CHAPTER I.

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ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER--

THE HISTORY OF GEORGE AND HIS MARY

By A. S. M. Hutchinson

CONTENTS.

The Author's Advertisement Of His Novel

BOOK I.

_Of George._

I. Excursions In A Garden

II. Excursions In Melancholy

III. Upon Modesty In Art: And Should Be Skipped

IV. Excursions In A Hospital

V. Upon Life: And May Be Missed

VI. Magnificent Arrival Of A Heroine

VII. Moving Passages With A Heroine

VIII. Astonishing After-Effects Of A Heroine

BOOK II.

_Of his Mary._

I. Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine

II. Excursions In Vulgarity

III. Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine

IV. Excursions In A Nursery

V. Excursions At A Dinner-Table

BOOK III.

_Of Glimpses at a Period of this History: Of Love and of War._

I. Notes On The Building Of Bridges

II. Excursions Beneath The Bridge

III. Excursions In Love

IV. Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter

V. Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens

VI. A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens

BOOK IV.

_In which this History begins to rattle._

I. The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will

Lose Nothing By Not Accompanying Him

II. An Exquisite Balcony Scene; And Something About Sausages

III. Alarums And Excursions By Night

IV. Mr. Marrapit Takes A Nice Warm Bath

V. Miss Porter Swallows A Particularly Large Sweet

VI. The Girl Comes Near The Lugger

BOOK V.

_Of Mr. Marrapit upon the Rack: Of George in Torment._

I. Prosiness Upon Events: So Uneventful That It Should Be Skipped

II. Margaret Fishes; Mary Prays

III. Barley Water For Mr. Marrapit

IV. The Rape Of The Rose

V. Horror At Herons' Holt

VI. A Detective At Herons' Holt

VII. Terror At Dippleford Admiral

VIII. Panic At Dippleford Admiral

IX. Disaster At Temple Colney

BOOK VI.

_Of Paradise Lost and Found._

I. Mrs. Major Bids For Paradise

II. Mrs. Major Finds The Lock

III. Mrs. Major Gets The Key

IV. George Has A Shot At Paradise

V. Of Twin Cats: Of Ananias And Of Sapphira

VI. Agony In Meath Street

VII. Mr. William Wyvern In Meath Street

VIII. Abishag The Shunamite In Meath Street

IX. Excursions In A Newspaper Office

X. A Perfectly Splendid Chapter

_Last Shots from the Bridge_

THE AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT OF HIS NOVEL.

This book has its title from that dashing sentiment, “Once aboard the

lugger and the girl is mine!” It is not to be read by those who in their

novels would have the entertainment of characters that are brilliant or

wealthy, noble of birth or admirable of spirit. Such have no place in

this history. There is a single canon of novel-writing that we have

sedulously kept before us in making this history, and that is the law

which instructs the novelist to treat only of the manner of persons with

whom he is well acquainted. Hence our characters are commonplace folks.

We have the acquaintance of none other than commonplace persons, because

none other than commonplace persons will have acquaintance with us.

And there are no problems in this history, nor is the reader to be

tickled by any risks taken with nice deportment. This history may be

kept upon shelves that are easily accessible. It is true that you will

be invited to spend something of a night in a lady's bedroom, but the

matter is carried through with circumspection and dispatch. There shall

not be a blush.

Now, it is our purpose in this advertisement so clearly to give you the

manner of our novel that without further waste of time you may forego

the task of reading so little as a single chapter if you consider that

manner likely to distress you. Hence something must be said touching the

style.

We cannot see (to make a start) that the listener or the reader of a

story should alone have the right to fidget as he listens or reads; to

come and go at his pleasure; to interrupt at his convenience. Something

of these privileges should be shared by the narrator; and in this

history we have taken them. You may swing your legs or divert your

attention as you read; but we too must be permitted to swing our legs

and slide off upon matters that interest us, and that indirectly are

relevant to the history. Life is not compounded solely of action. One

cannot rush breathless from hour to hour. And, since the novel aims to

ape life, the reader, if the aim be true, cannot rush breathless from

page to page. We can at least warrant him he will not here.

These are the limitations of our history; and we admit them to be

considerable. Upon the other hand, the print is beautifully clear.

* * * * *

As touching the title we have chosen, this was not come by at the cost

of any labour. Taken, as we have told, from that dashing sentiment,

“Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine!” it is a label that might

be applied to all novels. It is a generic title for all modern novels,

since there is not one of these but in this form or that sets out the

pursuit of his mistress by a man or his treatment of her when he has

clapped her beneath hatches. This is a notable matter. The novelist

writes under the influences and within the limitations of his age, and

the modern novelist correctly mirrors modern life when he presents woman

as for man's pursuit till he has her, and for what treatment he may will

when he captures her. The position is deplorable, is productive of a

million wrongs, and, happily, is slowly changing; but that it exists

is clear upon the face of our social existence, and is even advertised

between the sexes in love: “You are mine” the man says, and means it. “I

am yours” the woman declares, and, fruit of generations of dependence,

freely, almost involuntarily, gives herself.

But of this problem (upon which we could bore you to distraction) we

are nothing concerned in our novel. Truly we offer you the pursuit of

a girl; but my Mary would neither comprehend this matter nor wish to

be other than her George's. From page 57 she waves to us; let us hurry

along.

_.... Who so will stake his lot,

Impelled thereto by nescience or whim,

Cupidity or innocence or not,

On Chance's colours, let men pray for him._

RALPH HODGSON.

BOOK I.

Of George.

CHAPTER I.

Excursions In A Garden.

I.

Mr. Christopher Marrapit is dozing in a chair upon the lawn; his darling

cat, the Rose of Sharon, is sleeping on his lap; stiffly beside him sits

Mrs. Major, his companion--that masterly woman.

As we approach to be introduced, it is well we should know something of

Mr. Marrapit. The nervous business of adventuring into an assembly of

strangers is considerably modified by having some knowledge of the first

we shall meet. We feel more at home; do not rush upon subjects which are

distasteful to that person, or of which he is ignorant; absorb something

of the atmosphere of the party during our exchange of pleasantries with

him; and, warmed by this feeling, with our most attractive charm of

manner are able to push among the remainder of our new friends.

Unhappily, the friendly chatter of the neighbourhood, which should

supply us with something of the character of a resident, is quite

lacking at Paltley Hill in regard to Mr. Marrapit. Mr. Marrapit

rarely moves out beyond the fine wall that encircles Herons' Holt,

his residence; with Paltley Hill society rarely mixes. The vicar,

with something of a frown, might tell us that to his divers parochial

subscription lists Mr. Marrapit has consistently, and churlishly,

refused to give a shilling. Professor Wyvern's son, Mr. William Wyvern,

has been heard to say that Mr. Marrapit always reminded him “of one

of the minor prophets--shaved.” Beyond this--and how little helpful it

is!--Paltley Hill society can give us nothing.

In a lower social grade of the district, however, much might be learned.

In the kitchens, the cottages, and the bar-parlours of Paltley Hill, Mr.

Marrapit is considerably discussed. Nicely mannered as we are,

servants' gossip concerning one in our own station of life is naturally

distasteful to us. At the same time it is essential to our ease on being

introduced that we should know something of this gentleman. Assuring

ourselves, therefore, that we shall not be prejudiced by cheap chatter,

let us hear what the kitchens, the cottages, and the bar-parlours have

to say.

Let it, at least, be written down; we shall know how to value such

stuff.

Material for this gossip, then, is brought into the kitchens, the

cottages, and the bar-parlours by Mr. Marrapit's domestic staff.

Mrs. Armitage, his cook, has given tales of his “grimness” to the

cottages where her comfortable presence is welcomed on Sunday and

Thursday afternoons. She believes, however, that he must be a “religious

gentleman,” because (so she says) “he talks like out of the Bible.”

This would seem to bear out Mr. William Wyvern's allusion to the minor

prophet element of his character.

It is the habit of Clara and Ada, his maids, squeezing at the gate from

positions dangerous to modesty into which their ardent young men have

thrust them--it is their habit, thus placed, to excuse themselves

from indelicate embraces by telling alarming tales of Mr. Marrapit's

“carrying on” should they be late. He is a “fair old terror,” they say.

The testimony of Mr. Fletcher, his gardener, gloomy over his beer in

the bar-parlours, seems to support the “stinginess” that the vicar has

determined in Mr. Marrapit's character. Mr. Fletcher, for example, has

lugubriously shown what has to be put up with when in the service of a

man who had every inch of the grounds searched because a threepenny

bit had been dropped. “It's 'ard--damn 'ard,” Mr Fletcher said on that

occasion. “I'm a gardener, I am; not a treasure-'unter.” Murmurs of

sympathy chorused endorsement of this view.

Finally there are the words of Frederick, son of Mrs. Armitage, and

assistant to Fletcher, whose pleasure it is to set on end the touzled

hair of the youth of Paltley Hill by obviously exaggerated stories of

Mr. Marrapit's grim rule.

“'E's a tryant,” Frederick has said.

Such is an epitome of the kitchen gossip concerning Mr. Marrapit; it is

wholesome to be away from such tattling, and personally to approach the

lawn whereon its subject sits.

II.

This lawn, a delectable sight on this fine July afternoon, is set about

with wire netting to a height of some six feet. By the energies of Mr.

Fletcher and Frederick the sward is exquisitely trimmed and rolled; and

their labours join with the wire netting to make the lawn a safe and

pleasant exercise ground for Mr. Marrapit's cats.

Back in the days of Mr. Marrapit's first occupancy of Herons' Holt,

this man was a mighty amateur breeder of cats, and a rare army of cats

possessed. Regal cats he had, queenly cats, imperial neuter cats; blue

cats, grey cats, orange cats, and white cats--cats for which nothing was

too good, upon which too much money could not be spent nor too much love

be lavished. Latterly, with tremendous wrenchings of the heart, he had

disbanded this galaxy of cats. Changes in his household were partly

the cause of this step. The coming of his nephew, George, had seriously

upset the peaceful routine of existence which it was his delight to

lead; and a reason even more compelling was the gradual alteration in

his attitude towards his hobby. This man perceived that the fancier's

eye with which he regarded his darlings was becoming so powerful as to

render his lover's eye in danger of being atrophied. The fancier's

eye was lit by the brain--delighted only in “points,” in perfection of

specimen; the lover's eye was fed by the heart--glowed, not with pride

over breed, but with affection for cats as cats. And Mr. Marrapit

realised that for affection he was coming to substitute pride--that

he was outraging the animals he loved by neglecting the less admirable

specimens for those perfectly moulded; that even these perfect types he

was abusing by his growing craze for breeding; polygamy in cats, he came

to believe, desecrated and eventually destroyed their finer feelings.

Therefore--and the coming of his nephew George quickened his

determination--Mr. Marrapit dispersed his stud (the word had become

abhorrent to him), keeping only four exquisite favourites, of which

the Rose of Sharon--that perfect orange cat, listed when shown at the

prohibitive figure of 1000 pounds, envy and despair of every cat-lover

in Great Britain and America--was apple of his eye, joy of his

existence.

It was the resolve to keep but these four exquisite creatures that

encompassed the arrival in Mr. Marrapit's household of Mrs. Major, now

seated beside him upon the lawn--that masterly woman. The fine cat-house

was pulled down, the attendant dismissed. A room upon the ground floor,

having a southern aspect, was set apart as bed-chamber and exclusive

apartment for the four favourites, and Mr. Marrapit sought about for

some excellent person into whose care they might be entrusted. Their

feeding, their grooming, constant attention to their wants and the sole

care of their chamber, should be this person's duties, and it was not

until a point some way distant in this history that Mr. Marrapit ceased

daily to congratulate himself upon his selection.

Mrs. Major, that masterly woman, was a distressed gentlewoman. The death

of her husband, a warehouse clerk, by acute alcoholic poisoning, seems

to have given her her first chance of displaying those strong qualities

which ultimately became her chief characteristic. And she was of those

to whom plan of action comes instantly upon the arrival of opportunity.

With lightning rapidity this woman welded chance and action; with

unflagging energy and with dauntless perseverance used the powerful

weapon thus contrived.

The case of her husband's death may be instanced. Her hysterical

distress on the day of the funeral (a matter that would have

considerably surprised the late Mr. Major) was exchanged on the

following morning for acute physical distress resulting from the means

by which, overnight, she had tried to assuage her grief. Noticing, as

she dressed, the subdued and martyrlike air that her face wore, noticing

also her landlady's evident sympathy with the gentle voice and manner

which her racking head caused her to adopt, Mrs. Major saw at once

the valuable aid to her future which the permanent wearing of these

characteristics might be. From that moment she took up the role of

distressed gentlewoman--advertised by tight-fitting black, by little

sighs, and by precise, subdued voice,--and in this guise sought

employment at an Agency. The agency sent her to be interviewed by

Mr. Marrapit. Ushered into the study, she, in a moment of masterly

inspiration, murmured “The sweet! Ah, the sweet!” when viciously

scratched by the Rose of Sharon, and upon those words walked directly in

to Mr. Marrapit's heart.

