“I am a goose! Let’s run round and see where I can put you. It was a

shame to let you wait; we were picnicking. Did you ring?... Oh, I see!

It doesn’t matter in the least; we’re breaking things all day long

here. Mr. Mowbray, do be an angel, and help Ada carry up these trunks;

you are so strong.”

Mr. Mowbray, a stolid bronzed young man, evidently in the army,

signified his willingness to act as porter. And then Sebastian, who had

noted with relief the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson from the party,

broke off his conversation with Letty, and, drawing Aureole aside,

asked her if she could find him a room anywhere. “Because I’d like to

move in at once.”

She scrutinized him intently ... then her gaze flickered to Letty.

“Yes. I see. You are feeling the pull--the strain. She is the moon,

and you the tide ... it draws and draws ... I understand, Mr. Levi.”

She motioned him to follow her up the wooden stairway which rose from

the centre of the hall. Miss Fortescue and Bertie had preceded them,

and: “This is the rummest boarding-house I’ve ever known,” the latter

was heard whispering to his dazed sister, as Aureole and Sebastian

approached them.

Not aware of aught unconventional in her reception of the Paying Guest,

Aureole stopped on the first landing; and, frowning with a sort of

reproach at the various unresponsive doors, said she believed that all

those rooms were full.--“You see, I thought you would be Mr. and Mrs.

Gilchrist; and then I expected you the day before yesterday.”

“And where would you have put me if I had been Mrs. Gilchrist the day

before yesterday?” queried the prim girl from the Midlands, trying to

cope with the situation.

“Here,” their hostess ran lightly down a flight of steps branching into

a wing of the rambling old building; and displayed an enormous double

bedroom. “Perhaps--perhaps you two young men wouldn’t mind sharing?”

hopefully. “I should have to put you in an extra washstand, naturally.

You can have Mr. Mowbray’s.”

Sebastian, rather enjoying matters, wondered of what other necessities

the long-suffering Mowbray was to be deprived. All the same, if he

was to write, he would want a room to himself; and this he made clear

to Aureole, who looked worried,--and enquired irrelevantly of Miss

Fortescue:

--“Would you like a cup of tea in the mornings?” She assumed an

expression of portentous gravity, as though she had recollected

something: “It’s extra, _of course_.”

Miss Fortescue agreed: “Oh, of course!” glad to find this symptom of

dawning sanity in their most incompetent landlady. “Will you show me my

room, please,” she added firmly.

“I suppose you’d better have this one,” said Aureole, very reluctant.

“It’s meant for two, ...” she pondered the matter, gazing absently at

Sebastian; who, uncertain of the exact plight into which the advertised

“Bohemian lines” were about to plunge him, again reiterated his

plaintive request for a single room.

Then Aureole dived into her bag, and brought forth a crumpled sheet of

paper, which, opened out, proved to be a blend between a map of the

house, a time-table, and a fever-chart.

“Let me see: Miss Bruce is leaving on the twenty-second, but Mr. Vyvyan

Leclerc comes in on the twenty-first to take her room, so _that_ won’t

do.”

Quite obviously it would not do, in more senses than one.

Aureole continued poring over the much-bescribbled, much-erased paper:

“The dairy room is empty for three days; the Lloyds left in a temper

over the breakfasts. You could start there, Mr. Levi. And then perhaps

for a week or two I could get you a room in a cottage near by--only ten

minutes’ walk. And after that, little Verney is away for a week-end; he

wouldn’t mind if you slept in his bed as long as you don’t disturb his

moralities.”

“His--what?” from Sebastian. The prim girl turned pink.

“His morality plays. He’s mad about them; and has a cardboard model

fixed up, with all the puppet characters.--That would bring us to about

the beginning of September, wouldn’t it? Oh, well, somebody is sure

by then to have lost patience with me, and quitted, and left a room

vacant. So that’s all right, isn’t it?” and she raised wistful brown

velvet eyes to Sebastian, who replied gravely:

“Mrs. Strachey, you have again mistaken identity. I am a Jew, indeed,

but _not_ the Wandering Jew.”

“You’re not satisfied with the arrangements?” disappointed. She

puckered her brows yet again over the fever-chart. “Would you mind

sleeping in an attic?”

His imagination leapt. “I should like nothing better.”

They all four trooped upstairs to inspect. The Farme was a sprawling

mansion of two storeys only. From the second, a narrow twisting

staircase, not unlike a ladder, led to what were, once upon a time,

granaries.

“This is the best of them,” Aureole threw open a door.

The attic revealed fully satisfied Sebastian’s “theatrical instinct,”

as Stuart would have called it. Here his book could be written. Here,

in shadowy company of Chatterton and Francis Thompson, he could be

Starving-Genius-in-a-Garret; lord of his four walls.

“This will do splendidly, thanks,” he informed Aureole.

“I must get you up a bed from somewhere,” she remarked thoughtfully. “I

wonder....”

She said no more. But Sebastian suspected that Mr. Mowbray was doomed.

“And what about my brother?” demanded Miss Fortescue.

Without waiting to hear Bertie’s fate, which he foresaw as hopeless,

Sebastian returned to the hotel, and broke the news of his impending

departure to his father, who received it in grim silence.

Then he made his usual evening pilgrimage to the Haven, and laid before

Stuart his impressions of the state of affairs at the Farme.

It was evident that the management of the boarding-house was proving

rather too much for Aureole; and she ran it in a fashion that certainly

marked a new and eccentric era in that particular line of business. The

boarders were compounded of three separate strata; members from her

own social and artistic circle, such as Archie Mowbray, little Verney,

and Ethel Wynne, who were there by way of a lark, and to “give Aureole

a leg-up”; respectable folk, like the Johnsons and the Fortescues,

and others from the Midlands and the suburbs of London, who usually

departed after their first day, spreading a report of “heathenish

goings-on”; unless they stayed on, because secretly fascinated by

the difference between this bizarre establishment and the more usual

article. Finally, the Doubtfuls, with profession a trifle misty and

laughter a shade too loud. Aureole would fain have rid herself of some

of these, but did not quite know how to set about it. She relied on

her visitors for sympathy and assistance in a manner that was wholly

disarming; would send one to the town for butter, if she ran out of the

commodity; beg another to lend his cherished motor-car for the common

weal; would relate confidentially how the cook had just left--“so we

must put up with a scratch dinner, isn’t it tiresome?” Or, taking a

guest for companion on a shopping expedition, would question casually:

“Do you like salmon?” and, on receiving an affirmative reply, order

eighteen shillings’ worth to be sent immediately to the Farme for

lunch. Nor did she think it necessary ever to rise from her slumbers

till noon; with the result that breakfast, unsuperintended, resembled

a steeplechase more than anything in the world; each person with

a separate fad, entering at a separate time, calling for separate

food--or sometimes merely grabbing; wandering to and fro from the

kitchen; sounding bells,--occasional outbursts of rage, when Aureole’s

foggy ideas of quantity had misled her on the near side. Nevertheless,

her very helplessness aroused a dormant quality of chivalry in the

boarders, so that they put up with an astonishing amount of discomfort

and incapacity, flattered to find themselves treated in the spirit of

an accidental society house-party. The great amusement was to watch the

bewildered entry of new-comers; mark their slow emancipation from the

set state of mind which expected to find a framed copy of rules, hours,

and terms, on their bedroom wall; expected, indeed, to find a bedroom

wall, which rarely existed till Aureole, in collaboration with the

fever-chart, would discuss who could with impunity be ejected to make

place. Idle to speculate how often Archie Mowbray had travelled with

his polo-boots and hair-brushes.

About a week after the advent of Sebastian, chaos reached its supreme

height. Aureole, deeply in debt, found the weather too warm for effort,

and decided to let things rip. They ripped. A great many problems she

solved by simply staying in bed; others, less adjustable, reduced her

to the verge of angry tears. Ada, invaluable housemaid, bethought

herself to give notice. Aureole would dearly like to have done the

same.

“Que diable fais-je donc dans cette galère?” she demanded impatiently

of Letty, as they undressed together in the bathing-hut.

“Je ne say pas,” replied Letty, in careful High School French.

“Sir James and Lady Merridik are due this evening. Thank goodness, I’ve

got quarters for them, at least. Facing north, to be cool--or was it a

south aspect they wanted, because of the cold? He’s an Indian judge,

so he’s sure to feel the climate, but I forget which way they feel

it. _Tant pis!_” Aureole slipped into a most becoming bathing-dress,

tied a black silk handkerchief round her flaming curls, and lounging

against a miscellaneous heap of deck-chairs, wet and dry towels,

tumbled garments both masculine and feminine, shrimping-nets, spades,

and greengages, she watched Letty, in the earlier stages of disrobing.

This wooden bathing-shed, given exclusively for the use of the Farme,

was a little separate chaos of its own, a sort of annexe to the major

chaos. While some undressed in it, some waited to undress, and some,

already undressed and in the water, were awaiting their opportunity to

come out till those undressing were in the water, when the first set

would dash in and encounter in the doorway those who were waiting to

undress. The men of the party were supposed to take their dip earlier,

before breakfast, when the sea was iciest, or directly after, and risk

apoplexy. But the laggards usually contrived to overlap, and their

drippings made the shed untenable before the turn of the ladies. Add

to all this a defective latch, which allowed the door to swing open if

directly leant against, the demands of the little Percival boy, who

throughout the morning was in shrill need of spade or pail or buns or

fishing-net; add a large earwig colony inhabiting the chinks between

the boards;--and it will be understood that the Farme bathing-shed was

hardly a spot to choose for confidential conversation.

Nevertheless, Aureole remarked suddenly: “Why has Mr. Levi quarrelled

with his father--and yours?”

Letty bent to tie up her sandals. “Sebastian has given up all his

money.”

“Yes. It was a queer thing to do. Why?”

Letty evaded the point: “He doesn’t know I know why.”

“But you do.”

“Yes, I do.”

Willy Percival hammered at the door, which instantly gave way.

“Oooo-oo!”--Letty caught up a towel and huddled it close, looking like

a water-nymph taken unawares by a mortal.

“Please, may I have my pail?”

Aureole tossed it through the aperture.

“No. The other one. The coloured one.”

“Run away, Billikins, and don’t bother.”

“Aren’t you _nearly_ ready?” came a heartrending chorus from outside,

accompanied by the chattering teeth of some blue-faced individual

longing to get dry.

“Yes, very nearly, Mr. Fortescue.--Why?” repeated Aureole to Letty,

struggling in a chaste attempt to don her red serge white-anchored

costume, before letting slip the rest of her garments.

“Because ... but you won’t tell? he doesn’t know I’ve guessed.”

Aureole smiled loftily. “Go on. I don’t tell things. But I’m

interested. He’s a curious type.”

“It’s a Test,” whispered Letty, in a hopeless tangle of on and off,

scarlet knickers and lawn camisole, and hair in light brown clouds over

her shoulders.

“Test? Of your father, you mean?” and Aureole knit her brows.

“No. Of me. You see, he was much richer than us, and I suppose he got

it into his head that I loved him for his money and not for himself. So

he’s given it all up. When he thinks he has proved me enough, when he

sees it makes no difference, he’ll take it back again.”

Letty stood upright now, fully robed for her plunge; and before the

speckled little square of looking-glass which hung on the wall, tried

to tie her hair into a red and white spotted handkerchief. “When he has

proved me enough,” she whispered to her glowing reflection.

Aureole clasped her hands round one shapely knee, and pondered the

matter:

“It’s romantic, of course. Ultra-romantic for this century. But then

he’s a Renaissance type. Denys l’Auxerrois--have you read Pater?

And ... yes, it suits him. I believe you’re right. You have rather

a wonderful instinct about matters concerning him, haven’t you?

wonderfully simple and direct ... piercing through complexities to the

crystalline heart. Now I, I--”

“Aure-_ole_! Aure-_ole_! the tide will be too high unless you hurry up.

