It was Sir Tobias who took the offensive. The soup-plates had been

removed and the fish-course had not yet been served. He had the leisure

to talk. "You men who have been in the Army," he said testily,

"especially those of you who have gained your promotion rapidly, always

speak as if the rest of us had been receivers of stolen goods until you

put on uniforms. Armies are composed of youth; for most of you it was

the first time you had tasted authority. It's gone to your heads; you

want to brush experience aside and dragoon the older world into new

formations. You, who were civilians yourselves, have come back despising

us civilians; your contempt is three-parts fear lest you'll fail, as you

failed before, in the old civilian competitive struggle. You talk about

the virtues war has taught; let's grant them and grant them

gratefully--they saved us from destruction. But what about the frantic

recklessness it encouraged, the cheap views of bodily chastity, the

desperate insistence on momentary happiness?" At the mention of bodily

chastity, Lady Beddow from the other end of the table had stuttered a

"tut, tut!" Her husband dodged it, as a boy might dodge a wheelbarrow

upset in his path. Without shifting his glance he ran on. "A complete

new set of social and spiritual values! Rubbish! War places an excessive

premium on merely brutal qualities--muscle, bone, sinew, all the

paraphernalia of physical endurance. What use has it got for old fellows

of intellectual attainments like myself? It takes the greatest poet,

singer, painter, violinist; all it can do with him is to thrust a rifle

into his hands. All brains look alike, Michael Angelo's or a

rag-picker's, when they're spattered in the mud of a trench. Take Lord

Taborley here, for instance--all that military stupidity could do with

him was to keep him in the ranks for two years. You can't make me

believe in your complete new set of social and spiritual values. A

complete unrest and insubordination to time-honored moralities is the

legacy of war."

Having delivered himself, he tucked his napkin tighter into his

waistcoat and attacked the fish-course, as though by this display of

gastronomic energy he could somehow strengthen his argument.

It was clear to Tabs that behind all that Sir Tobias had been saying lay

his misery over Maisie and Adair. He saw the world always in the

personal equation.

"I agree with most of your statements," the General blundered on. "And

yet you're wrong. You miss something. I think it's the vision of the

stupendous heroism. You never saw it; you don't want to see it. That you

never saw it we can understand; but that you shouldn't want to see it,

makes us see red. It was something that we did for you, and you take it

all for granted. You cheered us and jeered us into going because you

were frightened. You handed us white feathers if we hesitated. You

dragged us from our jobs and very often we were poor men, who had no

such financial security as was yours. You promised that if we would

share our lives with you, you'd go fifty-fifty with us on your financial

security. There wasn't time to have deeds of agreement drawn up; we took

you at your word. And what a lie it was! Why, I passed a blinded officer

in Regent Street to-day peddling shoe-laces. The day before a jobless

soldier threw himself beneath a train and his last words were, 'Over the

top and the best of luck.' There's a Colonel I see by to-night's paper

who's gone back to being a policeman. If you see a man in uniform

to-day, your unspoken thought is, 'For God's sake take it off.' I tell

you it's all wrong. It's that kind of ingratitude that leads to

revolution. You talk about the brutality of war; it's not a patch on the

brutality of peace. You treated men's lives as yours while the danger

lasted, but you insist that your possessions are your own now that it's

been averted."

He took a breath and glanced round.

Tabs was nodding unconscious approval. Terry's face reflected the fire

of his own passionate indignation and enthusiasm. The butler in the

shadows had turned his back non-committally and was making a pretense of

fiddling with the next course. Lady Beddow sat very upright and

startled, grasping her knife and fork as though they helped to support

her. The only person who was still doing justice to the meal was the

worn-out version of Shakespeare, who was responsible for the storm.

The silence seemed to call for a final climax. The ex-valet cleared his

throat. And it was to his ex-valet that Tabs listened; he had forgotten

the General. It was as though the grimness of reality had interrupted a

piece of play-acting. There was less heat in Braithwaite's voice now and

more reproach. "You said nothing about caste in those days, when you

hurried us to the shambles. You promised us---- What was it that you

promised us?"

"A kingdom round the corner," Tabs suggested. The next minute he felt

Terry's warm little hand clinging to his own beneath the tablecloth.

Braithwaite stared at Tabs to see whether he were jesting; then smiled

in relieved friendship at this proof of comradeship from an unexpected

quarter. "Yes, perhaps it was that--a future kindliness, where we should

all be men together, neither free nor bond." Then again to his host,

"You sent us out there where everything was censored. Scarcely a whisper

of the truth reached you. The very war-correspondents were instructed to

delete the horror and to write nothing that would disturb your calm.

We've come back, what are left of us; we think you ought to know what

really happened. It isn't that we take much pleasure in telling you, but

we think that if you knew, you might be persuaded to keep at least some

of your promises. And what do you do? You reassert your privilege to

despise us. You stuff your fingers in your ears and talk about caste,

and forgetting the war, and getting back to work. Sir Tobias, I'm afraid

I'm being far too personal, but you're a sample of millions who weren't

there. You're living in a totally altered world of whose very existence

you're content to be unaware. Your complacency drives men like myself to

the point of madness. We hold that you have no right to be complacent

until the bill you put your hand to has been settled. I don't know how

Lord Taborley feels; he's not expressed----"

"Tabs feels exactly the way you do and so do I." It was Terry speaking,

like the shrill courage of a bugle answering the slow bass of a

trumpet-call. "We're the world that purchased victory--we three, while

the rest of the world sat back. It was men like you two who got gassed,

and wrenched, and tortured, and girls like myself who patched you up and

flirted with you so that we might send you back to the Front

cheery--girls like myself who hadn't known love, or children, or

anything but a nursery sort of happiness. We three and people like us

understand, because we paid the price together."

"Really, Terry, I must confess there are times when you shock me." As

Lady Beddow rose from her seat, she was the picture of disapproval. From

the door, which the butler held open for her, she glanced back. "I think

this discussion has gone _very_ far."

As she swept out, she called across her shoulder, as one might call to a

pet dog, "Come, Terry."

VII

But Terry did not come; she sat on tightly, just as if she were a man

among men. Until coffee had been served and the room was free from

servants, there was a pretense at small-talk in which Sir Tobias did not

join. He crouched moodily in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his

fingers, looking very old and somehow deserted. With the instinctive

tenderness which she always showed when she knew that she had hurt,

Terry got up and went to him. She linked her arms about his neck and

stooped to kiss the bald-spot on his head. "Cheer up, Daddy dear; it

isn't half as bad as it sounded. Don't you want me to light your cigar

for you?"

Tabs, to distract attention from the reconciliation, addressed the

General. It was odd that he should feel so much sympathy for a man whom

his letters, already beyond recall, would stir into panic in the

morning. "Do you intend to stay in the Army, sir?"

"No. But why do you ask? They're getting rid of all of us who aren't

Regulars, no matter how brilliant our service. They're making the Army

again a social club. I shall soon be out of uniform."

"And then?" Tabs persisted.

"Oh, then I shall find something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow

which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If I can find

anything."

"If it isn't impertinence," Tabs sank his voice, "may I ask what you

intend to turn to?"

The General eyed him suspiciously, wondering whether he was again about

to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several

things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position

ought to be able to choose."

"Ought! But that hasn't been the story up-to-date. What of the Colonel

you were just telling us about?" Tabs saw that another storm was

brewing. He leant across the table and hurried on. "If the worst comes

to the worst, I expect your old job's waiting for you. The qualities

which have made you what you are to-day, must have been recognized and

valued----" Terry had completed her reconciliation with her father and

was resting her gaze upon them. Tabs altered his tone. "You put what you

said at dinner rather strongly, sir. But I understand what you were

driving at--it was the democracy of the front-line where courage, which

at its best is unselfishness, was our only standard of aristocracy."

Before the General could make reply, Sir Tobias had raised his

bewildered head. "It's a thing that I for one don't want to understand.

I don't want to go on living, if what you've said is true."

Tabs turned considerately to the older man. "I think you would if you

knew. The difference that war made to all of us who were there was that

it taught us to judge men by their good points rather than their

defects. It upset all our preconceived notions about society, especially

our notions about the extreme value of race and breeding. What we

learnt was that there's a breeding of the heart which enables a man from

the gutter to run true to the highest form."

Sir Tobias leveled his weary eyes in challenge. "Then what about Adair?"

The name was out at last--the name which he had been trying to get

uttered all evening. It didn't matter that Adair hadn't been at the war

and had no proper place in the argument. He had wanted to break through

his reticence due to his sense of impending family disaster. At last he

had done it.

"I think, Daddy," Terry said, "the General and I had better leave you

and Tabs to talk alone."

The next thing that Tabs saw was Terry making her escape with this other

man. He had it in his power to settle his suspense for all time by

saying, "One minute, Terry. You're choosing between the General and

myself. It may help you in making your decision to know that Braithwaite

was once----" But the coster's definition of fair-play deterred him.

This man had been his pal in the trenches; because of that he allowed

himself for the second time that day to be shut out from the company of

youth. He hadn't discovered how much or how little she knew. By her

withdrawal he was made to feel middle-aged--more nearly her father's

contemporary than ever. Yet, as an underlying comfort to his distress,

he had the remembered pressure of the little hand that had sought his

own in secret friendliness.

He turned to Sir Tobias. "Yes, what about Adair? Terry said that you

wanted to consult me. If there's anything that I can say or do----"

VIII

The door was reopening. Tabs glanced back across his shoulder through

the shadows. She was hovering just inside the threshold, hastily clad in

her evening-wrap; beyond her in the hall the General stood fidgeting

with his cap. Sir Tobias was sitting with his head bowed; he had not

heard the sound of her reentry. He spoke evidently believing that they

two were alone. "I don't like that fellow. It's the last time he ever

comes to my house. Whatever Terry can see in him---- And he's not good

for Terry."

She tiptoed back into the hall, pulling the door softly behind her. A

moment later the front door closed with a bang.

"What was that?" Sir Tobias looked up gnome-like and startled.

Tabs guessed what it was; but because, as she had said they three had

paid the price together, he kept her secret. "General Braithwaite,

probably. But you were speaking of Adair?"

Sir Tobias shivered, betraying his nervous tension. "A disturber," he

said irritably, "even in his going. And yet, I suppose it's true; we

shouldn't be sitting here comfortably to-night if it hadn't been for his

sort."

Now that it had been broached, it was anything to avoid the main topic.

He drummed with his fingers on the table, ceased drumming and sighed

heavily. "Yes, I was speaking of Adair. I don't understand him. I've

grown out of touch; I don't seem to understand anybody. I'm left behind,

somehow. People do things to-day that they never used to do. They shout

about things from the house-tops which all my life I've mentioned only

in whispers. Terry does; you heard what she said to-night about never

having been loved and never having had children. The loss of

delicacy----"

"I wouldn't call it a loss of delicacy." Tabs struck a match. "I would

call it a loss of prudishness. We all know that girls are born to be

married and that the best of them long to have children. Why shouldn't

they own it? You owned it long ago when you bought her dolls. The lid is

off false reticences. I hope it stays off; we shall be a much honester

world."