He required a lady--a _lady_ (Mrs. Major smiled deprecatingly) who

should devote herself to his cats. Did Mrs. Major like cats? Ah, sir,

she adored cats; her late husband--Words, at the recollection, failed

her. She faltered; touched an eye with her handkerchief; wanly smiled

with the resigned martyrdom of a true gentlewoman.

As so-often in this life, the unspoken word was more powerful than

mightiest eloquence. Mr. Marrapit is not to be blamed for the inference

he drew. He pictured the dead Mr. Major a gentleman sharing with his

wife a passion for cats; by memory of which fond trait his widow's

devotion to the species would be yet further enhanced, would be

hallowed.

There is the further thought in this connection that once more, as so

often in this life, the unspoken word had saved the lie direct. Once

only, in point of fact, had Mrs. Major seen her late husband directly

occupied with a cat, and the occasion had been the cause of their

vacating their lodgings in Shepherd's Bush precisely thirty minutes

later. Mr. Major, under influence of his unfortunate malady, with

savage foot had sped the landlady's cat down a flight of stairs; and the

landlady had taken the matter in peculiarly harsh spirit.

All this, however, lay deeply hidden beneath Mrs. Major's unspoken word.

The vision of a gentle Mr. Major that Mr. Marrapit conjured sealed

the liking he had immediately taken to Mrs. Major, and thus was she

installed.

The masterly woman, upon this July afternoon, desisted from her

crocheting; observed in the dozing figure beside her signs of movement;

turned to it, ready for speech.

This she saw. From the reluctant rays of a passing sun a white silk

handkerchief protected a nicely polished head--a little bumpy, fringed

with soft white hair. Beneath the head a long face, sallow of hue; in

either cheek a pit; between them a dominating nose carrying eyeglasses.

A long, spare body in an alpaca coat; long thin legs; brown morocco

slippers without heels--upon the lap the peerless Rose of Sharon.

“Time for the Rose to go in,” Mrs. Major softly suggested.

“The Rose,” said Mr. Marrapit, passing a hand gently over the creature's

exquisite form, “is, I fear, still ailing. Her sleep is troubled; she

shivers. Her appetite?”

“It is still poorly.” The expression was that of a true distressed

gentlewoman.

“She has need,” Mr. Marrapit said, “of the most careful attention, of

the most careful dieting. Tend her. Tempt her. Take her.”

“I will, Mr. Marrapit.” Mrs. Major gathered the Rose against her bosom.

“You will not stay long? It is growing chilly.”

“I shall take a brief stroll. I am perturbed concerning the Rose.”

“Let me bring you a cap, Mr. Marrapit.”

“Unnecessary. Devote yourself, I pray, to the Rose. I am anxious.

Nothing could console me should any evil thing come upon her. I am

apprehensive. I look to you. I will take a stroll.”

Outside the wire fence Mr. Marrapit and Mrs. Major parted. The masterly

woman glided swiftly towards the house; Mr. Marrapit, with bent head,

passed thoughtfully along an opposite path.

And immediately the sleeping garden awoke to sudden activity.

III.

First to break covert was Frederick, Mr. Fletcher's assistant.

Abnormally steeped in vice for one so young (this wretched boy was

but fourteen), with the coolness of a matured evil-doer Frederick

extinguished his cigarette-end by pressing it against his boot-heel;

dropped it amongst other ends, toilsomely collected, in a tin box;

placed the box in its prepared hole; covered this with earth and leaves;

hooked a basket of faded weeds upon his arm, and so appeared in Mr.

Marrapit's path with bent back, diligently searching.

Mr. Marrapit inquired: “Your task?”

“Weedin',” said Frederick.

“Weeding what?”

“Weeds,” Frederick told him, a little surprised.

Mr. Marrapit rapped sharply: “Say 'sir'.”

“Sir,” said Frederick, making to move.

Mr. Marrapit peered at the basket. “You have remarkably few.”

“There ain't never many,” Frederick said with quiet pride--“there ain't

never many if you keep 'em down by always doin' your job.”

Mr. Marrapit pointed: “They grow thick at your feet, sir!”

In round-eyed astonishment Frederick peered low. “They spring up the

minute your back's turned, them weeds. They want a weed destroyer what

you pours out of a can.”

“You are the weed-destroyer,” Mr. Marrapit said sternly. “Be careful.

It is very true that they spring up whenever _my_ back is turned. Be

careful.” He passed on.

“Blarst yer back,” murmured Frederick, bending his own to the task.

IV.

A few yards further Mr. Marrapit again paused. Against a laurel bush

stood a pair of human legs, the seat of whose encasing trousers stared

gloomily upwards at the sky. With a small twig he carried Mr.

Marrapit tapped the seat. Three or four raps were necessary; slowly it

straightened into line with the legs; from the abyss of the bush a back,

shoulders, head, appeared.

Just as the ostrich with buried head believes itself hid from

observation, so it was with Mr. Fletcher, needing peace, a habit to

plunge head and shoulders into a bush and there remain--showing

nothing against the sky-line. Long practice had freed the posture from

irksomeness. As a young man Mr. Fletcher had been employed in a public

tennis-court, and there had learned the little mannerism to which he now

had constant resort. In those days the necessity of freeing himself from

the constant annoyance of nets to be tightened, or of disputes between

rival claims to courts to be settled, had driven him to devise some

means of escape. It was essential to the safety of his post, upon

the other hand, that he must never allow it to be said that he was

constantly absent from his duties. Chance gave him the very means he

sought. Bent double into a bush one day, searching a tennis ball, he

heard his name bawled up and down the courts; he did not stir. Those who

were calling him stumbled almost against his legs; did not observe

him; passed on calling. Thereafter, when unduly pressed, it became Mr.

Fletcher's habit to bury head and arms in a bush either until the hue

and cry for him had lulled, or until exasperated searchers knocked

against his stern; in the latter event he would explain that he was

looking for tennis balls.

The habit had persisted. Whenever irritated or depressed (and this man's

temperament caused such often to be his fate), he would creep to the

most likely bush and there disappear as to his upper half. It is a fine

thing in this turbulent life thus to have some quiet refuge against the

snarlings of adversity.

Mr. Fletcher drew up now and faced Mr. Marrapit; in his hand a snail.

He said gloomily: “Another one”; held it towards his master's face.

Here is an example of how one deception leads to another. This was no

fresh snail; often before Mr. Marrapit had seen it. To lend motive to

his concealment Mr. Fletcher carried always with him this same snail;

needing peace he would draw it from his pocket; plunge to consolation;

upon discovery exhibit it as excuse.

“There is an abominable smell here,” said Mr. Marrapit.

Mr. Fletcher inhaled laboriously. “It's not for me to say what it is.”

“Adjust that impression. Yours is the duty. You are in charge here. What

is it?”

“It's them damn cats.”

“You are insolent, sir. Your insolence increases. It grows unendurable.”

Mr. Fletcher addressed the snail. “He asts a question. I beg not to

answer it. He insists. I tell him. I'm insolent.” He sighed; the tyranny

of the world pressed heavily upon this man.

Mr. Marrapit advertised annoyance by clicks of his tongue: “You are

insolent when you swear in my presence. You are insolent when you impute

to my cats a fault that is not theirs.”

“I ain't blamin' the cats. It's natural to them. Whenever the wind sets

this way I notice it. It's blamin' me I complain of. I don't draw the

smell. I try to get away from it. It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener,

I am; not a wind-shaft.”

Whenever Mr. Marrapit had occasion to speak with Mr. Fletcher, after the

first few exchanges he would swallow with distinct effort. It was wrath

he swallowed; and bitter as the pill was, rarely did he fail to force it

down. Mr. Fletcher spoke to him as no other member of his establishment

dared speak. The formula of dismissal would leap to Mr. Marrapit's

mouth: knowledge of the unusually small wage for which Mr. Fletcher

worked caused it to be stifled ere it found tongue. Thousands of

inferiors have daily to bow to humiliations from their employers; it

is an encouraging thought for this army that masters there be who,

restrained by parsimony, daily writhe beneath impertinences from

valuable, ill-paid servants.

Mr. Marrapit swallowed. He said: “To the smell of which I complain my

cats are no party. It is tobacco. The air reeks of tobacco. I will not

have tobacco in my garden.”

Twice, with a roaring sound, Mr. Fletcher inhaled. He pointed towards an

elm against the wall: “It comes from over there.”

“Ascertain.”

The gardener plunged through the bushes; nosed laboriously; his

inhalations rasped across the shrubs. “There's no smoking here,” he

called.

“Someone, in some place concealed, indubitably smokes. Yourself you have

noticed it. Follow the scent.”

Exertion beaded upon Mr. Fletcher's brow. He drew his hand across it;

thrust a damp and gloomy face between the foliage towards his master.

“I'd like to know,” he asked, “if this is to be one of my regular jobs

for the future? Was I engaged to 'unt smells all day? It's 'ard-damn

'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a blood-'ound.”

But Mr. Marrapit had passed on.

“Damn 'ard,” Mr. Fletcher repeated; drew the snail from his pocket;

plunged to consolation.

V.

A short distance down the garden Mr. Marrapit himself discovered the

source of the smell that had offended him. Bending to the left he came

full upon it where it uprose from a secluded patch of turf: from the

remains of a pipe there mounted steadily through the still air a thin

wisp of smoke.

Outraged, Mr. Marrapit stared; fuming, turned upon the step that sounded

on the path behind him.

The slim and tall young man who approached was that nephew George, whose

coming into Mr. Marrapit's household had considerably disturbed Mr.

Marrapit's peace. Orphaned by the death of his mother, George had

gone into the guardianship of his uncle while in his middle teens. The

responsibility had been thrust upon Mr. Marrapit by his sister. Vainly

he had writhed and twisted in fretful protest; she shackled him to her

desire by tearful and unceasing entreaty. Vainly he urged that his means

were not what she thought; she assured him--and by her will bore out the

assurance--that with her George should go her money.

And the will, when read, in some degree consoled Mr. Marrapit for the

sniffling encumbrance he took back with him to Herons' Holt after the

funeral. It was a simple and trustful will--commended George into the

keeping of her brother Christopher Marrapit; desired that George should

be entered in her late husband's--the medical--profession; and for that

purpose bequeathed her all to the said brother.

George was eighteen when Mr. Marrapit entered him at St. Peter's

Hospital in mild pursuit of the qualification of the Conjoint Board of

Surgeons and Physicians. “I am entering you,” Mr. Marrapit had said,

consulting notes he had prepared against the interview--“I am entering

you at enormous cost upon a noble career which involves, however, a

prolonged and highly expensive professional training. Your mother wished

it.”

Mr. Marrapit did not add that George's mother had expressly paid for

it. This man had the knowledge that Youth would lose such veneration for

Authority as it may possess were Authority to disclose the motives that

prompt its actions.

He continued: “For me this involves considerable self-denial and

patience. I do not flinch. From you it demands unceasing devotion to

your books, your studies, your researches. You are no longer a boy: you

are a man. The idle sports of youth must be placed behind you. Stern

life must be sternly faced.”

“I do not flinch,” George had replied.

“For your personal expenses I shall make you a small allowance. You will

live in my house. Your wants should be insignificant.”

In a faint voice George squeezed in: “I have heard that one can work far

better by living near the hospital in digs.”

“Elucidate.”

“Digs--lodgings. I have heard that one can work far better by living

near the hospital in lodgings.”

“Adjust that impression,” Mr. Marrapit had told him. “You are

misinformed.”

George struggled: “I should have the constant companionship of men

absorbed in the same work as myself. We could exchange views and notes

in the evenings.”

“In your books seek that companionship. With them compare your views.

Let your notes by them be checked. They are infallible.”

George said no more. At that moment the freedom of hospital as against

the restraint of school, was a gallant steed upon which he outrid all

other desires. The prospect of new and strange books in exchange for

those he so completely abhorred, was an alluring delight. It is not

until the bargain is complete that we discover how much easier to

polish, and more comfortable to handle, are old lamps than new.

Mr. Marrapit had referred to his notes: “In regard to the allowance I

shall make you. I earnestly pray no spur may be necessary to urge you

at your tasks. Yet, salutary it is that spur should exist. I arrange,

therefore, that in the deplorable event of your failing to pass any

examination your allowance shall be diminished.”

“Will it be correspondingly increased when I pass first shot?”

The fearful possibilities of this suggestion Mr. Marrapit had hesitated

to accept. Speculation was abhorrent to this man. Visions of success

upon success demanding increase upon increase considerably agitated him.

Upon the other hand, the sooner these successes were won, the sooner,

he reflected, would he be rid of this incubus, and, in the long-run, the

cheaper. He nerved himself to the decision. “I agree to that,” he had

said. “The compact is affirmed.”

It was a wretched compact for George.

But the sum had not yet been fixed. George, standing opposite his uncle,

twisted one leg about the other; twined his clammy hands; put the awful

question: “By how much will the allowance be increased or cut down?”

“By two pounds a quarter.”

George plunged: “So if I fail in my first exam. I shall get eleven

pounds at the quarter? if I pass, fifteen?”

Horror widened Mr. Marrapit's eyes; shrilled his voice: “What is the

colossal sum you anticipate?”

“I thought you said fifty-two pounds a year-a pound a week.”

“A monstrous impression. Adjust it. Four pounds a quarter is the sum.