And there are two frozen corpses on your doorstep.” Thus Ethel Wynne,

compassionating the shivering spectres of Fortescue and Mowbray.

Aureole, who just had settled into her favourite attitude for lengthy

discussion of her peculiar temperament: prone on her back, hands

clasped behind her head, scrambled now to her feet, rather annoyed at

the interruption.

“It’s their own faults. The arrangement was for the men to bathe

directly after breakfast. Come along!” she held out her hand to Letty,

and they ran together down the beach.

Sir James and Lady Merridik drove up in a cab that evening, at the hour

when the miscellaneous members of the household were gathered in the

hall before dinner. A second cab, piled high with luggage, followed

up the drive a moment later; Mr. and Mrs. Durward-Jones, their two

children, dog, and governess, had weeks ago booked the very first-floor

front double bedroom into which Mowbray and the cabman were now

lugging Lady Merridik’s multitudinous boxes. Mrs. Durward-Jones meant

to have that room; so did Lady Merridik. Lady Merridik was shrill and

flippant; Mrs. Durward-Jones deep-toned and abusive. The stairway,

congested by boxes, formed the main scene of battle. The clamour was

deafening, aided by the performance of Fritz, the waiter, upon the

gong, and the barks of the Durward-Jones dog. Finally, both ladies

turned to Aureole, demanding what she intended to do in the matter.

Glancing wildly about her for a means of escape, Aureole flung herself

upon the chest of an apparition whose face was suddenly illumined by

the lantern swinging in the porch.

--“Oh, please, please, Mr. Heron, take me away!”

Stuart took her to the theatre, immediately, and without paying the

slightest heed to the raging debate. The next morning at breakfast,

Lady Merridik appeared, blandly smiling. There was no sign of the

Durward-Jones party.

“Always best to let these things adjust themselves by natural means,”

remarked Stuart to Aureole.

“Natural means?”

“Survival of the fittest. Now look here, Mrs. Strachey, what about

letting me treat the whole Menagerie in the same fashion; sling out all

the harpies and adventurers, square the landlord--till how long have

you rented the Farme? End of October?--and set detectives on Oliver’s

track to bring him home to Chelsea to look after you.”

Aureole shook her head. “It would be no good slinging everyone out;

there are dozens more coming in. And they’d all bring lawsuits and

breach-of-promise acts against me, because I _did_ let them the rooms.”

“Then I’ll hunt round for a competent manageress, instal her with a

salary, and you can leave whenever you like.”

“Do you think I’d touch your money?” she flashed at him proudly.

“But----”

“Besides, I won’t have a horrid prying person here, who will see what a

mess everything is in; see that I’ve _failed_....”

Stuart walked about the empty breakfast-room, hands in his pockets,

pondering deeply. Conscience had driven him to reconnoitre, and now

the same conscience informed him very clearly that he could not allow

his friend’s wife to continue her present burlesque of management,

unprotected, accumulating enormous debts. One owed something to one’s

pals; Stuart hid a rather special affection for the imperturbable

Nigger Strachey. But if Aureole refused to smash the establishment, and

refused to have a manageress,--well then, what was he to do?

--“Stay here, and control matters yourself,” suggested Aureole,

divining and answering his thoughts. With a mischievous glint beneath

her heavy eyelids, she added, “I don’t mind _you_ knowing the worst;

after all--you’re responsible!”

And as it really seemed the only solution to the problem, Stuart

consented.

Speculation ran riot as to the identity of the mysterious stranger.

Later in the day, Aureole introduced him as: “My husband’s friend”

without further explanation. The husband’s friend became a scowling

and unpopular permanency. He marvelled how he came thus to be saddled

with the white elephant of Aureole’s folly; nevertheless, there seemed

no way of shaking off the boarding establishment till the 31st of

October, or till Oliver’s return. He at once wrote to Oliver, care of

the latter’s bank, trusting that there the address would have been

forwarded.

Aureole he alternately bullied and consoled, quite in the spirit of

a working partner; and she, relying peacefully on his competence,

forgave him for missing this excellent opportunity of being in love

with her. Almost forgave him.

A couple of rigid old maids disbelieved the “husband’s friend” story,

and left at once. Stuart found this annoying. Neither did he like it

when the fussy little man from Shropshire pointed out items on his bill

incorrectly charged to him: “I do _not_ have a bath every morning,

Mr.--ah--Heron.”

Stuart went in search of Aureole. “How many baths has Mr. Kibble had

this week?”

“How should I know?” virtuously indignant. “Ask his wife.”

“We’ve put him down six, but he says he has only had one. He must have

had more. How does one control these things?”

“Oh, knock off the extra half-crown from the bill, and chance it!”

laughed Aureole.

Stuart returned to his fuming interlocutor: “We have decided to believe

in your integrity rather than in your cleanliness,” he said suavely,

counting out Mr. Kibble’s change. Mr. Kibble left immediately, with his

wife and child.

Least of all Stuart liked it when it devolved upon him to give Vyvyan

the boot.

“Vyvyan” had booked his room since a considerable time, though letters

perpetually postponed the day of his arrival. Somehow or other, his

unknown personality had captured the imagination of the female portion

of the boarding-house. They gathered from his correspondence with

Aureole, that he was comparatively young, unwedded, owned a motor-car,

and was at present travelling on the Continent. An attractive list

of hints from which to draw deductions. Archie Mowbray and Bertie

Fortescue began already to suffer from spasms of jealousy, when

Aureole, who since the advent of Stuart was not allowed any more to

take her breakfast in bed, read aloud a telegram to say “Vyvyan” might

that afternoon be expected.

“At last we shall have a young man in the house,” quoth Ethel Wynne;

which was cruel to Mowbray, who loved her; and to eighteen-year-old

Bertie. Sebastian could not of course be counted, being manifestly

Letty’s property. And Stuart wore a pencil behind his ear, by way of

protection, to intimate that he was to be viewed in a business capacity

only.

Bertie’s sister entered the breakfast-room, and enquired of everybody

how they had slept, and asked everybody with a cold if their cold was

better, and passed the salt, and placed herself carefully between

her brother and the Ostend-Plage Girl, whom she suspected of sirenic

intentions. The Ostend-Plage Girl, who never passed salt, and who wore

a soiled creation of white serge and light blue pom-poms, promptly

upset the equilibrium of Bertie’s sister, by announcing: “I quite

intend to fall in love with Vyvyan, don’t you, Aureole?”

“I believe he is going to mean something,” murmured Aureole.

Stuart grunted.

“What! no mackerel left _again_?” from the Disagreeable Female, whose

name nobody ever seemed to know.

Letty offered hers: “I haven’t touched it yet; do, please, take it. I’m

not hungry.” And Mrs. Percival looked archly at Sebastian: “Not hungry?

dear me! now I wonder why that is!”

Mrs. Johnson exchanged significant glances with her husband. She had

only been able to keep him from an open row with Sebastian, by frequent

allusions to Letty’s loss of appetite:--“and what it would be like if

you forbade her to see him, Matthew----” “So tactful of the fellow to

come and plant himself under the same roof, directly after I’ve told

him not to call so often, isn’t it?” but he restrained his smouldering

wrath, nevertheless. Letty was his pet, and he hated to see her leaving

her food; good food, that he had paid for.

The talk veered round again to Vyvyan; and the Cabbage-rose skittishly

proposed making him an apple-pie bed: “We always used to have no end

of that sort of fun when I stayed at Lyn House--Lord Burchester’s

place, that is.” She broke off her reminiscences to throw the Earwig a

solicitous: “Johnny, dearest, is no one looking after you?”

The Earwig mumbled, and spilt the milk. He was a very ancient and

decrepit Earwig. And Ethel Wynne, who sat beside him, sprang up with an

unnecessarily quick: “Oh, am I in your place? So sorry. Do come here

and look after your husband yourself!”

The Ostend-Plage Girl broke into smothered giggles.

“My egg isn’t fresh,” said the Disagreeable Female. And looked

relentlessly at Stuart; who afterwards privately relieved his feelings

to Sebastian, by a prolonged outburst on the evils of boarding

establishments:

“I tell you what, Levi,--it’s a most villainous contrivance of

civilization, to pack stray people together under one roof, as

you would cats into a home; each little group at table with their

separate wine or beer or Apollinaris, not passing the bottle in good

fellowship, but sticking labels on it, for its safer preservation.

Chance companions are the finest to be had, on the road or at the inn,

that I maintain. But this compulsory herding, this miserly meaningless

thin-blooded----How’s the book getting on?”

“Nearly half-way through.”

“Rather quick work, isn’t it?”

“I must pelt ahead with it while I’m in the mood. I won’t show it to

you till it’s complete, though.”

“Right!” Stuart was glad of the reprieve.

“He’s come!” announced Ethel Wynne, that afternoon. She had sighted

a motor-car outside the house. A quiver of excitement thrilled the

group gathered for tea under the lime trees, as Aureole walked away to

welcome Vyvyan, on the threshold of the hall.

Vyvyan did not at once enter. He had first to seek a room near by for

his cousin-once-removed. That is, unless Mrs. Strachey could manage....

No? Ah, well, doubtless they would find something. She had been so ill,

the cousin, and had come down to Bournemouth for some fresh air. Mrs.

Strachey would excuse him for an hour?... He appeared at dinner, a

florid person, with an ingratiating smile under his auburn moustaches,

and a debonair manner with the ladies. He was sure he would enjoy his

stay at the Farme; had been looking forward to it immensely. A charming

fellow; even Bertie’s sister succumbed to his fascinations. But Aureole

was curiously frigid. After dinner, Vyvyan ran round to see if his

cousin-once-removed were all right; she had been so ill! He was seen

taking her for a little walk along the esplanade.

The same evening, Aureole had an earnest confabulation with her partner.

“We can’t have that sort of thing in the house,” with the demure

severity of a Quakeress.

“Hang it all! what am I to say to him?”

“Just tell him to go. And to remove his cousin--for the second time.”

“It’s deuced awkward,” growled Stuart.

“Not from one man to another. _He_’ll understand.”

Then Stuart exploded his wrath: “Comes of comic advertisement! The

fellow naturally thought ... Bohemian lines! you see where they lead

to!”

Aureole walked away, with her head in the air.

Vyvyan received his _congé_ with protestations of astonishment and

regret at having unwittingly offended Mrs. Strachey. His manner at

lunch the next day, was tinged with gentle reproach. Aureole wore

an apron, and her rebellious hair was gathered into a bun, by way of

signifying that her Bohemianism had limits. An air of strain hung over

the meal. By the evening, Vyvyan the debonair, Vyvyan, the fairy prince

so eagerly awaited, Vyvyan had gone. So had his cousin--twice removed.

CHAPTER IV

IL TROVATORE

Aureole was beset by a fear that her ejection of Vyvyan had somewhat

impaired her claims to Bohemianism, as set forth by the advertisement.

Wherefore it was one evening that she suddenly bethought herself to

invite the ‘Troubadours’ to the Farme.

The Troubadours were a singing quartette who performed thrice weekly

in the Pavilion Gardens. Their national costume consisted of a darkly

flung cloak, a slouched hat, and a mask; occasionally the cloak was

abandoned, showing beneath it a garb of gay-hued tatters: further

atmosphere was imparted by a beribboned guitar. Therefore some slight

confusion existed as to whether the Troubadours were intended to be

grandees of Spain, or else those light-hearted medieval wanderers

trolling their ballads of praise to the Kings of France--who usually

retaliated by hanging the ballad-monger. Either way, the effect was

picturesque enough, on the improvised wooden platform, lit by the few

flickering footlights, and encircled by a dark band of trees. The

tenor of the quartette possessed a really melodious voice; his songs

were mostly of the Arab-Gipsy variety; type that perpetually invite

a lady to come forthwith and be wooed in some spot where she is not,

preferably a gondola, a caravan or a desert. He presented rather a

fine romantic figure, singing thus, head flung back, hazel-green eyes

half-closed, voice languorous with passion.