"The lid's off! That's the phrase I was searching for." Sir Tobias leant

forward confidentially. "You haven't been much in England during the

past four years or you'd know how badly the lid is off. You men, when

you were in the trenches, lived above yourselves; but, the moment you

came home on leave, you taught the world that wasn't in khaki how to

live below itself. I could tell you stories----"

"I know." Tabs didn't want to hear those stories. "It was pathetic. Men

tried to steal in a handful of hours all the passionate experiences that

would have come to them beautifully and legitimately over forty years.

It was like snatching from a bargain-counter things that you hadn't time

to pay for. You were young and you were so soon to be snuffed out. The

unthoughtful took desperately what they believed life owed them.

They----"

It was the turn of Sir Tobias to interrupt. "But so did the women--this

Maisie woman, for instance. It was astounding--the women one would least

have expected. All the desires we had caged through the centuries broke

loose--caged with traditions, with public opinion and scriptural

penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it.

"They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known

they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in

books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo,

to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only

regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming

about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets into our houses. Now

the war's ended and the jungle's all about us; we can't get the animals

back into their cages. Fellows like this General Braithwaite don't help

matters by telling us that we oughtn't to want to get them back----"

"Perhaps he's one of the animals," Tabs interpolated. "You couldn't

expect him to want to be put back."

"Perhaps he is. In fact that's what I've felt about him. That's what's

helped me to make up my mind that he shall see no more of Terry." He

reached out and tapped Tabs' hand, taking it for granted that he was his

ally. "The sight's becoming far too normal--wild beasts everywhere,

sunning themselves in impertinent freedom, as if they were house-cats.

Nobody's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't--at

least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an

election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like

ourselves, to----"

"To do what?"

Sir Tobias lost his stride. He blinked reproachfully. "To get them back

into their cages."

For an instant Tabs nearly smiled. "And Adair--is he the first wild

beast we tackle? Have we got to get him back into the cage of matrimony?

Tell me about Adair."

"It was no cage." Sir Tobias spoke almost resentfully. "His home was a

kind of nest and Phyllis was the mother-bird."

The butler had looked in several times to see whether he was free to

clear away. For the first time Sir Tobias became aware of him pottering

in the shadows. "Perhaps we'd better continue in my library."

He pushed back his chair, dropped his napkin, groped after it feebly,

then led the way solemnly across the hall. When he had seated himself

before the fire and fortified his courage with a fresh cigar, he plunged

headlong into the story of his son-in-law's delinquencies.

IX

"How a man who has a daughter of mine for his wife can find attraction

in any other woman is more than I can fathom."

"I agree with you there, sir." Tabs suddenly found himself carried off

his feet and on the point of a confession. "If any man were to play

false by Terry, I think--I think I'd brain him."

Sir Tobias half-closed his eyes and regarded his guest with sleepy

approval. "I somehow knew," he said slowly, "that that was how you

felt." Then he opened his eyes wide and darted forward in his chair, as

though to trace exactly the effect of his words. He was full of tricks

and contradictions, obstinacies and tendernesses, this Punch-like old

gentleman with the head of Shakespeare. "I knew that was how you felt,"

he continued, "because you've seen all the love that has gone to their

making. You were already a big fellow when they were still tiny. Wasn't

it Terry who first called you Tabs because her tongue couldn't get round

Taborley? Ah, I've been so proud of my girls! They were so little and

white when they first came to us. They couldn't walk--not a step. One

had to carry them everywhere. Then they began to crawl; they couldn't

stand up right unless one gave them his hand. And then at last they

walked. They walked by one's side at first and soon got tired. But as

they grew stronger, they walked away and away, always getting more

incomprehensible, till finally--it hasn't happened to Terry yet--till

finally they met a man. Wait till you're a father, Lord Taborley; from

the moment you give all that whiteness into another's keeping, you never

cease to be jealous of him. He can never appreciate what a gift you have

made him. He never saw her when she was little and helpless. She's your

youth--she's everything vigorous that you were. The first time he

affords you with a reason for hating him, you'll hate him like---- The

way you said: so that you could brain him without compunction.

Adair----I could cheerfully kill him."

Tabs felt rather than heard the pent-up passion in his voice; it alarmed

him with its sincerity. "But mayn't you be exaggerating?" he suggested.

"Are you sure that Adair---- What I mean to say is, he may be only

philandering. Heaps of men do that--go through all the motions of making

fools of themselves and actually do nothing. He may be only expressing

the discontent of the moment, the revolt from suspense, the flatness of

quiet after terrible excitements. One didn't need to be a fighting-man

to share those excitements. You say that Phyllis made a nest of her

home. Perhaps he didn't like nests. It may be that that's done it. Adair

can't have altered so radically over night; he wasn't forceful enough to

erupt so disastrously. He was decent----"

"I know nothing definite." The passion had died down. It was again an

old and weary man who spoke. "I only know that she believes he's

abandoning her and that it makes her wretched. She wants him back; if

there's any way of getting him back, she must have him. I never denied

anything to my girls. If money will persuade him, it's for you to find

out how much. If this Lockwood woman has a price, let her state it. I'll

spare nothing. Though everything else has lost its value, money still

has the power to purchase. I can't buy back faithfulness and loyalty;

but I should be able to buy the appearance of it. If I were you I would

tackle this Lockwood woman first."

He tossed the stub of his cigar towards the fire. It fell short in the

grate. He picked it up and rammed it deep into the burning coals. He

looked a poor, old, pitiful child, uttering embittered heresies. "All

women are mercenary; all of them except my wife and daughters. Ah, yes,

and Lady Dawn."

Tabs wondered what Lady Dawn had done to gain exemption from this

sweeping accusation. "I'll see this Maisie Lockwood to-morrow," he said,

"if you can tell me where she lives."

Sir Tobias had risen and was seating himself at his desk. "I'll copy you

out her address. I have it somewhere buried among these papers."

He had hidden it so thoroughly that it took a few minutes to find. As he

rustled sundry sheets and stooped over them round-shouldered, Tabs had

time to reflect. Terry! Where was she? She was so little and unprotected

and white. Would a day ever come when a man would play her false? At

this moment he had it in his power to prevent that day from ever

arriving.

"Ah, here it is!" It was his host talking. Then the painful scratching

of the pen commenced.

"Sir Tobias, I want to speak to you about Terry." The scratching of the

pen stopped, but the shoulders remained bowed. "This is an unfortunate

night for me to choose to talk to you about her, but---- To tell the

truth, I feel that if I don't speak to-night I may lose my chance."

"What do you want to say about her?" The shoulders had unhunched

themselves, but the head had not turned.

"Only this, that I've loved her for a very long while and that if you

don't think I'm too old, I should like your permission to ask her to

marry me."

Tabs thought to himself with a glow of satisfaction, "At last I've done

it. And done it in just the way and at just the time that I'd always

planned."

He felt the pride of a man who had worked on schedule and been punctual

to the second.

Sir Tobias turned. His face was composed. It was some seconds before he

spoke. "Of course this is no surprise to me. You _are_ old for her.

You'll be fifty-five when she's scarcely forty." He paused and Tabs'

heart sank. "You're older than her; but then you're wiser. She needs a

husband who'll be wise." He sat leisurely as though he were resting from

a long journey; then he stretched out his hand. Tabs went over and took

it. "My dear fellow, there's only one thing I ask: make her always

happy."

The clock in the hall struck midnight. He lifted himself to his feet. "I

had no idea how the time had flown. By the way, that's the address--the

Maisie woman's."

Tabs took it carelessly. It had become a thing of little consequence. He

folded it away in his pocket. "And when shall I see Terry?" Of a sudden

he felt that he must see her; see her and make sure of her without loss

of time.

"To-morrow, I suppose. Say about eleven."

Tabs thought back. He had expected to receive a call from General

Braithwaite about eleven, or at least to hear from him as soon as he had

opened his morning's letters. Then he smiled to himself; when once he

was engaged to Terry, what General Braithwaite did or did not do would

be no longer of any importance.

"Yes, about eleven, if it'll be agreeable to Terry."

"There's not much doubt about its being agreeable to her."

They passed out into the hall. While Tabs found his hat and coat, they

spoke only in monosyllables. The servants had gone to bed. The house was

intensely silent.

They had got as far as the front-door and Sir Tobias already had his

hand upon the latch, when a taxi purred up to the pavement and came to a

halt immediately outside. "Some one stopping at the wrong house," he

hazarded and threw the door wide. "See you again to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow."

"At eleven," Sir Tobias reminded.

"On the dot of eleven," Tabs confirmed.

He passed into the cool night air, wistful with the fragrance of unseen

flowers. His eyes were dazed for the moment by the sudden change of

light. He made out the blurred silhouette of the taxi and faltered,

thinking he might have a chance to hire it; then he saw that its shadowy

occupants were climbing back into its deeper darkness. It seemed that

Sir Tobias had been right; it had stopped at the wrong house.

As he reached the corner where he turned, he glanced back. The taxi had

not moved. Its occupants were again getting out--an officer and a girl.

The girl was ringing the bell of the house that he had left, while, the

officer was settling with the driver. As he joined her, the door opened,

letting fall a shaft of light. There was a brief parley--evidently

hurried explanations. Even at that distance he could recognize the

indignant tones of Sir Tobias' angry voice. Then he heard the "Shish,

Daddy!" from Terry. They entered. The door closed behind them. The taxi

moved off in the opposite direction. Again there was silence--nothing

but the fragrance of unseen flowers and the wistfulness of the cool,

spring night.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

ALL SORTS OF KINGDOMS

I

Tabs had dressed himself with more than ordinary care. He was rather

amused at his self-consciousness in having done so, and a little

disdainful of it. Yet he knew that in the winning of a woman the

strategy of clothes has its value; he had no intention of losing a trick

by negligence. It was nine o'clock when he sat down to breakfast; within

two hours he would be seeing Terry.

It was a gay morning, lacquered with sunshine; bustling breezes made

young leaves of trees in the little Square murmurous. Ever since he had

wakened he had been listening to the gossiping chirp of congregated

sparrows and the rolling boom of tumultuous traffic. At intervals across

the upland of roofs there had drifted to him the far-blown chime of

bells and the slower music of clocks striking. It was like an orchestra

scraping its chairs and tuning up before crashing into the overture of

the happier world.

Lying beside his plate as he came down he saw a single letter. It was

addressed to him in an unfamiliar feminine hand. He picked it up and

examined it carefully with the air of a connoisseur. So long as a

letter remains unopened, especially when it is to a bachelor from an

unknown woman, it retains an atmosphere of adventure. Up to a point he

resented the intrusion. This morning his thoughts should have been so

utterly Terry's. And yet he was piqued by it.

