursting. Sap was rising. The

chapped scars of winter were vanishing. Things which had seemed dead

were being convulsed with life. He watched it all gladly and yet

impatiently; it was for the end of the journey that he was waiting.

On nearing London the train slowed down as though reluctant to leave the

country. Twice it halted and he consulted his wrist-watch with a frown.

Then it crept through Battersea, wound snake-like across the gleaming

Thames, and came to rest in Victoria Station. Despite his lameness, he

was the first passenger to alight. He had no luggage to attend to, save

the newly-purchased bag which he carried. He lost no time in hurrying

down the platform; when he hurried his limp became more pronounced. As

he passed through the barrier he slackened his pace. By reason of his

greater height he could glance above the heads of the crowd; his eyes

went questing in all directions. They failed to find what they sought.

He delayed until nearly all the people from the incoming trains had

scuttled into the holes of the Underground; then, masking his

disappointment, he wandered out into the station-yard to hail a taxi. An

Army Staff car was drawn up against the curb. A thrill of hostility

shot through him. How often, in the old days, when marching up to an

attack, had he and his comrades huddled to the side of the road like

sheep that these khaki-colored collies of the shepherds, who had driven

them up to die, might splash arrogantly past them! He eyed it casually

and was passing on, when a girl in the back seat stood up frantically

waving. She was dressed in the latest whim of fashion; but it was her

that he saw rather than her appointments. Her gold bobbed hair was like

a Botticelli angel's. Her eyes were clear and deep as violets. She was

exquisitely vibrant and alive--scarcely beautiful; her nose turned up

and was too short for that. One sought for the right words to express

her attraction. Perhaps it was due to her light-hearted health and

girlish freshness.

As he came up eagerly, limping with the effort, she reached out her

hand. "Tabs, fancy you not knowing me! I don't need to call you Lord

Taborley, do I? Between us it's still Tabs."

"Terry dear! My dear Terry, at last!" He spoke queerly as though he had

been running. Then, seeing how his intensity startled her, he let go her

hand and laughed. "You can't blame me for not having spotted you.

Where's all your beautiful hair that was so blowy?"

She glanced up through her lashes at the tall man. "'I'm growing such a

big girl now'--you remember the refrain from the song at the Gaiety?

That's why. When you were a young man, girls put their hair up to show

they were of age; nowadays they bob it."

"So that's the explanation!" He climbed in and took his seat beside her.

"That's another thing that disguised you. How was I to guess that you'd

wangle a Staff car to meet an ex-lieutenant?"

"It belongs to a friend at the War Office." She nodded her permission to

the trim girl-soldier at the wheel to start. "He lent it to me when he

heard that I was to meet you this morning. Taxis are so scarce, and I

didn't know how well you could walk, so----" She turned from the subject

abruptly. "You're so changed. I scarcely recognized you at first. I was

expecting that you'd still be in uniform."

"I was demobbed yesterday. So you find me changed! For better or for

worse? Confess, Terry."

She was aware that beneath his assumption of gayety he was hiding

something--something that pained. He had been hurt too much already.

With impulsive sympathy she laid her hand on his arm. "It isn't a case

of better or worse. Between people like ourselves appearances don't

matter. I think to me you were handsomest of all as a Tommy. How proud I

was of you, Tabs, when you first joined up! Do you remember how I used

to strut along beside you---- And that last night, when you went for the

first time to the Front?"

He remembered, and waited with boyish expectancy. She had stopped

suddenly and glanced away from him. For the second time his intensity

had frightened her. He said nothing--did nothing to help her. She

mustered her courage to turn back with a smile. "It's long ago, isn't

it. Tabs? I've grown such a big girl now."

He brushed aside her attempt to divert him. "But you find a difference

in me?"

"A difference! You mean the difference between a man in uniform and in

mufti? Why, yes. A uniform made you look younger. It did that for most

men."

"But more for me than for most." He was pitiless towards himself now

that he had forced her to answer. "I've aged more than the five years

since you slipped your arm into mine as we marched through the darkness

to the troop-train. You never shed a tear, Terry. You kept your promise.

Often and often when I was afraid in the trenches I remembered you, a

white and gold slip of a girl with dry eyes, waving and waving. And

then, somehow, because you'd kept your promise not to cry----"

"Don't," she whispered. "Please don't. It's all ended. Everything's new

and beginning afresh."

"Beginning with you," he questioned, "where it left off?"

If she heard him, she ignored the interrogation in his voice.

III

The girl-soldier at the wheel relieved the situation. Since leaving the

station she had been running slower and slower, glancing back across her

shoulder and trying to catch their attention. Just short of the great

cross-roads at Hyde Park Corner she brought the car to a halt.

"What's the matter, Prentys?" Terry asked. "Anything wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, miss; but you've not told me where to go."

The girl spoke so reproachfully that Terry laughed. "Awfully sorry,

Prentys. It's Lord Taborley's fault. He didn't tell either of us. What

are your plans, Tabs? Where do you want to go?"

"To go?"

He caught at her question and examined it. To go--where did he want to

go? He had been so certain when he had boarded the train to London early

that morning. Ever since he had said good-by to her, nearly five years

ago, he had known quite definitely. Each time that he had had a glimpse

of her on those brief leaves from the Front, he had been more and more

sure of the desired direction. Her letters coming up to him under

shell-fire had made him even more certain--those letters compassionate

with unashamed sincerity, written with a girl's admiration for a man who

was jeopardizing his all that she might live in safety.

And now, when he was free at last to go where he chose and she herself

asked him, he could find no answer to her question. Why couldn't he? He

looked at her thoughtfully with the frown of his problem in his eyes.

What change had come over her? Or was it he who was altered? She had

seemed so absolutely his while the terror of battle had kept them apart.

She had written and acted as though she was his right up to---- Yes,

right up to the point when he had been in a position to claim her.

Between him and Terry there had been no engagement--only a wealth of

interchanged affection; interchanged for the most part on paper. Once

and only once had marriage been mentioned--on the night that he had set

out for the first time for the Front. "You won't ask me, Tabs; I know

that. You're too honorable. So I've got to say it. When you come back

I'm going to marry you."

"_If_ I come back, little Terry," he had corrected.

"But you will--you must," she had pleaded, "for my sake."

"I'll try. I'll try so hard," he had promised. "But I won't marry you

till I'm out of khaki or the war is ended."

"And I'll meet you at the train the moment you're free and we'll be

married that very day."

All this five years ago on a murky station in the tragedy of parting,

while Belgium was being trampled and the troop-train waited. She had

eluded the vigilance of her parents and had met him outside the

barracks, without forewarning. Through the gloom of streets and the blur

of the accompanying crowd, he had seen her face loom up. Her arm had

slipped through his; she had marched beside him like any Tommy's

sweetheart. She had been seventeen at the time; to-day she was

two-and-twenty. In the years that had followed he had taken no step to

make that girlish promise binding, yet increasingly its fulfillment had

been the goal towards which he had struggled.

After she had joined Lady Dawn's Nursing Unit and had gone to France he

had missed her on his leaves; by some fatality they had been always

missing. She had existed for him only in their correspondence and in his

vivid imagination. And now, after so much hoping, she had become again a

reality. He had been prepared for strangeness, but not for---- Was it

her youth, which was to have flung wide all doors, that formed the

barricade? Her youth which, if shared, would have put back the hands on

the face of Time! Her relentless, flaunting youth! Youth which is

forever hostile to age!

Her growing and puzzled expression of impatience forced him to narrow

his answer to the requirements of the moment. "What are my plans, you

asked? I haven't any. I'm a man at a loose end and at a beginning--like

all the world, as you yourself just stated."

"Yes, but----"

"I know what you're going to say--that every one has to live somewhere.

I have a place all right--my old place."

"Shall I tell Prentys to drive you there?"

He shook his head and thrust out his long legs, throwing his weight more

heavily against the cushions. "Not unless you didn't read my letter."

Her habitual sunniness clouded. "Tabs, you're trying to be beastly. If I

hadn't read it, I shouldn't have known to have met you, or when, or

where."

"Then you remember that it reminded you of----"

She cut him short, glancing furtively at the girl at the wheel to see

whether she had been listening. "I don't forget easily. Where do you

want to go? Would a run into the country suit you?"

"Excellently."

"In what direction?"

"Makes no difference."

She whispered something to the girl; the car semi-circled and gathered

speed, shooting through the traffic which was lumbering towards the

Fulham Road and Surrey.

Now that he had gained his point, he didn't seem inclined for

conversation. He lolled back with his eyes half-shut; she sat bolt

upright, ignoring his presence.

He recalled to-day as he had pictured it. Terry was to have been still

the girl-woman who had wanted him so badly that she had been brave

enough to ask for him. She was to have been precisely and in every

detail the girl from whom he had parted. She was to have been on the

platform waiting for him, and he....

Pshaw! What a sentimentalist and how easily disappointed! The old fight

was still on in another form. It was never ended. Life was a fight from

start to finish, calling for new and yet newer courage. He refused to be

defeated. He would not be embittered. He would win his kingdom round the

corner, even though it proved to be a different kingdom from the one he

had expected. Terry couldn't have stayed seventeen always, which was the

miracle he had demanded. She was a woman. He would have to teach her to

love him afresh. There was no time to be lost. For all he knew there

might be a rival--perhaps the mysterious some one at the War Office who

had lent her this car. He leant forward good-humoredly, touching her

hand to attract her attention, "Terry."