“That man has suffered,” whispered Aureole to Archie Mowbray. Who made

reply: “Oh, I dunno. Think he’s a gentleman, then?”

“It’s just possible to suffer without being a gentleman,” with fine

scorn. To which Archie protested uneasily: “Oh, I dunno.”

The party from the Farme numbered six: Letty, the Cabbage-rose,

Ethel Wynne, and little Verney being also present. Sebastian had

retired to find inspiration in the attic, directly after dinner, as

was now his wont; he had told Letty he was engaged on the production

of a masterpiece of fiction; and she, rejoicing in his genius, had

bidden him recite the words by which the book was to be dedicated to

her,--which assumption produced an awkward silence.

“There’s plenty of time for that,” he had said at last, feebly. “It may

never be published, you know.”

But of course it would be published, cried Letty; and without complaint

sacrificed her evenings with him. Though it would have been bliss to

have had him here, beside her, in the warm darkness.

A final duet was warbled from the stage, while the tenor of the troupe

went among the dim blur of faces in the audience, holding a silver

tray, and showering jests and gallantries in return for the shillings

that clattered thereon. This necessary part of the performance always

sent hot waves of shame surging up Aureole’s neck, for the fancied

anguish of soul the man underwent during his pilgrimage of degradation.

The jokes were doubtless a poor and threadbare garment to cover naked

pride,--Aureole shut her eyes tightly, with the result that her

shilling dropped beside the tray and onto the parched grass. The man

paused to grope for it, exchanging the while grave witticisms with the

donor. Bertram Kyndersley knew no such writhings as Aureole attributed

unto him; being indeed mainly concerned with the amount of the

evening’s takings, in his capacity of treasurer to the Troubadours.

“Under my feet, perhaps,” remarked Aureole; and Bertram made swift

reply: “Impossible, Lady Auburn-hair; they could hardly cover the coin;

it would peep out at the edges.”

Whereupon Aureole became extremely friendly with this particular

Troubadour, and laughingly bade him serenade her window at dawn, since

he could utter such fair impromptus.

“Alas and alack! and in all Hampshire how am I to find my lady’s

window?”

“If I let fall that secret, will you let fall your mask?” Aureole

looked meaningly at the strip of black velvet which concealed the upper

portion of his face.

“Give me but a chance!” And with that the Troubadour passed on, between

the benches, and back to the platform.

Aureole began to scribble feverishly on the back of her programme,

which she then folded into a note.

“Take this round to the tenor of the quartette,” she commanded little

Verney; “hurry up, or they’ll be gone,” for the spectators were already

beginning to stir and disperse in the darkness, and the flaming

footlights had one by one been extinguished. Verney obediently went.

The missive ran as follows:

“Will you not stay your caravan an hour or two, and with your

companions, give me the pleasure of your company this evening

at my house by the pine trees? _Sans cérémonie_--for are we not

fellow-gipsies on the highway of Art?

“LADY AUBURN-HAIR.

“P.S--Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse.”

Tim Jones, Ferdinand Wagge, Billy Dawson, and Bertram Kyndersley,

reading this effusion behind their shabby drapery of green baize which

did duty for a curtain, were mightily amused at the fellow-gipsies on

the highway of Art; and in the hope that the house by the pine trees

might at least be productive of decent whisky and cigars, fervidly

accepted the invitation.

“S’pose the postscript is her telegraphic address?” hazarded Billy

Dawson, knitting his brows. “More like the ’phone number,” from

Ferdinand Wagge.

Meanwhile, Aureole, sparkling with the double consciousness of having

vindicated her Bohemianism, and at the same time acted in a way which

would thoroughly annoy Stuart, was being championed by Letty and the

Cabbage-rose, against the disapproval of Archie Mowbray, whose attitude

was so consistently characteristic of the British subaltern, as to be

almost untrue to life.

“It doesn’t do, y’know. Really, Mrs. Strachey, it’s deuced cheek of me

to interfere, but to mix privately with those singing chaps----”

“They’re as good as we are,” flashed Letty. And the Cabbage-rose

interpolated: “Of course they are, delightful fellows! It was a

splendid idea to invite them; so unconventional; and I do so love their

dear little peepy masks. Do, Mr. Verney, go round again and beg them

not to change their costumes.”

The good-natured hunchback went, chuckling to himself. On the way

home--a taxi and Verney’s motor-car proving sufficient to accommodate

their own party in mixed proportion with the four Troubadours--Aureole

had time to hope Stuart would be in bed. He was; and so were all the

remaining boarders, save Bertie and the Ostend-Plage Girl, who were

discovered in the kitchen, drinking champagne and eating dressed crab.

This inspired Aureole with a fresh idea:

“Ye must spread your own feast,” she cried, medievally. “Ransack

cellars, larders and pantry, and bring forth all ye find. Ho,

revellers, to the groaning board!--We’ll make a midnight picnic of it.”

Thereafter, a helter-skelter of laughter and rummaging, and clatter

of forks on the flagged floor, and little shrieks of delight from the

Cabbage-rose, and an occasional agonized: sh-sh-sh, from Aureole,

fearing to wake the more respectable portion of her household; dreading

the sudden appearance of Stuart, exquisite in pyjamas and monocle, his

face screwed into an expression of formidable politeness; and his tone

holding all there was of Archie Mowbray’s insular disapproval, and, in

addition, a blend of “my husband’s friend,” a sound man in diamonds,

and the Balliol undergraduate,--all of which traits had developed to

the entire exclusion of pirate and leprechaun, since he had taken over

management of the Farme.

Ferdinand Wagge went solemnly to and fro from the cellar, each time a

pair of bottles under his arm. Tim Jones and Ethel Wynne collaborated

over the mixing of the mayonnaise salad. And Letty, finding a bowl of

cream, suddenly suggested a dish of fruit from the kitchen-garden.

“Oh, splendid! there are dozens of late raspberries, I saw them this

morning. Dark? Never mind; I’ll take my own light,” and laughing at the

absurdity of the notion, Aureole snatched a candle, and stepped out

into the garden, calling on someone to follow with a plate.

The night was sultry and moonless, as the Troubadour pursued the

tremulous flicker of light across the shadowy lawn, and through an

archway cut into the wall. Beyond lay an almost solid blackness; only

the passage of the candle to reveal on either side pale dangling shapes

of apple and pear: the orchard; thence a twisting path that led round

the conservatories to the fruit-garden. He paused, opened a glass door

... the answering gush of perfume crept into his veins, heavy as a

bee that sways in a foxglove. He had lost sight of the woman’s figure

in its gleaming sheath of satin--no, there the prick of candle light,

and there Aureole, tempting enough as she swept the flame up and down

the line of raspberry canes; hair tumbled duskily against her shining

pallor of neck, eyes brilliant with the search; body swaying towards

her companion each time she pattered the ripe crimson berries on to the

plate.

“Can’t you come nearer? I’ve just dropped two beauties,” reproachfully.

The Troubadour never resisted temptation. He pressed forward between

the bushes; slipped an arm round her, murmured a caressing word,

had kissed her full on the lips before she was even aware of his

movements. With realization, she repelled the man swiftly. Bertram was

startled--let her go, a move very much against his principles. The

raspberries lay spilt on the earth between them. Scorning to run, she

walked by his side, without speaking, back to the house. He was amused,

yet slightly indignant, at this unwonted response to his gallantries:

“After all, it isn’t as if she were still in her teens!”--and Billy

Dawson, observant beggar, would notice the empty plate, and ask sly

questions. Aureole, her heart thudding like a drum, and the blood

raging at her lips where he had touched them, was wondering how much it

all meant to him? What would be the outcome? Furiously angry, all of

a sudden, with Oliver, for not being at hand to protect her from this

type of outrage; furiously angry at the loss of dignity implied by the

bruised stung sensation on her mouth,--mouth which nevertheless would

persist in curving dangerously, provocatively, at the corners. ...

She laughed aloud, laughed contempt for her husband, defiance at her

‘husband’s friend,’ laughed a welcome to the temperament which had lain

too long between lavender.

Encouraged, Bertram kissed her again, quickly, before they quitted the

shadows of the orchard and Aureole struck him, for his insolence, but

mostly because she wanted to see the hurt pride blaze in his Spanish

eyes, and because she hoped he would try and strangle her for the

blow. She was avid of sensations this night.

“Oh Lord!” muttered Bertram, rather disconcerted. Then, in tender

reproach: “You spill my shillings, Lady Auburn-hair, and you spill

the raspberries, and now you spill my blood, which isn’t redder than

they--I mean, less red....”

They re-entered the lit hall; Aureole glanced furtively at his mouth,

to see if his accusations were justified: an infinitesimal dot of

scarlet had welled on the lower lip. But it was she, not he, who had

tasted blood....

* * * * *

The next meeting between Aureole and Bertram happened four days later,

hot noontide, in one of the declivities of the cliff that sloped so

gently to the sea. Bertram did not hesitate an instant at repeating his

offence. Sooth to say, he had almost forgotten it was a repetition;

had certainly forgotten the reception which had met his previous

overtures. He came to Aureole as natural and fresh in gallantry as

though she were his first love for the first time seen. That this

state of mind could be at all possible, never occurred to the woman,

who herself forever playing with emotion, yet most remarkably gave

credit to the other party for a fierce, lasting, and genuine passion.

Assuming that the man’s interim had been spent in brooding over his

dismissal, then what excellent courage, what doggedness of persistence,

nay, what true measure of desire he showed in thus returning undaunted

to the charge.... Aureole rebelled--continued to rebel--yielded. The

Troubadour was surprised by her acquiescence, into fervour keener

than he usually displayed in his passing errantry of light love.

They met again. And again. Her vanity had been damaged by Stuart’s

refusal to ‘come and play.’ If he had responded ever so slightly, ever

so harmlessly, instead of viewing her so determinedly in the light

of “rather a little fool, but Nigger’s wife, so I s’pose I must do

my best for her,”--who knows, she might have kept out of mischief

elsewhere; but he had lashed her by his rigid imperturbability to

a very demon of defiance. The origin of her severance from Oliver,

her initiative in the matter, was for Aureole completely lost in the

mists of long-agone; she genuinely viewed herself as a deserted wife,

forlorn, neglected, forgotten, her youth wasting to middle-age....

And when a cloaked man, a masked man, comes along, trolling gaily

his ballads of love, is one to let him pass for the sake of Oliver,

forsooth? or because one is frightened of Stuart Heron?

* * * * *

--“She called you Pierrot, and immediately you _were_ Pierrot!” thus

had remarked Bertram’s daughter, Peter, on a certain occasion when he

had been endeavouring to explain to her the incident of one Chavvy.

Equally, she might now have paraphrased the situation; “She saw you a

Troubadour, and immediately you _were_ a Troubadour!” Bertram could no

more help responding to suggestion, than mercury to the weather. And

he troubadoured most excellently; liked the rôle, with its flavour of

ripening vineyards, and southern roads white in the sunshine; snatched

intrigues of the court, alternating with the careless give-and-take of

wayside kisses. It was picturesque, yet virile; and altogether more

suited to his years and girth than had been Pierrot. He basked in

Aureole’s admiration; her abstinence from awkward questioning was a

divine trait in womankind; she was radiantly attractive in this, her

wilful leap towards the sun. Bertram loved her; he was quite sure he

did.

And she would not have been Aureole had she not attached all importance

to the trappings of her romance: the delicious sense of secrecy and

guilt; the elaborate excuses enabling her to retire early to her room;

thence to slip out through the low side window, on to the cliff,

to the belt of pine trees amidst whose lean and swaying shadows the

Troubadour would be waiting to keep tryst, those nights when no

performance took place at the Pavilion Gardens. Yet more cunning

machinations were required to induce some of the boarding-house party

to attend the concerts of the quartette, that she might sit there,

among the vague people who had not been held in his arms; and hear him

sing for her--yes, for her--his ballads of the tavern and the caravan

and the desert.