He slit the envelope. The letter-head was embossed with a crest quite

unknown to any but the most modern heraldry. He read:--

_Dear Lord Taborley:

I have been given to understand that you are exceedingly anxious to

make my acquaintance. If this is so, I shall be at home when you call

to-morrow afternoon. Asking your lenience for this liberty, I remain,

Yours very truly,

Maisie P. Lockwood._

"To-morrow afternoon! Written yesterday! That means the afternoon of

to-day.--And why the _P_--Maisie _P._ Lockwood? Is that for Pollock, her

first husband?--Unusual! A rather naive person!" Then his face went

blank. "She must be a thought-reader! How the dickens did she guess that

I wanted to make her acquaintance? I scarcely knew it myself at the time

that she wrote this letter."

Crushing the scented sheet in his hand, he tossed it into the empty

grate. "My dear lady, if you can read minds so accurately at a distance,

be assured of this: to-day I shall be too busy with Terry to have any

time to spare on you."

The door from the narrow hall partly opened. "May I come in?"

At sound of her voice, he sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair. She

made bold to look in at him. "Why, Tabs, you _are_ a late breakfaster.

Daddy told me you were planning to see me at eleven; to save you the

trouble, I hurried round."

Like a flurry of March sunshine, Terry entered.

II

He scarcely knew how to greet her. How does one greet a girl whose

permission he has yet to gain, whereas her father has already consented?

Moreover, there was his last memory of her, at midnight dodging into the

taxi to avoid him.

She spared him the trouble of deciding by holding out her hand. "I know

that you saw me. That's what I've come to talk about."

Her smile as she said it was both embarrassed and frank. She looked like

an honest youngster who had come voluntarily to confess and, if need be,

to be spanked. Tabs noticed that her lower lip was tremulous and that

she was whipping up her courage. His mind went back to days when she had

really been a child and he a man--when he had bound up cut fingers for

her, had taken her on fishing expeditions, had taught her to cast her

first fly and, as a reward, before the nursery lights went out, had been

allowed to see her snuggled safe in bed. Little Terry, she had been his

tiny sister in those days whom he had loved with no thought of

gain--just a small companion for whom he bought exciting presents

wherever he voyaged across the world--a doll's house in China, a quirt

in Mexico, a scarlet riding-saddle in Persia. It hurt him to see her

afraid of him now--afraid of him because he was about to offer her the

greatest of all presents. Was she afraid because he was too old for her?

"You don't need to talk about it unless you like," he said kindly.

"Whatever you do or have done is right."

"That's not true." She wrung her hands. "Oh, Tabs, you make it so hard

for me when you're generous. I haven't done right. I'm in a tangle. I

don't know whether what I'll do in the future will be any better."

They were still standing just as they had confronted each other when she

had entered. Tabs glanced round the room at the used breakfast-table,

Maisie's crumpled petition lying in the grate, the flood of sunlight and

the tops of the heads of passers-by stealing across the pane above the

stiff row of tulips. His eyes went back to the flower-face of this young

girl as she stood before him, fashionably attired and battling to

conceal the storm of her distress. The setting struck him as inadequate

and unprivate. The hats which stole by above the row of tulips seemed to

belong to spies. At any moment Ann might tap and request that she be

allowed to clear the table. He believed that in the next half-hour his

dream of the last five years was to be shattered; otherwise, if it had

not been to spare him, why should Terry have paid him so unconventional

a visit, at such an unconventional hour, when by every law of usage she

should have been waiting for him to call on her?

"How about upstairs?" he suggested. "In my study we shall be sure to be

undisturbed."

"No, Tabs, dear," and the little added word touched him strangely, "I've

got to say at once what has to be said. It's like waiting at the

dentist's--it's the waiting that's so wearing." Her face lit up with the

ghost of a smile. "When you've faced the real pain, it's over in a

second."

She seated herself. Reluctantly he followed her example. But when she

was seated, she found herself at a loss for words. She drew off her

gloves, and sat there folding and refolding them. He waited for her to

commence; the silence was unbroken, save for the laughter of children

playing in the Square and the occasional tapping of footsteps on the

pavement. He leant across the table and took her hand. "Terry, after all

these years you're not afraid of me? You don't need to be. Remember what

you've just said: it's the waiting that's so wearing; the real pain's

over in a second. Get the real pain over; then we'll plan for the best."

She looked up gratefully with eyes that were almost clear of trouble.

"You're gentle--so different from other men. I could almost love you; I

do love you. But not quite in the way---- You understand. I trust you

more than any one in the world."

"Then why----?"

"Ah, why?" she echoed. "That's what I wish you could tell me. Why should

I be able to offer more to--to some one else whom I trust less? So much

less?"

"But is that love, Terry? Isn't it infatuation? Could you keep on

offering? Loving means marrying and marrying means being together

without respite."

"I know," she nodded wisely. "I know all that. I know it so well that I

don't want to marry him or anybody--at least, not yet."

"Then why----?"

She took his other hand in hers, clinging to it as if she were drowning.

"That's the second time you've asked me why. I'll tell you. Because if I

don't say 'Yes,' I shall lose him. Even though I may not want him

forever, I can't bear to lose him for now. You must know the

feeling--you who are in love. And that's why," her voice choked with the

tears that she kept back from her eyes, "that's why I promised him last

night."

"Last night!" Tabs spoke slowly, trying to bring the finality home to

himself.

"Last night," she repeated; "the night that should have been yours. The

night I had promised to you for years." Then, in a flame of

self-derision, "Why don't you let go my hands and hate me, now that you

know how treacherous I am?"

"You're not treacherous." He smoothed the slim fingers as though he were

coaxing a child. "You mustn't be unjust to yourself. When we're in love

we're all apt to be unjust; I was yesterday, to this man. Injustice,

whether to oneself or to some one else, works most of our mischief; one

never knows where it ends. We can't control our hearts, Terry; you've

tried. You've tried to make your heart love me and it's refused. Don't

be miserable because of it; you couldn't help that. And this man--he's a

fine fellow. I always knew he was a fine fellow, until seeing him with

you yesterday made me jealous and blinded my eyes. He's a finer fellow

than ever now. You couldn't love him if he weren't."

She wasn't giving him the enthusiastic attention that his praise

deserved. Somewhere at the back of her mind there lay a doubt with which

she wrestled while he strove to comfort her. He believed that he had

guessed her doubt. "As for not trusting him the way you trust me," he

explained, "that's natural. We know the whole of each other's lives; our

families are the same kind of families and we share the same kind of

friends. Whereas----"

"Whereas," she broke in, "I know nothing about his past, where he lived,

who his people were or anything. I know nothing that he enjoyed or

laughed at before I saw him lying quietly in our hospital-ward in

France. I've questioned him as much as I dared; but always he grows

vague. There's something that he's hiding from me. I only gathered that

he had known you from the way he pricked up and listened whenever your

name was mentioned. That was why, without warning either of you,

I----You see, I had to find out. And then, when he met you face to face

he--he lied."

"Hush, Terry."

"But he did. He lied."

She had withdrawn her hands from his and sat back eyeing him with a

clear look of challenge. Tabs was at a loss to explain her change of

attitude. Yesterday she had been all for defending this man. What did

she gain by accusing him now that she was engaged to him? In any case

she had employed too ugly a word. And here was a strange state of

affairs, that it should be left to him to defend his successful rival.

"A man is not compelled to know another man unless he likes," he said

cautiously. "They may have met some time in the past under unfortunate

circumstances--circumstances which are embarrassing to remember. The man

to whom that memory is a disadvantage has a right to protect himself by

sweeping it clean from his mind."

"But not to lie about it to the girl he says he loves," she declared.

"There can be only one motive for such a denial: that it covers up

something which is dishonorable."

"But there never was anything dishonorable. That I swear."

"Then he believes that I would think it dishonorable," she insisted;

"which means that he doesn't trust me. That's the reason I can't trust

him in return. If we don't trust each other now, how can we hope that

things would be better if we married?"

Her logic was unanswerable, but she was arguing on the wrong side. At

what was she driving? He gave it up. Was she wanting him to tell her

where and when he and her future husband had met? The eagerness of her

silence seemed to demand as much. But there are rules to every game. No

pressure that she could bring to bear could make him tell her that. She

recognized those rules by refraining from putting her request into

words.

It was he who broke the silence. His tones were puzzled. "You come to me

on the morning that I had hoped to be engaged to you myself and you

confide all these secrets about this other man. You insist that neither

of you trusts the other and that you could find no happiness in

marriage. Then why, in heaven's name, Terry, did you pledge yourself to

him last night?"

"The fear of losing him----" Her face quivered pitifully. She was on the

verge of weeping. "He overheard what Daddy said about forbidding him the

house. It seemed our last time together. I couldn't bear that it should

be the last. It was to keep him near me for just a little longer that

I----"

Tabs rose and limped to the window. He dared not let himself go, the way

his instincts urged. They might carry him too far. She looked so much

like the little girl in short skirts he had known, as she sat there

bravely trying not to cry. He wanted to take her on his knees, as in the

old days. Now that she loved another man, he was not allowed to show her

comfort in that way any longer. That she should run to him for help and

yet love some one else, wounded his pride. What was the matter with him

that he had failed to stir her passion? Why could he appeal only to her

helplessness?

Inside the communal garden, with its surrounding railings and locked

gates, nurses in uniforms were pushing prams. Toddlers were tossing a

ball across the lawn and tottering after it with excited shouts. Beneath

a tree in the clear sunshine a young mother sat sewing. Other men's

women! Other men's babies! He would have to set out in search of his

kingdom afresh; all his old quests had been mistaken. But he was older

now and lame; he lacked the energy for a new journey. It seemed to him

that he would be alone and unwanted always.

A telegraph-girl was mounting the steps. He heard the bell ring without

interest. Gazing out, with his back towards Terry, he put to her what he

intended should be his final question. "You promised him last

night--then why did you hurry round to me this morning?"

Her dress rustled and her breathing quickened. "Because----" she

commenced and failed. He did not turn his head. She tried again in a

lower voice, "Because I want you to get my promise back."

He swung round and crossed to where she was still sitting. With his

hands resting lightly on her shoulders, he stared down at her golden

head. "But, Terry dear, why? Look at me. You must tell me."

She did not look at him. "I'm frightened. Nobody knows as yet; so before

they know---- Oh, Tabs, you're so clever; you can do anything." And then

she repeated whimperingly, like a child over a broken toy, "I want you

to get my promise back."

"Listen to me, Terry dearest," he spoke coaxingly, "don't be a baby.

What is it that you're asking me to do? Is it to see him for you and to

break the news that you've altered your mind over night. You know he'll

want reasons. What shall I tell----?"