You will have no needs. It errs upon the side of liberality--I desire to

be liberal.”

George twisted his legs into a yet firmer knot: “But two failures would

wipe it bang out.”

“Look you to that,” Mr. Marrapit told him. “The matter is settled.”

But it was further pursued by George when outside the door.

“Simply to spite that stingy brute,” vowed he, “I'll pass all my exams,

with such a rush that I'll be hooking sixteen quid a quarter out of him

before he knows where he is. I swear I will.”

It was a rash oath. When Youth selects as weapon against Authority some

implement that requires sweat in the forging Authority may go unarmed.

The task of contriving such weapons is early abandoned. In three months

George's hot resolve was cooled; in six it was forgotten; at the end

of three years, after considerable fluctuation, his allowance stood at

minus two pounds for the ensuing quarter.

Mr. Marrapit, appealed to for advance, had raved about his study with

waving arms.

“The continued strain of renewing examination fees consequent on your

callous failures,” he had said, “terrifies me. I am haunted by the

spectre of ruin. The Bank of England could not stand it.”

Still George argued.

With a whirlwind of words Mr. Marrapit drove him from the study:

“Precious moments fly even as you stand here. To your books, sir. In

them seek solace. By application to them refresh your shattered pocket.”

Shamefully was the advice construed. George sought and found solace in

his books by selling his Kirke, his Quain and his Stone to Mr. Schoole

of the Charing Cross Road; his microscope he temporarily lodged with Mr.

Maughan in the Strand; to the science of bridge he applied himself with

a skill that served to supply his petty needs.

Notwithstanding, his career at St. Peter's was of average merit. George

was now in the sixth year of his studies; and by the third part of his

final examination, was alone delayed from the qualification which would

bring him freedom from his uncle's irksome rule.

VI.

His attempt at this last examination had been concluded upon this July

day that opens our history, and thus we return to Mr. Marrapit, to

George, and to the line of smoke uprising from the tobacco.

Mr. Marrapit indicated the smouldering wedge.

George bent forward. “Tobacco,” he announced.

“My nose informed me. My eyes affirm. Yours?”

“I am afraid so.”

“My simple rule. In the vegetable garden you may smoke; here you may

not. Is it so hard to observe?”

“I quite forgot myself.”

Mr. Marrapit cried: “Adjust that impression. You forgot me. Consistently

you forget me. My desires, my interests are nothing to you.”

“It's a rotten thing to make a fuss about.”

“That is why I make a fuss. It _is_ a rotten thing. A disgusting and a

noisome thing. Bury it.”

Into a bed of soft mould George struck a sullen heel; kicked the tobacco

towards the pit. Mr. Marrapit chanted over the obsequies: “I provide you

with the enormous expanse of my vegetable garden in which to smoke. Yet

upon my little acre you intrude. I am Naboth.”

Ahab straightened his back; sighed heavily. Naboth started against the

prick of a sudden recollection:

“I had forgotten. Your examination?”

George half turned away. The bitterest moment of a sad day was come. He

growled:

“Pipped.”

“_Pipped?_”

“Pilled.”

“_Pilled?_”

“Spun.”

“_Spun?”_

“Three months.”

Mr. Marrapit put his hands to his head: “I shall go mad. My brain reels

beneath these conundrums. I implore English.”

The confession of defeat is a thousandfold more bitter when made to

unkind ears. George paled a little; spoke very clearly: “I failed. I was

referred for three months.”

“I am Job,” groaned Mr. Marrapit. “I expected this. The strain is

unendurable. It is unnatural. The next chance shall be your last. What

is the fee for re-examination?”

“Five guineas.”

“My God!” said Mr. Marrapit.

He tottered away up the path.

CHAPTER II

Excursions In Melancholy.

I.

Gloom brooded over Herons' Holt that evening. Gloom hung thickly about

the rooms: blanketed conversation; veiled eyes that might have sparkled;

choked appetites.

Nevertheless this was an atmosphere in which one member of the household

felt most comfortable.

Margaret, Mr. Marrapit's only child, was nineteen; of sallow complexion,

petite, pretty; with large brown eyes in which sat always a constant

quest--an entreaty, a wistful yearning.

Hers was a clinging nature, readily responsive to the attraction of any

stouter mind. Enthusiasm was in this girl, but it lay well-like--not

as a spring. To stir it the influence of another was wanted; of itself,

spontaneous, it could not leap. Aroused, there was no rush and surge

of emotion--it welled, rose deeply; thickly, without ripple; crestless,

flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant, hurtling forward

the stick they support: the pool swells, leaving the stick quiescent,

floating.

Many persons have this order of enthusiasm; it is a clammy thing

to attract. A curate with a glimpse at Shelley's mind once roused

Margaret's enthusiasm for the poet. It welled so suffocatingly about him

that he came near to damning Shelley and all his works; threw up his hat

when opportunity put out a beckoning finger and drew him elsewhere.

Margaret walked in considerable fear of her father; but she clung to him

despite his oppressive foibles, because this was her nature. She loved

church; incense; soft music; a prayer-book tastefully bound. She “wrote

poetry.”

Warmed by the gloom that lay over Herons' Holt upon this evening, she

sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful picture

was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner; during the

meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed, hands deep in

pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that old devil despair.

She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously hard. He had told her

before the examination how confident of success he was, had revealed how

much in the immediate prospect of freedom he gloried. She recalled

his gay laugh as he had bade her good-bye on the first day, and the

recollection stung her just as, she reflected, it must now be stinging

him.... Only he must a thousand times more fiercely be feeling the burn

of its venom....

Margaret moved impatiently with a desire to shake into herself a

profounder sense of her cousin's misfortune. By ten she was plunged in a

most pleasing melancholy.

II.

She was of those who are by nature morbid; who deceive themselves if

they imagine they have enjoyment from the recreations that provoke

lightness of heart in the majority. Only the surface of their

spirits ripples under such breezes; to stir the whole, to produce

the counterpart of a hearty laugh in your vigorous animal, a feast on

melancholy must be provided. This is a quality that is common among the

lower classes who find their greatest happiness in funerals. The sombre

trappings; white handkerchiefs against black dresses; tears; the mystery

of gloom--these trickle with a warm glow through all their senses. They

are as aroused by grief, unpleasant to the majority, as the drunkard is

quickened by wine, to many abhorrent.

Thus it was with Margaret, and to her the shroud of melancholy in which

she was now wrapped brought an added boon--arrayed in it she was best

able to make her verses. Not of necessity sad little verses; many of her

brightest were conceived in profoundest gloom. With a pang at the heart

she could be most merry--tinkling out her laughing little lines just as

martyrs could breathe a calm because, rather than spite of, they were

devilishly racked.

III.

But this was no hour for tinkling lines. A manuscript returned by the

last post emphasised her gloom.

Kissing her father good-night, Margaret crept to her room, aching with

desire to write.

She undressed, read a portion of the _Imitation_, then to her table by

the open window.

Two hours brought relief. Margaret placed her poem in an envelope

against its presentation to George in the morning, then from her window

leaned.

From her thoughts at once George sped; they rushed across the sleeping

fields to cling about the person of that Mr. William Wyvern who had

spoken of Mr. Marrapit as reminding him of a minor prophet--shaved.

This was Margaret's nightly practice, but to-night this girl was most

exquisitely melancholy, and with melancholy her thoughts of her William

were tinged. She had not seen him that day; and now she brooded upon the

bitter happening that had forced all her meetings with her lover to be

snatched--fugitive, secret.

For Mr. William Wyvern was not allowed at Herons' Holt. When love first

sent its herald curiosity into William's heart, the young man had sought

to relieve its restlessness by a visit ostensibly on George, really upon

Margaret, and extremely ill-advised in that at his heels gambolled his

three bull-terriers.

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram these were named, and they were abrupt dogs to

a point reaching brusqueness.

At the door, as William had approached, beamed Mr. Marrapit; upon the

drive the queenly Rose of Sharon sat; and immediately tragedy swooped.

The dogs sighted the Rose. Red-mouthed the shining pack flew at her.

Dignity fell before terror: wildly, with streaming tail, she fled.

Orange was the cat, white the dogs: like some orange and snow-white

ribbon magically inspired, thrice at enormous speed they set a belt

about the house. With tremendous bounds the Rose kept before her

pursuers--heavily labouring, horrid with thirsty glee. Impotent in the

doorway moaned Mr. Marrapit, his dirge rushing up to a wail of grief

each time the parti-coloured ribbon flashed before his eyes.

With Mr. Fletcher the end had come. Working indoors, aroused by the din,

the gardener burst out past his master just as the ribbon fluttered into

sight upon the completion of its fourth circuit. Like a great avalanche

it poured against his legs; as falls the oak, so pressed he fell.

Each eager jaw snapped once. Korah bit air, Dathan the cat's right ear.

She wrenched; freed; sprang high upon the porch to safety, blood on her

coat.

Abiram put a steely nip upon Mr. Fletcher's right buttock.

William called off his dogs; stood aghast. Mr. Marrapit stretched

entreating arms to his adored. Mr. Fletcher writhed prone.

The torn Rose slipped to Mr. Marrapit's bosom. Clasping her he turned

upon William--“You shall pay for this blood!”

William stammered: “I'm very sorry, sir. If--”

“Never again enter my gates. I'll have your curs shot!”

Curs was unfortunate; the evil three were whelped of a mighty strain.

“If your fool of a man hadn't got in the way, the cat would have

escaped,” William hotly cried. Indignant he turned. Banishment was

nothing then; in time it came to be a bitter thing.

Mr. Marrapit had raged on to Mr. Fletcher, yet writhing.

“You hear that?” he had cried. “Dolt! You are responsible for this!” He

touched the blood-flecked side, the abrased ear; clasped close the Rose;

called for warm water.

Mr. Fletcher clapped a hand to his wound as shakily he rose.

“I go to rescue his cat!” he said; “I'm near worried to death by 'ounds.

I'm a dolt. I'm responsible. It's 'ard,--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I

am; not a dog muzzle.”

A dimness clouded Margaret's beautiful eyes as this bitter picture--she

had watched it--was again reviewed. She murmured “Oh, Bill!”; stretched

her soft arms to the night; moved her pretty lips in a message to her

lover; snuggled between the sheets and made melancholy her bedfellow.

IV.

By seven she was up and in the fresh garden. George was before her.

She cried brightly: “Why, how early you are!” and ran to him--very

pretty in her white dress: at her breast a rose, the poem fluttering in

her hand.

“Yes; for once before you.”

George's tone did not give back her mood, purposely keyed high. She

played on it again: “Turning a new leaf?”

He drummed at the turf with his heel: “Yes--for to-day.” He threw out a

hand towards her: “But in the same old book. I've had eight--nine years

of it, and now there are three more months.”

“Poor George! But only three months, think how they will fly!”

He was desperately gloomy: “I haven't your imagination. Each single day

of them will mean a morning--here; a night--here.”

“Oh, is it so hard?”

“Yes, now. It's pretty deadly now. You know, when I wasn't precisely

killing myself with overwork, I didn't mind so much. When it was three

or four years, anyway, before I could possibly be free, a few extra

months or so through failing an exam, didn't trouble me. But this

is different. I was right up against getting clear of all this”--he

comprehended garden and house in a sweep of the hand--“counted it a dead

certainty--and here I am pitched back again.”

“But, George, you did work so hard this time. It isn't as though you

had to blame yourself.” She put a clinging hand into his arm. “You

can suffer no--remorse. That is what makes failure so dreadful--the

knowledge that things might have been otherwise if one had liked.”

George laughed quite gaily. Gloom never lay long upon this young man.

“You're a sweet little person,” he said. “You ought to be right, but

you are wrong. When I didn't work I didn't mind failing. It's when I've

tried that I get sick.”

Margaret's eyes brightened. There was melancholy here.

“Oh, I know what you mean. I know so well. I have felt that. You mean

the--the haunting fear that you may never be able to succeed; that you

have not the--the talent, the capacity.” She continued pleadingly:

“Oh, you mustn't think that. You can--you _will_ succeed next time, you

know.”

“Rather!” responded George brightly.

Margaret was quite pained. She would have had him express doubt,

despondently sigh; would have heartened him with her poem. The confident

“rather!” jarred. She hurried from its vigour.

She asked: “What had you intended to do?”

“I was to have got a _locum tenens_. I think it would have developed

into a permanency. A big, rough district up in Yorkshire with a man who

keeps six horses going. His second assistant--a pal of mine--wants to

chuck it.”

“Why?”

“Why? Oh, partly because he's fed up with it, partly because he wants a

practice of his own.”

“Ah! ... But, George, don't you want a practice of your own? You don't

want to be another man's assistant, do you?”

George laughed. “I can't choose, Margi. You know, if you imagine there

are solid groups of people all over England anxiously praying for the

arrival of a doctor, you must adjust that impression, as your father

would say. These things have to be bought. I've got about three pounds,

so I'm not bidding. They seldom go so cheap.”

Margaret never bantered. She had no battledore light enough to return

an airy shuttlecock. Now, as always, when this plaything came

buoyantly towards her she swiped it with heavy force clean out of the

conversational field.