Once indeed, shattering her sense of his eternal presence, he warbled

gaily, as they paced the dark cliff edge:

“Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,

Thy way is long to the sun and south,

But I, fulfilled of my heart’s desire,

Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,

From tawny body and sweet small mouth,

Feed the heart of the night with fire!”

And she cried disappointedly:

“You mean, when summer is over, you will go to your South?”

(South, where all Troubadours live!)

And he, unheeding that Thatch Lane lay on the London and North-Western

Railway, gave careless acquiescence. “I never stop long in any one

place. We are birds of passage, Lady Auburn-hair, and when summer is

over we will sing our songs in other lands.”

We? Our?--so what had been to her a thrilling pastime, he, deluded

Troubadour, had actually meant? He had been building dreams of

continuing their golden idyll in other lands? Aureole replied, in

curiously vibrant tones:

“Once--I struck you--for suggesting--less than that.”

Bertram, still humming, could not remember what was the direful

suggestion he had just inadvertently let fall; but supposing it to have

been for a caress, as were usually his demands, he merely stated with

a mirthless laugh--not caring to risk again the sting of Aureole’s

little fingers:

“Then I must continue to exist without,--somehow,” added in a lower

tone of pain.

Aureole had since three years been striving to teach Oliver this

language, which came so naturally to the man beside her. To “work up a

scene” with her husband had held as much--or as little--intoxication,

as going to a ball, in a blouse and skirt, at eleven o’clock of a

November morning. Aureole had an insatiable greed for ‘powerful’

scenes; she took dalliance seriously, inasmuch as she always saw

herself as a coquette with a heart of stone, scratching at hearts of

flesh to see how they bled. “I’m a beast!” she that night adjured her

image in the looking-glass--since without a looking-glass impassioned

monologues sound never very convincing. “Oh, I _am_ a beast. I don’t

care a damn for him, and he thinks I do care; he thinks I’m--coming.”

During the month of September, the vision of her Troubadour, a lonely

swallow to the South, became almost too poignant to be born.

Summer was dropping her days as faintly and imperceptibly as the first

faintly yellowing leaves from the trees. A sense of depression, of the

closing-down of the year, drifted over the Farme. Some of the visitors

were leaving; as entities they did not matter; but as a symbol of

evanescence, their departure affected Aureole with profound melancholy.

The Troubadour Quartette sang no more of an evening in the Pavilion

Gardens. Bertram rented a room in the town, and lingered on; but at any

moment, she felt, the call of the South might peal too clearly for him;

and then, with or without her, he too would depart.

With or without her.

* * * * *

Climax was heralded by poisoned fish....

Stuart went nearly every day now to his business in High Holborn,

returning to Bournemouth in time for dinner in the evening. On a

certain Friday, he was met in the hall by the Cabbage-rose, who

informed him in sprightly tones:

“We shall be _tête-à-tête_ for dinner to-night, Mr. Heron.”

On the grounds that some things are too bad to be true, Stuart did not

at once grasp the prospect:

“Where’s everybody, then?”

“All ill!” announced the Cabbage-rose triumphantly; and some of her

evening-dress fell off.

“All?”

“My poor Johnny has been terribly bad, and so has Mrs. Percival. And,

if you listen, you will hear Sir James groaning. There was mackerel

for breakfast this morning, and it can’t have been quite good. I

took a boiled egg, and you, of course, had gone off to town before

the fish came, so you see we are sole survivors!” she adjusted a

slippery shoulder-strap, and trilled with laughter at the compromising

situation.--Then her face fell, as she spied the Disagreeable Female

marching down the stairs.

“I’m better. Not well, but better. I’ve had no food and no attention

all day, so I trust there’s a substantial dinner. Good evening, Mr.

Heron; I wish to complain of the fish we had for breakfast to-day.

We’ve all been seriously indisposed. One has to eat mackerel or

nothing, because there was only one egg, and naturally we couldn’t

_all_ have that,” and here she glared at the Cabbage-rose. “I believe

I am voicing the dissatisfaction of all the visitors here, Mr. Heron,

when I say that I consider it your duty to be at home during the day

to control these matters.--Ah! there is the gong, thank goodness. Even

if you are running a second boarding establishment in London, it can

hardly warrant neglect of us. Please pass the potatoes. I am bound to

say that matters were improved during the fortnight you had entire

control.”

Stuart bowed: “You overwhelm me.”

“Mustard, please. And as for Mrs. Strachey, I cannot say she ever

struck me as a very competent person; but since she spends her days

running about with that very disreputable beach-performer--in my

time they blacked their faces, so that one might know they weren’t

gentlemen,--she has let everything go to rack and ruin.”

“Oh, but he’s hardly what you’d call a nigger,” put in the

Cabbage-rose. “He has one of those nice olive complexions, you know;

and he has sung before all the crowned heads of Europe. Certainly, dear

Mrs. Strachey is making herself rather conspicuous----”

But the Disagreeable Female continued stonily: “I am purposely calling

your attention to the scandal, Mr. Heron, as if she is also deceiving

you, who pass yourself off as her husband’s friend----”

“Pardon me, I _am_ her husband’s friend. And both he and I have

implicit confidence in Mrs. Strachey’s choice of acquaintances; so that

there’s no need at all for scandal. If you’ve any more complaints to

make about the _food_, I shall be pleased to listen.”

The Disagreeable Female, quelled for the moment, merely suggested that

Stuart should bring two dozen eggs every day from London, as they

seemed to be scarce in Bournemouth “And not fresh. We _all_ like eggs,”

and again her eye roamed towards the Cabbage-rose.

But in spite of his championship of Aureole, Stuart’s principles of

morality were severely outraged by this account of her flirtation.

Defiance of the standing social and domestic code, was in his eyes only

permissible to what he termed free-lance adventurers, like himself,

Peter, or Sebastian. But Aureole was a wife; and, moreover, his pal’s

wife. Running about all day with--an organ-grinder, was it? It would

not be too much to state that Heron of Balliol, Heron of Heron &

Carr, was genuinely shocked.--“It isn’t done!” Besides which, he had

obstinately determined that Aureole should eventually be handed over,

as far as possible undamaged, to her husband. He had written several

letters to Oliver, at the latter’s bank and office, hoping that either

of these would receive an address to which to forward correspondence.

Pending his arrival, Aureole must be kept spotless as snow. Very

worried at the new development in his responsibilities, Stuart tackled

her the following evening:

“How are the invalids? Anybody dead?”

“They’re all up, except Mr. Johnson. He had it worst. Stuart, will I

have to pay the doctor for all of them? The old cat says I’m liable.”

The old cat was the Disagreeable Female.

“Indeed you are. Why don’t you examine fish when it comes in?”

“I don’t care for the smell. I ... just don’t care for it. And I was

out.”

“Where?”

Aureole smiled; a slow mutinous smile. “You grow more like Oliver every

day.”

“I hope so,” quoth Stuart virtuously; “he’s a better man than I am.

Wouldn’t it be as well to see in future that your guests aren’t

poisoned as well as starved?”

“Dear man, it would bore me.”

He strove to be moderate: “Quite so. But you’ve only five weeks still

to run here, and confound it, Aureole! surely it’s more fun to get

through a stodgy job decently and with credit, than just bungle it.

Even if you hate it, it’s more fun.”

“Our ideas of fun differ,” she laughed, impenitent. And then Stuart

realized with horror that she was looking remarkably pretty. He knew

enough of neurotic women to be assured that they did not sparkle and

bloom unless danger was imminent. He did not know enough of them to

refrain from making a mistake in his next remark:

“I’ve reason to believe your husband will be here shortly. He won’t be

over-pleased to fork out, among other things, for thirteen doctor’s

bills on attending thirteen bilious attacks.”

“Damn doctors!” she stamped her foot viciously. “Damn bilious attacks

and fish and boarding-houses and husbands and ... and you....” She fled

to Bertram, awaiting her among the pines. A soft drizzling moisture

filled the air. In the garden she passed Sebastian and Letty, whose

mission it seemed to leave themselves lying about to act as goads in

critical moments.--“Damn lovers....”

--“Lady Auburn-hair, this is almost our good-bye. In a very few

days----”

“You must go? Is that it?” the chill in the air crept into her very

soul.

“Not that I must go, but that I must not stay,” parried Bertram,

skilfully implying unutterable things. Sooth to say, he was weary of

troubadouring.

South ... South ... he on his lonely voyage to the sun; and she

remaining to examine fish at the door ... colder drearier days ...

Oliver coming back to scold her ... other lovers, two and two and two

... and romance, masked and cloaked, abandoning her for ever?...

“Non ti scordar di me!” he throbbed forth suddenly, in his passionate

tenor. “Non ti scordar di me!”

And Aureole replied: “Ask me again, Troubadour, as you asked me once

... and perhaps--perhaps I will come with you.”

* * * * *

After her departure, Bertram still sat on the damp bench beneath the

trees, gazing helplessly before him. He found himself pledged, he knew

not how, and, ten days hence, he knew not why, to a journey South,

he knew not where. He believed he had been guilty of describing,

in vivid spirited narrative, some such adventure across the water;

because--deuce take it! with the reputation of a troubadour, a

traveller, a pedlar of songs, a lover of fair women, a comrade of lords

and beggars alike, he could hardly leave acquiescence at a tame: “Yes.

Let’s. How jolly,” when she proposed their hazardous plunge together

into the unknown. Well, he had still, as result of a successful summer

tour, some thirty odd pounds in his pocket, and a store of faithful

attachment in his heart. As to their ultimate destiny, when love and

the thirty pounds were exhausted,--that was a problem too deep for a

mazed troubadour, sitting disconsolately beneath a dripping pine tree.

Floating in the vague backwaters of his mind was the supposition that,

at worst, he could always take Aureole to Miss Esther Worthing--his

sister-in-law--and leave her there. After all, Esther had made Chavvy

very welcome. Meanwhile ... Bertram’s inflammable heart had certainly

landed him in some awkward situations of late; he didn’t know what

women were coming to, when one willy-nilly married you, and another ran

away with you! He wondered if it would ever be his lot to meet with a

nice modest girl, content with a few kisses and endearments; a girl

like his daughter Peter!

--“Lord! I wonder what Peter would say to this mess. _When_ did I

promise? _What_ did I ask? I’m hanged if I can remember....”

* * * * *

Stuart came to the conclusion that it was no good plunging into

this affair before it had reached its zenith. Just at present there

was nothing to get at. It was best as rapidly as possible to hasten

the ultimate climax, which he strongly believed would be a romantic

elopement, and then, somehow, smash it!

So, in furtherance of these plans, he came to Aureole; and meekly, as

though in atonement for his former surliness, placed his sailing-yacht

at the disposal of herself and her visitors.

“I’ve brought it over from the Haven, and it’s lying anchored at the

foot of the Chine. If at any time you care to use it, old Dan Truefitt

will act skipper; he’s perfectly trustworthy; and he has my orders.”

It struck Aureole how delightfully ironical it would be to employ

Stuart’s boat--just Stuart’s boat--for the means of transport, when

she and Bertram escaped from the old to the new. At present, her

chiefest joy in the prospect of the elopement, was in contemplating

Stuart’s reception of the tidings. And if the latter should come to him

flavoured by the final audacity of _his_ property as the vehicle of

sin----!

“Thank you, Stuart,” demurely; “it’s very thoughtful of you; and

it’s so difficult, now that the real summer weather is over, to keep

everyone amused. We play coon-can, of course. But there’s something

more virile about sailing, isn’t there?”

“Much more virile,” he agreed. And wondered if his bait had been

swallowed. At all events, he must assume it had. He calculated that the

pair would not make their flight by day, both for practical reasons of

concealment, and from a sense of atmosphere. On the other hand, Aureole

would scarcely wait for the arrival of her ‘gaoler’ from town, by the

7.40 train every evening. Between six and seven, then, the twilight

hour, he fixed as the time when two cloaked figures might be expected

at the foot of the Chine, where the boat lay at anchor. At this

spot, therefore, in the shadow of the cliff, Stuart waited secretly,

patiently, every evening between six and seven o’clock. Baldwin

demanded frequently why he left the office so early; and confided to

Arthur Heron that he believed Stuart to be mixed up in “some affair

with a woman.”