She lifted her head, stretching back her throat so that all her face

looked up at him. "If you'll still have me----" His hands on her

shoulders tightened. "Say that you still want me, Tabs." For answer his

head slowly nodded, but his eyes never left her eyes. "Tell him that I'm

engaged to you, instead."

In the tumult of surprised desire he bent over her, but he got no

further, for a tap fell on the panel of the door and the handle turned.

He drew himself upright quickly and stepped back aloofly. "What is it?"

"A telegram, your Lordship." Ann entered. "I told the girl to wait in

case there was an answer."

He tore it open, glanced through it and handed it to Terry. To Ann he

said, "There won't be any answer."

Terry read, "_Shall be delighted to have you lunch with me to-day Savoy

Hotel one o'clock. Braithwaite._" She examined the address and looked up

startled, "But it's to you. It's--it's as though he knew we were

together. What made him send it?"

When Tabs answered there was no echo of her excitement in his voice. "I

wrote him yesterday asking him to call here. Evidently he preferred a

more public place."

She glanced at him shrewdly. "Why did you write him? You must have done

that between leaving me and coming to our house to dine. I know it's no

good my asking you." Her last words were more of a question than an

assertion. "I can see that it's no good my asking you." "No, Terry, it's

no good. Braithwaite's past is his own secret. But I can pledge you my

word that it bears no stain."

"Then why shouldn't he----?" She changed her question. "Shall you meet

him to-day at lunch?"

"Yes."

"Shall you tell him what we've----?"

"Not all of it, Terry."

"Why not all of it? Which part are you going to leave out?"

He came again to where she sat and stood gazing down on her. "Terry, why

do you want me to tell him? Why can't you tell him yourself? It would be

kinder."

"Because---- Oh, Tabs, you do want me, don't you? Because I daren't

trust myself to see him."

"And so you want me to tell him we're engaged because you daren't trust

yourself to tell him! Isn't that it?"

She nodded.

"And you daren't trust yourself to tell him because the moment you saw

him you would fall again under his spell?"

This time she didn't nod, but her eyes gave assent.

"And what does that mean, little Terry? Whether you call it love or

fascination, it means that even though you do not see him, your heart is

his at present. It means that against your will he's infinitely more to

you than I am. It means that you only ask me to become engaged to you

in order that you may be strong to break his spell. It doesn't mean that

I will be anything more to you to-morrow than I was last night, when you

gave him your pledge."

She tried to speak, but he halted her words. "I'm older than you are.

Have you thought of that? I'm not the man I was; I'm lame. You can like

me as a friend and believe me indispensable; but, if I were your

husband, fifteen years from now when you're only the age I am

to-day----Have you considered that? My dear, I love you so well, that

I'll never let you tie yourself to me, till you're as certain that you

can't risk meeting me without loving me as you're certain at this moment

that you daren't risk meeting this other man. When you can do that----"

The tenderness in his eyes hurt her. "Directly I can do that, I'll tell

you, Tabs. And--and I believe I could almost tell you now."

"If you can now," he said, "there's a test. Will you take my place at

lunch and tell Braithwaite?"

She shrank, and tried to smile, and shook her head.

"Then it'll be I who'll have to do it." He tried to assume a cheerful

manner. "But I can't give him your reason about being engaged to me. If

it were true, which it isn't, it wouldn't be generous. If I carry any

message, the only honorable thing for me to do is to inform him of

everything."

"Of everything?" she questioned.

"Yes, of everything. I must tell him where the trouble lies and give

him his chance to be frank with you. Only when that is done, shall I be

free to do my utmost to win you for myself."

She took his hands and drew herself up to him. "Do what you like, Tabs.

As long as I know that I've not lost you," her voice became small and

almost happy, "I'm content."

She was tiptoeing against him. The next thing he knew he was kissing her

warm red mouth.

III

She was gone. He had watched her from the steps until she had reached

the end of the Square where the swirl of passing traffic had engulfed

her. At the last moment she had looked back and smiled. For some minutes

after she had vanished, he had stood there recalling the way in which

her brave little figure had tripped out of sight among the blustering

March sunshine and shadows. A child, he thought, impulsive and lacking

in perspective, with a child's alacrity for drying its tears and

believing in a future happiness. How would she regard this morning years

hence in the after-glow of experience? Would she find nothing in its

calamities but foolishness? And what relation would he himself bear to

her when she had arrived at that stoical calm?

He reentered the house. In the room where they had been together the

fragrance of her presence still lingered. The chair was pushed back,

just as she had risen from it to lift her warm, red lips to his. How

smooth they were! Again like a child's! Everything about her was young

and undeveloped. She had kissed simply and gratefully, with none of the

blundering, sweet surrender with which a woman clings to her lover. If

she had ever kissed Braithwaite, she had not kissed him like that.

And then Tabs was overcome with a reluctant remorse, which was tinged

with a shameful sense of triumph. She had offered him her lips in

gratitude; they had kindled in him the flames of passion. For the moment

he had devoured her with kisses--her eyes, lips, cheeks and hair.

If he were to keep himself in hand, he must fill his days with

interests--_new_ interests. He must move among people and normalize

himself. He must fight against the melancholy of his obsession. His eyes

chanced to rest on the crumpled sheet of scented note-paper tossed into

the empty grate. Stooping, he picked it up and smoothed it out. This

problem of Maisie would at least divert him--besides, he had promised to

do what he could for Adair. He noted the Chelsea address and reread the

contents with its sly humility and hint of coquetry: "I have been given

to understand that you are exceedingly anxious to make my acquaintance.

If this is so, I shall be at home when you call to-morrow afternoon."

She had been quite certain that he would call when she wrote those

words. They had all the assurance of one who was fully persuaded of her

own powers of charm and beauty.

"Again, Maisie P.," he apostrophized her, "I'm bound to acknowledge that

you know more about me than I know about myself. I didn't know that I

wanted to make your acquaintance at the time when you were writing this

letter. I was quite sure that I wasn't going to call upon you when I

read it. In both cases you were the better informed, for I shall be with

you as soon as I've fulfilled my Savoy engagement."

An hour later, as he was on his way out, he found Ann waiting for him at

the foot of the stairs.

"I don't want to bother your Lordship."

"You're not bothering me. What is it?"

"I've been thinking that if I wrote the particulars down myself----"

"The particulars! What particulars?"

"About Braithwaite, sir. There were things you wouldn't know or might

leave out. So I thought that if I stated my case myself, it might make

things more sensible-like to your Lordship's friend at the War Office."

"It might. Are those the particulars you have in your hand?"

"Yes, sir. But they're kind of private. I shouldn't like them to be read

by just anybody. That's why---- Perhaps, if your Lordship was seeing

your friend----"

"As it happens," Tabs spoke with a careless air, "I shall be lunching

with him to-day. I can deliver your letter direct."

"Your Lordship is very kind."

"Not in the least, Ann. And remember, whatever happens, that Braithwaite

was brave and he'd expect you to be brave. If you're not---- D'you know

what you'll do? Whether he's alive or dead, you'll let him down."

Her head lifted proudly, despite the tears in her eyes. "No fear of

that, sir. I'll never let my man down."

"That's the way to talk. And don't worry too much. You know the saying

about night always being blackest at the hour before the dawn? If we'd

only all believe that and cheer up----"

He let himself out. As he walked down the Square he tried to stroll

jauntily; probably Ann was watching.

"I could do worse than live up to that advice myself," he thought. Then,

"And so I will, by the Lord Harry."

IV

As he passed through the doors into the Savoy, he consulted his watch;

he was five minutes late. He halted in the middle of the foyer, gazing

round. There was the usual collection of officers on leave or out of

hospital, British, Overseas, American, all of them out for a good time

and debonair. There were the usual rows of expectant girls, wondering

whether their men had forgotten the appointment or whether the fault was

theirs in mistaking the place of rendezvous. Here and there through the

crowd worried and assertive literary individuals wandered, searching for

invariably unpunctual publishers. As though Time pressed behind them

with his scythe, hatchet-faced journalists from Fleet Street were making

a bee-line for the restaurant. In contrast to this perfervid haste,

self-possessed young queens of the footlights lolled with their

admirers, importantly believing they were recognized. All the medley of

London as it used to be, is and will be again, was there; but nowhere

could Tabs descry a General's uniform.

He went to the desk to enquire whether there was any message for him. At

mention of the General his enquiry was received with marked respect.

Yes, General Braithwaite lived there. No message had been left, but he

might be in his room. While they were telephoning and he was waiting,

Tabs remembered and smiled at remembering. Under quite other

circumstances, on a former occasion, he and Braithwaite had stayed there

together. The clerk interrupted his reflections. "The General's not in

his room---- Ah, here he comes, your Lordship."

Tabs turned quickly and looked in vain at first. He did not become aware

of his host till he was standing almost at his elbow. Then he held out

his hand, "How are you, General? You must pardon me for not having

picked you out at once. Like all of us, you look different in mufti."

"More like the old Braithwaite your Lordship used to know?" The General

smiled. "Well, I have to thank that experience for this at least--that I

know where to find the proper tailors. How about lunch? Are you ready?"

Against a window looking out on the Embankment, one of the best tables

had been reserved--a further proof of the new esteem in which

Braithwaite was held. The head-waiter hurried up immediately to advise

what he should eat and passed on his orders to subordinates with as much

solemnity as if they had been the details for an offensive. "Yes, my

General." "No, my General." When everything had been chosen and there

was nothing to do but wait for the first dish to be served, Braithwaite

leaned across to Tabs, "Your Lordship is amused. I don't blame you."

Tabs drew out his case and offered him a cigarette. "I'll make a bargain

with you, sir. Let's cut out the unfriendly formalities. I'll call you

Braithwaite if you'll call me Taborley."

The General blew a puff of smoke into the air and watched it disappear

before he answered. In civilian clothes he bore a more distinct

resemblance to the man he had been; and yet the resemblance only served

to emphasize the change that had taken place in him. The old Braithwaite

had been a slight-built, gentle creature, loyal to the point of

self-effacement, soft-spoken and dependent on the appreciation of a

master for his happiness. The new Braithwaite both in body and character

had hardened. His gray eyes had concentrated into command. His

clean-shaven cheeks and small military mustache gave him an expression

which was tolerantly ironic. The moment you saw him, you knew beyond

question that he was ruthlessly aware of what he wanted out of life. He

was a sword which had lain hidden in its scabbard and was now withdrawn,

glistening, intimidating and fiercely pointed.

Tabs compared his forceful appearance with his own, where in a mirror

their reflections sat facing each other. There was little to choose

between them in outward gentility, despite the immense disparity of

their chances. There was no fault to find; everything about Braithwaite

bespoke confidence and refinement--his neatly brushed chestnut hair, his

well-cut gray tweeds, his black, woven tie with the horse-shoe scarf-pin

of diamonds, his fine white teeth, his trim mustache. He looked a man of

iron will and unswerving decision, destined from birth to take control

of crises and to shoulder responsibilities. As a last humanizing touch,

there was a hint of cavalier devilment about him, of the gambler who was

also a sportsman.