IV

She turned slowly, almost reluctantly. What new and disturbing question

was he going to ask? She hadn't been prepared for this altered man with

his limp and his gauntness and his strained intensity. She couldn't

bring herself to believe that this grave, spent, unlaughing person at

her side was Tabs, the gallant, care-free comrade she had asked to marry

her. She was shocked both at him and at herself. And she had wanted to

be so glad--to make him feel that every one was so happy at having him

back----

"Terry."

At the sound of her name, spoken like that, a little thrill of his

old-time power stirred her; it traveled up to her eyes, so that she had

to press back the tears before she turned.

"Terry, it was sentimental blackmail. I'm sorry."

"What was? I don't understand."

"That last letter. I oughtn't to have reminded you. What one promises at

seventeen doesn't hold good. It was sporting of you to keep the promise

by meeting me this morning, but---- What I'm trying to say is this; I'm

forgetting everything that you would like me to forget."

"But I'm not sure that I want you to forget anything." She widened her

lips into a smile from which the trouble was only half dispelled. "It

sounds horrid and unfriendly, this talk of forgetting, as though---- It

sounds so much worse when it's put into words, as though we had

something of which to be ashamed."

"No, it's not like that. May I be terrifically honest--just as we used?"

She eyed him doubtfully. It was evident that she was still timid of the

truth. Then she nodded.

"Well, you know how it was between us before I went away. You were of an

age when most people still thought of you as a child. You _were_

outwardly, but inside you were almost a woman. The little girl did

things and promised things that the woman wouldn't approve to-day. And

then take my side of it. I went out to a place where life seemed at an

end and where, because of that, one became selfish in the demands he

made on the people whom he had left behind--especially on the women. It

was impossible to be normal; probably I'm not quite normal now. But the

point is this: every man in khaki thought intensely of some one girl. It

didn't matter whether he had the right to think of her; he just thought

of her, and wrote to her, and carried her photo with him up to an

attack, as if he had the right. He wasn't even much disturbed as to

whether, in allowing him to love her, she loved him in return or was

merely being patriotic; he didn't expect to live to put things to a

test. All he wanted was the belief that one woman loved him. You

understand, she was very often only a makeshift--a symbol for the woman

he would have married if death hadn't been in such a hurry. Well, for

some of us Death has had time to spare and we've come back--come back

starved, emotional, tyrannic--passionate to possess all the things for

which our hearts have hungered and of which they have been deprived so

long. It was easy to strip ourselves of everything when we thought we

were going to die. But now that we know we're going to live we're

tempted to recover some of our lost years by violence. You must be

patient with us, Terry; we're sick children, querulous, eager to take

offense and over-exacting. I was like that when I blackmailed you into

meeting me this morning. It was unworthy of me to have treated that

child's promise as binding."

"But I was seventeen; I wasn't a child. And I wanted to meet you--I did

truly."

"Letting me down lightly?" he smiled.

"No, an honest fact."

When he gazed at her with kindly incredulity, she edged herself closer

and bent forward in a generous effort to persuade him.

"Don't you see that what you've said of yourself was true of me as

well?"

"I wasn't talking in particular of myself," he parried; "I was including

all the other men."

"Yes, but especially of yourself. It was of yourself that you were

talking. What you've said of yourself is true of me and--oh, of almost

all women. We saw you men march away; you seemed lost to us forever.

Everything seemed at an end. So we did what you did--chose one man who

would embody all our dreams and become especially ours. We wrote to

him, shopped for him, placed his portrait on our dressing-tables, were

anxious for him and, oh, so proud of him. We didn't stop to ask whether

he was the man with whom we could live for always. There wasn't any

_always_. It didn't look as though there was ever again going to be any

_always_. And then the horror stopped and we found ourselves with a man

on our hands--a man who, though we had known him so well, would come

back to us different. We hadn't meant to cheat him when we made all

those promises; but now that he's really ours, we're not sure that

we---- All the ecstasies and tears that we wrote to him on paper----"

She made a helpless gesture with her hands. "They don't seem real. It's

not our fault. They belonged to the part of nurses and soldiers that we

were acting. And now we've slipped out by the stage-door and we've

become ourselves. Don't you see, Tabs, we men and girls have got to find

out afresh who we are? We've almost forgotten."

She seemed to have made an end, when something else occurred to her. She

recommenced hurriedly, "We women have been spendthrifts, too; we've

given away more than was wise--little bits of ourselves, not always to

the one man--sometimes in the wrong directions. But which is the right

direction? When people who were risking so much for us begged for a

little of our affection, we never thought of that. We simply gave

recklessly--little bits of ourselves. Now that we've regained a future,

with room for remorse and things like that, we've become suddenly

cautious. The swing of the pendulum----" She turned to him, as though

proffering a smile for his forgiveness, "It's our sudden caution that

makes us seem mean and ungracious. But I _was_ tremendously interested

about meeting you."

"Interested! Not glad or ecstatic. It's a long road from dreams to

facts."

"Yes."

She said it humbly. He tried to catch the expression in her eyes, but

all he saw was the flickering gold of her hair as the wind tossed it

against the rounded whiteness of her neck. His brain kept muttering,

"Little bits of herself! What did she mean by that?"

A barrel-organ was grinding out a tune; children danced in the sunshine

on the pavement. As they flashed down the street the music followed

them. She twisted to look back and he caught her eyes. "Tabs, do you

know what it's playing?"

"Can't say I do."

"It's out of the Elsie Janis revue at The Palace. I think it was written

especially for this moment." She listened till the air reached the

refrain and then sang the words, "_Apres la guerre, there'll be a good

time everywhere_."

His stern face relaxed at her childishness. "Will there, Terry? I hope

so. Musical chaps aren't reliable authorities. They're----"

"You must _know_ so," she interrupted valiantly. Then, forgetting her

caution, she slipped her small gloved fingers into the palm of his big

brown hand. "You _must_. Even though I disappoint you ever so badly,

you must know so, dear Tabs. You must seize your own good time at

whatever cost. One girl isn't all the world."

V

"I wonder whether what we've been saying explains Adair."

They were crossing one of the bridges over the Thames. He wasn't sure

which one. Moreover, he didn't care; it was enough for him that,

wherever they were going, they were going together--racing into a

sun-crazed world where spring romped and shouted like a hoyden. Above

lazy chimney-pots trees patched the sky-line with sudden greenness. At a

greater distance soft contours of hills lay shadowed beneath stampeding

clouds. Coldly silver beneath the bridge the river flashed, dimpled here

and there by rapid feet where breezes, like adventurous children, rushed

across it. He noted the bowed windows of little houses along the banks,

their whitened steps and shining brasses. He caught the far-blown

fragrance of hyacinths; it set him dreaming of drifting bloom and

flower-strewn ways of woodlands. A happy world, whatever the mental

state of its inhabitants! A world which was doing its bravest best to

play the game by mankind! A world which was whispering at every portal

of the senses that the business of living was immensely worth while! A

world which----! He had reached this point, when the mention of Adair

brought him back to the cause of his philosophizing--the inscrutable

tenderness of the girl, half sorceress, half penitent, seated at his

side. She had recovered her calmness by withdrawing her thin fingers

from his enclosing hand.

Adair Easterday! He didn't want to discuss him; he had more important

things to talk about. Speaking absent-mindedly, "Adair doesn't need any

explaining," he said.

"Oh, doesn't he?" she laughed softly and looked away, creating the

impression that she was leaving volumes unexpressed.

Her air of wisdom provoked him. "Well, I've known him since we were boys

at school together and I've never found him much of a conundrum. He's

brilliant, and lazy, and kind. I think of all the men I've known he's

the one who's most truly a gentleman; he's the one who has given most

promise and who has fewest accomplishments to his credit. He may have

puzzled you as his sister-in-law; but to me, a man of his own age, he

presents no mystery. If anything he's too obvious; that and the fact

that he allows himself to be too much absorbed by his wife are two of

the reasons for his lack of success."

"He doesn't allow himself to be too much absorbed by his wife now." She

had turned deliberately that she might watch the effect of her words.

"He doesn't even pretend to care for Phyllis any longer."

"Not care for her--his own wife! Nonsense! You can't make me believe

that." Then he reined himself in, for he suddenly realized that he was

unconsciously adopting the tones of an elder. "That was a terribly

modern accusation for you to make, Terry, just as if loyalties and

affections were ostrich-plumes and ermine to be worn or discarded with

the fashion."

"That's just what they do seem to have become since we've all stopped

fighting," she persisted. "And please don't look at me like that, Tabs,

as though you were my commanding-officer. I'm not trying to be a cynical

young person; I'm simply stating facts. Look at all the men for whom the

war was a social leg-up. They were plumbers and bank-clerks and dentists

in 1914; by the end of 1918 they were Majors and Colonels and

Brigadiers. They didn't know where the West End was till they got into

uniforms. Since then they've learnt the way into all the clubs and

fashionable hotels; they've spent money like water; they've been the

companions of men and women whom they couldn't have hoped to have met

unless the war had shaken us all out of our class-snobbishness. But now

that the war's ended, these men whom every one flattered for their

bravery and whose social failings they excused while there was fighting

to be done, have become worse snobs than ourselves. They've been

educated out of the class for which they were fitted. War was their

chance; it's ended, and now they have to go back to their humble jobs,

which are the only ones by which they can gain a livelihood. Worse

still, they've got to go back to their wives, who haven't shared their

grandeurs, but who've played the game by them, taking care of their

children and standing by the wash-tub. Some of them can't face up to the

change. Peace has turned the world up-side-down. We're walking on our

heads. You're just out of hospital, but you'll know what I mean when

you've been a week in London."