--“Would you advise me to move in the matter?”

“No,” replied Uncle Arthur, always inclined to be taciturn.

“Not find out who she is? and call on the female? and attempt to square

her?”

“No.”

“Well then, shall I tackle Stuart? Remind him what he owes to the name?

Set forth, from experience, how helpless a young fellow can be in the

hands of a clever adventuress? Tell him----”

This time the other man answered at greater length: “My God, no.”

And Baldwin left it at that.

“I should say it would be very soon now,” reflected Stuart, on the

ninth day of waiting. This he deduced from Aureole’s demeanour; she

being quite incapable of restraining herself from inscrutable smiles,

eyes dream-laden, spurts of brilliantly hectic conversation, bouts of

feverish consideration for others, speech and comment pregnant with

triple meanings, and other indications of a swiftly approaching crisis;

all of which Stuart found extremely useful. He had no notion of exactly

how he was to effect the _débâcle_, but trusted for his inspiration

to that solemn moment when, about to embark, the guilty couple should

hear the shuffle of footsteps in the sand, and, turning, gaze into his

accusing eyes.... “Is this prophetic sight, or did I ever read about

it?” mused Stuart.

He paid Aureole the compliment of not for a moment believing that

she was taking her fun all this while in a squalid furtive fashion,

attempting to blend outward respectability with hidden romance. No;

decidedly she had the courage of her emotional caprices; this had been

proved by her prompt flight from Norfolk, directly she had convinced

herself that it was necessary for her soul’s development and for the

stimulation of Oliver’s after-marriage courtship.--“She’ll burn her

boats right enough--little fool!” Stuart muttered; “and I hope it

will be to-night.” He was beginning to find his shadowy watches both

wearisome and chilly.

* * * * *

“But, sweetheart, I _can’t_ sail a yacht,” cried the Troubadour in

despair, when Aureole unfolded her latest scheme.

“You can row, then; and we’ll reef the sails--tie them up in a bundle.

It’s a pity ... but yet ... plash of oars on the calm still water....”

Bertram hoped it would indeed be calm still water. He did not care

to disturb her imagination by mere facts,--but he had no liking for

the sea. He asked if he were expected to row all the way to France,

to Provence, golden land of minstrelsy, which she had chosen as their

first background for unending and virile scenes of love.

Aureole sighed. “It’s a pity,” she repeated. “However, we’ll row along

the coast to Poole, and hire a man, a strange fierce-eyed man, to sail

the boat across the Channel. And then, after landing us, he shall sail

her back again”--and she added, in a vicious undertone,--“to Stuart

Heron!”

* * * * *

To Stuart Heron, crouching far back in an indentation hollowed out

of the cliff, the events of that night were swift and improbable as

scenes reeled off the film. The white line of wave hissed and broke

with exactly that sound; and the twilight had sucked the background of

all colour save lifeless greys; clearly etched against the pale sky,

rose the mainmast of the boat; beside it, the tall figure of a man

stood immovable, wrapped in heavy folds of cloak, his face blurred by

the deepening shadows. The white line of wave hissed and broke. Then,

quite tiny at first, but gradually growing to life-size, a woman’s

figure fled down the winding road of the Chine. The man stepped forward

to meet her, held her for a moment silently in his arms, then drew

her along the shore to the boat. They gesticulated with sharp little

movements. Another figure stole out of hiding; crept towards the

couple, whose backs were turned to him. His steps were noiseless on the

sand. So that still no sound shattered the picture, save of the white

line of wave that monotonously hissed and broke....

All this, Stuart watched with mingled amusement and interest. His was

the stealthy shape which might have been a spy among conspirators, a

Customs Officer amid smugglers, an Indian with a tomahawk, or the hero

to the rescue.

--Then he spoke, casually:

“Going for a sail? Can I be of any use?”

Aureole did not shriek. She swayed slightly, recovered herself, looked

at the intruder steadily, and said: “You ... beast!”

He smiled. “Oh, yes, I think the breeze is strong enough.” Then he

turned to meet full-face the eyes of--Bertram Kyndersley. “You? the

devil!”

Bertram betrayed no surprise at the sudden apparition. He was already

a stricken man this night. Aureole’s wishes he had carried out in a

dazed mazed sort of fashion, still not sure how he came to be involved

in this medieval escapade. He had eloped before; but sensibly,--never

like this. He was just aware that for one who had troubadoured not

wisely but too well, there were no honourable means of withdrawal.

Wondering whether for the rest of his life he would be doomed to carry

a guitar, without its case, exposed to the mockery of all men; whether,

once at sea, he would ever again be able to induce a demoniacal boat

shorewards; whether his little store of gold would vanish in a single

night, and leave him a beggar in Provence; wondering all this, he yet

acquiesced to his fate; and even, when the string was pulled, said:

“Lady Auburn-hair,” passionately, and added a few lyrical snatches

expressive of his enamoured condition.

So that Stuart Heron, from whom he remembered once borrowing ten pounds

in the garden of Bloemfontein, now took his place quite naturally as

part of the scenery imported by Aureole; for what purpose Bertram knew

not, and cared not; while things were happening to him, they might

as well happen one way as another. And when Stuart, having unroped

the boat, said: “Would you mind sitting to windward, Mr. Kyndersley?”

then he obediently sat in the spot indicated, beside Aureole; and

alternately watched Stuart in a deft manipulation of sheets, and the

waves that split in a white lather of fury along the bows.

“Not the weather I’d have chosen to take you for a pleasure-trip,”

remarked the skipper to his passengers, when he had finally got her

running with dangerous speed before the wind. “However----” he shrugged

his shoulders, implying it was their choice, not his.

Presently a silence fell upon Bertram, different from the numb

passivity of his bearing hitherto; a more pregnant sort of silence,

eloquent of a thousand words unspoken....

“Care to smoke?” enquired Stuart, with brutal courtesy. He made fast

the sheet, and lit a cigarette. Then, ruthlessly, held the shielded

flame for Bertram; that instant of light showed him--many things! All

his previous indignation with Aureole was now shifted to Aureole’s

partner in crime: Bertram Kyndersley--who was a father--Peter’s

father--Why, the man must be an arrant scoundrel! Aureole, Stuart

observed thankfully, dumb with scorn and hatred and apprehension, was

yet being spared the worst; she was a good sailor. Hitherto she had

bravely maintained the pretence that this was merely a delightful

half-hour’s excursion on the water; but now she leant forward, and

demanded tensely:

“What are you going to do with us?”

“Where were you bound for?” replied Stuart.

“Does that matter ... now?”--a guitar slid suddenly between them,

fallen from a limp hand, and bounded against the rail.

Stuart said, eyes fixed upon the slant of the sail: “This man has a

wife.” His speech was bound to be curt, for the increasing wind broke

up every sentence as it fell from the salt-stiff lips, and tossed the

words sportively hither and thither.

“This man has a wife.”

“It’s not true!” cried Aureole.

And Bertram muttered something about “man to man” and “code of honour”--

“Oh, honour!” Stuart did some malicious act which caused the bows to

dip slowly into the trough of a wave, then suddenly rear, and roll over

sideways with a lurch; “why should I be bound in honour to uphold you

in your dishonourable acts, because you happen to be of my sex? Where’s

your honour where Chavvy is concerned? little Chavvy, yours by right of

England’s sacred laws, and by her unwavering love! It’s men like you,”

continued Stuart Heron, “who wreck the sanctity of the home and violate

the sanctity of the heart”--seeing that Bertram was perforce not

attending to his eloquent harangue, he addressed himself to Aureole:

“I’ve told you the truth, Aureole; and I can prove it to be the truth.

You’ve come into his arms only over the body of another woman. Even

now, she’s waiting patiently for his return; she--damn! the wind’s

changed!” ... and only just in time the sheet was unlashed and pulled

in.... “About ship!” he roared. Aureole obeyed instantly; but Bertram,

not at home in nautical phraseology, had to be lugged forcibly from the

drenched scuppers.

Stuart went on: “And, in the same way, brutally, remorselessly, he

would desert you, when he got tired of the episode; and you would be

stranded, an outcast from respectability, a derelict of life, without

a single fighting weapon left; your looks raddled and faded”--he felt

he might as well pile it on while he was about it,--“no money, no hope,

your husband alienated, your faith shattered,--all for the sake of a

man who should be labelled _dangerous!_ for everyone with whom he comes

in contact, to see and beware!”

A ray of moon pierced the drifting clouds, and showed him Aureole,

huddled on the seat, a woebegone little figure, with wisps of soaked

veil and hair blown flat on to her pinched white face; not a trace left

of the flare and defiant glow with which she had started on her pursuit

of love _à la_ troubadour. And he became suddenly human, and very sorry

for her, and rather embarrassed at his former rant and rhetoric.

“Never mind, dear; we’re tacking landwards now; and not a soul need

ever know the facts of this. If anyone asks, you’ve been for a spin

with a tomfool skipper who didn’t know dirty weather when he saw it. I

expect Mr. Kyndersley can be trusted to keep his mouth shut,” with a

scathing glance at the second of the romantic pair, who, at the moment,

was emphatically not fulfilling these expectations.

They landed at the same spot where they had previously embarked.

Stuart was eager to get Aureole home; he saw she was on the verge

of a breakdown; and recognizing perhaps the new note of solicitude

and pity in his tones, she seemed to cling to him. Without a word of

farewell, they left Bertram standing on the shore; carrying in one hand

a smashed guitar, with the other hand striving to gather closer about

his shivering figure, the sodden folds of his cloak. It was not till

his two companions were finally gulped by the darkness, as they passed

up the winding road of the Chine, that his bewildered consciousness was

slowly illumined by recognition of his freedom.

“Did you have any luggage?” Stuart demanded of Aureole, as he supported

her up the drive of the Farme.

“No--yes; only a small bag; it’s still in the boat.”

“Then what----?”

“Bertram was going to buy me all I wanted.”

Stuart wondered if his ten-pound note, as well as his boat, was to have

been pressed into service for the elopement.

They found the hall deserted; from behind the dining-room door could be

heard sounds indicative of dinner progressing within.

“Excellent; nobody need see you; go up to your room, and put on

something dry; and I’ll have hot soup sent up to you, and tell them to

light you a fire.”

Aureole bestowed on him a wan smile of gratitude, and droopingly went

upstairs. Stuart gave the necessary orders; then, not caring either

to join the rest of the company, or change his wet clothes, remained

fidgeting restlessly about the hall. Like Bertram, he was feeling

“strangely disturbed in his innards,” though from different causes.

Bertram ... how diabolically the man’s eyes, in spite of the puffiness

beneath, had recalled Peter’s.... “Infernal old reprobate!” muttered

Stuart; “one would think he might have a sense of decency, with a

grown-up daughter.”

Peter ... Stuart swore softly as he meandered from staircase to window,

from dining-room door to front door.

Presently the latter opened, and Oliver Strachey walked in.

“Hullo, Nigger!”

“Hullo. Where’s my wife?”

“In her room,” replied Stuart, with deep inner thankfulness that this

should be so.

“Which room?” Oliver prepared to mount.

“First floor, second on the left. And go easy; she’s a bit nervous

to-night; I took her for a sail, and it upset her.”

“So I should think; in this weather. What a crazy old slogger you are!

Your first letter was forwarded to me ages ago; so, knowing Aureole was

all right with you, I stopped on in New York, and did some business.”

“Um.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Second door on the left.”

Oliver ran up the stairs, two at a time, and vanished.

“Nice old mess-up it might have been, but for me,” reflected Stuart

complacently. “And I wonder if that’s going to be something on my

credit side of the ledger, at last. _Who_ pulled ’em out?--little Tommy

Stout!”

--But who put ’em in?... Stuart remembered suddenly his debit account;

and ceased to crow.