The puff of smoke had faded. The General's eyes came back with a twinkle

to his guest. "You're right. Between us this 'Your Lordship and General'

business would grow tiresome. I never thought the day would come when

I'd call you Taborley, however. As for myself, plain Braithwaite's a

little reminiscent---- Still, we'll consider that part of our compact

settled. And now, what?"

"Do we need to hurry matters?" Tabs questioned. "This isn't a military

court of enquiry. It wasn't my idea to meet you as though we were

maintaining an armed neutrality. We----"

"But aren't we?" Braithwaite interposed with an air of amused

good-humor. Then he lowered his voice, "When you parted from me I was

your valet. You didn't hear from me for the best part of four years and

believed me dead. You came back to find that I was your superior officer

and had tangled things up for you pretty badly. You've threatened me

with your knowledge of a previous love-affair and you have it in your

power to tangle up my future in return. Under the circumstances what

else is possible but an armed neutrality?"

"Let me state the case from another and, I think, a juster angle." Tabs

paused to knock the ash from his cigarette. "Before the war you were my

valet whom I had always treated as my friend. I believe at that time, if

it had come to the show down, you were the man who was closest to my

affections and whom I trusted most in all the world. I'm trying to speak

soberly, Braithwaite, without any color of exaggeration. We'd been in

many tight corners together--perhaps the tightest was when they tried to

execute us in Mexico. Anyway, we'd always played the game by each other.

In 1914 we both joined in the ranks; in 1918 you finished up as a

General, while I was a first lieutenant. There's only one way to account

for that: up to 1914 you'd never had your chance; when your chance came,

you proved yourself the better man. In a way, though it's difficult for

me to confess it, I can understand and sympathize with Terry's

preference. Women admire bravery and merit. Ann and I admired them in

you; we knew they were there before the war made them public."

He took a breath while he watched what effect the mention of Ann's name

had had. The General's expression from being interested and generous had

grown suddenly obstinate and set. Tabs hurried on. "So I can understand

Terry's preference. And yet, as you've owned, despite your advantages, I

hold the winning card. I can joker all your aces by telling--well, the

things to which you have referred." He leant forward across the table.

"I don't want to have to tell. To do that I should have to make myself

still more inferior to you than you have proved me to be in the hardest

of all tests. There's only one occasion that would compel----"

"And that?" the General enquired coldly.

Before Tabs could answer, a Major in the Guards who was passing had

halted. "Hullo, sir!" he exclaimed, addressing Braithwaite. "I was

intending to hunt you up. I've heard a rumor about your transferring to

the Regulars. Why don't you have a shot at my outfit?"

Braithwaite introduced Lord Taborley perfunctorily, then returned to his

friend's question. "A shot at your outfit! It's too expensive. I've got

to make money. Besides, to become a Regular I'd have to sink my rank and

live on my pay at that. I can't afford it. To tell the truth, I'm

already out of the Army. I handed over the keys of my desk at the War

Office this morning. That phase is ended."

"You did! Well, if you've got something better----" The Guardsman nodded

assent to a signaled question from a companion at another table. "Don't

lose touch with your old set, sir," he added cheerfully as he moved

away. "Send us the map-location of your next dug-out."

The lunch arrived. Dishes were obsequiously offered for inspection and

approval. While the meal was being served, there was no opportunity for

private conversation. Tabs was pondering one fact which he had

overheard. "So, he, too, was demobbed yesterday! That's why he took his

last chance to become engaged. The glamour of a uniform---- And to-day

he's back where he started. Poor chap!"

The over-zealous waiter had at last moved out of range. Braithwaite

lifted up his dagger gaze. "And what is that occasion--the one occasion

which would compel you to publish my past? Perhaps I can save you the

trouble of putting it into words. You mean if I dared to become engaged

to Terry Beddow? I am engaged to her. I dared last night; so I must

leave you to do your worst."

He smiled with quiet triumph; gradually his smile faded into puzzlement.

"You don't seem surprised."

"I'm not," said Tabs. "Why should I be? I myself supposed, that I was

engaged to her last night."

It was Braithwaite who showed amazement. "You! Last night!"

"Yes, I, last night."

Braithwaite set down his knife and fork. The bleak look came into his

eyes that had given him the nickname at the Front of "Steely Jack." He

was silent for a full five seconds; then he said, "Lord Taborley, you're

a man of your word, but I find it difficult to believe that."

Tabs' voice was both quiet and kindly when he replied, "You'll find it

difficult to believe a good many things before I've ended. Evidently

Terry never told you that for over four years she and I had had an

understanding that, when peace came, if I survived, we would be married.

Last night, while you were proposing to her, I was asking her father's

consent. While I was gaining his consent, you were being accepted."

The blank look of astonishment which had overspread the General's face,

quickly gave way to one of generous compassion. "On my word of honor,

Lord Taborley, I never knew that. I thought--please forgive me--that you

were interfering merely out of snobbishness. I ought to have known

better. All my dealings with you should have---- I begin to understand."

Tabs' old sense of friendship for the man--his man--was coming back.

"You begin," he said, "but you don't fully understand. You and I have to

come down to earth. Not unnaturally up till now you've chosen to treat

me as an enemy. Perhaps I was when I sent you those two letters

yesterday. But I'm not now. I, too, am learning. There was a coster who

let me off arrest. Did I tell you about him? I forget. The reason he

gave taught me a lot, 'You and me was pals out there.' And you and I

were pals out there, Braithwaite--not master and man or junior and

senior officer. It would be a burning shame if, now that the war's

ended, we should fall to squabbling among ourselves."

"And yet the fact remains," said Braithwaite, "that I, who used to be

your servant, have cut you out of Terry. How are we going to remain pals

in a case like that?"

Tabs flinched at the bluntness of the words, "cut you out of Terry." For

a moment he felt inclined to say right out, "You're mistaken. She's sent

me to get her promise back." Instead he said, "How are we going to

remain pals! That's what I'm here to talk about. I've made up my mind

how I'm going to act. It's about you that I'm concerned. I'm jealous for

you, Braithwaite. I'm proud of the fact that, whatever you are to-day,

you were once my man--my man in the old clan sense. I want to see you

carry yourself as bravely in your new fight as you did in the one that's

ended. I think of the two this peace fight will be the more difficult

test, especially for men like yourself. I lost caste during the war,

while for you it proved a social opportunity. Now that we're back at

peace, the process is likely to be reversed. The qualities which gave

you high rank in a world at war won't fetch the same market value.

You'll have to fight afresh--only this time it'll be against the

temptation to sink below your own high standards through bitterness. In

a General's uniform you could go anywhere. It was your passport. No one

made enquiries. Once you're demobilized, the world asks for other

credentials--credentials as to your profession, bank-account, friends,

birth. What I'm trying to say is this: there's nothing dishonorable in

your past save your own assumption that it was dishonorable. And I want

to assure you that it isn't my purpose to drag you down. I couldn't.

There's only one man who can do that--yourself. But _you_ can drag

yourself below anything that you were if you go on refusing to play

fair."

Braithwaite's face went white beneath its tan. He fell to stroking his

mustache. "You take a lot upon yourself. It's the first time that I've

ever been accused of not playing fair."

"But _I_ accuse you of it." Tabs spoke with an equal quietness. To any

one watching they would have appeared to be two handsome men of the

soldier type engaged in desultory conversation. "I have to accuse you of

it. I want you to glance through this before you answer me."

He drew from his pocket and passed across the letter which Ann had given

him that morning--the letter which, to quote her words, "Might make

things seem more sensible-like to your Lordship's friend at the War

Office." It was unaddressed, but as Braithwaite's eye fell on the

sprawling handwriting of the contents, the deep flush which crept across

his face betrayed the fact that it was recognized. He commenced to read

the sheet with a studied carelessness; as he proceeded, the carelessness

gave way to a troubled frown. For some time after he had finished, he

sat motionless. When he looked up, his mood was contemptuous. "So this

is your price?"

"No price was mentioned."

"But it was implied. You tell me that, at the time that I was being

accepted, you yourself were hoping to be engaged to Miss Beddow; then

you hand me this letter. What do you suppose I infer? What would any man

infer? That your promise to keep my existence a secret from Ann is

conditional on the breaking of my engagement with Miss Beddow."

"Handing you Ann's letter wouldn't do that. Your engagement with Miss

Beddow is already broken."

Braithwaite jerked his chair back and stared. Then the audacity of such

an assertion touched his sense of humor. He fell to laughing. "That at

least is an invention."

Tabs showed no resentment. There was something disturbingly convincing

about his self-possession. "Didn't I tell you," he asked patiently,

"that you'd find it difficult to believe a good many things before I had

ended? I had an appointment to see Miss Beddow at her father's house

this morning at eleven. Before I'd finished breakfast she was visiting

me instead. She had called to make two requests: that I would see you

to-day and get her promise back, and that I'd become engaged to her

myself."

Braithwaite lurched forward, folding his arms on the table. His voice

was thick with passion when he spoke. "What you tell me sounds mad; but

you'd gain nothing by telling it if it were not true."

"Nothing," Tabs confirmed.

"No, nothing. If it weren't true, I could go to the telephone and

disprove your falsehood inside of ten minutes."

"You could."

"Then it is true--which means that you've ousted me. And that's why you

can afford to be so calm and Christ-like. I've been wondering how you'd

contrived this Galilean display of charity."

"You've not heard me out." Tabs still spoke with friendliness. "While we

were together your telegram arrived and I agreed to be the bearer of her

message. But as for her second request, that I should become engaged to

her, I refused that point-blank."

"You what?" The anger cleared from Braithwaite's face, leaving the

chalky mask of a tragic harlequin. When he spoke again it was humbly.

"You can't blame me for not believing you. You jump about. You say

several things which seem to point to a definite conclusion and then at

the last moment you change it. I don't know whether you do it to amuse

yourself at my expense or whether it's merely the way your mind works.

At any rate, it's cruel--this cat and mouse game. I wish you'd be

direct."

"That's what I wish to be. You could help me if you'd ask questions."

Braithwaite sighed, wearied beyond endurance. He was becoming less like

the General and more like the old dependent Braithwaite every second.

"You wanted to marry her last night, only to find she'd promised herself

to me already. Then she comes to you this morning, offering herself, and

you refuse her. That doesn't make sense. Why did you refuse her?"

"Because if I'd taken her at her word, I shouldn't have been playing

fair."

At the recurrence of that phrase "playing fair," a momentary annoyance

crept into Braithwaite's eyes. "I've always heard," he commenced, "that

in love and war----"

"Everything's fair," Tabs ended his quotation. "Well, in this case, it

isn't. It was because she realized, after she'd promised herself to you,

that in love everything isn't fair, that she asked me to get her promise

back."