"But nothing of what you've been saying applies to Adair Easterday," he

objected. "He wasn't a profiteer in khaki; he wasn't even in khaki. He

made nothing; he lost nearly everything he had. Moreover, whatever

faults he may have, he's always been a thorough-bred--a stickler for

honor; the kind of chap who, if he had to sink, would go down with all

his colors flying. Where his wife is concerned, he's a lover-for-all-time

kind of fellow."

She shook her head obstinately. "He isn't now. He's standing on his head

like the rest of us."

"I'm certain you're mistaken." He paused, half-minded to let the matter

rest. He hated this contending. In the old days he and Terry had never

argued. He glanced at her; she was smiling in a sorry, amused fashion.

It made him feel that in accusing Adair she had cast suspicion on every

man's constancy--his own included. Reluctantly he set himself to prove

to her that she was incorrect.

"When you were in France with Lady Dawn's Nursing Unit, I spent most of

my leaves with Phyllis and Adair. We went about together. I lived in

their house, got to love their kiddies, knew all that went on there. I

think a part of my motive was that being with your sister seemed to

bring you nearer. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't notice

frictions and irritations. Adair was humiliated at being rejected by the

Army because he wasn't up to physical standards. He tried every trick,

but was always turned down. He didn't like to be seen about town; he

felt that people were accusing him of being a slacker. He looked so well

that he had always to be explaining why he wasn't in the trenches. It

tried his temper. Wherever he went soldiers were being treated as

heroes. Women were pleased to be seen escorted by a uniform--his own

wife as well. And I'm bound to say Phyllis didn't help him. She prided

herself on having held on to her man as though it were something that

she'd done herself. Adair used to flare up in a passion and tell her not

to be a fool; then, because her foolishness was all because she loved

him, her feelings were hurt. But to say that he doesn't love her is an

exaggeration. If there's anything the matter, the trouble is not with

his heart but with his nerves."

"Then you really haven't heard? I thought everybody----" She stifled a

yawn. "It's the wind against my face. It always makes me sleepy," she

apologized. "Since you haven't heard, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you.

He's become the sort of skeleton in our family cupboard---- You're still

incredulous! That will please mother. She'll be almost happy when she

learns that there's at least one person who hasn't been told about it.

She thinks that all the world talks of nothing else. As for Daddy,

Phyllis was always his favorite and he adores her children. He goes

about trying to find some one who'll volunteer to horsewhip Adair. I

can't say that I feel that way myself." Her hand stole out and touched

his arm caressingly; it seemed as though she were appealing for herself.

"We've all either done or are on the verge of doing something foolish

that we're sure to regret. It's not a time to be hard on anybody.

To-morrow we may stand in need of sympathy ourselves. Horror has

shell-shocked every one, civilians as well as fighting-men. The

blackness of insecurity----! We're all convalescing." She halted

abruptly, biting her lip and peering at him, suddenly aware that she had

been confessing herself. When he only looked puzzled, she finished

lightly, "So, you see, Tabs, though you'll think me terribly immoral, I

keep a soft place in my heart for our skeleton."

"But you don't tell me anything positive," he complained. "What has

Adair done?"

"Done!" She stared at him. "That's what I have been telling you. He's

fallen in love with some one else."

He was unwilling to believe what he had heard.

"Some one else! Impossible!---- I'm sorry, Terry; I didn't mean that I

doubted your word. You mustn't be offended, but---- I'm picturing

Phyllis. At her best she was good and sweet and pretty enough to hold

any man. She was such a loyal little pal--only second best to you,

Terry. And Adair--he was such a white man, so patient with her and so

devoted to the kiddies. I can't see him in the role of a runaway. And

what on earth would he gain by it that he hasn't got already? I don't

want to think that what you've told me---- It makes all fidelity seem so

contemptibly temporary."

Terry spoke gently. "Not that. It's infidelity that is temporary. A lot

of us are unfaithful for the moment--it's a symptom of our illness. You

said something a little while ago about trying to regain one's lost

years by violence--that's what he's doing. He's mislaid the knack of

happiness with Phyllis; he's trying to recover it with some one else."

Tabs was still rebelling against the facts. "But he was such a staid old

fellow."

Terry ignored his discursiveness. "I don't think I've done wrong in

letting you into our family secrets. You'll be made a part of them as

soon as you meet Daddy. When he heard that you were coming to town and

that I was going to see you, he said, 'Thank God for that. Taborley will

be able to do something.' He has a pathetic belief in you, Tabs. One of

the reasons why I was at the station this morning was that I might have

the chance to tell you first, before any one else had prejudiced you

with bitterness. Daddy wants you to dine with him to-night. He expects

you to be the kind of moral policeman who makes the arrest. But it can't

be done with morality. I don't think even you could manage to persuade

Adair at the present--not with moral arguments, anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Because I've seen _her_."

VI

It was at this moment that a sound like a pistol-shot occurred. The car

commenced to bump. The girl-driver applied the brakes, guided the car

to the side of the road and jumped out.

"Quite like the Front," Terry cried cheerfully; "I expect you feel at

home when you hear a noise like that."

Tabs looked round. He had been too busy talking to notice where they

were. To the right, through wind-rumpled, tree-dotted meadows ran the

Thames, still intensely silver in the sunshine, but somehow blither and

more young than in London. Clouds flew high; everything was riotously

spacious. Scattered through the vivid stretch of landscape ivy-covered

houses stood squarely in their park-lands. Set down in the level

distance, like children's toys, cattle browsed. The quiet greenness had

become starred as far as eye could carry with a gentle rain of myriad

tinted petals.

"The car's got a sense of beauty," he laughed; "it chooses carefully

when it wants to break down."

"And it's all at the Government's expense," Terry smiled, glancing back

at him across her shoulder as she scrambled out. "So it's a back tire.

How long will it take to put right, Prentys?---- Then we may as well

walk and let you overtake us. I don't think we're more than a mile from

Old Windsor. We'll get something to eat at the little inn by the

riverside. You remember the one I mean? We've been there several times

when the General was with us."

"What General is that?" Tabs asked as they trudged along between the

hedges.

"The General who lent me the car," she replied.

"Oh, your friend at the War Office! I suppose he's one of the dug-outs

who's been there all the time."

"He isn't. He rose from the ranks. He's only been at a desk job since

the Armistice." She spoke defensively, with a certain resentment. Tabs

was quick to detect the sharpness in her voice. "I'm sorry," he

apologized; "I didn't mean anything unkind."

She halted with a sudden gesture of concern. "I _am_ inconsiderate. I

never thought of it. Won't this walking wear you out?"

"She's changing the subject," he told himself. "I wonder why?" Aloud he

said, "Not a bit. But I can't stride along the way we used in the old

days."

Branching off to the right, they came down to a little inn by the

water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had

at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and

held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in

places, so that some of the panes were on the point of falling out.

Nevertheless, it had a brave look of carrying on triumphantly, for

tulips and crocuses were springing neat as ever from the turf and it was

over-hung by a green mist of trees just coming into leafage. They

entered and took their seats at a table from which they could watch the

pale flowing of the river through the spangled peace of the outside

world.

"It was lucky we broke down." Terry sat watching him with her square

little face cushioned in her hands. "You see I'm training myself to

believe," she explained, "that everything happens for the best."

"A comforting philosophy for the lazy," he smiled. "It lets us all out

of resisting temptation. Why resist anything, if everything happens for

the best? If it were true, it would give us the license to be as flabby

as we liked--which rather falls in line with what we were saying about

Adair. But who is she--this woman? You say you've seen her."

"You'll know soon enough for your peace of mind--probably you'll see her

yourself before the day is out."

"But can't you even tell me her name?"

"Her name's Maisie Lockwood for the present."

"For the present! Why for the present?"

"Because one's never certain about Maisie. She was Maisie Gervis once

and Maisie Pollock before that; there must have been a time when she was

Maisie Something Else."

Tabs couldn't quite make up his mind whether he ought to laugh or frown.

The suspicion had crossed his mind that this composed imp of a girl, who

could look so immensely the young lady when she liked, was playing a sly

game with him. However he pretended to take her seriously. "In most

social sets names are fairly permanent."

Terry laughed outright and looked away from him, following the river

with her eyes. "There's nothing permanent about Maisie. I think that's

her attraction; that's what makes people forgive her everything. She

starts each day afresh--it really is a new day for her, with no old

hates or griefs or dreads to drag her down. She has no regrets because

she remembers nothing. Whatever happened yesterday she puts out of mind;

she forgets everything except her willingness to be friends."

"Her names as well, according to your account."

"Yes, there's no denying that. Until the war ended, if you'd not seen

her for a month, you were never quite sure how you ought to address her.

Even now one's liable to make a mistake. To-day she's Maisie Lockwood;

to-morrow she may be Maisie Anything--Mrs. Adair Easterday, perhaps."

Under her willful mystifications his calmness was getting ruffled. While

he listened to her, he kept comparing this day with the other day that

his imagination had painted. The world was to have been so much better

and kinder when the agony of the trenches was ended. It was in order

that it might be better that so many men had not come back. And this was

the kinder world--a world in which men, saved from the jaws of death,

met the girls they had loved as strangers, in whose presence, if they

were to avoid offense, they must pick their words! A world full of men

like Adair, who had been honorable until others had made them safe by

their sacrifice, and of women like Maisie of the many names, who forgot

her yesterdays that she might seize her selfish personal happiness!

"Terry," he spoke with a show of patience, "do you think it's a matter

about which to jest? There's your sister and her kiddies; their future's

at stake. If I'm to be of any help----" He broke off, for a voice inside

his brain had started talking, "You're old. That's exactly the way in

which her father speaks to her." Was it her thoughts that he had heard?