* * * * *

A sad little Pierrette crouched in front of the fire. Pierrot had gone

away. Would he ever come back? Pierrette had waited so long.

The wind lashed and sobbed at the windows. Up the street crept the

solitary figure of a man. Outside the house he paused, cast away a

phantom cloak and mask--(oh, the infinite relief!) and donned a phantom

skull cap and white frill. Metamorphosis easily effected.

Pierrette opened to the knock at the door. And, with a cry of joy, held

out both hands to welcome in the truant.

“I knew you would come home, Pierrot,” quoth Chavvy.

CHAPTER V

WORSHIPPERS ALL

The end of September saw the Johnsons back again in their Turnham

Green residence, named, somewhat misleadingly: “Town House.” Thus it

was an easy matter for Mr. Johnson to say, wherever he might chance to

spend his summer holidays: “Mother, this time next week we’ll be in

our Town House!” airily creating out of his harmless little vanity, a

whole host of shooting-boxes, country mansions, river bungalows, and

Riviera villas. Mrs. Johnson would smile tolerantly; she encouraged

originality, even in her husband.

Sebastian Levi took a room near by, where he wrote the final chapters

of his book, and impatiently awaited the return of Stuart from

Bournemouth, that the whole might receive his sanction and benediction.

A fortnight afterwards, and he was summoned one evening to Carlton

House Terrace; and in an apartment which was curiously ordinary for the

shrine of so exalted a being, found Stuart sprawling in a low shabby

arm-chair, and poking at the smouldering coals with his foot.

“Hullo, Levi, how’s--let me see, I’ve forgotten the name----”

“‘Shears,’” supplemented Sebastian excitedly; “I’ve got it with me.”

“No, you ardent flame-headed lover. Letty. How’s Letty?”

“Letty’s all right, except the days when she has to starve herself to

make her father receive me. I say, Heron,” looking about him, “what a

queer sort of room--for you.”

“What’s queer about it?”

“Well, mainly that it isn’t queer at all, I suppose; it might be

anybody’s study.” And Sebastian thought with a smothered sigh, of

the suite of apartments he had renounced in his father’s house in

Hampstead. He had attained so exactly the effects his artistic eye

desired, beautiful subdued effects of lighting and drapery. Editha

and Ivy had been nothing like as successful in their more blatant

furnishings.

“What do chairs and tables matter?” queried Stuart calmly.

“But don’t you want to impress your personality----?”

“On a firescreen? no, I’d choose something softer than that.” But

though a gleam in Stuart’s eye betokened plainly what was the

“something softer” he had chosen, Sebastian, turning over the leaves of

his precious manuscript, and awaiting a desirable opening to introduce

it into the conversation, noticed nothing.

“How’s the Menagerie? Have you left it to muddle on by itself?”

“No; Mr. Strachey returned from America last week, and I resigned

management. I don’t think he was keen on bearing the burden, but

they’ve only got the place for a month still.”

“Is Aureole very fond of him?” Sebastian wondered in a fever of

impatience when Stuart was going to ask him about “Shears.”

Stuart smiled, as at some secret joke. “Just at present she’s the very

model of a meek and devoted wife.” Then, at last, held out his hand

towards the bundle on Sebastian’s knees. “Finished? Let’s have a look?”

“No--I say--if it won’t bother you----” But Stuart was already at the

first page, on which was inscribed the dedication:

“To

STUART HERON

In thanks

For all that he took from me

And all that he gave to me.”

He threw the young author an embarrassed look. “I don’t know, really,

that I did take anything; you flung down,--that’s rather different.”

“I’m flinging down now--this book!” cried Sebastian, much happier than

his companion when emotion was to the fore. “It’s yours, every line of

it; your thoughts, your creed, your visions and ideals. It’s--well,

I owed you something really big, and this was the best I could do.

The very best.” His tone pleaded, but at the same time boasted his

achievement.

Stuart began to read. Presently it dawned upon him that this was a very

bad book. The style, at first, held recollections of Sebastian’s Oxford

days; it echoed, somewhat pretentiously, the polished laboured phrasing

of Walter Pater. Then, uncertainly, it began to jerk and flicker; to

pass from one key into another; to offend by a great many flaunting

passages of which the writer was obviously proudest. It soon became

apparent that the hero, a flashy young man in the worst possible taste,

was intended for a loving presentment of Stuart himself, drawn by a

blind worshipper, and consequently now giving the writhing original a

few of the most poignant moments he had ever thought to endure.

“My God!” he muttered once or twice.

Moreover, Sebastian had apparently just fallen short of the main

idea--idea of the Shears and the Hairpin Vision; glimpsed it at moments

and then lost it again, so that it carried no conviction, and was

merely far-fetched and misty.

In short, when he had turned twenty pages, Stuart would have given much

never to have owned a creed, nor yet a disciple; that he should live

to see the one so perverted, and the other sitting opposite him with

dumbly questioning gaze. “Well? ... well? ...” it seemed to say.

Stuart laid aside the scribbled-over sheets. “I can’t possibly go on

reading while you sit there and hang out your tongue at me, Levi; I’m

not strong-minded enough. You’d better leave the book behind for me to

finish.”

And so, cravenly, he postponed the evil hour of criticism. And

afterwards wrote a letter which was a diplomatic miracle; ending:

--“You will understand that the book and all it contains has affected

me more profoundly than I can express in words--just yet. Perhaps when

it is published, and I can get a better perspective, I shall be able to

say more of what I feel....”

Not having seen the vicious contortions of Stuart’s features as he

penned these sentences, Sebastian was for the nonce satisfied.--“When

it is published”--how devoutly he longed for this consummation of

his labours. To lay at Stuart’s feet a pile of scribbled paper was

comparatively nothing; but to be the means of spreading the master’s

word throughout the British Isles, in a bound volume of sturdy print,

containing the master’s name at the beginning, for all to reverence and

comment upon,--this, surely, was a worthy tribute, sufficient to win

the “well done!” that the disciple so burningly coveted. Sebastian’s

desire to publish was completely unselfish; he was proud of his book

only inasmuch as it reflected Stuart; thirsted for fame merely that the

rays might fall on Stuart’s head. The utmost he wished for himself was

sufficient recognition of the Vision Splendid, that men might say, men

and his father and the Johnsons: “I thought young Levi mad at the time,

to have chucked such excellent worldly prospects; but now I marvel how

right he was, how much clearer was his sight than ours, how quickly

responsive was his soul to what has taken us three-hundred-and-sixteen

pages of solid reading to recognize!”... He could not quite hear Mr.

Johnson uttering these precise words, but a homely vernacular would

be forgiven for the sake of lofty sentiment. At present Sebastian was

only received at Town House on sufferance; and trifling matters, such

as the parlour left empty for him and Letty during four hours or so,

were not arranged as willingly as might have been the case had the

young man still been in possession of his fifteen hundred a year. Letty

herself, however, compensated him richly for her parents’ unkindness.

She grew ever prettier, ever more yielding, ever more necessary for

Sebastian’s peace of mind and body. Ned Levi’s humble birth and

ancestry had implanted a strain in the boy which found curious pleasure

in his fiancée’s slightly common turn of phrase, her occasional lack of

refinement in taste and clothes, her childish unpretentious longings,

her tiny little vulgarisms. These were never sufficiently strident to

jar him; they merely gave him a sense of returning to rest after a long

journey; cessation of a cry in him that no riches or dissipations or

intellectual strivings could ever thus lull to silence. Moreover, Letty

clung to him; and he knew she believed herself clinging to a rock;

supposition soothing to his own inner doubts.

The one thing in her that puzzled him was her continual reference to a

near future when, as a matter of course, they should be as wealthy as

before his renunciation of wealth. It could not be that she depended

for this on his book, which, he had explained to her many times, was

not a money-making proposition. And once, when he had laughingly asked

if she proposed robbing Aladdin’s Cave or the Bank of England, for

the fulfilment of her plans, she laid both hands on his shoulders, and

demanded wistfully:

“Aren’t you sure _yet_, Sebastian?”

“Sure of what, sweetheart?”

She sighed, and turned away her head. Perhaps he had decided for a

year-long test; if so, she must just be patient.--The door opened

to admit Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Baker, mother of that Violet who

even now contemplated breaking off her engagement because Letty’s

Sebastian had ‘a lovely mouth and jaw,’ and her own Ernie a receding

chin. But Mrs. Baker bore no malice for this; her nature was soft as

sponge, and formless as the garments which dripped and cascaded from

indiscriminately outjutting portions of her figure; garments without

end or beginning; rather dirty garments, of a period unknown to history.

“Disturbin’ your billing and cooing, are we?” she cried genially;

“there, it’s a shame! But I only wanted to be introduced to your

friend, Letty, my dear.” She beamed on Sebastian, noted at once that he

was a Jew, and kindly resolved not to mention the fact that her late

husband had been a parson. Then she changed her mind, and instead of

tactfully skirting the subject of Sebastian’s misfortune--which, poor

boy, was probably an accident and not his fault--she decided to refer

to It exactly as if It didn’t matter, and thus put him entirely at his

ease. So she started:

“And where are these young folk going to have the knot tied, Frances

Johnson? At a registrar’s, I suppose,--as it can’t be done in Church.

So nice ... dear things ...” wheezily.

Letty and her mother looked at one another. “Now that’s funny!”

exclaimed Mrs. Johnson; “I never thought of that.”

“Thought of what?” asked Sebastian.

“Why, that you couldn’t be married in a church.”

“But a Synagogue is a sweet place,” put in Mrs. Baker; “though of

course it wouldn’t do for Letty. But I’m sure the Hebrew ceremony is

beautiful, even if one can’t understand a word of it, because they

pronounce it upside down, don’t they? I remember going once to see a

Jewish girl we knew get married; such a good-looking girl ... dear

thing ... Laura Silberstein; did you know her, Mr.----?”

“Levi,” supplemented Sebastian gravely, wishing it had been something

worse.

“And I remember too that the white flowers and the satin tent and that

lovely singing made me feel--I told Mr. Baker afterwards--quite as

religious and miserable as if I’d been to one of our own weddings. And

he had no objection at all, and said I might certainly go again every

time the younger sisters married; there were eight Silberstein girls,

you see. And he told me to take Violet next time. Mr. Baker liked us

always to be nice to Jews; he was very particular about that.”

Sebastian had a happy moment picturing Mr. Baker being particular about

it. He was sorry Mr. Baker was dead.

“And did the other seven poor girls get married?” Letty enquired

earnestly, very sorry for them because they could not all or any marry

Sebastian.

“Only one; Pearl, the youngest; and she married a High Church

gentleman, and got quickly baptised, and it was held at St. George’s,

Hanover Square. And that time,” Mrs. Baker concluded triumphantly, “my

husband would _not_ let me attend. He said Jews were delightful and

clever people _in_ their faith, but disapproved of them marrying out of

it.”

... Then she realized the horror of her mistake.

Letty slipped her fingers into Sebastian’s arm, and looked defiantly at

the purpling Mrs. Baker. Mrs. Johnson said hurriedly:

“Of course they are quite wonderfully clever; such a head for

business. That’s why we’re so sorry, Sebastian, that you gave up your

partnership at the Stores.”

“What is Mr. Levi doing then?” queried Mrs. Baker faintly. And Letty

trumpeted forth that Sebastian had written a book.

“Oh, but then he must have quite wonderful brains; now I like that;

yes, I like people to have brains... dear things ...” and Mrs. Baker

nodded and smiled several times to show her tolerance, while, in the

same key, Mrs. Johnson carried on:

“Yes, I must say that personally I don’t object to even a woman with a

man’s brain; we hear a lot about it spoiling her charm, but _I_ think a

girl can be both feminine and intellectual, don’t you, Milly?”

Mrs. Baker said: “Yes, indeed, and sporting too. They say that hockey

is bad for the figure, but I like a fine open-air girl ... dear healthy

things. Though of course I admire the dainty type as well, _and_ the

clever woman who wears glasses.”

