Evie Colebrook came home at an unusually early hour and the girl on
the bed looked up in surprise.
"I heard mother talking to somebody, but I had no idea it was you,
Evie. What is the matter--has your swain another engagement?"
"My swain, as you call him, is working tonight," said Evie, "and it
is so hot that I thought I would come home and get into my pajamas."
"Mother has been talking about your eccentric tastes, with particular
reference to pajamas," said Christina. "She thinks that pajamas are
indelicate. In her young days girls weren't supposed to have legs."
"Father wore pajamas."
"Father also drank. Mother thinks that the pajamas had something to
do with it. She also thinks that book reading was a contributary
cause."
"What terrible jaw-breaking words you use, Christina. Father did
read a lot, didn't he?"
"Father was a student. He studied, amongst other things, race
horses. Do you know who father was?" Evie stared at her expectantly.
"He was a carpenter, wasn't he?"
"He was the youngest son of the youngest son of a lord. Take that
look off your face, Evie; there is no possibility of our being the
rightful heiresses of the old Hall. But it is true; he had a coat of
arms."
"Then why did he marry mother?"
"Why do people marry anybody?" demanded Christina. "Why did
grandfather marry grandmother? Besides, why shouldn't he have
married mother? He was only a cabinet maker when he met her. She
has told me so. And his father was a parson, and his mother the
Honorable Mrs. Colebrook, the daughter of Lord Fanshelm. There is
blue blood in your veins, Evie."
"But really, Christina," Evie's voice was eager and her eyes bright,
"you are not fooling; is it true? It makes such an awful
difference--"
Christina groaned. "My God, what have I said?" she asked
dramatically.
"But really, Christina?"
"You are related so distantly to nobility that you can hardly see it
without a telescope," said Christina, "I thought you knew. Mother
used always to be talking about it at one time. My dear, what
difference does it make?"
Evie was silent.
"A man doesn't love a girl any more because she has a fifth cousin in
the House of Lords; he doesn't love her any less because her mother
takes in laundry, and if her lowly origin stands in the way of his
marriage, and he finds that really she is the great grandaughter of a
princess, he cannot obliterate her intermediate relations."
"What's 'intermediate'?"
"Well, mother and father, and the parson who got into trouble through
drinking, and his wife who ran away with a groom."
Evie drew a long sigh.
"Where is your swain?" she asked. "I don't like that word 'swain,'
it sounds so much like 'swine'."
"I hope you will never see the resemblance any clearer," said
Christina. "My swain is working, too. I shouldn't take off that
petticoat, if I were you, Evie; he may come in and you can see your
knickers through that dressing-gown."
"Christina!"
"I hate mentioning knickers to a pure-minded girl," said Christina,
fanning herself with a paper, "but sisters have no secrets from one
another. Ambrose, if that is who you mean, is very busy these days."
"Do you call him Ambrose to his face?" asked Evie curiously, and her
sister snorted.
"Would you call Julius Cæsar 'Bill' or 'Juley' to his face; of course
not. But I can't think of him as Ambrose Sault, Esquire, can I?"
"I don't understand him," said Evie. "He seems so dull and quiet."
"I'll get him to jazz with you the next time you're home early," said
Christina sardonically.
"Don't be so silly. Naturally he isn't very lively being so old."
"Old! He is lively enough to carry me downstairs as though I were a
pillow and wheel me for hours at a time in that glorious chariot he
got for me! And he is old enough--but what is the good of talking to
you, Evie?"
Presently her irritation passed and she laughed. "Tell me the news
of the great world, Evie; what startling happenings have there been
in Knightsbridge?"
"I can tell you something about Mr. Sault you don't know," Evie was
piqued into saying. "He has been in prison." Christina turned on
her side with a wince of pain.
"Say that again."
"He has been in prison." A long pause.
"I hoped he had," Christina said at last. "I believe in imprisonment
as an essential part of a man's education--who told you?"
"I'm not going to say."
"Ronald Morelle--aha!" She pointed an accusing finger at the
dumbfounded Evie.
"I know your guilty secret! The 'Ronnie' you babble about in your
sleep is Ronnie Morelle!"
"Wh--what makes you--it isn't true--it is a damned lie--!"
"Don't be profane, Evie. That is the worst of druggists' shops, you
pick up such awful language. Mother says you can't work amongst
pills without getting ideas in your head."
"I never talk in my sleep--and I don't know Ronnie Morelle--who is
he?"
Evie's ignorance was badly assumed. Christina became very
thoughtful. She lay with her hand under her cheek, her gray eyes
searching her sister's face.
"Would Ronnie be impressed by your distant relationship with
nobility?" she asked quietly. "Would it make such an awful
difference if he knew about the coat of arms in father's Bible? I
don't think it would. If it did, he isn't worth worrying about.
What is he?"
"Didn't Mr. Sault tell you?" asked Evie hotly. "He seems to spend
his time gossiping about people who are a million times better than
him--"
"Than he," murmured Christina, her eyes closed.
"He is a nasty scandal-mongering old man! I hate him!"
"He didn't say that Ronnie had been in prison," Christina's voice was
gentle. "All that he said was that the only 'Ronnie' he knew was
Ronald Morelle. He did not even describe him or give him a
character."
"How absurd, Christina! As if old Sault could give Mr. Morelle 'a
character'! One is a gentleman and the other is an old fossil!"
"Old age is honorable," said Christina tolerantly, "the arrogance of
you babies!"