Her face was lowered; he could see nothing but the top of her golden

head. Youth radiated from her; even in his anger it intoxicated him.

"So if I'm to help," he picked up his thread, "you mustn't mock. It

isn't decent, Terry; the situation's too serious. Let me have the facts.

How does she come by all these different names? Does she call herself

something different with each new dress?"

Terry's eyes were wide and sorry. "No, with each new husband, but----"

There came a break in her voice, "Oh, Tabs, I can't bear that you should

be cross with me. You've been disappointed in me from the moment we met.

We're not the same. And I know it's not all my fault. And----"

Her lips trembled. He was in terror lest she would give way to crying.

If it hadn't been for the table that parted them with its unromantic

debris of dishes---- As it was he leant across and assured her

earnestly, "I'm not cross with you, my dearest girl. I'm---- Terry, how

is it that we've drifted so apart? I keep groping after the old Terry;

for a minute I think I've found her, and then she's no longer there."

Drying her eyes, she nodded. "It hurts most frightfully. That's what I

keep doing, barking my shins in the dark, trying to follow the old Tabs.

He's always going away from me----"

"I think it's the laughter that I miss most," she said presently;

"you've grown so stern."

"I've seen stern things happen--a kind of Judgment Day. It's remembered

things that are so silencing."

"I know what you mean. I saw some of those things in our hospital in

France." She shut her eyes as if the memory was unbearable. "But don't

be hard on people who have a right to be young and who want to forget.

It isn't that they're ungrateful." Then she surprised him, "People like

Maisie and myself."

"Don't couple yourself with her." He spoke more sharply than he had

intended.

"But she was with me out there," she expostulated. "That was how she met

her second husband, Gervis. She nursed him."

"It makes no difference how she met him; she's not in your class--a

woman who has been divorced three times."

"But she hasn't. Whatever made you think that?" Terry shot upright on

her chair, for all the world like a startled rabbit.

"You told me she'd had three husbands." He was once more puzzled and

uncertain of his ground. "You as good as said that she wouldn't be

averse to making a fourth of Adair. I therefore conjectured----"

"You conjectured all wrong," she cut him short. "They died for their

country."

"All of them?" He was making a rapid calculation as to how long could

have elapsed between each re-marriage.

"One at a time, of course," she added. "She was married to the first

the first week of the war."

"Even so it was quick work. May I light a cigarette? Three husbands in

four years! She must be a very alluring person!"

Terry laughed nervously. "She is, though you mayn't think it. I can see

you don't; you think she's horrid. But let me tell you it takes a smart

woman to bring three men to the point of matrimony when the world's so

full of unmarried girls. And they were every one of them more or less

famous--the kind of men of whom any woman would be proud. You'll

remember Pollock--Reggie Pollock; he was one of the earliest of our

aces--the man who brought down the Zeppelin over Brussels and got killed

himself a few days later, no one quite knew how. There was a mystery

about his death. He was the man to whom she was first married."

"A splendid chap! And I recall her now. Her portrait was in the

illustrated papers at the time of her third marriage. It was headed _A

Conscientious War-Worker_ or something like that. And I don't forget the

name the soldiers called her when they read the papers in the trenches."

"Did they call her something?" She was gazing at him intently. "Was it

something brutal that you wouldn't like to tell me?"

"It was something true," he said, pinching out his cigarette with quiet

fierceness.

"Oh, I don't know----" She broke off to ask the waitress whether the car

had arrived and was answered in the affirmative. "I don't know about its

being true. After all, she made three men happy before they went West.

I don't see that she'd have been any more to be admired if she'd allowed

the last two to go wretched."

Tabs half-rose and then reseated himself. "An awful woman! Insatiable! A

Lucrezia Borgia, without Lucrezia Borgia's excuse."

"I knew you'd say that." Terry spoke hopelessly in a tone that dragged.

"How do you or I know what excuses she had? How do we know why anybody

does anything--what hidden reasons they have? And yet we're always so

eager to condemn! I wanted to be the first to let you know about Adair

because you always used to understand. You would have understood if

you'd been the _you_ that you were. I thought that if I explained to you

about Maisie---- But what's the use!"

She rose from her chair and stood leaning against the table, looking

wilted and pathetic. When she spoke again the heat had gone out of her

words and was replaced by an appealing tenderness. "Don't you see what

it is--why it is that I don't condemn? I'm so sorry for them--so sorry

for you, for myself, for everybody. It hurts me here, Tabs." She laid

her hand against her breast. "We all want what we've spent in the lost

years. We want it so impatiently. We can't get it; but we want it at

once--_now_. The things one wants are always in the past or the future,

so one cheats to get them _now_."

He hadn't the remotest idea what she was trying to tell him. She was

stirred by some deep emotion--some overwhelming loneliness. For a moment

it crossed his mind that she also was tempted--fascinated by some

lurement of dishonor kindred to Adair's. He put the thought from him as

preposterous and disloyal. Yet it recurred. Ever since they had met she

had been talking curiously--talking about having given away bits of

herself to people who were hungry, little bits of herself in wrong

directions. She had coupled her own case with this unspeakable Maisie's.

What was her problem?

She stood there with her head bowed, like a child self-accused of

wrong-doing, with all the flaunting joy of spring tapping against the

window on which she had turned her back. Then it dawned on him why she

was standing; he was between the door of escape and herself. He stepped

aside. As she moved eagerly forward, he caught her by the points of her

elbows and arrested her going. The wild violet eyes fluttered up to his

fearfully and fell as he towered over her.

"My very dearest!" He spoke gently in a voice from which all passion had

been purged. "Don't blame me if I simply can't understand. Though I

never become any more to you than I am now, I shall always be your

comrade, believing in you and loving you. Remember that."

When he released her she fled from him, leaving him alone in the shabby

room.

VII

When he found her, she was talking to the girl-soldier in the yard of

the inn. "But do you think that you can manage it, Prentys? It'll be

all right in the open country, but I'm not sure that I want to risk it

in the London traffic. We're merely joy-riding and, if anything happened

to the car when you weren't on military duty----"

"I don't see that we've got much choice, miss," the girl answered. "The

General's orders to me were explicit, and you know what he is: obedience

and no explanations. We've barely time to do it."

Their backs were towards the inn. Tabs strolled up and made a pretense

of inspecting the new tire.

"Anything I can do?" he asked casually.

It was Prentys who answered him. "I sprained my left wrist, sir, back

there along the road." She held it out to him painfully as proof. It was

all bound up and puffy. "It isn't very much use, sir; so I've only one

hand and I don't know whether I'll be able----"

Terry interrupted and took up the running. "I thought that the car was

ours for the day. Prentys has just told me that General Braithwaite

ordered her to pick him up at the War Office this afternoon at

three-thirty. Now that she's sprained her wrist, she'll have to drive so

carefully that there's scarcely time to do it."

Tabs couldn't help smiling at the pompous importance of little people in

this newly enfranchised world. It was only yesterday that for him also

the foibles of Generals had been sacred. Generals had been gods whose

tantrums and mental rheumatics had thrown whole armies into a fume and

fret. For him that day was ended, but it still existed for this slim

girl-soldier. He was sorry for her.

"You needn't be upset," he said kindly. "I haven't renewed my license,

but I can drive. No one's likely to interfere with me in an Army car.

Jump in and I'll get you there with a quarter of an hour in hand."

"But----"

It was Terry who had spoken. Her brows puckered with thoughtfulness, she

was gazing far away into the green distance. He waited for her to

amplify her objection. When she maintained silence, he prompted her. "If

it's me and my bag that's the trouble, you don't need to worry. After

I've driven you both to the War Office, I can fudge round for a taxi.

One can usually wangle one in the neighborhood of Whitehall."

Before he had ended, he knew that his guess had missed fire. It wasn't

his comfort that was disturbing her.

"All right," she said reluctantly. "I suppose there's no other way. Get

into the back, Prentys; I'll ride in front with Lord Taborley."

He was glad to have something to occupy his attention--to be able to

talk without the necessity of regarding her. They were both embarrassed

by the memory of their recent tempest of emotion. "Braithwaite! So

that's the name of the good fairy who gave us our day in the country. I

don't remember him; but that's not remarkable. Generals at the Front

were as common as policemen in London; you found one at every street

corner. As for trenchdwellers like myself, we never came in touch with

them except when we were in for a wigging. We came in touch with them

all right then."

She made no remark. He had the feeling that she was annoyed with herself

for having let the General's name escape her. Up to that point she had

referred to him anonymously as "a friend at the War Office." Tabs tried

to switch to another subject without making the change offensively

apparent. "Now that I'm a free man, I've got to reorganize a household."

She kindled into interest, "Taborley House is still a hospital, isn't

it?"

"Yes, I handed it over to the Americans. I was glad to do that for my

mother's sake. After all, I'm half American. At least a third of my

boyhood was spent in the States. But they're sending most of their

wounded home now, so I shall soon have it back on my hands. But that

wasn't what I meant. It was too big for me; I never lived there."

"Then what did you mean?"

He realized that she was encouraging him to continue talking because the

topic was safe--not because it held much attraction for her.

"What I meant was that I'll have to try to collect up my old servants. I

don't know where they all are, or who's alive and who's dead. There's

one man I'm particularly anxious to discover."

He slowed down, tooting his horn vigorously as they rounded an awkward

corner. When they were again on the level she reminded him: "You were

saying that you were anxious to discover----"

"Oh, that man of mine! There isn't much to tell! He looked after me

while I was up at the 'Varsity; when I left, I carried him off. I was

always wandering, so I made him my body-servant. When we were leading

civilized lives in cities he acted as my valet-butler-secretary. When we

were adventuring in the remoter parts of the world, he was my

companion-friend. I had a real affection for the chap; he was so

genuinely distinguished and quick to learn. He'd have gone far if things

had kept on. As it is, he's probably gone farther."