And Mrs. Johnson wound up this display of the boundless broadness of

mind existing among Turnham Green matrons, by a magnificent declaration

that _she_ believed a girl could be brainy without wearing glasses!

There is no knowing to what Rabelaisian extent the conversation

might have widened, had not Luke burst in, with a gruff demand for

tea; and dragging in his wake the fifteen-year-old flapper from the

boarding-house next door:

--“Don’t look at me, Mrs. J. I’m sky blue with cold; this horrid kid

kept me standing hours and hours listening to a stupid old man on a tub

at a street-corner. I declare, I wish I’d gone biking with Tommy Cox;

he asked me to come on his carrier.”

“Pity you didn’t, then,” growled Luke, eyes fixed on Sebastian.

Jinny tossed back the curly brown hair which lapped her shoulders; an

enormous black bow stood out pertly from the nape of her neck. She

wore a blue woolly tam-o’-shanter, a string of green glass beads round

her bare throat, a striped flannel shirt, a green serge skirt, very

short to show her high brown boots, and a brooch of her school badge

and motto.

“I say, may I stop to tea?” she asked of Mrs. Johnson, ignoring Luke.

“Certainly, Jinny; it won’t be ready till five o’clock,--but some of us

can wait in the dining-room.”

Mrs. Baker instantly apprehended Mrs. Johnson’s sympathetic intentions

towards Letty and Sebastian, and with great alacrity went to the door.

“Come on, Jinny, dear; how’s your mother, this sudden cold snap? ...

ah, bless them ... sweet things ... young things ...” this last in a

diminishing purr of benediction.

“Oh, she’s all right, thanks. Not much sense in going in to tea till

tea’s there, is it?--Oh, I see! All right!” Jinny grinned at Letty, and

followed in the wake of the two ladies. “Come along, Luke.”

“In a minute.” Luke had planted himself on the parlour sofa, with the

obvious intention not to budge.

“_Now_, you boss-eyed mule. They want to be alone together; they don’t

want you.” Jinny conveyed to him their probable intentions when quit of

the crowd, by an expressive pantomime of eating with _spoons_.

“Shut it! We’re not all such babies for jam.”

“I didn’t say a word about jam,” exasperated by his denseness. “And I’m

jolly sure I shan’t come to tea with you again.”

Luke growled something inarticulate; and Jinny, head high in air,

marched out and banged the door. Luke’s coolness hurt her sometimes.

She wore his ring on the third finger of her left hand--a ring from an

expensive cracker,--and he escorted her to school every morning, on

the way to his own; not infrequently he carried her satchel; when both

their machines were in repair, they biked; but this was not often.

He was a year older than she; a hobbledehoy youth of sixteen; rather

spotty about the face; and with a taste in ties, that, starting in a

bout of violent enthusiasm, had suddenly stopped, before it emerged

from the crude-colour stages to something really tasteful. He was surly

in the company of ladies; and when his mother spoke to him, always

mumbled his replies; though it was owing to her advanced views that

on his sixteenth birthday he was given a latchkey: “Show the boy he’s

free to come and go about the house as he likes, Matthew, and he’ll

never break out as he would if he was too much kept in.” But as Mat

Johnson could not be prevailed upon at the same time to raise his son’s

pocket-money to more than sixpence a week, there seemed indeed very

small chance for Luke to break out. Once or twice he had hung about at

the end of his street till the house was locked up at half-past ten,

for the pride of letting himself in at five-and-twenty to eleven; but

that was all. Dating from his sister’s engagement, however, a subtle

change had passed over him; he was seen to read, instead of the cricket

or football papers he had been wont to patronize, a two-sheet Socialist

rag, named, with misleading mildness: “Mine and Yours,”--and containing

mostly threatening references to “Yours.” Also, though he rarely spoke

to Sebastian, he evinced a dogged preference for that young gentleman’s

company; and very often, as now, would sit in gloomy silence in the

same room as the twain; and refuse to move till Letty actually ordered

him forth. She hated doing this, as it looked as if she “wanted

Sebastian alone,” which in its turn rather looked as if she “wanted

Sebastian to kiss her.” Which she did. But it was inconsiderate of Luke

to force her to the tacit admission.

“Can you make out why he’s so odd with Sebastian, mother?”

“Letty, dear,” solemnly, “have I ever tried to force my children’s

confidence? Everything they tell me is of their own free will,”--and

indeed, it was extremely little.

The tea-bell freed the couple in the parlour from the infliction of

Luke’s scrutiny. Jinny ignored her chum throughout tea, by way of

punishment for his defection. And when the last rock-cake had been

consumed, declared she had to be going: “I’ve got piles of arith., and

a four-page comp. for Monday, and Ma won’t let me work Sundays because

of the old tabby-cats in the house and what they’ll say. Good-bye, Mrs.

J. I’ve had a scrumptious tea.”

Luke followed her into the hall.

“You’d better run along back to the parlour,” she informed him

crushingly.

“Why?”

“You seem to find the Levi man better company than me.”

“Jinny, I like you better than any other girl”; he fumbled for her

hand. Since months he had tried to substitute ‘love’ for ‘like,’ but

somehow Jinny made it so hard for a fellow; she was always laughing or

snubbing him.

“Thanks; I’m honoured.”

Luke kicked the umbrella-stand. “One must be polite--the Guvnor’s such

a beast to him--and he’s going to be my brother-in-law.... I don’t care

a hang about him, really.”

“Who would you like best for Letty’s sister-in-law?” Jinny demanded,

casually swinging her bulging satchel of books.

“Who would _I_ like for _Letty’s_ sister-in-law?”

Jinny waited a bit. “Well--slowcoach?”

“I don’t see what on earth you mean,” he said, pondering the matter.

And he hadn’t found her hand yet.

“Bright boy!” she taunted him, and leaping the three steps, tore up the

three of the next house, and vanished through the open front door.

An hour afterwards, Luke said: “Oh!” It had dawned upon him.

That evening, before retiring to bed, he banged at Letty’s door, and,

not waiting for permission, slouched into her room. Quickly she covered

up some mysterious occupation at the writing-table.

“Hullo, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Luke stood by the mantelpiece, and closely examined

likenesses of Violet Baker, Michael Mordkin, and Sebastian. Letty,

really alarmed by his uncanny behaviour, came up behind him, and

slipped an arm around his shoulders. “What is it, old boy?”

“Nothing.”

“Luke, have you been betting?”

“Not such a fool.”

She waited, head snuggled against his arm. Presently he said, with

great difficulty: “That fellow of yours, Letty----”

“Sebastian?”

“Haven’t got more than one, have you?”

“Of course not,” indignantly she straightened herself. And he blurted

out:

“Look here--did he really--I mean, why was he such an ass about his

money?”

Letty re-seated herself at the writing-table, and propping her

short round little chin on her hands, smiled pensively down at the

blotting-paper, and made no reply.

“Do you know what made him do it?” Luke persisted.

“How should I?”

But he seemed unable to leave the subject, now he had embarked upon it.

“You don’t seem to mind much.”

“I don’t mind one bit.”

“Pater’s mad about it. He’s always thinking of money.” Luke, having

to provide neither for the household nor yet for himself, was duly

contemptuous. “But I’ve never _met_ a fellow who chucked away a

fortune--till now,” he muttered, sitting astride of the writing-table.

His sister peered mischievously up into his face:

“You like Sebastian, don’t you, Luke?”

“Oh, I dunno about liking him,” hastily; “I think he’s a bit off

his chump, that’s all.” But as the rustics gaped and marvelled at

the lunacy of Don Quixote, so hobbledehoy regarded with bewildered

admiration his future brother-in-law.

“--But as long as you’re not crying your eyes red over it all----”

“What would you have done, if I had been, Luke?” Letty enjoyed teasing

her wretched young brother.

“Oh ... spoken to him, I suppose,” edging towards the door. “’Night,

Letty.”

“Luke, supposing he was--oh, just playing a game; and one day came and

said: ‘I’m as rich as I was before!’”

“Wouldn’t build on that if I were you. Chaps don’t play those silly

sort of games. Good night.”

And: “I know why, right enough,” reflected Luke, in the passage; “but I

wasn’t going to tell her. By gum, though! fancy a fellow actually doing

it....”

In Luke’s pocket, a column of “Mine and Yours,” marked in red pencil,

discoursed eloquently on the Utopian conditions to be attained by

mankind, when those unfairly in possession of unearned increment,

should voluntarily fling their wealth into a common pool, that it might

be divided into equal shares for all. The discourse wound up, with

unconscious humour, by the remark:--“But alas! only we who are willing

to share our sixpences have as yet seen the light; those with pounds

weighing down their pockets, turn their faces stubbornly away. And we

labour on....”

Luke re-read all this, carefully; hallucination pointing with her

forefinger along the printed lines.--“By gum!” he muttered again.

And his eyes were those of a disciple who has at length sighted the

master....

CHAPTER VI

“TO TEST HER LOVE”

“Of course I know why,” reflected Letty; “but I wasn’t going to tell

him.”

But it was the need to express the joyous and amazing romance of this

which Sebastian had done, and the rejection of each confidant in turn

as “not able to understand,” that had prompted Letty to cover so many

sheets of paper with her round schoolgirlish handwriting, and to head

these scrawlings with the title: “To Test Her Love,” A Story. By

Lettice Johnson.

The hero of her tale, one Geoffrey Challoner of Challoner Park,

becomes enamoured of Mavice, a village maiden; and is goaded by the

sneers of his wicked cousin Jasper (--“You fool! she loves you only

because you are the Lord Geoffrey!”--) into putting her love to the

test by pretending to the discovery of hidden papers whereby Jasper

(of the younger branch of the family) is proved master of Challoner

Park in his stead, and he a mere pauper. Affairs at this juncture grow

complicated; as Mavice, unshaken in her love for Geoffrey, is yet

forced to jilt him, without giving a reason, in favour of Jasper, who

most unfortunately holds in his power the honour of Cyril, Mavice’s

younger brother, a weakling and a craven. With a bitter: “You were

right, Jasper; and I a fool to think any girl, even the fairest, free

from worldly motives!” Geoffrey departs for the populous Bush, leaving

Jasper in unlawful possession of Challoner Park and Mavice’s broken

heart.

Letty was now engaged in a general clearing-up and adjustment of the

circumstances of her novelette. Mavice and Geoffrey must be brought

together; and the heroine must have occasion to vow, with brimming

eyes: “Love you though you are poor, Geoffrey?--I would love you if

you came to me scorned by the whole world,--old and ugly and in rags.

Geoffrey, you believe me, don’t you?” Then his great speech, beginning:

“Oh, my darling, how could I ever doubt that your love would stand the

test....” Letty scribbled the subsequent scene, her cheeks aflame, her

fingers trembling so that it was a matter of difficulty to guide the

pencil. One day, yes, one day, Sebastian would come to her, and say:

“Oh, my darling, how could I ever doubt...?”

She had never before experienced the fascination of setting on

paper, fragments of her own life, of glorifying characters with whom

she had actually come in contact. To be sure, Luke had needed a

little doctoring before he was altogether fit to take his place as

Cyril Derincourt; but Sebastian accorded so perfectly with the Lord

Geoffrey, that Letty was able to derive more voluptuous pleasure from

the impassioned duets of her fancy, than ever from those actually

enacted. Sebastian in the flesh was sometimes a little too fervent, too

realistic even, for timid girlhood; or else incomprehensibly remote;

but Geoffrey never by any chance made a remark that Mavice could

not entirely understand. So Letty wrote with her heart, unhampered

by literary standards, literary judgment; knowing naught of those

over-intellectualized circles wherein Geoffrey and Mavice, Jasper and

Cyril, and the alluring adventuress Esmée de Courcy (lately added),

would meet with laughter and contempt. Letty wrote on, her evenings

stabbed through and through by this secret excitement,--till, reading

over the completed story, it struck her, with happy surprise, as not

a whit less convincing or enthralling than all those other tales

which had fed her imagination since flapper days: the “White Heather”

Novelette Series; the “Silver Chimes” Complete Novel, published every

Tuesday; the Myrtle Library; the Pink-and-Blue Boudoir Supplement;

fiction in coloured paper covers, stacked, crumpled and torn, behind

her bed-valance.