"You mean as regards yourself? She'd begun to feel that she wasn't

treating you handsomely?"

"I don't mean as regards myself. You were the cause of her change of

mind."

"I!" Braithwaite's bewilderment made him hostile. "How could I have

caused her to change her mind? I parted with her after midnight; it must

have been shortly after nine that she was seeing you. I held no

communication with her in any shape or form during the eight or nine

hours that elapsed."

"Nevertheless, you were the cause. She realized in the meanwhile that in

love everything isn't fair. It isn't fair to ignore a young girl's

happiness in order to win her hand. You had done that; though she has no

proofs, instinctively she feels it."

Braithwaite shook his head and thrust himself back with the gesture of a

man whose patience is completely at an end. "I haven't the vaguest idea

what you're hinting at."

"Then I'll be brutally explicit. You've at no time told her who you were

or where you came from before you made a name for yourself. You've

evaded all her questions. You told a palpable falsehood in her presence

when you insisted that you had never known me. You're perfectly aware

that, if you approached her father, all the facts about your past, which

you're suppressing, would most certainly come out. Your courting has

been clandestine, behind the back of her family. It seems perfectly

obvious that you're trying to lure her into a runaway match. She has

grounds for believing that you do not trust her and, because of that,

although you fascinate her, she finds it impossible to trust you in

return. She trusts you so little that she did not dare to risk facing

you and sent me in her stead. She's so sure that a marriage with you

would be unfortunate that, in order to save herself from it, she's

willing to become engaged to me, whom she loves only as a friend. You'll

wonder why I tell you all this. It's because I want her to be happy. If

you really are the man for her, she must have you. But you'll never have

the remotest chance of winning her unless you make a clean breast----"

"If I did my chances would be at an end."

"If you believe that," Tabs sought for the most lenient words, "you know

what you're doing. You'd despise to cheat at cards, but you don't mind

cheating the woman whom you profess to love best.--And then there's

Ann."

"I'd rather not discuss Ann." The abrupt pain in Braithwaite's tone

betrayed the grumbling ache of an old wound. "I think even you will

grant that there are some things in a man's heart which are privately

sacred. Ann lies entirely outside the bounds of all justifiable

interference on your part."

It took an effort for Tabs to bring himself to break down the barrier of

reticence which this depth of feeling had imposed. "I'm sorry, General,

but I can't agree with you." He waited for the expected protest. When it

did not come, he carried on reluctantly, "I have a high regard for Ann.

She's one of my household and that makes me responsible for her to an

extent. I can't allow her to be tortured any longer with suspense--she's

had more than three years of this horrid nightmare, hovering between

hope and dread. Every day of the three years has been unnecessary.

Whether you break or keep your promise to her is your concern. Whether

she takes action against you when she knows the truth, is hers. But she

has the right to know. To see that she knows comes within the bounds of

any decent man's justifiable interference. One of us must tell her; the

news would come with less grace from myself. But for you to wriggle out

of your dilemma with silence, while she goes on breaking her heart, is

cowardly--just as cowardly as if you'd deserted in the face of the

enemy. I've no doubt you've sentenced more than one poor wretch to be

shot at sunrise for doing that."

Tabs pulled out his watch. He had said everything. So far as he was

concerned the conversation was at an end. It was nearly three o'clock.

Time had traveled quickly. He was surprised at the lateness of the hour.

Now that his intentness was relaxed, he let his gaze wander. The room

was nearly empty. Most of the gay little ladies who had chattered across

the tables to their recently recovered lovers or husbands, had tripped

away to continue their spree of celebration at a matinee or in an orgy

of shopping. Those who were left were putting on their wraps or sipping

the last of their coffee under the reproachful eyes of waiters. Across

the window in a brown-gray streak flowed the wind-flecked highway of the

Thames.

Braithwaite beckoned for his bill. After the humiliation of what had

been said it irked Tabs to have to see him pay it. The trend of the

conversation had helped to strip him of the arrogance of his military

honors. The mercenary subserviency of the man who handed him his

account, seemed to arouse him to the landslide that had taken place in

his self-esteem. He made a conscious effort to pull himself together.

While he waited for his change, he broke the silence.

"I believe you meant well by coming here. It would be foolish for me to

pretend that I'm altogether grateful--grateful for your way of

expressing most of the things that we've discussed together. At the same

time, Lord Taborley, I owe you an apology if at any point I've misjudged

your intentions. As regards Ann, you err in justice when you hold me

accountable for all the causes of her tragedy. Both she and I, and Miss

Beddow for the matter of that, are the victims of circumstances. It's

scarcely my fault that I've outgrown Ann; I'm no more to blame for that

than Terry is for having fallen in love with a man who was your servant.

_I_ didn't make the war. _I_ didn't promote myself from a valet to a

General. _I_ didn't even consciously allure Terry. She fascinates me as

much as I fascinate her: I fought against her fascination at first.--But

to get back to Ann, I let her slip out of my life because I wanted to

spare her. I thought it would be easier for her to believe me dead than

to be told that she was--was discarded. I couldn't be expected to

foresee that she would display this awkward loyalty of hoping. I didn't

know what had happened to her. She's a good-looking girl; I'd pictured

her as married to a man of her own class, until you flung this

bombshell at me. I'm not callous. Don't misapprehend me. I can still

think of her with tenderness. But as for ever treating her again as my

equal---- It would be as impossible for me to resume the old relations

with her as it would be for your Lordship to commence them." He waited

for some word of criticism or encouragement. When Tabs only nodded

non-committally, he proceeded more slowly. "I don't know what I'm going

to do. I'm fully aware, now that the war is ended, that as a has-been

General who rose from the ranks, I have no marketable value. I have no

specialized training to offer to a commercial world which calls for

experts. The only knowledge that I have to sell is the old knowledge

that you used to purchase. My house of cards has collapsed. To be

unwisely frank, my financial resources are limited to little more than

my war-gratuity."

"And yet you're anxious to marry Terry," Tabs suggested; "to marry her

without letting her know about any of these handicaps of which she would

have to share the penalty."

Braithwaite's head went up with a soldierly jerk. The bleak look came

into his eyes. He was "Steely Jack" at that moment. "I have the

confidence to believe," he said proudly, "that I shall go as far in

peace as I did in war. Never to own that you're beaten, never to squeal

when you're hurt, never to retreat from a position when once it has been

captured must count back here for as much as it did out there. In France

I had the reputation for never losing an inch of trench. I don't intend

to lose an inch of trench now. My back is to the wall. For the present

I can't afford to do anything gratuitously charitable; by the smallest

waste of energy I may defeat myself. To hold any correspondence with Ann

at this moment might mean the slamming in my own face of every door of

opportunity. I'll do my stretcher-bearing when I've won; not a second

before."

Against his will, while he listened, the unscrupulous valor of the man

stirred Tabs to admiration. Only the after-event could prove whether

this verbal display of fireworks was only bombast. "And so that's your

ultimatum?" he asked with disquieting sanity.

"Yes, if that's what you call it."

The waiter had returned with the receipted bill. Braithwaite was picking

up the change. Not looking at Tabs he said, "A few minutes ago you were

consulting your watch. I believe you have an engagement."

"I have. But if we can arrive at any more definite conclusion by talking

longer, I'll skip it. It's of no importance."

Braithwaite glanced up. "Not to you, perhaps; but it may be to her."

With that he commenced to lead the way out, choosing a winding path

through the maze of tables. Not until they were traversing the great

gold and crimson lounge, with its ornate furnishings, did Tabs catch up

with him to ask his question. "How did you know about my engagement and

whether it was important or not?"

Braithwaite answered carelessly, "It's with Maisie, isn't it? I heard

Terry suggest to her that she should make it. She's a nice little woman.

I shouldn't like to be the cause of her disappointment. She was looking

forward----" The rest was lost as a flunkey requested the registered

number of whatever Tabs had left in the cloak-room.

While they waited for the hat and cane to be produced, Tabs made a last

attempt to persuade the General to commit himself to some promised

course of action. "No one would be more pleased to see you succeed than

myself. I'm not trying to hamper you. Neither is Terry; but she insists

that unless things are to terminate between you, she must know the

truth. Frankness with Terry necessitates frankness with Ann. You'll

never succeed, however great your courage, unless you start with your

honor solvent. Ann's beneath you, you say--that's why you've outgrown

her. It's not my business to dispute the fact. I didn't want to

introduce the class view of things; but, by the same showing, you're

beneath Terry. She's young to-day: through a lifetime she might outgrow

_you_. She's as much your social superior as you claim to be Ann's.

You've discarded Ann on the ground of inequality of rank. In your case

Terry's family have a perfect right to raise the same objection."

"Not at all." The answer came like the crack of a whip. Braithwaite drew

himself up with the pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the

checker-board of life and death. "The two cases afford no parallel. Ann

and Terry have remained in the social stations to which they were born,

while I--I stand outside all such ready-made, rule of thumb

classifications. By sheer impetus of personality I have lifted myself

out of the rut, so that not even you, with all your omniscience, dare

prophesy how far I am going or where I shall end."

It was plain that further talk would be useless. "I'm afraid I must be

going," Tabs said. "I wish you very good luck. I hope we part friends.

And of course you understand that I now consider myself entirely free to

do my utmost to win Terry for myself."

He extended his hand. Braithwaite made no motion to take it. He held

himself erect as if prepared for an affront. His tones were icy when he

spoke. "Before I shake hands with you, Lord Taborley, I have to know

what you mean by your utmost. With so many playing-cards out against me,

I don't stand the ghost of a show unless---- Perhaps I have no right to

expect it; I never asked quarter from any man. I was going to say,

unless you intend to be gallant----"

Tabs pocketed his hand and turned to limp into the sunlit thunder of the

Strand. "The merciful receive mercy, General. Perhaps we shall shake

hands some other day. How gallant I am depends entirely upon yourself."

V

He emerged into the swollen thoroughfare, where the traffic roared and

jostled like a torrent through a mountain gorge towards the broader

freedom of Trafalgar Square. He turned westward, walking swiftly for

the first hundred yards, rather fearing that he might be followed. Then

he slowed down; swift walking made his limp too painfully obvious.

He was dissatisfied with both himself and Braithwaite. He felt as though

he had gone to meet some one in a wood and had heard only the muttering

of a voice and the rustle of retreating footsteps. "If I had only seen

his face," he thought.

In recalling Braithwaite, he found himself picturing two persons, of

both of whom he had had separate and distinct glimpses: the one the

loyal man, who in years gone by had served him faithfully and shared so

many of his adventures; the other the arrogant, red-tabbed superior, who

had stolen his happiness without warning. It was impossible to resolve

the two into one. The first he still regarded with affection. The

second---- He had never allowed himself to hate any one. Hatred he held

to be back of breeding--a weak man's subterfuge for acknowledging

self-distrust. Because he had come so near to hating, he accused himself

of censoriousness. "If I had only seen his face--the real man beneath

the pretense--I might have understood and helped him," he muttered.