"Gone farther?" She sounded half-asleep--politely lackadaisical.

"Gone West," he explained shortly. "His letters became fewer. We joined

up together in the ranks. You know all about my end of it. I suppose it

was my mother's democratic Americanism that made me do that. We got

drafted into different regiments. After the fighting had been going for

a year, he stopped corresponding. The funny thing was that none of my

letters to him was returned."

She was so bored that she was scarcely listening. He cut the matter

short by adding, "It was your mention of General Braithwaite that

started me gossiping."

She pulled herself together with a jerk and instantly became all

attention. "How? How could my mentioning General Braithwaite do that?"

He noticed again her unreasonable suspicion of hostility each time he

made a reference to this man. Thinking it the wiser policy to overlook

it, he answered evenly, "Because his name also happened to be

Braithwaite."

Fully fifteen minutes elapsed. "She's quite fed up with my valet," he

told himself. He hadn't been able to contrive any fresh topic which was

sufficiently innocuous, so he'd been keeping silent. They were again

passing over the bridge beneath which, like a gleaming sword, lay the

Thames, barriered on either bank by the little bow-windowed houses, with

their shining brasses and whitened steps. They were already catching up

with the throng of London traffic when she shook herself out of her

self-absorption by saying, "There must be thousands of Braithwaites in

the world."

He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. Her latest

conversational effort tickled his sense of humor--it was so wholly

inadequate. He laughed outright. "That's better; the high spirits will

soon be coming back---- Thousands of Braithwaites! My dear Terry, there

must be hundreds of thousands." Then in a graver voice, "But though

there were thousands of millions, it wouldn't restore to me my one loyal

man."

"You loved him?" She uttered her guess softly.

"Yes, and I--it's a queer thing to say about one's valet--I admired him

tremendously."

It was the best part of five years since Tabs had driven a car. He

hadn't yet regained his old dexterity. He wasn't expert enough to attend

to the wheel and at the same time to carry on a conversation. As he left

the bridge he had to pass a coster's barrow which was drawn up beside

the curb. The coster was dressed in the soiled khaki of a man recently

released from the Army; his barrow was piled high with narcissi and

daffodils, and a drowsy donkey drooped between the shafts. In avoiding a

suicidal pedestrian, Tabs misjudged the room that he had to spare. He

felt a jolt, guessed what had happened, and jammed on his brakes. A

policeman in front of him was holding up a magisterial hand. Behind him

a stream of familiar trench profanity was gathering in volume; under

other circumstances he would have found a certain enjoyment in the

sound. He looked back and saw what he expected: the barrow overturned;

the flowers scattered, the donkey surprised out of its drowsiness,

thrown on its back and kicking in its harness; the coster straddling the

sudden ruin and calling down all the rigors of the law. A crowd was

running together; it hesitated between the coster and Tabs, uncertain as

to which would provide the more exciting entertainment. When the

policeman waving his note-book approached the car, it plunked for Tabs.

The policeman was a stout, fat-fingered, immovable kind of person. He

said nothing till he had penciled down the car's official number. Tabs

gave his name and address. "Lord Taborley, etc." The policeman lifted

his slow eyes to judge for himself whether the Lord part of his

information looked probable. The lean aristocratic face which he

encountered seemed to correspond with the specifications recorded. He

asked to see his Lordship's license. Tabs embarked on explanations,

pointing to the bandaged wrist of Prentys as a confirmation of his

facts. While he was explaining the coster joined them, having got his

donkey on to its legs. He was violent with anger and burning to expound

the justice of his cause. Suddenly he struck out a convincing line of

argument, "Look at 'im, the bloomin' slacker--the pasty h'aristocrat. 'E

didn't see no fightin'. Not 'im. But now the war's been won by poor

blokes like meself, 'e ain't ashamed ter go banging abart in h'Army

cars."

"I know how you feel," Tabs said. "But you're mistaken; I served in the

ranks two years myself. I was only demobbed yesterday; to-day's my first

day out of uniform. I'll pay you whatever you think fair; so you don't

need to work yourself up."

The man's attitude changed completely. He removed his cap and scratched

his head. "Served in the ranks, did yer? Then you and me was pals out

there!" He turned to the policeman, "'E ain't done me as much damidge as

if one of them there Big Berthas 'ad landed."

The policeman let his fat eyes wander from the coster to Tabs, from Tabs

back to the coster. "I wuz too old ter go," he said inconsequently; "but

me son's out there and won't ever come back." He crossed out the

particulars he had written down so laboriously; when that was done, he

fumbled his note-book back into his pocket. "If your mate 'ere says that

it's h'all right, sir, it's h'all right so far as I'm consarned. Your

fust day h'out of the h'Army! Well, well!" He looked at Terry with a

world of understanding, wheeled about slowly and went ponderously back

to his corner.

"That was sportsmanly of you." It was Tabs speaking. "I'd like to know

how much----"

The coster shook his head. "It don't cost you nothink. Me and you used

ter share."

Tabs protested. The man climbed the running-board and pushed his

grime-stained hand into the car. "Call it quits, mister, and shake for

luck. And now the little lady, if she don't h'object."

Terry shook his hand daintily. So there wasn't going to be a fight after

all! Everything had been settled amicably! With an air of disappointment

the crowd dispersed.

"Came pretty well out of that!" Tabs remarked as the car started

forward.

"You're not to talk." Terry's voice was high-strung and emphatic. "You

can't talk and drive--and you've got to drive like mad."

"Why? What's the hurry?"

"The hurry! We've wasted twenty minutes; we've barely time to get

there."

"Oh, the General! I'd forgotten. Well, it won't do the old boy any harm

to wait. Lord, the hours he and his sort have kept me waiting on

parade-grounds in France!"

Then he remembered that this General wasn't an old boy. If he wasn't

old, there was all the less reason for making so much effort not to be

late. Nevertheless, to please Terry---- He could feel her body

twitching. Every time he had to slow down for traffic he was aware of

her impatience. Why was it of such vital importance to her that they

should arrive in time? She wasn't too punctual by habit. A thought

struck him; it was like a searchlight pointing out many things that had

been dark. Her anxiety wasn't that they should arrive in time, but

before time. She didn't intend, if she could prevent it, that he should

meet the owner of the car. Had it not been for the double accident of

Prentys spraining her wrist and having failed to mention that the car

must be back by three-thirty, he would never have been allowed to know

that there was a General. Terry had been compelled to let him drive if

the borrowed car was to be returned; but her main object now was to

reach the War Office a few minutes early and to smuggle him off before

an introduction would be necessary. If they arrived punctually or late,

the General might be already on the pavement---- Tabs bit his lip. He

hated petty intrigue. He demanded a man's code of honor from the woman

he adored and made no feeble excuses for feminine dishonesty. This was

the worst disappointment she had given him.

As they approached Hyde Park, when it was too late to turn off into a

side-street, he saw that the road ahead was blocked. He worked the car

as far forward as possible and then had to halt. Terry was nervously

consulting her watch. "The time?" he asked.

"Three-twenty-three."

"Then this puts the lid on it." He beckoned to a policeman, "What's

holding us up?"

"The Queen's expected, so I'm told, sir, though us didn't 'ave no proper

warning."

At that moment the crowd out of sight commenced cheering. The cheering

spread and drew nearer. It was taken up by people who were strung across

the road immediately in front. A carriage flashed by in which two ladies

were sitting, one of whom was bowing from right to left. Despite her

irritation at the delay, Terry stood up so that she could get a clearer

view above the clustered heads. The cheering grew deafening, then

lessened, and sank to a hoarse murmur beneath the trees of the Park. As

she reseated herself and the traffic lurched forward, she turned to

Tabs, "You noticed who it was?"

"The Queen."

"Yes, but the lady who was with her?"

"I didn't see."

"It was Diana--Lady Dawn with whom I nursed. She's supposed to be the

most beautiful woman in England."

"Don't know her. So I shouldn't have placed her if I had seen her."

They made a clear run of it from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall and drew

up quite marvelously before the War Office on the second.

"Done it," said Tabs as he shut off the engine. "It's zero hour

exactly."

But Terry wasn't there to listen to him, as he discovered when his

attention was free and the engine had ceased to throb. Almost before

they had halted, she had nipped out of the car and was hailing a taxi

which was on the point of moving off. His bag was already in process of

being whisked from one vehicle to the other. This indecent haste to be

rid of him roused his obstinacy; he sat still where he was and watched.

She returned a little breathless and self-congratulatory. "There! Wasn't

that clever of me? Taxis are scarce. If I hadn't collared you that one

you might have---- Come on, Tabs, if you're stiff in your lame leg, give

me your hand and I'll----"

At that moment the dingy swing-doors of the War Office flew open and a

red-tabbed, handsome figure of a man, with gold braid on his cap and

crossed swords on his epaulettes, came briskly out on to the steps. He

caught sight of Terry and, throwing her an airy salute, came with an

eager stride towards her. He wasn't the old fogy Tabs had so

persistently imagined. He was young, barely thirty, lean, tall and

swift-moving as an arrow--very much what Tabs had been before he had

spent himself at the war.

"Hulloa, Terry! This is ripping. I didn't expect you---- But what's all

this? An accident! What have you been doing to Prentys?"

The voice was glad and frank, though its habit of command was

unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body.

Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was

written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable

importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet

there was something lacking--a sureness of refinement, a last

considerateness. With the first word he had spoken, Tabs had detected

that he wasn't quite the part.