She said gravely: “Ah, I know what you mean. You mean that father ought

to buy you a practice--ought to set you up when you are qualified. I

can't discuss that, can I? It wouldn't be loyal.”

“Of course not. I don't ask you.”

They moved towards the sound of the breakfast bell.

“You think,” Margaret continued, “that father ought to buy you a

practice because your mother left him money for the purpose?”

“I know she left him nearly five thousand pounds for my education

and all that. I think I may have cost him three thousand, possibly

four--_so_ I think I am entitled to something, _but_ I shan't get it,

_therefore_ I don't worry. My hump is gone; in three months I shall be

gone. Forward: I smell bacon!”

Margaret smiled the wan smile of an invalid watching vigorous youth at

sport. Firmly she banged the shuttlecock out of sight.

“How bright you are!” she told him. “Look, here is a little poem I wrote

for you last night. It's about failure and success. Don't read it now.”

George was very fond of his cousin. “Oh, but I must!” he cried. “I think

this was awfully nice of you. He's not down yet. Let's sit on this seat

and read it together.”

“Oh, not aloud. It's a silly little thing--really.”

“Yes--aloud.”

He smoothed the paper. She pressed against him; thrilled as she regarded

the written lines. George begged her read. She would not--well, she

would. She paused. Modesty and pride gathered on her cheeks, tuned her

voice low. She read:

“So you have tried--So you have known

The burning effort for success,

The quick belief in your own prowess and your skill,

The bitterness of failure, and the joy

Of sweet success.”

“'Burning effort,'” George said. “That's fine!”

“I'm glad you like that. And 'quick belief'--you know what I mean?”

“Oh, rather.”

The poet warmed again over her words.

“So you have tried--

So you have known

The blind-eyed groping towards the goal

That flickers on the far horizon of Attempt,

Gleaming to sudden vividness, anon

Fading from sight.”

“Sort of blank verse, isn't it?” George asked.

“Well, sort of,” the poet allowed. “Not exactly, of course.”

“Of course not,” George agreed firmly.

Margaret breathed the next fine lines.

“So you have tried--

So you have known

The bitter-sweetness of Attempt,

The quick determination and the dread despair

That grapple and possess you as you strive

For imagery.”

George questioned: “Imagery...?”

“That verse is more for me than you,” the poet explained. “'For

imagery'--to get the right word, you know.”

“Rather!” said George. “It does for me too--in exams, when one is

floored, you know.”

“Yes,” Margaret admitted doubtfully. “Ye-es. Don't interrupt between the

verses, dear.”

Now emotion swelled her voice.

“Success be yours!

May you achieve

To heights you do not dream you'll ever touch;

The power's to your hand, the road before you lies--

Forward! The gods not always frown; anon

They'll kindly smile.”

“Why, that's splendid!” George cried. He put a cousinly arm about

the poet; squeezed her to him. “Fancy you writing that for me! What a

sympathetic little soul you are--and how clever!”

Breathless she disengaged herself: “I'm so glad you like it. It's a

silly little thing--but it's _real_, isn't it? Come, there's father.”

She paused against denial of the poem's silliness, affirmation of its

truth; but George, moody beneath Mr. Marrapit's eye, glinting behind the

window, had moved forward.

Margaret thrust the paper in her bosom, tucked in where heart might warm

against heart's child. Constantly during breakfast her mind reverted to

it, drummed its rare lines.

CHAPTER III.

Upon Modesty In Art: And Should Be Skipped.

Yet Margaret had called her poem silly. Here, then, was mock-modesty by

diffidence seeking praise. But this mock-modesty, which horribly abounds

to-day, is only natural product of that furious modesty which has come

to be expected in all the arts.

Modesty should have no place in true art. The author or the painter,

the poet or the composer should be impersonal to his work. That which he

creates is not his; it is a piece of the art to which he is servant, and

as such (and such alone) he should regard it. His in the making and the

moulding, thereafter it becomes the possession of the great whole to

which it belongs. If it adorns that whole he may freely admire it; for

he is impersonal to it.

Unquestionably (or unconsciously) we accept this principle in regard to

human life. The child belongs not to the mother who conceived it but to

the race of which it is an atom. It hinders or it betters the race. The

race judges it. By the race it is honoured or condemned; and to it the

mother becomes impersonal. As it bears itself among its fellows, so she

judges it--as the artist's work bears itself in the great art it joins,

so should he judge it. And if the mother joins in his fellows' praise of

her child, and if she proclaims her pride in it, is she called wanting

in modesty?--and if the artist joins in praise of his work, and if he

freely names it good, must he then be vain, boastful? The race grants

that the mother who gave it this specimen of its kind has a first right

to show her pride--to the artist who gives a fair specimen to his art we

should allow a like voice.

For in demanding modesty--in naming impersonality conceit--we have

produced also mock-modesty; and because, as a people, we have little

appreciation of the arts, hence little knowledge, hence no standard by

which to judge, we continually mistake the one form of modesty for the

other. Modesty we suspect to be mock-modesty, and mock-modesty we take

to be pleasing humility.

Coming to literature alone, the author should be impersonal to his work

and must not cry that the writer is no judge of his own labour. Letters

is his trade; and just as the mason well knows whether the brick he has

laid helps or hinders, beautifies or insults the house, so the writer

should be full cognisant whether his work helps make or does mar the

edifice called literature. Nor must the term literature be denied to the

ruck of modern writing. All that is written to interest or to instruct

goes to make the literature of our day. We have introduced new

expressions just as we have contrived new expressions in architecture;

and as in the latter case so in the former the bulk of these is

ephemeral. Nevertheless they are a part of literature, and all efforts

in them better or sully the pages which in our day we are adding to the

book of literature. From this book the winds of cycles to come will blow

all that is unworthy--only the stout leaves will endure; but, no less

because you write for the supplement than if you have virtue sufficient

for the bound volume, remember that in every form of writing there

are standards of good, and that every line printed helps raise or does

tarnish the letters of our day.

CHAPTER IV.

Excursions In A Hospital.

I.

By the half-past nine train George went to town; an hour later was at

St. Peter's.

From the bar of the Students' Club a throng of young men of his year

loudly hailed him. He joined them; took with a laugh the commiserations

on his failure; wrung the hands of those who had been successful.

The successful young gentlemen were standing drinks-each man his

round. There was much smoke and much laughter. Amusing experiences were

narrated. You gathered that all who had passed their examination had

done so by sheer luck, by astonishing flukes. Not one had ever worked.

Each had been “ragged” on a subject of which he knew absolutely nothing.

To the brilliancy with which he had gulled or bluffed his examiner, to

the diplomacy with which he had headed him off the matters of which he

knew absolutely less than nothing-to these alone were his success due.

Such is ever Youth's account of battle with Age. Youth is a devil of

a smart fellow, behind whom Age blunders along in the most ridiculous

fashion. Later this young blood takes his place in the blundering ranks

and then does learn that indeed he was right--Age knows nothing. For

with years we begin to realise our ignorance, and the lesson is not

complete when the grave slams the book. A few plumb the depths of their

ignorance before death: these are able to speak--and these are the

teachers of men. We get here one reason why giants are fewer in our day:

with the growth of man's imaginings and his inventions there is more

vanity to be forced through; the truths of life lie deeper hid; more

phantasms arise to lure us from the quest of realities; the task of

striking truth accumulates.

II.

Soon after midday the party broke up. Its members lunched early;

visiting surgeons and physicians went their rounds at half-past one.

George strolled to the Dean's office.

A woebegone-looking youth in spectacles stood before the table; opposite

sat the Dean. He looked up as George entered, and nodded: he was fond of

George.

“Come along in,” he said; “I shan't be a minute.”

He turned to the sad youth. “Now your case, Mr. Carter,” he said, “is

quite unique. In the whole records of the Medical School”--he waved at

a shelf of fat volumes--“in the whole records of the Medical School we

have nothing in the remotest degree resembling it. You have actually

failed twice in--in--”

The Dean searched wildly among a litter of papers; baffled, threw out an

emphasising hand, and repeated, “_Twice_! Other hospitals, Mr. Carter,

may have room for slackers--we have not. We have a record and a

reputation of which we are proud. You are in your second year. How old

are you?”

A faint whisper said, “Nineteen.”

The Dean started. “Nineteen! Oh, dear me, dear me! this is worse than

I thought--far worse. I am afraid, Mr. Carter, I shall have to write to

your father.”

Guttural with emotion, Mr. Carter gasped: “I mean to work--indeed I do.”

Again the Dean frantically searched on his desk to discover the subject

in which Mr. Carter had failed; again was unsuccessful. Deep thought

ravelled his brow. His fingers drummed indecision on the table. It was a

telling picture of one struggling between duty and kindliness--masterly

as the result of long practice.

“Mr. Carter,” the Dean summed up, “I will consider your case more fully

to-night. Against my better judgment I may perhaps decide not on this

occasion to communicate with your father. But remember this. At the very

outset of your career you have strained to breaking-point the confidence

of your teachers. Only by stupendous efforts on your part can that

confidence be restored. These failures, believe me, will dog you from

now until you are qualified--nay, will dog your whole professional

career. That will do.”

In a convulsion of relief and of agitation beneath this appalling

prospect the dogged man quavered thanks; stumbled from the room.

III.

George laughed. “Same old dressing-down,” he said. “Don't you ever alter

the formula?”

“It's very effective,” the Dean replied. “That's the sixth this morning.

Unfortunately I couldn't remember in what subject that boy had failed;

so he didn't get the best part--the part about that being the one

subject of all others which, if failed in, predicted ruin.”

“It was biology in my case,” George told him. “I trembled with funk.”

“I think most of you do. It's fortunate that all you men when you first

come up are afraid of your fathers. It gives us a certain amount of hold

over you. If the thing were done properly, both at the 'Varsities and

the hospitals, there would be a system of marks and reports just as at

schools. You are only boys when you first come up, and you should be

treated as boys; instead, you are left free and irresponsible. It ruins

dozens of men every year.”

“Perhaps that's why I'm here now,” George responded. “You know I got

ploughed?”

The Dean told George how sorry he had been to hear it. He questioned:

“Bad luck, I suppose? I thought it was a sitter for you this time.”

“Yes, rotten luck.”

“It's unfortunate, you know. You would have got a house appointment. I'm

afraid you will miss that mow. There will be a crowd of very hot men

up with you in October, junior to you, who will get the vacancies. What

will you do?”

George shrugged and laughed.

The Dean frowned; interpreted the shrug. “Well, you should care,” he

said. “You ought to be looking around you. Won't your uncle help you to

buy a partnership?”

“We are on worse terms than ever after this failure. Not he.”

“And you're not trying to be on good terms, I suppose?”

“Not I.”

“You are a remarkably silly young man. You want balance, Leicester, you

want balance. It would be the making of you to have some serious purpose

in life. You will run against something of the kind soon--you'll get

engaged, perhaps, and then you'll regret your happy-go-lucky ways.” He

fumbled amongst a pile of correspondence and drew out a letter. “Now,

look here, I was thinking of you only a few moments ago. Here's a letter

from a man who--who--where is it?--Ah, yes--If you could raise 400

pounds by the time you are qualified I could put you on to a splendid

thing.”

“Not the remotest chance,” said George. “The serious purpose must wait.

I--”

The Dean waved a hand that asked silence; consulted the letter. “This is

from a man in practice at a place called Runnygate--one of these rising

seaside resorts--Hampshire--great friend of mine. He's got money, and

he's going to chuck it--doesn't suit his wife. I told him I'd find a

purchaser if he would leave it with me. Merely nominal--only 400

pounds. He says that in a year or so there'll be a small fortune in the

practice, because a company is taking the place over to develop it. You

shall have first refusal. Come now, pull yourself together, Leicester.”

George laughed. He stood up. “Thanks, I refuse now. What on earth's the

good?”

“Rubbish,” said the Dean. “Think over that serious interest in life. You

never know your luck.”

George moved to the door. “I know my luck all right,” he laughed. “Never

mind, I'm not grumbling with it.”

CHAPTER V.

Upon Life: And May Be Missed.

In the ante-room, as it were, of a very short chapter, we must make

ready to receive our heroine. She is about to spring dazzling upon our

pages; will be our close companion through some moving scenes. We must

collect ourselves, brush our hair, arrange our dress, prepare our nicest

manner.

And as in ante-rooms there are commonly papers laid about to beguile the

tedium, and as the faint rustle of our heroine's petticoats is warning

that George's assertion that he knew his luck is immediately to be

disproved, let us make a tiny little paper on the folly of such a

statement.

For of his luck man has no glimmer of prescience. Day by day we

rattle the box, throw the dice; but of how these will fall we have no

knowledge. We only hope with the gambler's feverishness; and it is this

very hazard that keeps us crowding and pushing to hold our place at

the tables where fortune spins. Grow we sick of the game, sour with our

luck, weary of the hazard, and relinquish we our place at the table, we

are pushed back and out--elbowed, thrown, trampled.

We are all treasure-seekers set on a treasure-island in a boundless sea.

Cruelly marooned we are--flung ashore without appeal, and here deserted

until the ship that disembarked us suddenly swoops and the press-gang

snatches us again aboard--again without heed to our desire. Whence the

ship brought us we do not know, and whither it will carry us we do not

know; there is none to prick a return voyage disclosing the ultimate

haven, though pilots there be who pretend to the knowledge--we cannot

test them.