“I wonder,” brooded Letty, as she affixed a wobbling signature to the

manuscript, “if Sebastian would be pleased to see me in print....”

To her, the be-all and end-all of literature was to “get into print”;

written stuff was of absolutely no value otherwise. This secret of hers

was swelling rather too big to be borne alone; Violet Baker was, under

many vows, admitted to Letty’s confidence. Violet was shorthand-typist

to a firm of solicitors, and volunteered to type, in her spare moments,

“To Test Her Love,” which she considered a veritable masterpiece.

“What made you think of it, I don’t know?”--And on this point Letty

continued to keep silence. Her sole fear was that her achievement would

mysteriously rob her of feminine charm; place her in the same category

as those “clever girls,” “gifted women,” “the kind men don’t like.” In

which case, Letty decided, her talent should at once, definitely, and

for ever, be abandoned.

Finally, after much deliberation of choice, the type-script was

dispatched to the Editress of “Silver Chimes.” After a little delay,

came a letter offering five guineas for full and complete rights in the

fortunes of Geoffrey, Mavice, Cyril, Esmée, and Jasper.

“That means they’re going to print it!” Letty flew across the road to

Violet Baker.

“Vi, they’re going to print it!”

Her tidings were not received with the acclamation she expected. “Oh,

everything’s all right for you,” came muffled from the depths of a damp

pocket-handkerchief.

“Toothache?” queried Letty sympathetically.

“No, Ernie.”

“Not--not dead?”

... Presently Letty, her joy somewhat damped, went tiptoeing back to

Town House. It seemed appropriate to tiptoe, for though Ernie was not

dead, Violet had sent him about his business. The frequent comparison

between his profile and Sebastian’s, his manners and Sebastian’s,

Sebastian’s ‘romantic air’--and Ernie’s, had done their fell work.

And now for Letty to come rushing in with Fame in a typewritten

oblong envelope, and because of it expect Violet to go capering round

the dining-room,--well, it was rather too much to ask even of Real

Friendship.

“You jolly well get everything,” complained Violet bitterly; “you’ve

got the looks, and all the fuss made over you, and a fellow who can

say all the speeches, and now you’ve got this too. And I was idiot

enough to type it for you, and give old Tomkyns the page about where

Jasper plots with Esmée de Courcy, instead of a letter about somebody’s

insurances, and he hopping mad. You get everything.” Violet again

immersed herself in the handkerchief, and Letty departed, very, very

sorry, but rather resentful that having ‘everything’ she should

therefore have to do without Violet. “But I understand about Ernie,”

she mused, sitting down to reply to the Editress. If Sebastian had

not come along, would not she, Letty, with all her advantages and

prettiness, probably have drifted into a sort of engagement with Balaam

Atkins? very much of the Ernie type, but older, and with slightly more

jut to his jaw. And then they would all have been cosy together, and

even Luke would probably not have snubbed Jinny so frequently as he did

now. The advent of Sebastian had completely demoralized this corner of

Turnham Green.

With an effort, Letty managed to keep the secret of her letter from

the family; she wanted Sebastian to be the first to hear about it.

Three days later, at tea-time, she spied him walking dejectedly up the

road. She was alone in the dining-room; her mother was out, and Luke

not yet home from school.

“Hurrah! we can have tea together, just us two; what a darling you are

to come to-day,--and I’ve got something too frightfully exciting to

tell you ... your hands are frozen; why don’t you wear gloves, you bad

boy?” joyfully she welcomed him, chafed his cold fingers with her warm

palms, hung about him like a solicitous kitten. But still he didn’t

speak. And, just on the verge of pouring forth her great news, Letty

stopped, struck by the tragedy in his face.

“Oh, what is it?” she cried piteously.

“They’ve rejected it.”

Then the pall descended upon her also. The Book. They had rejected it.

There was no more to be said. And for the second time she was baffled

of an elated audience for her own triumph. How dared she presume tell

him of a tale accepted, when his great work had been refused.

“The beasts!” she cried, with quivering lips.

“Don’t be silly, Letty!” but whatever consolation she had attempted

would have been wrong. He was in that mood. “Of course, they can’t

take everything that gets offered to them. My stuff’s not good enough,

that’s all. They--they wrote it wasn’t good enough,” he finished,

asking again for that sympathy which he flung back when it came. He had

been divided by the pride which bade him keep his shame to himself, and

a childish longing for solace and encouragement and the presence of

someone who believed in him. Not sure yet which need was the stronger,

he announced his defeat casually, as though it hardly affected him,

hotly resented Letty’s correct assumption that his world lay shattered;

and then, almost boasting the humiliation, showed her a note from the

publisher’s reader, who had kindly taken the trouble to point out how

and why his work was not marketable, instead of merely enclosing the

formal slip: “--unable to make an offer.” “You fail to convince,” was

the phrase which left most sting.

“So you see I’m a failure, Letty. Not a publisher will look at the

book. This fellow knows what he’s talking about.” Sebastian refused the

muffins she tendered him.

“You mean--it will never get into print, you don’t think?”

“Never. But it isn’t that; it’s--Heron.”

“Your friend?” She remembered the two had been a great deal together,

at the Farme.

He nodded, too full of bitterness to speak. Why was it that all his

burnt-offerings, like Cain’s, were doomed to be beaten, sullen fumes,

along the earth, instead of mounting in steady columns of smoke,

upwards to their destination? That he might be worshipping false gods,

did not for a moment present itself as a possible solution; Sebastian’s

loyalty was convinced the sacrifices were at fault, not the altar. The

book was Stuart’s book, for Stuart, of Stuart, to Stuart,--the whole

declension. The author had sweated his share, and now the publishers

withheld theirs, and all the accomplished labour was in vain. It was

maddening--

“I wanted it out!” Sebastian broke out, aloud.

“He wanted it in print, of course he did,” passionately Letty shared

his mutinous sorrow. And when he had gone, and she was in her room,

changing into an evening blouse, she fingered the letter she had not

had the courage to show him; all her joy gone from the anticipation of

her story in print, since thus it would only serve to point a contrast.

“I’ve half a mind not to send it,” picking up that other letter into

which was folded her eager acceptance of the five-guinea offer.

“I wish it was him instead of me,” wistfully. For one does not lightly

say ‘no’ to an Editress of “Silver Chimes”; not if one is Letty Johnson.

She stood uncertain, an envelope in either hand....

“Supposing.... After all, it was his idea and not mine, about

pretending to be poor, and all that.... Almost, really, it’s as if I’d

stolen it. Then supposing....”

Supposing what? That she should put his name, instead of hers, to the

novelette? That she should surprise him by showing him a story by

Sebastian Levi, in print, as he so much wanted to be? Just to make up

for that other disappointment. Well, supposing you did, Letty? Nobody

need ever know that Sebastian hadn’t written it, except Violet Baker;

and she could be pledged to silence.

“I will!” resolved Letty, her grey-blue eyes clouded to seriousness

beneath the tumbling fringe of her hair. “I’ll go and see the Editress

myself.”

This was rather a tremendous undertaking. But the notion of being in

a position to offer Sebastian the very thing he deemed lost to his

desire, so inflated Letty’s courage, that she hardly faltered when the

next day seeking an interview with--“your _real_ friend and cousin, the

Editress,” as the energetic little woman signed “Cousin Belle’s Chat

with Her Girls,” which appeared every week on the last page of “Silver

Chimes.”

--“You want to publish your little tale with a _nom-de-plume_? Why,

certainly. We have one lady who always writes for us under the name:

Joyella; and My Girls like her touch immensely.”

Letty groped in vain after some association of ideas between “Joyella”

and a sale-of-underwear catalogue that she had seen in her mother’s

hand that morning. Then gave up the search, and listened to what the

Editress was saying in praise of “To Test Her Love.”

“We’ll have to alter it in several places, of course; you’ve had no

experience, I can see that; but what we liked about your characters,

Miss Johnson, was that you wrote as if you felt them. My girls always

know the difference. And that’s why, when a high-class authoress comes

along with her nose in the air and offers to scribble me something in

her spare time, I know it will be no good. I tell her so, straight out.

One can’t write for My Girls with one’s nose in the air. They recognize

sincerity when they see it. You’ve got the sincere touch, Miss Johnson;

My Girls are sure to take to you.” She brought forth her Girls as if

they were a compact little jury; she herself the judge; and Letty, or

Joyella, or the authoress writing with nose in air, the prisoners on

trial.

“Now, under what name do you want us to publish?” Miss Symes drew her

pencil through Lettice Johnson, and looked up from the manuscript, with

an encouraging smile. Every line and angle and inflection proclaimed

her as orthodox Church of England. It was rather a bad moment for Letty.

“Sebastian----” she paused. Miss Symes wrote it down. “Yes?” with

pencil poised.

Almost, now, at the eleventh hour, Letty said “Lovell,” and spoilt

everything....

“Sebastian Levi,” in a whisper.

“Sebastian----? I beg your pardon, I didn’t catch it?”

Desperately, Letty repeated “Levi,” in tones that nervousness had

rendered far louder and more resonant than she had intended them.

Still showing her teeth, though the brightness had departed from her

smile, the Editress added “Levi.” Then put down the pencil.

“Forgive me, but does that strike you as a very attractive pseudonym?

Have you a special reason?”

“It was my mother’s name--before she married----.” Letty felt the eyes

of My Girls, that terrible army of girls taking in “Silver Chimes”

regularly every Tuesday, fixed upon her in scornful disapproval. Their

imaginary stare quite obliterated all conscientious pangs concerning

Mrs. Johnson, who, despite broadmindedness, might quite conceivably

have resented being thus publicly branded an Israelite.

Miss Symes made an ineffectual effort to convert Letty to “Beryl

Hope Feversham,” invented by herself for the next “Silver Chimes”

contributor in search of a pleasant sounding _nom-de-plume_. But Letty

clung to the thought of Sebastian’s ecstasy, seeing his name above the

published novelette, and remained obdurate.

“To Test Her Love,” by Sebastian Levi, was to be published three weeks

hence; November the twenty-second fixed as the important date.

And on Tuesday, November the twenty-second, Letty dashed down the

road before breakfast, to the little newspaper shop at the corner,

and bought three copies of the journal in the bright mauve cover,

wreathed about with silver bells swung in diverse directions by a

fantastic wind; in and out of the bells were threaded the words: “To

Test Her Love,” by Sebastian Levi; in the centre of the page was inset

a medallion, containing presentments of Geoffrey with blazing eyes

confronting Mavice with bowed head, who was supported by a malignant

Jasper; Cyril skulking on the extreme left of the picture, and Esmée

de Courcy triumphant on the extreme right. Beneath this pleasing

illustration stood the letter-press: “Mavice! speak! Are you indeed

engaged to him, or shall I strike him down as a liar?” (see page 23).

Letty bore her treasures home, secreted in her muff; Sebastian was

to be the first to see; she had arranged to meet him for a walk and

tea that very afternoon. But one copy of “Silver Chimes” she slipped

into an envelope, sought a name among the h’s in the telephone

book, addressed the envelope to: “Stuart Heron, Esq., Heron, Heron &

Carr, High Holborn,” and posted it forthwith. She knew the beautiful

friendship which existed between the two men,--“like me and Violet,

before she turned so horrid--oh well, I s’pose she’s miserable, and

can’t help it, but still,”--knew also that when Sebastian was shown the

current issue of “Silver Chimes” his first thought would be to exhibit

it to Stuart, just as his first disappointment when the book was

refused, was on Stuart’s account. Letty wanted to be able to state she

had forestalled him--“Mr. Heron is perhaps reading it now, this very

minute,--and oh, Sebastian! what do you think he’ll say?”