[Illustration: _Tabs extended his hand. Braithwaite made no motion to

take it._]

And now he was going to a fresh encounter where even more sympathy would

be required. It would be easy to condemn Maisie P. Lockwood. On a

superficial judgment she merited nothing else. Three husbands in four

and a half years, plus a risky flirtation with a married man were not

the credentials of an honorable character. If he followed the advice

of Sir Tobias Beddow, he would seek to assess her price at once. But he

had never been accustomed to regard women in that light--as a sex whose

virtue could be inflated or depressed by the increase or shrinkage of a

balance at the bank. Actually he knew very little about women; riding as

a knight-errant, with the wonder in his eyes of the mystery that might

surprise him round the luck of any corner, he had never given himself

much time to learn. His ideas about women were Tennysonian. He liked to

believe that they were free from temptations, more true in their

emotions, more generous in their affections, more unerring and unstained

than men. He extended to them all the reverent tenderness with which he

regarded his mothers memory. In this he saw nothing quixotic; to him the

most hoydenish girl was a potential mother, whose body possessed a

sacredness quite apart from herself as a slim, adventurous ark which

would bear the future of the race across the deluge of the ages. He

knew, as a matter of fact, that all women were invariably neither saints

nor angels; but he clung to his chivalrous superstition as a man prays,

though he receives no answers to his prayers. To the recorded cynicism

of experimenters in temptation he flung back the challenge of a sadder

cynic, "We're all in the gutter; but some of us are looking at the

stars."

So in this matter of Maisie, he argued, she couldn't be as shallow as

her history would indicate. She was Terry's friend; that, in itself, was

a proof of goodness. Terry had been so anxious for him to meet and

comprehend her that she had gone behind his back to prompt the

appointment. Well, he would make a better job of this second interview

than he had of the one that was just ended. He must approach it, at any

rate, without prejudice.

While thinking these thoughts he reached Charing Cross. Already he was

weary with so small an exertion. He halted, debating whether he should

struggle further. Then he became aware of wounded Tommies, chiefly

Overseas troops, Canadians and Australians, who from their first landing

in England had chosen this quarter of a mile as their happy

hunting-ground. They stood propped up against the pavement; they sat

among the pigeons on the parapets of Trafalgar Square. They were

laughing and chaffing, those one-legged, one-armed, derelict crusaders

in their atrocious hospital uniforms. They were thousands of miles from

their one and only woman; but their drawn faces grinned cheerfully and

their jaws were squared in the old, invincible, obstinate determination

never to admit they were down-hearted. The sight of them filled him with

strength. Though he saw them only fugitively through gaps in the tide of

traffic, he felt their companionship. He would always feel it--the fine,

shared courage of men out of sight, who had adventured for an ideal as

his companions.

He crossed the top of Whitehall, passed beneath the Admiralty Arch and

entered the garnished, graveled, tree-bordered spaciousness of the Mall.

His old sense returned--the confidence which the Mall always gave to

him--of Empire and world-wideness. As he strolled along, he noticed a

board which informed the public that, by following a certain path, one

would arrive at the Passport Office. Hidden in the greenness, set down

in the bed of an ornamental lake which had been drained when the terror

of air raids had threatened, he made out a low-built, sprawling shed. It

was like a glimpse of romance. The path which led to its doorway was the

first few hundred yards along the road that ran to Rio, Fiji and Tibet.

One had but to enter and the journey was commenced. The sight reminded

him of something which he had forgotten; that, though every other

delight failed, he still possessed the wideness of the world. He could

sail away. There were islands of the sea--Stevenson's Samoa, Conrad's

Malay Archipelago. If people proved disappointing, there were always the

painted solitudes which human disillusions had not withered and could

not defile. It was a loophole worth remembering.

Outside Buckingham Palace he made an unpremeditated surrender. A taxi

was prowling along by the curb as slowly as regulations allowed. He

raised his stick automatically as he caught the driver's eye. When the

cab had halted, again he procrastinated with the handle of the door in

his hand.

"Where to?" the driver enquired for the second time.

"To Brompton Square," he ordered uncertainly.

The cab was already moving when he changed his mind. Standing up and

leaning out of the window, "No. To Chelsea," he shouted above the

throbbing of the engine. Then drawing out Maisie's crumpled letter, he

read from it the address.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

THE COMPLICATIONS OF MAISIE

I

Tabs was not very familiar with Chelsea. He had seen it from the river a

score of times, red-walled, umbrageous and old-fashioned. But of the

district itself he knew next to nothing, save that up to the war it had

been the favorite roosting-place of short-haired women and long-haired

men. He wondered whether Maisie's hair was short. He decided in the

negative. To have attracted three husbands in four and a half years she

must be outwardly conventional. An unconventional woman might persuade

one man to marry her, but not three in such rapid succession. She

probably belonged to the apparently harmless, sympathetic, sisterly,

domestic type. And yet she must be something more than conventional;

millions of merely conventional women lacked the prowess to anchor only

one man in all the years of their life, whereas, judging by the Adair

incident, Maisie had not yet completed her list of husbands. There was

an undefined danger in coming into contact with such a woman, which lent

this expedition to Chelsea an atmosphere of adventure.

Did she know for what purpose he was visiting her? If she did, she was a

bold woman--a strategist. Her position was strengthened by his coming to

her in the guise of an invited guest. Then he remembered that he had

made a bargain with himself to meet her with a mind unclouded by

prejudice.

He had been traveling mean thoroughfares, when suddenly the cab swung

into an old-world street of dignified respectability and turned again

abruptly into a tiny quadrangle of color-washed, stucco-fronted,

timbered houses. In the center was a lawn, surrounded with white posts

between which black painted chains hung in loops; the apparent intention

was to create the illusion of a village-green. Tabs entered instantly

into the spirit of the game--the littleness and childishness of the

attempt at quaintness. He liked the bijou privacy of the Court, its

greenness and tidiness, and the absurdity of the narrow windows which

glinted at him like spectacles. But there was something that he missed.

The driver had climbed down and was opening the door. "Mulberry Tree

Court, mister. I forget which number you told me; but there ain't so

much of it that you're likely to lose yourself."

"But where's the mulberry tree?" Tabs asked. There was in his voice the

discontent of a disappointed child.

"There never was no mulberry tree," the man replied in all seriousness.

"Well, if there isn't a mulberry tree," Tabs laughed, "I suppose we must

make shift to do without it."

The man frowned and justified himself grumblingly. "It ain't my bloomin'

fault. I've done nothin' with yer bloomin' tree."

"I suppose not," said Tabs as if the matter were still in doubt.

Feeling in his pocket he paid what was owing and watched the cab move

off. Even at this last moment he was half-minded to retreat. What

business was it of his to interfere in another man's love-affair? He

looked stealthily round the Court to see if eyes were watching. All the

windows were empty; nothing stirred. The fact that he was not watched

reassured him. He glanced at the number on the nearest door, discovered

in which direction the numbers ran and decided that his must be the

house conspicuous for its marigold-tinted curtains, standing retiringly

in the farthest corner.

Once again he hesitated. Should he or should he not? The old

nursery-rhyme came wandering into his head with its innocent lilt of

jolliness:

"Here we go round the mulberry-bush,

The mulberry-bush, the mulberry-bush;

Here we go round the mulberry-bush,

So early in the morning."

"And so we do," he murmured. "Let's take a chance."

II

The door--an apple-green door--was opened by a maid as trim as Ann. Was

Mrs. Lockwood in? She would enquire. "And your name, please, sir?--Lord

Taborley! Certainly."

She left him waiting in the hall, while she went to make her fictional

enquiries. He was as sure that they were fictional as if he had glanced

into the room upstairs where Maisie was making a last anxious inspection

before her mirror. So the pretense was to be that he had called casually

and had scarcely been expected.

He tried to learn something of Maisie from the appearance of her hall.

It was speckless. Everything in it shone with intense cleanliness and

polish. He had noticed the same gleam about the windows, brasses and

very doorstep before he had entered. He had noticed it again about the

maid who had admitted him. It sent Maisie up very much in his

estimation. It almost explained to him how she had managed to get three

husbands. Men never know why they fall in love with a woman; more often

than not they mistake tidiness for beauty. "If you can't be beautiful,

be clean," Maisie's hall seemed to say; "if you can be both, you're

invincible." Maisie was invincible, as her conquests proved. This first

glimpse of her belongings showed that she loved cleanliness. By a jump

in his logic Tabs began to suspect that she must be beautiful.

He had pursued his observations thus far, when he heard a door

discreetly closed overhead and the starchy rustling of the maid

returning.

"If your Lordship will step into the drawing-room, Madam will be down in

a moment."

He found himself in a long artistic room, feminine to a degree,

exquisitely restful and yet broad-minded with signs of selection and

travel. It was furnished according to no particular period. There was

an Italian chest of drawers inlaid with ivory, a Dutch marquetry

secretaire, some Louis XVIth chairs, a mirror of old Venetian glass,

bronzes, snuff-boxes, specimens of china, odd bits of beaten silver,

knick-knacks of all sorts, lying scattered about with apparent

carelessness. A fire was burning in the grate. Tea was set out on a

table beside a companionable couch. Through French windows the smallest

of gardens shone bravely, a-blow with bulb flowers planted in crevices

of a rockery, at the foot of which lay an oval pond and a silent

fountain. As though to emphasize the game of littleness, a toy-boat

floated on the pond's surface.

"Not the woman I had imagined," was his unspoken thought; "not the wily

adventuress! But if she's not, then what----"

In an attempt to satisfy his curiosity, he commenced to inspect the room

in detail. The first thing he discovered was that all the silver frames,

which stood about, contained photographs of the same man. It struck him

as an odd exhibition of faithfulness on the part of a woman who had had

so many husbands. He counted the photographs; there were no less than

five of them, recording the same face from varying angles.

"Which of them, is he," he asked himself, "Pollock, Gervis, or Lockwood?

But he mayn't be any of them. Perhaps he's a possible fourth--the

latest. If so, here's hoping, for he shuts out Adair."

He turned towards the couch, intending to sit down. As he turned, his

gaze encountered an oil-painting hanging above the mantelpiece.

"By George! How did I manage to miss that?"

He stared at it with intense interest--almost with a sense of shock.

Somewhere--he could not determine where--he had seen that face before.

The picture was a half-length portrait of a woman. There was something

extraordinarily queenly and at the same time patient in her attitude.