But the marooners, when they land us, give us wherewith to occupy our

thoughts. This is a treasure-island. Each man of us they land with a

pick; the inhabitants tell us of the treasure, and, being acclimatised,

we set to work to dig and delve. Some work in shafts already sunk, some

seek to break new ground, but what the pick will next turn up no one

knows.

And it is this uncertainty, this hazard, that keeps us hammer, hammer,

hammering; that keeps us, some from brooding against the marooners,

their wanton desertion of us, our ultimate fate at their hands; others

from making ready against the return voyage as entreated by the pilots.

Certainly, when the pick strikes a pocket, we turn to carousing; cease

cocking a timid eye at the horizon.

And now our heroine is beckoning.

CHAPTER VI.

Magnificent Arrival Of A Heroine.

I.

Until three o'clock George sat in an operating theatre. An unimportant

case was in process: occasionally, through the group of dressers,

surgeons and nurses who filled the floor, George caught a glimpse of the

subject. He watched moodily, too occupied with his thoughts--three more

months of dependency--to take greater interest.

One other student was present. Peacefully he slumbered by George's side

until the ring of a dropped forceps awakened him. Noting the cause,

“Clumsy beast,” said this Mr. Franklyn; and to George: “Come on,

Leicester; my slumber is broken. Let's go for a stroll up West.”

In Oxford Street a pretty waitress in a tea-shop drew Mr. Franklyn's

eye; a drop of rain whacked his nose. He winked the eye; wiped the nose.

“Tea,” said he; “it is going to rain.”

He addressed the pretty waitress: “I have no wish to seem inquisitive,

but which table do you attend?”

The girl jerked her chin: “What's that to you?”

“So much,” Mr. Franklyn earnestly told her, “that, until I know, here,

beautiful but inconvenient, in the doorway I stand.”

“Well, all of 'em.” She whisked away.

“You're badly snubbed, Franklyn,” George said. “This rain is nothing.”

A summer shower crashed down as he spoke; a mob of shoppers, breathless

for shelter, drove them inwards.

“George,” said Mr. Franklyn, seating himself, “your base mind thinks I

have designs on this girl. I grieve at so distorted a fancy. The child

says prettily that she attends 'all of 'em.' It is a gross case of

overwork into which I feel it my duty more closely to inquire.”

George laughed. “Do you always spend your afternoons like this?”

“As a rule, yes. I have been fifteen years at St. Peter's awaiting that

day when through pure ennui the examiners will pass me. It will be a sad

wrench to leave the dear old home.” He continued, a tinge of melancholy

in his voice: “You know, I am the last of the old brigade. The medical

student no longer riots. His name is no longer a byword; he is a rabbit.

Alone, undismayed, I uphold the old traditions. I am, so to speak,

one of the old aristocracy. Beneath the snug characteristics of the

latter-day student--his sweet abhorrence of a rag, his nasty delight

in plays which he calls 'hot-stuff,' his cigarettes and his

chess-playing--beneath these my head, like Henley's, is bloody but

unbowed. Forgive a tear.”

The shower ceased; the tea was finished; the pretty waitress was

coyly singeing her modesty in the attractive candle of Mr. Franklyn's

suggestions. George left them at the game; strolled aimlessly towards

the Marble Arch; beyond it; to the right, and so into a quiet square.

Here comes my heroine.

II.

The hansom, as George walked, was coming towards him--smartly, with

a jingle of bells; skimming the kerb. As it reached him (recall that

shower) the horse slipped, stumbled, came on its knees.

Down came the shafts; out shot the girl.

The doors were wide; the impetus took her in her stride. One tiny foot

dabbed at the platform's edge; the other twinkled--patent leather and

silver buckle--at the step, missed it, plunged with a giant stride for

the pavement.

“Mercy!” she cried, and came like a shower of roses swirling into

George's arms.

Completely he caught her. About his legs whipped her skirts; against him

pressed her panting bosom; his arms--the action was instinctive--locked

around her; the adorable perfume of her came on him like breeze from a

violet bed; her very cheek brushed his lips--since the first kiss it was

the nearest thing possible to a kiss.

She twisted backwards. Modesty chased alarm across her face--caught,

battled, overcame it; flamed triumphant.

Fright at her accident drove her pale; shame at the manner of her

descent--leg to the knee and an indelicacy of petticoats--agitated she

had glimpsed it as she leapt--flushed her crimson from the line of her

dress about her throat to the wave of her hair upon her brow.

She twisted back. “Oh, what must you think of me?” she gasped.

He simply could not say.

CHAPTER VII.

Moving Passages With A Heroine.

I.

George could not say.

His senses were washed aswim by this torrent of beauty poured unexpected

through eyes to brain. It surged the centres to violent commotion, one

jostling another in a whirlpool of conflict. Out of the tumult alarm

flashed down the wires to his heart--set it banging; flashed in wild

message to his tongue--locked it.

The driver in our brains is an intolerable fellow in sudden crisis. He

loses his head; distracted he pulls the levers, and, behold, in a moment

the thing is irrevocably done; we are a coward legging it down the

street, a murderer with bloody hand, a liar with false words suddenly

pumped.

A moment later the driver is calm and aghast at the ruin he has

contrived. Why, before God, did he pull the leg lever?--the arm

lever?--the tongue lever? In an instant's action he has accomplished

calamity; where sunshine laughed now darkness heaps; where the prospect

smiled disaster now comes rolling up in thunder.

These are your crises. Again, as now with George, the driver becomes

temporarily idiot--stands us oafishly silent, or perhaps jerks out some

stupid words; remembers when too late the quip that would have

fetched the laugh, the thrust that would have sped the wound. He is an

intolerable fellow.

“Oh, what must you think of me?”

That pause followed while the driver in George's brain stood gapingly

inactive; and then came laughter to him like a draught of champagne. For

the girl put up her firm, round chin and laughed with a clear pipe of

glee--a laugh to call a laugh as surely as a lark's note will set a

hedge in song; and it called the laugh in George.

He said: “I am thinking the nicest things of you. But have you dropped

from the skies?”

“From a _cab_,” she protested.

She turned to the road; back to George in dismay, for the catapult, its

bullet shot, had bolted up the street--was gone from view.

“Oh!--I _was_ in a cab?” she implored.

George said: “It _looked_ like a cab. But a fairy-car, I think.”

A pucker of her brows darkened the quick mirth that came to her eyes.

She cried: “Oh, don't joke. She will be killed.”

“You were not alone?”

“No--oh, no! What has happened to her?”

“We had better follow.”

She corrected his number. “Yes, I had better. Thank you so much for your

help.” She took a step; faltered upon it with a little exclamation of

pain; put a white tooth on her lip.

“You have hurt your foot?” George said.

“My ankle, I think. Oh dear!” and then again she laughed.

It came even then to George that certainly she would have made her

fortune were she to set up a gloom-exorcising bureau--waiting at the end

of a telephone wire ready to rush with that laugh to banish the imps of

melancholy. Never had he heard so infectious a note of mirth.

“Oh, what must you think of me?” she ended. “I simply cannot help

laughing, you know--and yet, oh dear!”

She put the tips of the fingers of a hand against her lower lip, gazed

very anxiously up the road, and then again she gave that clear pipe of

laughter.

“I can't help it,” she told him imploringly. “I simply cannot help

laughing. It is funny, you know. She was scolding me--”

“_Scolding_!” George exclaimed.

That beauty should be scolded!

“Scolding--yes. Oh, I'm only a--well, scolding me, and I was wishing,

_wishing_ I could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I look

around and she's--” A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance that

was by magic agency.

“But, _scolding_?” George said. “Need you trouble? She will be all

right.”

“Oh, I must. I live with her.”

“Will she trouble about you?”

“I think she will return for me. Please, _please_ go--would you

mind?--to the corner, and see if there has been an accident.”

From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. “Is there a

cab accident round the corner?”

The youth stared; called “Rats!”; passed.

George interpreted: “It means No. Do you think if you were to take my

arm you could walk to the turning?”

Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow. The contact

thrilled him. “No nice girl, you know, would do this,” she said, “with a

perfect stranger.”

George bent his arm a little, the better to feel the pressure of those

white fingers. “I am not really perfect,” he told her.

She took his mood. “Nor I really nice,” she joined. “In fact, I'm

horrible--they tell me. But I think it is wise to follow, don't you?”

“Profoundly wise. Who says you are horrible?”

She gave no answer. Glancing, he saw trouble shade her eyes, tremble her

lips.

That beauty should know distress!

Very slightly he raised his forearm so that the lock of his elbow felt

her hand. He had no fine words. This George was no hero with exquisite

ways. He was a most average young man, and nothing could he find but

most painfully average words.

“I say, what's up?” he asked.

She spoke defiantly; but some stupid something that she hated yet could

not repress trembled her lips, robbed her tone of its banter. “What's

up?” she said. “Why, _you_ would say something was up if you'd just been

shot plump out of a cab, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, but you were laughing a minute ago.” He looked down at her,

but she turned her face. “Now, now, I believe--” He did not name his

thought.

She looked up. Her pretty face was red. He saw little flutters of

eyelids, flutters round the eyes, flutters at the mouth. “Oh,” she said,

“oh, yes, and I don't know why. I'm--I believe--” She tried to laugh,

but the little flutterings clouded the smile like soft, dark wings

flickering upon a sunbeam.

“I believe--it's ridiculous to a perfect--imperfect--stranger--I believe

I'm nearly--crying.”

And this inept George could only return: “I say--oh, I say, can I help

you?”

She stopped; from his arm withdrew her hand. “Please--I think you had

better go. Please go. Oh, I shall hate myself for behaving like this.”

So unhappy she was that George immediately planned her a backdoor of

excuse. “But you have no occasion to blame yourself,” he told her.

“You've had an adventure--naturally you're shaken a bit.”

She was relieved to think he had misunderstood her agitation. “Yes, an

adventure,” she said, “that's it. And I haven't had an adventure for

years, so naturally--But, please, I think you had better go. If my--my

friend saw me with you like this she would be angry--oh, very angry.”

“But why? She saw you fall. She saw me save you.”

“You don't understand. She is not exactly my friend; she is my--my

employer. I'm a mother's-help.”

The mirth that never lay deep beneath those blue eyes of hers was

sparkling up now; the soft, dark wings were fluttering no longer.

She continued: “A mother's-help. Doesn't that sound wretched? I'm

terribly slow at learning the mother's-help rules, but I'm positive

of this rule--mothers' helps may not shoot out of cabs and leave the

mother; it's such little help--you must see that?”

“But you will be less help still if you stay here for ever with your

hurt ankle--you must see that? I must stay with you or see you to your

home.”

When she answered, it was upon another change of mood. The soft, dark

wings were fluttering again; and it was the banter of George's tone

that had recalled them. For this was an adventure--and she had not known

adventure for years; for these were flippant exchanges arising out of

gay young hearts, and they recalled memories of days when such harmless

bantering was of her normal life; for there had been sympathy in

George's stammering inquiries, and it recalled the time when she lived

amidst sympathy and amidst love.

The soft, dark wings fluttered again: “I am very grateful to you for

helping me,” she told him. “You must not think me ungrateful; only, I

think you had better go. In my position I am not free to--to do as I

like, talk where I will. You understand?” Her voice trembled a little,

and she repeated: “You understand?”

George said, “I understand.”

II.

And that was all that passed upon this meeting. A cab swung round the

opposite corner; pulled up with a rattle; turned towards them; was

alongside. Within, a brow of thunder sat.

The cabman called, “I knowed you was all right, miss,” raised the trap,

and cheerfully repeated the information to his fare: “I knowed she was

all right, mum.”

The mum addressed gave no congratulation to his prescience. He shut the

lid; winked at George; behind his hand communicated, “Not 'arf angry,

she ain't.”

The girl ran forward; agitation bound up her hurt ankle. “Oh!” she

cried, “I am so glad you are safe!”

The thunder-figure addressed said: “Please get in. I have had a severe

shock.”

“This gentleman--” The girl half turned to George.

“Please get in--instantly.”

Scarlet the girl went. “Thank you very much,” she said to George;

climbed in beside the cloud of wrath.

Her companion slammed the door; dabbed at George a bow that was like a

sharp poke with a stick; called, “Drive on.”

George stepped into the road, held half a crown to the driver: “The

address?”

The man stooped. With a tremendous wink answered, “Fourteen Palace

Gardens, St. John's Wood.”

Away with a jingle.

CHAPTER VIII.

Astonishing After-Effects Of A Heroine.

I.

George did not return to St. Peter's that afternoon; watched the cab

from view; walked back to Waterloo; thence took train to Paltley Hill

with mind awhirl.

Recovering from stunning shock the mind first sees a blur of

events--formless, seething, inextricably tangled. Deep in this boiling

chaos is one fact struggling more powerfully than the rest to cool and

so to shape itself. It kicks a leg free here, there an arm, then another

leg. Its exertions cause the whole more furiously to agitate--the brain

is afire. Very suddenly this struggling fact jumps free. Laid hold of it

is a cold spoon which, plunged back into the seething cauldron, arrests

the turmoil of its contents.