Terry had hurried forward to meet him. She was saying something in a

voice so subdued that it did not carry. She had so contrived their

grouping--or was it an accident?--that the General's face was hidden.

Tabs waited, then turned to Prentys, "My taxi-man's getting impatient.

Will you give my thanks to the General for his kindness and make the

explanations?---- And I hope that your wrist will soon be better."

He had given the driver his address and was stepping into the taxi, when

he heard Terry's voice, "Why, you're running away! You mustn't go

without meeting the General. General Braithwaite, I want to introduce

you to Lord Taborley, of whom I've spoken to you so often."

Tabs limped back to the pavement and found the General regarding him

intently. "I'm glad to make Lord Taborley's acquaintance," he said

formally. And then to Terry, "You didn't tell me that it was for Lord

Taborley you were borrowing my car."

Before Terry could reply, Tabs was answering for her, "Then I have to

apologize to you, sir, as well as to thank you. But we've used the same

car often, haven't we? In fact, I'm certain that we've met many times."

"Never to my knowledge." The General drew himself up stiffly. "You

mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure."

The two tall men stood glooming at each other. Tabs had it on the tip of

his tongue to say something more, but glanced at Terry and thought

better of it. Instead he addressed her, "Do I drive you home?"

The General interrupted. "It'll be out of your way. I'm going right past

Miss Beddow's house."

For the first time since they had been introduced Terry came between

their hostility. "How did you know where Lord Taborley lived and that it

would be out of his way? You said that this was the first time you had

met him."

Tabs refused to make her the witness of a quarrel. "Since General

Braithwaite knows where I live, perhaps he will call and explain that to

me later. I can't keep my cab waiting longer--are you riding with me,

Terry?"

She avoided his eyes. "With the General." And then, "You won't forget

that you're dining to-night with father?"

"To-night. At seven-thirty, I suppose, as usual?"

"At seven-thirty."

He raised his hat. As he drove away he felt compelled to look back just

once to assure himself. He caught the General's features in full

sunlight; he had not been mistaken.

"So that's why my letters to him weren't returned, and that's why he

didn't write! He's gone farther than far with a vengeance." He clenched

his fists and frowned savagely at his crippled leg. "I felt so sure of

her--and to have to compete with my own valet!"

CHAPTER THE SECOND

RETRIEVERS OF YOUTH

I

The taxi had scarcely drawn up before a small, prim house in Brompton

Square when the door was opened by a neat maid in immaculate cap and

apron. She was so neat and respectful as to appear almost passionless.

She had the high complexion of a Country girl, good gray eyes, a slim,

attractive figure and dark, wavy hair which escaped rebelliously from

beneath her cap. One wondered how she looked in her off-duty moments,

when she wasn't saying, "Yes, your Lordship" and "No, your Lordship."

Tabs mustered a smile and called to her, "Thank you, Ann. I'll be with

you in a moment."

As he paid the fare, he let his eyes wander. The outside of the house

had been painted white, evidently in honor of his home-coming. The work

had been only recently completed, for the chalked warning on the

pavement was not yet obliterated, "Wet Paint Beware." He had given no

orders; it was Ann's doing--her accustomed, tactful thoughtfulness. The

steps were speckless as a newly laundered shirt, the brasses polished to

the brilliancy of precious metal. His window-boxes---- He glanced along

the fronts of his neighbors' houses; they hadn't put theirs out yet. His

were ahead of everybody's; they made a cheerful splash of red, with

their soldierly upstanding tulips, above the long serried line of

area-railings. Again Ann's doing! And the snow-white curtains behind

each row of panes were also Ann's.

The driver clicked his "For Hire" sign into the upright position and

chugged away to join the flow of traffic which thumped orchestrally past

the end of the Square. Tabs climbed the three low steps separately; he

had been used to take them at a bound. He tried to climb them slowly as

though from choice, and not from necessity. He was very conscious that

Ann was watching. As she closed the door behind him he said, "So you

knew I was coming? You received my telegram?"

"Yes, your Lordship."

"I was sorry I couldn't tell you the exact hour. I didn't know it

myself. I hope you didn't trouble to prepare lunch."

"It was no trouble, your Lordship."

"Then you've managed to get some one in the kitchen? They tell me that

all the cooks have become bus-conductresses or lady-secretaries."

"I did, your Lordship. My sister--the one who lost her husband at Mons.

I thought you wouldn't object----"

He cut her short. "Ann, you know I never object; you never need to go

into details. Whatever you've done is right. From what I've seen already

you've done splendidly."

Under his praise she flushed and became a little less the servant. "I

was afraid you might think I'd taken too much upon myself, what with the

flower-boxes and having the house repainted. I wanted to have things

nice for your Lordship after----" She hesitated for a word, and then

burst out, "After all the dirt and beastliness! Your Lordship ought

never to have gone in the ranks, begging your pardon; you weren't fitted

for it. You ought to have gone as a General. Then you wouldn't have come

home with that poor leg and----" She saw him wince and changed the

subject. "But about doing things without orders, I knew that if

Braithwaite--if Braithwaite----" Her voice sagged and her eyes misted

over. At last Tabs saw how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she

wasn't occupied with being respectful. The sudden memory came back of

intuitions he had had that she and his valet might one day marry. From

time to time he had twitted them on their fondness, taking an idle

pleasure in forwarding the match. And Braithwaite had kissed her before

he marched away. Ridiculous to remember it now! It signified nothing.

People in their station kissed when they felt kindly, and on that

occasion they had had an epoch-making pretext.

Her eyes were searching his with a hungry wistfulness. "What I was

meaning, your Lordship, was that if he had been spared, he'd have done

things on his own and gone ahead, the same as he always did. So I,

seeing as how he wasn't----"

Tabs touched her shoulder gently. "It's all right, Ann. I appreciate

your motives. I'm glad you went ahead. But you haven't shaken hands

yet."

He glanced in at the dining-room before he went upstairs. The table was

spread for dinner. Cut flowers were standing about in vases. The very

silver had a festive shine.

"Again I have to be sorry," he told her. "I'm dining with Sir Tobias

Beddow."

"And Miss Terry," she inquired, "is she well?"

When he went to climb the narrow stairs she refused to permit him to

carry his bag. He guessed the reason--that he might be freer to support

himself by the rail of the banisters. On the first small landing, which

looked out at the back on to the Oratory and the graveyard of the Parish

Church, there were still more flowers. When he reached his bedroom,

three flights up, he found that his evening clothes had been all laid

out and just as carefully as if Braithwaite--the old Braithwaite whom he

had loved--had been there before him.

As she unpacked his bag, opening and closing drawers, "I shall have to

look round for another valet," he said.

"Please don't." Her tone was sharp with earnestness.

Tabs felt sorry for her. She, too, like all the world was wanting the

thing that she could never have. He wondered whether it wouldn't be

kinder to tell her and let her know the worst. "But sha'n't I, Ann?"

With simple pathos, which was the more touching because it was so

unconscious, she clasped her hands, "He might come back. He was never

reported. My letters were returned unopened. I've not given over

hoping. I shouldn't like him to find that your Lordship---- If he found

another man in his place, he might feel like he hadn't been wanted. Me

and sister can manage----"

"But----"

He got no further, for her eyes were meeting his with an appeal that was

desperate. "A strange man--his ways would be different. He'd make one

know that everything--everything was ended."

She glanced hurriedly round for a last time to make sure that there was

nothing she had omitted--collar, tie, silk socks, dress-shoes,

shaving-water, razor. "I'll be listening for the bell in case there's

anything that I've forgotten, sir."

With that she closed the door between himself and her emotion. As she

rustled discreetly down the stairs, he thought he heard a sound of

sobbing.

II

It was too early to dress--not five o'clock yet. He made an estimate of

the time he had to spare. If he walked across the Park to Sir Tobias

Beddow's, that would take him from a half to three-quarters of an hour.

At the earliest he wouldn't have to leave the house till six-thirty. So

he had the best part of two hours during which to think out his line of

conduct and to dress. At dinner he would meet Terry--how would she act?

And what was the right thing for him to do as her family's trusted

friend? He felt very tired. It took a tremendous lot out of one

pretending to other people that one wasn't tired. He was ashamed to have

to own to himself how quickly nowadays he could use up his physical

reserves. For the moment there was no one to watch him; he stretched

himself out at full length on the couch.

He was glad to be back in this friendly house with its narrow stairways

and endearing littleness; it had been his American mother's before him.

Within its walls were the exquisite traces of a temperament and taste

that had been hers. She hadn't always been a great lady; to the end of

her days there had remained with her the love of small things which one

finds in nun-like New England towns. There had been times when the

ostentation and entertaining at Taborley House had become too much for

her; this nest of refuge had been her secret--her place of retreat where

she had regarnered her sincerities. She had loved the Square's

old-fashioned primness, its tininess, its unchanging atmosphere of rest.

It was scarcely invaded by the strum of London. In the cloud of

greenness which drifted above its communal garden, one could still

listen to the country sounds of birds. At the back gray religion spoke

in the tolling bell of the Parish Church; through Sabbath stillnesses

one could catch the pealing of the organ in the Oratory and the mutter

of worshipers at prayer. Tabs had kept the house as she had left it. It

was something faithful to which to return, however much he failed in the

search for his kingdom and however far he wandered.