Her hands, which were out of sight, seemed to be folded. She was seated,

leaning forward; her head was turned towards the right, so that her face

appeared in profile. She was in extremely low evening-dress of an

aquamarine shade, flowered with gold. Her shoulders were sickle-shaped

and gleamed like the half-crescent of a young moon. From her throat,

which was full and white, hung a splendid string of tan-colored pearls.

But it was the slope of her jaw, the way her ears set back, and the

rounded strength of her head that gave to her that peculiarly alert

beauty. Her dark hair was drawn from off her forehead, making clear in

her features an expression of calm challenge. She was a woman who had

lived and not always happily. Her calmness was the quiet of almost

painful self-control. And her age---- With her atmosphere of experience,

it was certainly over thirty. She was not the woman to put back the

hands of time for any man.

"It can't be of Maisie," he thought, and yet he hoped. "But it can't be

of her," he insisted. "This woman is remote and uncapturable. She's done

with passion. She's tasted life to the full and the taste was bitter.

She has nothing left but her unquenchable pride, with which she tortures

herself: her pride not to submit, not to cry out, to stand always at

bay. That's all she has, unless----" And then, speaking aloud in his

effort to remember, "I know her. I'm positive. And yet----"

The door behind him opened. "This is nice of you, Lord Taborley.--Ah,

you were looking at Di! Most men do that when they visit me. I ought to

be jealous. But a word of warning; looking is as far as any of them

get."

Tabs found himself shaking hands with a woman who shared the features of

the woman in the portrait, but who differed from her in that she was

fair, lacked her alluring remoteness and had much more of youth to her

credit. Whereas the woman in the portrait looked uncapturable, Maisie's

charm lay in her accessibility--the genial promise she held out of being

willing and even eager to surrender. Her every tone and gesture

proclaimed her anxiety to find this world a pleasant place--her

determination to make it pleasant and to be gay under every

circumstance.

She was as little, flawless and gleaming as her house. More than half

her good looks were due to the immaculate care which she bestowed on her

body--the whiteness of her teeth, the fineness of her well-kept hands,

the brilliant clearness of her complexion, the wavy smoothness of her

abundant flaxen hair which had been brushed and brushed until it shone

and glinted like raw gold in sunshine. She would have looked almost too

perfect to be genuine, had it not been for her vivid health. She was so

dainty in her fragility that one longed and yet scarcely dared to touch

her.

The moment she had spoken Tabs had recognized that nothing that she had

done or might do could obscure her atmosphere of breeding. He had met

men like that, whose sense of race, even when they were at the lowest

depths, had kept them superior to their environment. A pale woman of

spun silk and gossamer, with cornflower eyes and lips like parted

poppy-petals! This woman could be kind to the point of folly--so kind

that her folly would appear almost virtue. She was a woman who, though

she might love too often, would love so much that to her much would

always be forgiven.

"I must apologize," Tabs spoke gently, "for having been found staring at

your picture."

He did not know it, but men always spoke gently to Maisie. It was her

air of trust and helplessness that did it, her tender trick of creating

in each man the belief that she relied peculiarly on him for

protection--all of which was totally at variance with the masterly

efficiency with which she ran both herself and her house.

"I was staring at your picture," Tabs continued, "because I thought I

recognized----"

"I daresay you did," Maisie interrupted. "Though you may not have met

her, her face is forever in the papers. Among the family she's known as

the Princess Czarina Bolsheviki----"

"She looks it. But is she a princess?"

Maisie laughed. "Not yet, but it won't be her fault if she isn't. It'll

have to be a prince next time. If she marries again, she'll stoop to

nothing less. Look at the way she carries her head; she almost feels the

weight of her coronet already. But she says she's had enough of

marriage. We've all said that. Poor dear Di, she misses a lot of fun by

her exclusiveness. If I only had half her wealth----"

She evidently wanted Tabs to ask her what she would do with it. Her eyes

grew round with spendthrift promises of jolliness, if ever such wealth

should come within reach of her tiny, managing hands. She looked as

mischievously covetous as a magpie while she waited for him to put the

obvious question.

But Tabs wasn't interested in the obvious. He stuck to his enquiry.

"What you've told me doesn't help me to recall her," he said. "Who is

she? It's most annoying to recognize a face and not to be able to place

it against any background."

Maisie pretended to pout. "You're like all the rest of them; you come to

see me and do nothing but talk of her. I'd have hidden her in the attic

long ago, only she's by Sargent. She's too beautiful for hiding, and

then no one can afford to hide her Sargent under a bushel in these hard

times."

"And still you've not told me," Tabs reproached her.

III

"Wouldn't we be more comfortable sitting down?" Maisie slid between the

couch and the tea-table, making herself comfortable against a pile of

cushions. When Tabs looked round for a seat, he discovered the strategy

of the arrangement of the furniture. The nearest available chair to

Maisie was at least four yards away; to have selected it would have been

to have isolated himself. He would have had to have hailed her

ridiculously across the room's breadth. It was plainly intended that he

should challenge fate and share the couch, just as Pollock, Gervis,

Lockwood, Adair and so many others had done before him.

All this friendliness would make it a little difficult for him presently

when he broached the subject of Adair. He had an uneasy feeling that Sir

Tobias wouldn't approve of this way of conducting his mission. It was

one thing to fly the white flag of truce while you parleyed with the

enemy; it was quite another to share the same couch with her in a cozy

room, where there were only the two of you and the jumping flames of the

fire in the grate made the silver on the small round table glow red.

When they weren't talking there was no sound. None of the clamor of

London reached them. They might have been in a cave, far removed from

everything that disturbed. And, indeed, the little piled-up rockery

outside the windows, with the spring flowers blowing and the baby lake,

with the toy-boat drifting on its quiet surface, rather created the

illusion that this was a cave.

A restful lethargy of kindness was creeping over him. He didn't want to

be at enmity with anybody, least of all with this dainty sprite of a

woman with the cornflower eyes and the flaxen hair. He no longer

wondered that three men in succession, weary of the mud of fighting, had

come to her for rest. He could even comprehend Adair's treachery, if it

had gone so far as treachery. Adair had found his wife fretful--she had

always been crying and hanging round his neck. Here he had found

companionship, secret laughter and forgetfulness. The world owed any

woman a large debt of liberty who could give men that. Maisie was the

kind of woman who could bury twenty husbands and go out next morning to

meet the twenty-first. What was far more amazing, she could do it

without frivolity or loss of self-respect. She lived a day at a time.

She made you feel, the moment you met her, that that was the only

tolerable way of living. The excuse for her philosophy was its success.

She was an expert in happiness--so expert that she could communicate her

secret without waste of words. Probably for most men words were not

necessary; for them their happiness was herself.

From her end of the couch Maisie smiled at Tabs dreamily. "You're

persistent when you want anything. I suppose you always get your

desires?"

"The little things, yes," he replied. "But the big things--they evade

me."

"You mean Terry."

She said it without change of tone or expression, with the same happy

smile curling up the corners of her uncruel mouth. It was disconcerting

to have his private humiliations referred to so frankly, as though they

were fitting subjects for casual conversation. But, after all, he

reminded himself, his business there was to discuss her equally private

affairs. He was hardly in a position to resent anything she might say.

It was a duel, and she had drawn first blood. He was quick to see that

her purpose in introducing Terry was to gain an advantage while she

postponed the inevitable discussion of Adair.

She didn't give him a chance to reply. "I know all about you and Terry,"

she continued, "and about Braithwaite, too, for the matter of that.

Perhaps why Terry evades you is because she isn't one of your really big

things. You may have mistaken her for a big thing. If she is one of your

truly big things, you'll get her. You're one of the few men who get all

that they desire."

It was possible that she was trying to flatter him; nevertheless,

against his will, the certainty of her way of talking impressed him.

"What makes you think that I get everything that I desire?"

She laughed and snuggled closer into the cushions. "I can't put it into

words. I just know by looking at you. You have the air."

"Then what makes you say that Terry may not be one of my big things?"

She glanced up at him amused. "I almost made you angry when I said

that.--Do you really want to know? I said it because I don't think that

she is one of your big things and, what's more, you don't think that she

is either. Now I _have_ made you angry---- But you don't--not the sane

you, who was and is and will be to-morrow--the you who'll outlive this

disappointment."

He was at one and the same time intrigued and offended by the turn the

conversation had taken. His memory groped back to the first conception

he had had of this woman--the woman who tricked married men, who used

scented note-paper, who interpreted thoughts before they were uttered

and forestalled actions before they had been planned--the woman whom he

had been instructed to buy off with a price. What was he doing

discussing his love-affair with such as her?

His voice was chilling when he spoke. "It's very good of you to take

such an interest in me. I ought to be gratified that you should think

you know so much about me, and after so short an acquaintance--so very

much more than I know about myself."

"But I don't think; I do know far more at this moment than you know

about yourself." Her tones were calm and lazy, unembarrassed and

pleasant. The red glow of the fire glinting on the silver tea-service

seemed the reflection of her cheerfulness.

"If you're so certain that you know, you might tell me," he said

stiffly.

"I know---- Do you mind if I smoke?" She leant forward while he held a

match to her cigarette. "I know that you're an intensely lonely man. All

men have to be lonely till they're thirty if they're going to get

anywhere. They have no time to spare. You've had no time to spare for

women--that's why you don't understand them. Women were for you a treat

in store, until the war broke. Then suddenly you discovered that you had

missed the most precious thing in life. You hadn't the time to be wise

in your choice, so you turned to some one young and accessible. Her

youth seemed to symbolize all that you coveted at the moment; it

symbolized going on forever. You weren't really in love with her as an

individual; you were in love with the thought of love and youth. You

won't believe it, but almost any young girl who was beautiful and

willing would have served your purpose. During the terrible years you've

clothed her with your own idealism. You've told yourself that it was for

her that you were fighting. You've created in your heart a person she

never was and hasn't it in her to become. You've thought of her as a

second you, with _your_ sense of honor, _your_ passion for

unselfishness, _your_ patience and experience gained through suffering.

The ideal you've set up for her is contradictory and impossible. Youth

isn't considerate, experienced, unselfish, patient. For those qualities

you have to go to the middle years. I know what I'm talking about, for

I've had three soldier husbands." She said it without self-reproach or

self-glory--as though it were the sort of thing that might happen to any

woman. "You've been finding out the kind of girl she really is since

your return--the kind of girl who prefers General Braithwaite to

yourself and can't discriminate between the temporary and the permanent.

You're disappointed in her. You've discovered already that she isn't the

woman you thought you were loving. You're now only pretending that you

still care for her because life would be too empty without your dream

and because the right woman, for whom you've already renewed your

search, hasn't yet turned up. Somewhere inside you at this moment your

sane self is endorsing every word that I'm saying as true."

"That's not so." His contradiction was spoken fiercely.

"But it is so," the sweet voice persisted. "You yourself have tacitly

owned it."

"How?"

There was the sharpness of alarm in his way of asking. Her assurance had

startled him out of his brief anger.