Or again, recovering from sudden shock the mind first sees a great

whirling, blinding cloud of dust which hides and wreathes about the

sudden topple of masonry that has provoked it. Here the slowly emerging

fact may be likened to a clear gangway through the ruin up which the

fevered owner may walk to investigate the catastrophe's cause and

extent.

So now with George. If not dazed by stunning shock, he was at least

awhirl by set back of the swift sequence of events which suddenly

had buffeted him; and it was not until strolling up from Paltley Hill

railway station to Herons' Holt that one cooling fact emerged from which

he might make an ordered examination of what had passed.

The address that the cabman had given him was this fact--14 Palace

Gardens, St. John's Wood. Here was the gangway through the pile of

disorder, and here George resolutely made a start of examining events in

place of wildly beating about through the dust of aimless conjectures.

He visualised this Palace Gardens residence. A gloomy house, he

suspected,--prison-like; its inhabitants warders, the girl their

captive. A beautiful picture was thus presented to this ridiculous

young man. For if the girl were indeed captive, warder-surrounded, how

gratefully her heart must press towards him who was no turnkey! The more

irksomely her captors held her, the more warmly would she remember him.

Subconsciously he hoped for a rattle of chains, a scourging with whips.

Every bond, every stroke would speed her spirit to the recollection of

their meeting.

But this delectable picture soon faded. Love--and this ridiculous George

vowed he was in love--love is a mental see-saw. The nicely-balanced

mind is set suddenly oscillating: now up, commandingly above the world,

intoxicated with the rush and the elevation; now down to depths made

horribly deep by contrast, wretchedly jarred by the bump.

A new thought impelled a downward jolt of this kind. Failing a gloomy

14 Palace Gardens, supposing the girl to be happily situated, it was

horribly improbable that she would give him a moment's thought. This was

a most chilling idea. Shivering beneath the douche, George's mind ran

back along the episode of their meeting to discover arguments that would

build up the chains and the whips.

Memories banked high on either side. In search of his desire George

gathered them haphazard, closely examined each.

It was an unsatisfactory business. Here was a memory. She had said

so-and-so. Yes; but, damn it, that might mean anything. He flung it

down; took another. She had said so-and-so. Yes; but, damn it, that

might have meant nothing.

This was very disturbing. He must systematically go through the whole

pile of memories--upon an ordered plan reconstruct each step of the

episode.

At first attempt it was a wretched business. Never was builder set to

work with bricks so impossible as the bricks of conversation with which

this reconstruction must be done. Each that the girl had supplied

might dovetail in as he would have it go; upon the other hand it fitted

equally well when twisted into the form in which, for all he knew, she

might have constructed it. The bricks George had himself supplied he

found even more disconcerting--they were stupid, ugly, laughable. He

shoved them in, and they grinned at him--mocked him. None the less

he persevered--he must get his answer; he must see both what she had

thought of him and if she were likely still to be thinking of him. And

at last the whole passage was reconstructed. He examined it, and once

more down came the see-saw with a most shattering bump: he had made

himself an idiot, and stood champion idiot if he believed she were

likely to remember him.

With a crash George sent the whole pile flying. Let him wander blindly

in the dust of imaginings rather than be tortured by the grim austerity

of ordered facts. More than this, there was one most comfortable memory

to which he desperately clung--that falter in her voice when she had

said “You understand?” Whenever, during that evening, doubt stirred and

bade him recognise himself for a fool, George flattened the ugly spectre

with the arm he contrived out of this memory.

It was a lusty weapon.

But a fresh vexation that lies in wait for all new lovers tore him when

he got to bed. In the darkness he set his mind solely to recalling the

girl's face. The picture tantalisingly eluded him. Generalities he could

recall. She was fair, very, very fair; her hair was shining golden; but

how was it arranged? In desperation he squirmed off to her eyes--blue;

no, grey; no, blue. Damn it, he would forget whether she were black or

white in a minute. Her chin? Ah, he had that!--white and firm and round.

And her nose?--small, and a trifle tip-tilted. And her mouth?--her

mouth, oh, heaven, he could not fix her mouth! The distracted young man

tossed upon his pillow and went elsewhere. Distinctly he could remember

her little feet with those silver buckles, quite different from any

other feet. And she held herself slim and supple. Held herself? Why,

good heavens! she was tall, and he had been thinking of her as short!

This was appalling! He might meet her and pass her by. He might ... he

rushed into troubled slumber.

II.

The night gave him little rest. Whilst his body lay heavy, his brain,

feverishly active, chased through the hours glimpses of the queen of

his adventure. By early morning he was prodded into consciousness, and

awaked to find himself instantly confronted with a terrible affair. Into

his life, so he assured himself, had come a serious interest such as

that which the Dean had hoped for him.

Here, lying abed with fresh morning smiling in through the open window,

for the first time he looked forward, following the face he had pursued

through his dreams, into the future. Its chambers he found ghastly

barren. He visualised it as a vast unfurnished house. To the merry eye

with which two days ago he had looked upon the world, the picture,

had he then conjured it, would have given him no gloom. He would have

thought it a fine thing, this empty house that was his own--empty, but

representing freedom.

The matter was different now. Into this empty house had danced the girl.

Her gay presence discovered its barrenness. There was not a chair on

which she could sit, not a dish in the larder.

George recalled that tight little practice at Runnygate that might be

had for 400 pounds; went down to breakfast rehearsing a scene with his

uncle; was moody through the meal.

III.

The breakfast dragged past its close. Mr. Marrapit spoke. “The moments

fly,” he observed.

Margaret said earnestly: “Oh, yes, father.”

“I was addressing George.”

“Ur!” said George, suddenly aroused.

Mr. Marrapit looked at his watch; repeated his observation.

George read his meaning. “I thought of going up by the later train

to-day,” he explained.

“A dangerous thought. Crush it.” Mr. Marrapit continued: “Margaret, Mrs.

Major, I observe you have concluded”; and when the two had withdrawn

addressed himself again to George: “A dangerous thought. You recall our

conversation of the day before yesterday?”

“Perfectly.”

“Yet by later trains, by idleness, you deliberately imperil your

future?”

George did not answer the question. This was the very opportunity for

which he had wished. “I would like to talk about my future,” he said.

“I dare not dwell upon it,” replied Mr. Marrapit.

“I have to. I shall pass all right this time. I want to know--the fact

is, sir, I know I have slacked in the past; I am a man now, and I--I

regret it. I fully realise my responsibilities. You may rely that I

shall make a certainty of the October examination.”

“Commendable,” Mr. Marrapit criticised.

“I want to know what help I may expect when I qualify.”

“I cannot tell you.” Mr. Marrapit threw martyrdom into his tone. “I

am so little,” he said, “in your confidence. Your expectations when

qualified may be enormous. I am not favoured with them.” He sighed.

George said: “I mean what help I may expect from you.”

The piece of toast rising to Mr. Marrapit's mouth slowly returned

towards his plate: “Reiterate that. From _me_?”

“From you,” said George.

The toast dropped from trembling fingers. “_I_?” Mr. Marrapit dragged

the word to tremendous length. “I? Is it conceivable that you expect

money from me?”

“I only ask.”

“I only shudder. Might I inquire the amount?”

“The Dean told me of a practice I could have for 400 pounds.”

“Tea!” exclaimed Mr. Marrapit on a gasp. “I must steady myself! Tea!” He

paused; gulped a cup; with alarmed eyes stared at George.

The affair was going no better than George had expected. He remembered

the face that was dear to him; nerved himself to continue. “I would pay

it back,” he said. “Will you lend me the 400 pounds?”

“I must have air!” Mr. Marrapit staggered to the window. “I reel before

this sudden assault. For nine years at ruinous cost I have supported

you. Must I sell my house? Am I never to be free? Must I totter always

through life with you upon my bowed back? I am Sinbad.”

“There's no need to exaggerate or make a scene.”

“Did I impel the scene?”

“I only asked you a question,” George reminded.

“You have aroused a spectre,” Mr. Marrapit answered.

“Well, I may understand that I need expect nothing?”

“I dare not answer you. I am shaken. I tremble.”

George rose. Though what hope he had possessed was driven by his uncle's

attitude, he was as yet only upon the threshold of his love. Hence the

refusal of what he suddenly desired for that love's sake was not so

bitter an affair as afterwards it came to be. “This is ridiculous,” he

said; moved to the door.

“To me a tragedy,” Mr. Marrapit declaimed from the window, “old as

mankind; not therefore less bitter--the tragedy of ingratitude. At

stupendous cost I have supported, educated, clothed you. You turn

upon me for more. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a

thankless child! I am Lear.”

George tried a thrust: “I always understood my mother left you ample for

me.”

“Adjust that impression. She left me less than a sufficiency--nothing

approaching amplitude. To the best of my ability I have fulfilled

my task. It has been hard. I do not complain. I do not ask you for

repayment of any excess that may have been incurred. But I am embittered

by yet further demands. I have been too liberal. Had I meted out strict

justice as I have striven to mete out kindness, my grey hairs would not

be speeding in poverty to the grave. I am Wolsey.”

Upon Wolsey George slammed the door; started for the station.

IV.

Palace Gardens, St. John's Wood, was his aim. There could be no work,

nor even thought of work, until again he had met his lady. Yet how to

meet her cost him another of the wrestles with conjecture that had been

his lot since the cab carried her away.

At first it was easy work. He would call, he decided, with polite

inquiries; and as he pictured the scene his spirits rose. The

thunder-figure that had poked a bow at him from the cab would come

dragonish into the drawing-room where he waited. Her he would charm with

the suavity of his manners; she would doff the dragon's skin; would

say (he had read the scene in novels), “You would like to see Miss

So-and-so?”

The girl would come in ....

With her appearance in his thoughts George's mind swung from coherent

reasoning into a delectable phantasy ....

A sudden thought swept the filmy clouds-landed him with a bump upon hard

rock. He was not supposed to know their address. How, to the dragon,

could he explain the venal trick by which he had acquired it? Now he

beheld a new picture. Himself in the drawing-room; to him the dragon;

her first words, “How did you know where we lived?”; his miserable

answer.

This was very unpleasant. As a red omnibus took him on towards St.

John's Wood he decided that the meeting must be otherwise effected. The

girl must sometimes go out. She had called herself a mother's-help; it

suggested children; and, if children, doubtless her task to take them

walking. Well, he would take up a post near to the house, and wait--just

wait.

And then there came a final thought that struck him cold and staring.

What if she did not live at the house?--was merely about to visit there

when the accident befell the cab?

It was a sorely agitated young man that stepped off the 'bus and struck

up Palace Gardens.

BOOK II.

Of his Mary.

CHAPTER I.

Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine.

I.

AS that cab swung round the corner bearing away the nameless haunter of

George's dreams, she to the red wrath beside her turned, and, “Oh, Mrs.

Chater,” she said, “I hope you are not hurt!”

By a mercy Mrs. Chater was not hurt. By a special intervention of

Providence she had escaped a fearful death. Whether she would ever

recover from the shock was another matter. Whether the shock would prove

to be that sudden strain on her heart which she had been warned would

end fatally, might at any moment be proved. Much anybody, except her

darling children, would care if she were brought home dead in this very

cab. Never had she known a heart to act as hers was acting now--thumping

as if it would burst, first quickly then slowly. Perhaps Miss Humfray

would feel it, and give her opinion.

Where the girl now laid her small hand five infant Chaters had been

nourished; the massive bosom was advertisement that they had done

well. Beneath the mingled gusts of hysteria and of wrath it violently

contracted and dilated; but the heart, terrificly though Mrs. Chater

said it throbbed, lay too deep to be discerned.

The agitated woman panted, “Can it go on like that?”

“I'm afraid I hardly--” Miss Humfray shifted her hand.

“_Stupid!_ Take off your glove!”

The white kid clung to the warm flesh. Nervous and clumsy the girl

struggled with it.

“Miss _Humfray!_ How slow you are! _Pull_ it!”

Mrs. Chater grabbed the turned-back wrist. A crack answered the jerk,

and the glove split away in her hand. “_There!_ Not my fault. Next time,

perhaps, you will buy gloves sufficiently large. Oh, my poor heart! Now,

feel. _Press!_”

The girl bit her lip. Humiliation lumped in her throat. She pressed, as

bid, into that heaving blouse; said she could feel it. It was not very

violent, she thought. Perhaps if Mrs. Chater lay back and closed her

eyes--

“_I_ was not able to jump out, you see,” said Mrs. Chater, sinking.

“Oh, you don't think I _jumped_ out--and left you? I _wouldn't_.

Besides, it is the most dangerous thing to do. That would have prevented

me in any case. I was thrown. I thought I was going to be killed.”

“You were with a young man.”

“He caught me.”

The words came faintly. Nearly the girl was crying. That lump in her

throat seemed to be squeezing tears from her eyes--silly tears. She

did not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy, yet could not but reflect what

disregard for her the utter absence of inquiry showed. Bitter thoughts

yet more dangerously squeezed the tears. She was a paid _thing_, that

was all--not even a servant. Mrs. Chater was on kindly terms with her

servants--had experienced the servant problem and craftily evaded it by

the familiarity that was too useful to produce contempt--knew her maids'

young men, entered into their quarrels with their young men, read their

young men's letters.