However much he failed! This first day of freedom had been anything but

successful. He felt as though every hope that he had had had been

blotted out; that morning he had had no plan for the future which had

not included Terry. What would be the upshot? Would Braithwaite accept

his challenge to visit him? If he did, what then? He, Tabs, couldn't

very well ask his ex-valet, merely because he was his ex-valet, to

desist from loving the same girl. He had no doubt that Braithwaite, in

his new incarnation as a General, did dare to love her. He had little

doubt that Terry had shown herself at least susceptible to the glamor of

his infatuation. How far had the matter gone between them? There lay the

guess.

He searched back, trying to piece together phrases which would indicate

the correct answer. There was her disturbing confession about having

given away bits of herself, little bits of herself in wrong directions.

There was her reticence as to the ownership of the car and the way in

which she had tried to prevent a meeting. There was her sympathy for

Maisie's matrimonial excesses; her unnatural tolerance for Adair; her

reiterated excuse for the current love-madness, that people had the

right at any cost to be happy; and the eagerness with which she had

seized on his own words, "to recover our lost years by violence." In the

silence of his brain he heard her voice pleading, urgent with pain and

underlying terror, "Don't you see why I don't condemn? I'm sorry for

you, for myself, for everybody." His knowledge of the world told him

that impassioned latitudinarians were most frequently found among those

who had themselves offended the conventions. Whatever Terry knew or did

not know, she was certainly aware that a match between herself and

General Braithwaite was completely off the map and would be regarded by

every one who counted as a _mesalliance_.

And what did she know? Not that Braithwaite had been a valet--most

decidedly not that he had been _his_ valet; at most she suspected that

they had been acquainted when Braithwaite had moved in humbler circles.

Had she been possessed of the exact truth, she would never have borrowed

a car from that quarter to meet her ex-lover on his home-coming. She had

been testing--trying to discover. She had scented a mystery--one for the

solving of which none of the General's explanations had proved

convincing. Then had come the unforeseen encounter outside the War

Office and Braithwaite's falsehood, which even Terry had detected. "You

mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure." What was the

man's game? Did he hope to erase his old identity? Did he think----

At this point Tabs' patience broke down. "Dash it all," he muttered, "if

there hadn't been a war, the fellow would have been running my

bath-water at this moment."

If there hadn't been a war! But there had; and this was only one of the

many preposterous situations which had resulted from it. Terry was right

in at least one thing that she had said--the world was upside down and

walking on its head.

As he lay there thinking, with the topmost branches of the trees in the

Square weaving a tracery of green shadows against his windows, a sudden

inspiration came to him. He sat up. "By Jove, I've got it. Terry's proud

as Lucifer. I can stop this nonsense at any time by telling her who her

lover was. Braithwaite will have to call to see me; I can force him to

it. When he calls, the door will be opened by Ann. I can hold the threat

over him that, if he doesn't promise to break with Terry, I'll expose

him."

He went across to his writing-table, selected a pen and wrote:--

_General Braithwaite,

The War Office,

Whitehall,

London.

Sir:

I shall be pleased to see you any time to-morrow at my house in

Brompton Square, which you know so well. The matter which we have to

discuss is urgent.

Yours truly,

Taborley._

He addressed the envelope, sealed it and rang the bell. When Ann

appeared, he handed it to her. "Please see that it's posted

immediately."

He had done something decisive. For the time being he felt happier.

"Nothing like getting a thing off your chest!" He took a bath and,

having slipped into his dressing-gown, commenced to shave. Between these

acts he whistled snatches of street-songs to prove to himself his

genuine light-heartedness. It was while he was drying his razor that he

started on the wrong air. Where had he heard it? Oh, yes, the sunlit

street, the children dancing and a voice at his side murmuring the words

of the refrain, "Apres la Guerre, there'll be a good time everywhere."

The old argument commenced again, but with a new justice. "What have I

really got against this chap? To rise from a private to a General is no

crime; it's to his credit. We all had his chance and some of us had more

influence; yet he got there."

He tried to eliminate his own desires and wounded pride from the

problem. For five years he had been nothing and had been glad to be

nothing, that the cause which he believed to be righteous might triumph

by his self-effacement. What sickness of soul had overtaken him that, on

this, his first day of freedom, he had immediately surrendered to this

orgy of outrageous selfishness? It was Terry that mattered and only

Terry. The stronghold of her happiness was threatened by Braithwaite's

lie. There was a kingdom for everybody, his old theory. As for himself,

if he had been mistaken and his kingdom was not Terry, then he must

press on, for it lay further up the road round some newer turning.

Meanwhile, at whatever cost to himself he must rescue Terry's happiness.

His heroic state of mind lasted no longer than it takes to set down. He

was demanding too much of his exhausted capacity for self-abnegation. He

was starving for her. His old hunger to win her swept over him

ravenously. Only by winning her could his lost youth be regained.

III

He had almost completed dressing when there came a tap at the door.

Finishing what he was doing in front of the mirror, he answered, "Yes,

what is it, Ann?"

"Before you go, I should like to speak with your Lordship."

"Is it important? I've not got too much time."

"It's--it's something to do with myself."

"All right. Half a second."

On opening the door, he saw at once that her face was disturbed.

"What is it?"

"It's something to do with him, sir."

"With whom?"

"With Braithwaite."

It was evident that for Ann there was only one _him_ in the world.

"Well, what of him?"

Ann commenced speaking slowly. Under the stress of her nervousness she

forgot the correct demeanor for a high-class parlor-maid and became a

country girl, twisting the corner of her white, starched apron in her

hands.

"I was noticing the address on that letter your Lordship gave me to

post." Tabs thought quickly, "Hullo, we're in for it. That was foolish

of me. She's put two and two together."

But Ann reassured him in her next sentence. "It was to a General at the

War Office and I was thinking that he might help. Braithwaite and I had

an understanding. I'm not saying we were engaged; we weren't. We didn't

tell anybody. But we'd made up our minds to get married if he ever came

back. If I'd been engaged to him, I'd have a right to make enquiries;

but now, in most people's eyes, I was nothing to him. That's--that's the

hardest part of it. You see, sir, he was never reported dead or missing

or anything. I just stopped hearing from him. So I thought that if this

General was your Lordship's friend----"

Tabs' brain had been working. He already had a plan. "You thought that I

might persuade him to use his influence to have the records searched?"

She glanced up hopefully. "That's what I was thinking. Would he do it

for your Lordship? I don't know how to set about things myself. It's

this--this," she almost broke down, "this uncertainty that's a-killing

of me. Sister knows about her man, but I----"

Tabs saw the redness of sleeplessness in her eyes; it was true--the

uncertainty was killing her. "Don't upset yourself by talking about it,"

he said kindly. "I'll write to the General and post my request on my way

out."

He had supposed he had dismissed her and had seated himself at his desk.

A sound behind him warned him; he looked across his shoulder to find her

still hovering in the doorway.

She answered his unspoken question as to why she was delaying. "Aren't

there any particulars that your Lordship ought to have? Things like his

regimental number, and his birthday, and where he was born, and all

that? And wouldn't this help?"

"What's that?"

She pulled out from her apron-pocket an envelope. "It's one of his

letters. If the General was to see it, he'd know I had the right."

"May I glance through it?"

Tabs unfolded the scribbled sheets of paper. They were torn from an Army

note-book.

_"My darling Ann:

The jolly old war drags on and seems as though it were never going to

end. Not that I've much to kick about, for it's proved a chance for

me. Here's the great news. I'm in for my commission and shall soon be

'an officer and a gentleman.' Don't tell his Lordship if you write to

him or see him; he's still in the ranks and might not like it. It's

funny to think that I shall be his military superior before many

weeks are out and that, were he and I to meet, he'd have to salute

me. If I come through the war, I sha'n't go back to being a valet.

Once having been a gentleman----"_

Tabs ran rapidly through this sheet and turned to the next:--

_"You're wonderfully good. I got the socks that you knitted and the

two parcels of food from Harrods. You mustn't spend so much of your

money on me. When it's all ended, I'll pay you back. We'll get

married and have a little cottage in a little town, the way the song

says that we heard together at the Comedy on my last leave. You

remember how it goes.

'And we'll have a little mistress in a silken gown.

A little doggie, a little cat,

A little doorstep, with WELCOME on the mat.'

"My dearest sweetheart, I love you.

"Yours, in the pink, etc."_

Tabs looked up. "May I keep this for the present?--And, by the way, how

many more of them have you?"

"Nearly a hundred from the day he enlisted. That's one of the last--I

never heard from him whether he lived to get his commission."

When she had vanished, he reread the letter more carefully, made a copy

of it and slipped the copy into another envelope addressed to General

Braithwaite, together with a note from himself, which read, "_One of the

important reasons why I am insistent that you shall call on me is

contained in the enclosed copy of one of your many letters, the

originals of all of which are in my possession. To a man of honor it

speaks for itself_."

IV

At the red pillar-box, at the foot of the Square, he posted this second

missive. "He'll receive them both by the first delivery to-morrow," he

thought. "I wonder what he'll---- Rotten! But it can't be helped." Then

he turned to the right by the Tube Station, going up the narrow old

world passage, behind the backs of houses, through the graveyard of the

Brompton Parish Church to Ennismore Gardens and the sudden, railed in

solitudes of Hyde Park.

There were few pedestrians about. Until he reached the Park they were

for the most part men in evening-dress, going to dinner-parties, like

himself. Sometimes they were accompanied by their wives or sweethearts,

whose little high-heeled shoes made a sharp tap-a-tap against the

pavement. Lamps were lighted. The reluctant twilight was gradually

fading; the sunset still glowed faintly above clustered chimney-pots to

the west. "I'm going to meet Terry," he told himself. "If the day had

worked out as I'd planned, I should be going to ask for her hand in

marriage---- When I planned that, I still believed that I was young."