"You're half in love with him!"
"Wholly," nodded Christina. "I love his mind and his soul. I am
incapable of any other kind of love. I never want a man to draw my
flaming head to his shoulder and whisper, that until he met me, the
world was a desert, and food didn't taste good. It is because
Ambrose Sault never paws me or holds my hand or kisses me on the brow
in the manner of a father who hopes to be something closer, that I
love him. And I shall love him through eternity. When I am dead and
he is dead. And I want nothing more than this. If he were to die
tomorrow, I should not grieve because his flesh means nothing to me.
The thing he gives me is everlasting. That is where I am better off
than you, Evie. You have nothing but what you give yourself. You
think he gives you these wonderful memories which keep you awake at
nights. You think it is his love for you that thrills you. It isn't
that, Evie. Your love is the love of the martyr who finds an
ecstatic joy in his suffering."
Groping toward understanding, Evie seized this illustration. "God
loves the martyr--it isn't one-sided," she quavered and Christina
nodded.
"That is true, or it may be true. Does your god love you?"
"It is blasphemous to--to talk of Ronnie as God."
"God with a small 'g'."
"It is blasphemous anyhow. Ronnie does love me. He hasn't silly and
conventional ideas about--about love as most people have. He is much
broader-minded, but he does love me. I know it. A girl knows when a
man loves her."
"That is one of the things she doesn't know," interrupted Christina.
"She knows when he wants her, but she doesn't know how continually he
will want her. He is unconventional, too? And broad-minded? The
broad-minded are usually people who take a generous view of their own
shortcomings. Is he one of those unconventional souls who think that
marriage is a barbarous ceremony?"
"Who told you that?" Evie was breathless from surprise.
"It isn't an unique view--broad-minded men often try to get
narrow-minded girls to see that standpoint."
"You're cynical--I hate cynical people," said Evie, throwing herself
on her bed, "and you have all your ideas of life out of books, and
the rotten people who come in here moaning about their troubles. You
can't believe writers--not some writers--there are some, of course,
that give just a true picture of life--not in books, but in articles
in the newspapers. They just seem to know what people are thinking
and feeling, and express themselves wonderfully."
"Ah--so Ronnie writes for the newspapers, does he?"
Evie's indignant retort was checked by a knock on the door.
"That is Mr. Sault--can he come in?"
"I suppose so," answered Evie grudgingly. She got off the bed and
tied her dressing-gown more tightly. "I don't really show my legs
through this kimono do I, Christina?"
"Not unless you want to--come in!"
Ambrose Sault looked tired. "Just looked in before I went to my
room," he said. "Good evening, Evie."
"Good evening, Mr. Sault."
Evie's dressing-gown was wrapped so tightly as to give her a
mummified appearance.
"I saw the osteopath today and I've arranged for him to come and talk
to you tomorrow," said Ambrose, sitting on the edge of the bed at the
inviting gesture of Christina's hand.
"I will parley with him," she nodded. "I don't believe that he will
make a scrap of difference. I've seen all sorts of doctors and
specialists. Mother has a list of them--she is very proud of it."
"I'm only hoping that this man may do you some good," said Ambrose,
rubbing his chin meditatively. "I have seen some wonderful cures--in
America. Even Dr. Merville believes in them. He says that if you
build a sky-scraper and the steel frame isn't true, you cannot expect
the doors to shut or the windows to open. I'm sorry I am so late,
but the osteopath was dining out, and I had to wait until he came
back. He hurt his ankle too, and that took time. I had to give him
a rubbing. He is the best man in London. Dr. Duncan More."
She did not take her eyes from his face. Evie noticed this and
discounted Christina's earlier assertion.
"Will it cost a lot of money?" asked Christina.
"Not much, in fact very little. The first examination is free. He
doesn't really examine you, you know. He will just feel your back,
through your clothes. I asked him that, because I know how you
dislike examinations. And if he doesn't think that you can be
treated, and that there is a chance of making you better, he won't
bother you any more."
"I don't believe in these quack doctors," said Evie decidedly. "They
promise all sorts of cures and they only take your money. We have a
lot of those kind of remedies at the store, but Mr. Donker, the
manager, says that they are all fakes--don't tell me that an
osteopath isn't a medicine. I know that. He's a sort of doctor, but
I'll bet you he doesn't do any good."
"Cheer up, Job!" said Christina. "Faith is something. I suppose you
mean well, but if I took any notice of you I'd give up the struggle
now."
"I don't want to depress you, you're very unkind, Christina! But I
don't think you ought to be too hopeful. It would be such an
awful--what's the word, come-down for you."
"Reaction," said Sault and Christina together and they laughed.
Sault went soon after and Evie felt that a dignified protest was
called for.
"There is no reason why you should make me look like a fool before
Sault," she said hurt. "Nobody would be happier than I should be if
you got well. You know that. I'm not so sure that Mr. Sault is
sincere--"
"What?"
Christina leaned upon her arm and her eyes were blazing.
"You can say that he is old and ugly, if you like, and shabby
and--anything. But don't dare to say that, Evie--don't dare to say
that he isn't sincere!"
Evie lay awake for a long time that night. Christina was certainly a
strange girl--and when she said she did not love Sault, she was not
speaking the truth. That was just how she had felt, when Christina
had hinted that Ronnie was not sincere. Only she had been too much
of a a lady to lose her temper. About old Sault, too! What did he
do for a living? She must ask Christina.