II.

Gazing through the cab window, pressed into her corner, the girl felt

herself friendless, outcast, alone. Again she told herself that she did

not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy; yet it was the studied withholding of

it--studied or callous because so natural, the merest conventionalism,

to have asked, “Were you hurt?”--that made her acutely feel her

position.

A paradox, she thought, not to want a thing and yet to be wounded

because it was not hers. A ridiculous paradox--and brightly she tried to

smile at the silliness of it; blinking the tears that were swelling now,

her face turned against the window towards the pavement.

A tall, slim girl was passing, holding the arm of a nice-looking little

old man with a grey moustache and military air. The tall, slim girl

was laughing down at him, and he looked to be chuckling merrily, just

as--Her mind swung off, and the tears must be blinked again.

They reminded her, those two, of herself and her father. Such familiar

friends as they looked so she had been with Dad who idolised her

and whom she had idolised. Just like that--arm in arm, joking,

“ragging”--she used to walk with him round about the home in

Ireland--the world to one another and none else in the world, except the

mother who was so intimately and inseparably of them that years past her

death they still spoke of her as if she were alive.

Thus, long after her death, it would be: “Dad, we can't go home by the

hill; mother never lets Grizzle do that climb after a long day.” And:

“Mary, your mother won't like you being so late; we must turn back.”

And: “Mary, there's the pig by mother's almond tree; run and shoo him.”

Partly this refusal to recognise that, though dead, Mother was actually

gone from them, no longer was sharing their little jokes and duties, was

because death came with such steady, appreciable, unfrightening steps.

First the riding stopped, and then the walks made shorter and shorter;

then the strolls in the garden stopped, and then carrying the couch out

under the trees--and none of them very fearful, because prepared: it was

to be--almost the very day could have been named. Thus, when it came,

though the blow swooped heavy, terrific, she never seemed actually to

have left them.

“Well, now, dear dears,” she had said with a little smile and a little

sigh, “we have been happy ... only a little way away....”

But with Dad it was different. Somehow, looking back on it, one had

supposed that nothing would ever touch the cheery little man; that

she and he would go on and on and on--well, till they grew very old

together.

Nothing could ever touch him....

“What a wicked beauty, eh, Mary?” he had said when the man brought round

the half-broken filly that its owner “funked.”

And she had laughed and said: “Yes, an angel in a temper--what a run you

will have, Dad!” and had waved from the gate as the angel in a temper

curveted away around the corner.

Nothing could ever touch him....

And then the man on a bicycle--with a dent in his hat, she noticed.

“If you can come quickly, missy. Top of the Three Finger field he lays.”

Bare-backed she had galloped Grizzle there, and as she sped could not

for the life of her think of aught else than the dent in the man's hat;

rode up Three Finger Lane wondering how it came there; approached the

little group wondering why he did not push it out.

Just as she galloped up they took off their hats. Someone who had been

on his knees stood upright--she saw the stain of wet earth where he had

been kneeling; forgot the dented hat; wondered if he knew of the Marvel

Cleaning Pad that had done so wonderfully with Dad's breeches when he

took a toss last Friday.

Dad...! Of course...! It was to see Dad that she was here.

Somebody tried to dissuade her ... better wait till they brought him

home ... could do no good--now.

“Why? Why not see him? Let me pass, Mr. Saunders.”

Well, the filly lay across him ... he had begged them not to move her

because of the pain.... Better come away.

She pushed through them.... Yes, better perhaps not to have seen ... all

crumpled up....

Recollecting, she could feel distinctly in her knees the creepy damp as

the moisture of the marshy ground penetrated her skirts, bending over

the twisted face.

III.

Thereafter a blank of days in which events must have occurred but

to which memory brought no lamp until the faint crunch as the coffin

touched the earth seven feet down....

Multitudinous papers after that. Wearying, sickening masses of

documents; interminable writing of signature; interminable making of

lists. And then the word LOT. “Lot I,” “Lot 2,” “Lot 50,” “Lot 200”--a

hammerlike word to thump the brain at night, frightening sleep,

producing grotesque nightmares, as “Lot 12, a polished oak coffin,

finished plain, brass Handles.”

No! No! That was not to be sold!--leaden hands holding her down;

stifling hands at her mouth to stay her shouting “Stop!”

Then sudden consciousness--only a dream! Bolt upright in bed staring

into the darkness. A dream? How much of it a dream? Was it all a dream?

The fevered brain would fetch her from her bed, groping to Dad's

room, striking a match--no familiar form upon the bed; a big white

ticket--“Lot 56.”

Back to the hot, crumpled couch, there, tossing, to lie attempting a

grasp, a realisation of what it all meant....

IV.

A dark little office in Dublin.... So much the “Lots” had fetched, so

much the balance at the bank; no investments, it was to be feared; no

insurance, my dear Miss Humfray; so much the bills and other claims on

the estate.... “Don't wish to be bothered with figures? Of course not,

my dear.... And then we come to the balance--I'm afraid a few pounds,

practically nothing....”

V.

On the steamer bound for Holyhead.... During the crossing the stifling

weight that had benumbed her intellect ever since the man with the dent

in his hat came riding up the drive seemed suddenly to lift. Whipped

away perhaps by the edged wind that rushed past her from England to

Ireland sinking in the sea--a wind to cut you to the bone; discovering

sensation in every marrow; stinging her to clear thought.... That

idyllic life with Mother and Dad--the world to one another and none else

in the world beside--had been rather the creation of circumstance than

of design. Dad's people were furious when he married Mother; in defiance

of hers, Mother married Dad. Relations on either side had shrieked their

disapproval of the match, then left the couple to their own adventures.

A thing to laugh at in those days, but bringing now to the child that

was left the realisation of not a support in the world.

Her mother's sisters had written after the funeral inviting her to come

to them in England “while she looked about her.” She could recall every

sentence of that letter. It had burned. Each word, each comma was fresh

before her eyes as the cab jolted on to Palace Gardens.

“It would have been our pleasure constantly to have entertained you

during your mother's life-time,” they had written, “but she wilfully

flouted our desires at her marriage and thereafter utterly ignored us.

The fault for the rift between us was of her making, not ours; we sent

her an Easter card one year, and had no reply; though we have no

doubt that your father, not that we would say a word against him now,

influenced her against her better judgment. However....”

She had written back a hysterical letter.

“Your letter came just after I had returned from burying my dear, dear

father, who worshipped my darling mother. If I were begging in the

street, starving, dying, I would not touch a crumb or a penny of

yours. You are wicked--yes, you are wicked to write to me as you have

written....”

VI.

She could not stay in Ireland. Her only friends there lived about the

dear home that was now no longer a home but a “desirable residence with

some acres of garden and paddock.” Her only friends there were friends

who had been shared with Mother and Dad--whose presence now would be

constant reminder of that happy participation now lost. One and all

offered her hospitality, but she must refuse. “No, no silly idea of

being a burden to you, dear, dear Mrs. Sullivan--only I can't, can't

live anywhere near where we used to live.”

Years before a great friend of hers had married an English clergyman;

had written often to her from London of the numerous activities in which

she was engaged--principal among them a kind of agency and home for

gentlewomen. “Governesses, dear, and all that kind of thing ... poor

girls, many of them, who have suddenly had to earn a living.”

The correspondence had died, as do so many, from the effects of undue

urgency at the outset; but she had the address, and was certain there of

welcome and of aid. “Poor girls who have suddenly had to earn a living.”

The words took on a new meaning: she was of these.

From Euston she drove to the address. Her friend had gone. Yes, the

present occupant remembered the name. The present occupant had been

there two years; had taken over the lease from the former tenant because

the lady was ill and had been ordered abroad. That was all the present

occupant knew; saw her to the door; closed it behind her.

Alone in London. “Alone in London”--it had been one of Dad's jokes; he

had written a burlesque on it, and they had played it one Christmas

to roars of fun. O God! what a thing at which to laugh now that the

realisation struck and one stood on the pavement in the dark with this

great city roaring at one!

Cabmen, she had heard, were brutes; but the man who had brought her

to the house must be appealed to.... Where could she get the cheapest

lodging of some kind?

How did he know? What was she wanting to pay? ...

The great city roared at her. Her head swum a little. An idler or two

took up a grinning stand: the thing looked like a cab-fare dispute....

What was she wanting to pay? ... Well, as little as possible. “I have

never been in London before, and I don't know anybody. My friend here

has gone. I have just arrived from Ireland.” She began to cry.

He from his box in a moment. “From Ireland!”

Why, he was from Ireland! ... Not likely she was from Connemara? ... She

was? ... From Kinsloe? ... Why, he knew it well; he was from Ballydag!

He rolled his tongue around other names of the district; she knew them

all; could almost have laughed at the silly fellow's delight.

Why, the honour it would be if she would come and let his missus make

her up a bed! “Don't ye cry, missie. Don't ye take on like that. It's

all right ye are now.” He put a huge, roughly great-coated arm about

her--squeezed her, she believed; helped her into the cab.

VII.

Missus in the clean little rooms over the rattling mews was no less

delighted. From Kinsloe? Why, missie saw that canary?--that was a

present from Betty Murphy in Kinsloe, not three months before!

The canary, aroused by the attention paid it, trilled upward in a

mounting ecstasy of shrillness that went up and up and up through her

head ... louder and louder ... shriller and yet more shrill ... bird and

cage became misty, swum around her.... Missus and Tim must have carried

her to the bed in which she awoke.

VIII.

Friends in Ireland had given her the addresses of friends in London

on whom she must call. She visited some houses; then in a sudden wild

despair tore the list. Either these people were dense of comprehension

or she clumsy of explanation. To make them realise her position she

found impossible. They were warmly kind, sympathetic--cheery in that

lugubrious fashion in which we are taught to be “bright” with the

afflicted. But when she spoke of the necessity to find employment they

would warmly cry, “Oh, but you must not think of that yet, Miss Humfray

... after all you have been through.... You must keep quiet for a

little.”

One and all gave her the same words. An impulse took her to kick over

the tea-table--anything to arouse these people from their stereotyped

mood of sympathy with a girl suddenly bereaved,--and to cry, “But don't

you _understand_? I am living over a mews--over a _mews_ with twelve

pounds and a few shillings, and then _nothing_--nothing at all.”

Wise, perhaps, had she indulged the outburst without the action; wiser

had she written to some of the friends in Ireland, asked to go back to

one of them for a while. But the dull grief beneath which she still lay

benumbed prevented her from other course than tonelessly accepting

the proffered sympathy; and the thought of returning to Ireland was

impossible. She tore the list of London friends; appealed to Tim and

Missus.

Tim was helpful. He had taken fares to an Agency in Norfolk Street--an

Agency for “Disturbed Gentlewomen,” he called it; there took her one

morning.

“Distressed Gentlewomen,” she found the brass plate to read--“The

Norfolk Street Agency for Distressed Gentlewomen.”

A lymphatic-looking young woman, assisting the growth of a singularly

stout face by sucking a sweet, and wearing brown holland sleeve

protectors hooked up with enormous safety-pins, received her in the room

marked “Enquiries”; put her into that labelled “Waiting.” Here were two

copies of the _Christian Herald_, some emigration pamphlets, a carafe

of water covered by an inverted tumbler dusty with disuse, and three

elderly females--presumably gentlewomen, possibly distressed, but not

advertising either condition.

In due time her turn for the room marked “Private”; interrogation by

Miss Ram, a short, thin lady in black, who bowed more frequently than

she spoke, possessing a range of inclinations of the head each of which

had unmistakable meaning.

Position sought?--Oh, anything; governess, companion. Last

situation?--None; she was inexperienced. Capabilities?--Equally lacking,

as discovered by a probing cross-examination. Salary required?--Oh,

anything; whatever was usual; a _home_--that was the chief object in

view.

Miss Ram entered the details in a severe-looking book with a long

thin pen--could hold out but faint hopes. The applicants whom she was

accustomed to suit were “in nine and ninety cases out of one hundred

cases” accomplished in the domestic or scholastic arts. However. Yes,

Miss Humfray should call every morning. Better still, stay in the

waiting-room. Be On the Spot--that was the first requisite for success,

as Miss Humfray would find whether in a situation or awaiting a

situation; be On the Spot.

IX.

On the Spot. A nightmare week in the dingy waiting-room ... thoughts

probing the mind, stabbing the heart.... Nine till one, a cup of tea

and a roll at an A.B.C. shop, an aimless walk in the park; two till six,

good-night to the stout young woman named Miss Porter in “Enquiries,”

home to the rattling mews and to Missus.

On the Spot. Occasional interviews. “Miss Humfray, a lady will see you.”

... “Oh, too young--far too young.” ... “Thank you, that will do, Miss

Humfray.” ... “Oh, not my style at all.” ... “Thank you, that will do,

Miss Humfray.”

On the Spot. Fortunately On the Spot one day--a Mrs. Eyton-Eyton, as

nursery governess, Streatham.