Then he thought forward. Sir Tobias, from the moment he entered, would

be scheming to get him to himself. Sir Tobias must be avoided. Directly

dinner was ended, he would try to hurry him off and imprison him in his

library to discuss this Maisie woman and Adair. Still he was going to

see Terry; merely to see her was a compensation which stirred his blood.

He crossed the Serpentine, stretching like a phantom lake, rose and

slate-colored, through the Peter Pan haunted glades of Kensington

Gardens. Then he emerged from the Victoria Gate and found himself

ringing a bell and being admitted by a butler, who relieved him of his

coat and hat with the velvet-plush manner of a fashionable surgeon

feeling a patient's pulse.

"If you will come this way, Sir Tobias is waiting for your Lordship in

the library."

It was happening precisely as he had foreseen; it was being taken for

granted that he had come as her father's friend, and therefore in some

absurd measure as his contemporary.

As he prepared to follow, his attention was attracted by the scarlet

band and gold braid about an officer's cap which was lying carelessly on

the hall-table beside a pair of dog-skin gloves.

V

Sir Tobias was standing astride the hearth-rug with his back towards the

fire. As the door opened, he was caught in a last nervous adjustment of

his tie.

He was a little man, inclined to be podgy, brimful of a darting kind of

energy and dignified with an air of fussy distinction which none of his

antics, however grotesque, could diminish. He was Shakespeare as he

might have appeared at sixty, after years and a return to Ann Hathaway

had quenched the taller flames of his poetic fire. The resemblance was

haunting and remarkable: there underlay it a hint of gnome-like agility.

One suspected that he affected age as a disguise. The pointed beard was

white; the scanty hair had receded from the calm forehead; the eyes were

blue and faded, and red about the rims with over-much study. The top

part of the face above the cheek-bones was noble; but the lower part

fell away to a mouth and chin which were amiable and undecided. At the

hour of Tabs' arrival, he was flinging up his hands and spluttering

impotently, an inexpert swimmer in the waters of adversity.

"My dear Lord Taborley! My dear fellow!" The moment he discovered his

guest in the doorway he came darting forward. "My dear boy, this is real

friendship. We missed you and wanted you so much.--So you're out of it

at last? I mean the khaki."

The little, wrinkled hand with its stubby fingers reached up timidly in

an attempt to pat the big breadth of shoulders.

"Yes, I'm out of it, Sir Tobias."

Tabs didn't want to be patted. He was impatient of polite evasions. He

foresaw that he was expected to spend the next five minutes in replying

to questions which required no answers--all this as a conventional

preface to a discussion of the delicate position of Adair and Maisie.

But Tabs had his own problem, and one question in particular about a hat

on the hall-table that he was burning to ask. They stood staring at each

other, the big, fair man and the worn version of Shakespeare, both

wondering how long it would be decorous to chatter before they clinched

with the vital topic.

"May as well sit down. There's time for a cigarette. Terry----" Sir

Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place

beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his

body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never

know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell

me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that--ungrateful of me!

But I'm sick of it all, the invasion of the classes, the women in

trousers, the beggars on horseback, the Jazz music. I want the old world

back--the womanly women, everybody labeled, and Beethoven."

He pushed the cigarette-box fretfully across to Tabs, having first

selected one for himself.

"Beethoven," he snorted, "that's what I want, and no bobbed hair and

everybody happily married."

"This New Army chap who's with Terry," Tabs paused to make his voice

unanxious and ordinary, "does she see much of him? Is she fond of him?"

"Fond of him!" The little man jerked round quickly. He was in a mood to

see the shadow of terror in the most far-fetched suggestion. "If I

thought she was, I should pack her off to Lady Dawn and keep her with

her until the fellow was dead or----"

"What's the matter with him?" Tabs flipped the ash off his cigarette

indifferently.

"The matter with him!" Sir Tobias pulled at the point of his beard,

making a mental effort to frame the charge. "If you'd asked me that

question five years ago I could have told you; but not now. In 1914 we

spoke of a man as belonging to our class and meant that he had our

standards of conduct, our code of honor, our sense of public duty, our

traditions--that he could be trusted to run true to form. To-day any

man's a gentleman, provided he killed enough Germans."

"But still you do feel that there's something the matter with him."

"Yes, but I can't tell you for the life of me why I feel it. In many

ways he's admirable: I believe he's about the youngest brigadier we have

who rose from the ranks. There was no hanky-panky about his promotion

either--no petticoat influence; it was all sheer merit and courage. He

was a fighting-man from first to last and shared all the chances. But

the trouble is that one doesn't know where he came from, and, therefore,

one can't be sure where he's going. I know that sounds snobbish. You

have the right to tell me that if a man was good enough to be butchered

to save an old chap like myself, he ought to be good enough to sit down

with me at the same table. But what people don't realize is that men

have been wounded in protecting old chaps like myself in coal-mines, and

on railroads, and a thousand other places ever since the world started,

but until now we never felt it necessary to offer them a bed in our

houses. War asked for the simplest gifts from men, physical strength,

uncomplaining endurance and courage. The war's ended, and if those same

gifts are to continue to secure social advancement, every policeman who

captures a burglar ought to be made a bank-president. When I demand that

a man shall have traditions to be my friend, I ask no more than when I

refuse to buy a dog without a pedigree."

"But this man, what's he called? If he's as distinguished as you say, I

ought to have heard of him."

Before his host could answer, the door was discreetly opened. "Dinner is

being served, Sir Tobias."

There was a rush of light footsteps and Terry breezed past the butler.

"I know you're going to scold me, Daddy. It's all my fault that you were

kept waiting. It took me so long to persuade General Braithwaite. By the

time he'd consented---- I had to dress like a hurricane. I'm not at all

sure that I'm properly hooked up the back. I know I feel draughty."

Then, as though she had not remembered that he was expected, "Why,

hullo, Tabs! In a dinner-jacket! You do look peaceful and jolly."

VI

They had taken their places at the square handsome table, illuminated at

each corner by a silver candle-stick, red-shaded and electric-lighted.

Tabs and Terry were seated side by side, so that he saw her always in

profile, except when she turned to him in conversation. He saw the soft

roundness of her shoulder, the satin pallor of her throat and breast,

the quivering gold of her childishly wavy hair.

The General sat isolated, opposite and facing them. Sir Tobias and his

wife sat at either end--had they known it, for all the world like

judges.

Lady Beddow was a proud, unbending woman, gracious to her own sort,

unquestioningly respectful to those above her, tender in a practical way

to those below her and coldly scrutinizing to any one who tapped at her

door claiming to be an equal. Being bred to her finger-tips, she was as

ill-at-ease as her husband in the jostling democracy of the moment.

In the hall Sir Tobias rather huffily had introduced his guests. Tabs

had relieved the tension by smiling quietly at Braithwaite, "The General

and I have met before."

It was an uncomfortable dinner from the moment they sat down. Sir

Tobias, although he had shown no signs of it in the library, seemed to

have developed a resentment at having been kept waiting. No reference

was made to this resentment, but Terry and the General were obviously

the culprits. Sir Tobias was vaguely unhappy and had to blame somebody.

Under the tacitly implied criticism Terry's rebellious spirits rose

higher, but the General's authoritative assurance began to crumble.

Sir Tobias was continuing the conversation which had started in the

library. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it had then concerned the

man who was now present. "You can't make the world afresh with a

catastrophe. Men are like water: in a storm they rise above or sink

below themselves. When the disturbance is ended, they tend to find their

own level. War destroys; it never created anything."

"That's not true, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. You're

speaking without knowledge." Braithwaite uttered himself bluntly as he

would have done in his own Headquarters' mess--this despite the fact

that it was Tabs whom his host had been addressing.

In his astonishment, Sir Tobias nearly gagged himself with the soup that

he was on the point of swallowing. He blinked mildly at this confident

young man, his breast ablaze with decorations, whom he had not invited.

"Then, in your opinion, what has war ever created," he asked with

dangerous courtesy; "this war, for instance, that's just ended?"

"This war that's just ended is the only war of which I have had any

experience." Braithwaite glanced across at Terry for encouragement. "I

know what it created in me and in thousands like me. It created in us

the most valuable of all assets--character. In the bitter test of pain

and dirt and despair we _found_ ourselves--found ourselves capable of

more nobility than we had ever dreamt possible. We sorted out afresh, in

hours that we thought would be our last, all our inherited superstitions

and servilities; in so doing we discovered that God and life itself are

much kinder than we had been informed. Because of that discovery men who

had been timid learnt how to face death gladly, shirkers how to shoulder

responsibility, selfish people how to become decent through the fine

humanity of sharing. Time-servers learnt how to get up off their bellies

and confront misfortune with a laugh. I don't know whether I make myself

clear; perhaps one had to be a part of the great game to understand its

lessons. That we do understand them is the reward of those who have

survived. We've come back to you as uncomfortable fellows; we shall be

much more uncomfortable before we're satisfied. We intend to fight for

the same equalities in peace that you sent us out to fight for in war.

You asked me what this particular war has created; it has created a

complete new set of social and spiritual values. It's done away with the

uncharity of caste."

During his last words he had been gazing across the table at Tabs with a

fearless challenge, as much as to say, "That's who I am. Now expose me."

But Tabs was remembering the coster's reason for not having dragged him

into the police-courts, "Served in the ranks, did yer? Then you and me

was pals out there!" Braithwaite, whether he knew it or not, had been

doing a piece of special pleading for himself. He and Braithwaite,

whatever they might be now, had been pals out there. Silently Tabs had

been thinking while he had been listening, "You're right and I'm with

you. I'd be with you still more if you'd only live up to your standards

by sticking to Ann."