For a week very much On the Spot with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton. Nursery

governess was a comprehensive word in the Eyton-Eyton vocabulary;

covered every duty that in a nursery must be performed. One must do

the nursery fire, sweep the nursery floor, bring up and carry down the

nursery meals--servants, you see, object to waiting upon one whom, as

Mrs. Eyton-Eyton with a careless laugh pointed out, they regard as one

of themselves. Quickly the lesson was appreciated that while a servant

must never be “put upon,” the same consideration need not be extended to

a lady. Servants are rare in the market, young ladies cheap.

X.

The lesson of dependence, subserviency, Mary found harder in the

learning; did not study it; therein reaped disaster.

She arrived on a Tuesday. Upon that day of the following week Mrs.

Eyton-Eyton paid to the nursery one of her rare visits, beautifully

gowned, the hired victoria waiting to take her a round of calls.

Lunch, delayed not to disturb the midday sleep of Masters Thomas and

Richard Eyton-Eyton, was not cleared--Master Thomas still struggling

with a plate of sago pudding.

Betwixt her children Mrs. Eyton-Eyton--beautifully gowned, hired

victoria in waiting--took her seat; Mary hovered behind--and catastrophe

swooped. Master Thomas grabbed for a glass of milk; Mary strove to

restrain him. There was an awkward struggle, her elbow--or his--caught

the plate of pudding, tipped the sticky mass into the silken lap of Mrs.

Eyton-Eyton, beautifully gowned, hired victoria in waiting.

Infuriated, Mrs. Eyton-Eyton turned upon Mary. “Oh, you little fool!”

The rebuke that should have been taken with downcast eyes, murmured

apologies, was otherwise received.

“Mrs. Eyton! How dare you call me a fool!”

Pause of blank amazement; sago-messed table-napkin in the scented hand;

sago creeping down the silken skirt. That a nursery governess--not even

a servant--should so presume!

“Miss Humfray! You forget yourself!”

“No!-No! It is you who forget yourself. How dare you speak to me like

that!”

Another moment of utter bewilderment; small Eyton-Eytons gazing

round-eyed; the girl white, heaving; the woman dully red. Then “Pack

your boxes, Miss!”

XI.

She was upon the platform at Victoria Station, a porter asking commands

for her box, before she realised what she had done. A few pounds in her

purse, and infinitely worse off now than a week before. Then she had no

“character”; now employment was to be sought with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton as

her “last place.” She would not go back to Missus and Tim. Though they

had tried to conceal it, secretly, she had seen, they were relieved

when she left. They had not accommodation for her; latterly she had

dispossessed of his bed a sailor son on leave from his ship.

She left her box in the cloak-room; turned down Wilton Road from the

station; penetrated the narrow thoroughfares between Lupus Street and

the river; secured a bedroom with Mrs. Japes at six shillings a week.

Miss Ram at the Agency would have no more to do with her; had received a

furious letter from Mrs. Eyton-Eyton; showed in the ledger a cruel line

of red ink ruled through the page that began “Name: Mary Humfray,” and

ended “Salary:--”

“But I don't know a soul in London.”

“You had a very comfortable place. You threw it away. I have a

reputation for reliable employees which I cannot afford to risk.”

A bow closed the interview.

XII.

It was her landlady's husband, an unshaven, shifty-looking horror, who

dealt her, as it seemed to her then, the last furious blow.

Returning one evening after an aimless search for employment in shops

that had earned her rude laughter for her utter inexperience and her

presumption in supposing her services could be of any value, she found

Mrs. Japes in convulsive tears, speechless.

What was the matter? Hysterical jerks of the head towards the stairs. Up

to her room--the cause clear in her rifled box, its contents scattered

across the floor, the little case in which with her pictures of Mother

and Dad she kept her money gone.

A little raid by Mr. Japes, it appeared, in which Mrs. Japes's property

had also suffered.... He had done it before ... a bad lot ... had done

time ... the rent overdue and the brokers coming in ... she'd best go

... of course she could tell the police.

Of course she did not tell the police. The whole affair bewildered and

frightened her.

To another lodging three streets away.... Initiation by the new landlady

into the mysteries of pawnshops; gradual thinning of wardrobe....

Answering of advertisements found in the public library in Great Smith

Street.... Long, feet-aching trudges to save omnibus fares.... Always

the same outcome. ... Experience?--None. References?--None.... “Thank

you; I'm afraid--I'm sure it's all right, but one has to be so careful

nowadays. Good morning.” ... Always the same outcome.... The idea of

writing to Ireland was hardly conceived. ... That life, those friends,

seemed of a period that was dead, done, gone--ages and ages ago....

XIII.

Again it was a man who dealt the deeper blow--a gentlemanly-looking

person of whom in Wilton Road one evening she asked the way to an

address copied from the _Daily Telegraph_. Why, by an extraordinary

coincidence he was going that way himself, to that very house!--flat,

rather. Yes, it was his mother who was advertising for a lady-help.

Might he show her the way? ... It would be very kind of him.

Through a maze of streets, he chatting pleasantly enough, though putting

now and then curious little questions which she could not understand....

Hadn't he seen her at the Oxford one night? ... Assuredly he had not;

what was the Oxford?

He laughed, evidently pleased. “Gad, you do keep it up!” he cried.

So to a great pile of flats; up a circular stair.

“You understand why I can't use the lift?” he said. “They're beastly

particular here.”

She did not understand; supposed it was some question of expense. Thus

to a door where he took out a latch-key.

It was then for the first moment that a sudden doubt, a horror, took

her, trembling her limbs.

She looked up at the figures painted over the door.

“Why, it is the wrong number!” she cried.

He had turned the key. “Lord! you do keep it up!” he laughed, his hand

suddenly about her arm.

Then she knew, and dragged back, sweating with the horror of the thing.

“Ah, let me go--let me go!”

“Oh, chuck it, you little ass!” His arm was about her waist now,

dragging her; his face close.

With a sudden twist and thrust that took him by surprise she wrenched

from his grasp; was a flight of stairs away before he had recovered his

wits; across the hall and running--shaking, hysterical--down the street.

XIV.

Thereafter men were a constant horror to her--adding a new and most

savage beast to the wolves of noise, of desolation and of despair that

bayed about her in this grinding city. Unable longer to face them, she

went again to Miss Ram at the Agency--almost upon her knees, crying,

trembling, pitching her tale from the man with the dent in his hat to

the man in Wilton Road.

Miss Ram was moved to the original depths that lay beneath her grim

exterior; had never realised the actual circumstances; would do what she

could; no need to be frightened.

Two days later Mary was unpacking her box at 14 Palace Gardens. No

sharpness, no slight now could prick her spirit; she had learned too

well; she would not face those streets again.

That was eighteen months, close upon two years ago. Wounds were

healing now; old-time brightness was coming back to laugh at present

discomforts. It was only now and again--as now--that she, driven by some

sudden stress, allowed her mind backwards to wander--bruising itself in

those dark passages.

The cab stopped. She with a start came to the present; gulped a sob; was

herself.

Mrs. Chater said: “Run in quickly and mix me a brandy-and-soda.”

CHAPTER II.

Excursions In Vulgarity.

A violent dispute with the cabman set that disturbed heart yet more

wildly thumping in Mrs. Chater's bosom; the sight of her husband

uneasily mooning in the dining-room heated her wrath to wilder

bubblings.

Mr. Chater--a 'oly dam' terror in Mincing Lane, if his office-boy may be

quoted--was an astonishingly mild man in his own house.

He said brightly, noting with a shiver the gusty stress of his wife's

deportment: “You _drove_ up, my dear?--And quite right, too,” he hastily

added, upon a sudden fear that his remark might be interpreted as

reproach.

“How do you know?” Mrs. Chater's nose went into the brandy-and-soda.

“I saw you from the window,” her husband beamed. He repeated, “The

window,” and nervously pointed at it. There was a strained atmosphere in

the room, and he was a little frightened.

“_Oh!_” Out from the brandy-and-soda came the nose; down went the glass

with an emphasising bang: “_Oh!_”

Mr. Chater gave a startled little jump. He saw, immediately he had

spoken, the misfortune into which his admission had plunged him; the

bang of the glass twanged his already apprehensive nerves, and he jerked

out, “Certainly, my dear,” without any clear grasp as to what he was

affirming.

“If you had been a _man_,” said Mrs. Chater, speaking with a slow and

extraordinary bitterness--“if you had been a _man_, you would have come

out and helped me.”

“But you had got out when I came to the window, my dear.”

“With the _cabman_, I mean.” Mrs. Chater fired the word with alarming

ferocity. “With the _cabman_. Did you not see that violent brute

insulting me?”

It was precisely because he had observed the episode that Mr. Chater had

kept well behind the curtain; but he did not adduce the fact.

“I certainly did not,” he affirmed.

“Ah! I expect you took precious good care not to. You've done the same

thing before. Never to my dying day shall I forget the figure you cut

outside Swan and Edgar's last Christmas. Making me--”

Mr. Chater implored: “Oh, my dear, don't drag that up again!”

“But I _do_ drag it up!” Mrs. Chater a little unnecessarily cried. “I

_do_ drag it up, and I shall always drag it up--making me a fool as you

did! I was ashamed of you. I was--”

Mr. Chater nervously wiped his moist palms with his pocket handkerchief:

“I've told you over and over again, my dear, that I never understood

the circumstances. There was a great crowd, and I was very much pushed

about. If I had known the circumstances--”

Mrs. Chater hurled back the word at him: “Circumstances!”

“My dear,” the agitated man replied, ticking off the points on soft

fingers, “my dear, I had gone to the window of Swan and Edgar's, leaving

you, as you expressly desired, to pay the man _yourself_. When I came

_back_ to you, what I gathered was that the man was entitled to a

further _sixpence_ and that you had no _change_.”

Mrs. Chater lashed herself with the recollection: “Nothing of the kind!”

she burst. “Nothing of the kind! What did the man say to you when you

asked what was the matter?”

“I quite forget.”

“You do not forget.”

“My dear, I really and truly do forget.”

“For the hundredth time, then, let me tell you. He said that if you

pushed your ugly mug into it he would knock off your blooming head.”

“Did he say _mug?_” asked Mr. Chater, assuming the air of one who,

knowing this at the time, would have committed a singularly ferocious

murder.

“Well you know that he _did_ say mug--_ugly_ mug. Was _that_ a thing for

a man of spirit to take quietly? Was _that_ a thing for a wife to

hear bawled at her husband in the open street with the commissionaire

grinning behind his hand? To my dying day I shall never forget my

humiliation when you handed him sixpence.”

The unhappy husband murmured: “I do so wish you could, my dear.”

Mrs. Chater shook, handled her troops with the skill of a perfect

tactician, and hurled in the attack upon another quarter.

She said: “Ah, now insult me! Insult me before Miss Humfray! That's

right! _That's_ right! That's what I'm accustomed to. We all have our

cross to bear, as the vicar said last Sunday, and open insult from my

husband is mine. I can't complain; I married you with my eyes open.”

Mrs. Chater revealed this secret of her girlhood in a voice which

implied that most young women go through the ceremony with their eyes

tightly closed, mixed a second brandy-and-soda for her shattered nerves,

swallowed it with the air of one draining a poison flask by way of happy

release from martyrdom, banged down the glass, and, before her amazed

husband could open his lips, hammered in the attack from a third

quarter.

“Little you would have cared,” cried she, “if a miracle had not saved my

life this afternoon!”

Mr. Chater stood aghast. “My dearest! Saved you! From what?”

His dearest bitterly inquired: “What does it matter to you? You take no

interest. If my battered corpse--” Swept to tremendous heights by

the combined forces of her agitation, her imagination, and her two

brandys-and-sodas, she rose, pointed though the window. “If my battered

corpse had been carried up those steps by two policemen this very

afternoon, what would you have done, I wonder?”

Mr. Chater, apprehension creeping among the roots of his hair, affirmed

that he would have dropped dead in the precise spot at which he happened

to be standing at the moment.

Mrs. Chater trumpeted “Never!”--dropped to her chair, and continued.

“You would have been glad.” Her voice shook. “Glad--and in all this wide

world only my Bob and my blessed lambs in the nursery would have wept

o'er my body.”

Of so melancholy a character was the picture thus presented to her mind,

augmenting her previous agitation, that the tumult within her welled

damply through her eyes, with noisy distress through her lips.

Patting her distressed back, imploring her to calm, Mr. Chater begged

some account of the catastrophe from which she had escaped.

Between convulsive sobs she told him, he bridging the hiatuses of

emotion with “Oh-dear-oh-dears,” in which alarm and sympathy were nicely

mingled.

Painting details with a masterly hand, “And there was I alone,” she

concluded--“alone, at the mercy of a wild horse and a drunken cabman.”

“But Miss Humfray was with you?”

“Miss Humfray managed to jump out and leave me.”

Through all this scene--in one form or another a matter of daily

occurrence, and therefore not to arouse interest--Mary had stood waiting

its cessation and her orders. Mr. Chater turned upon her. Naturally

disposed to be kind to the girl, he yet readily saw in his wife's

statement a way of escape from the castigation he had been enduring.

As the small boy who has been kicked by the bully will with delighted

relief rush to the bully's aid when the kicks are at length turned to

another, urging him on so that he may forget his first prey, so Mr.

Chater, delighted at his fortune, eagerly joined in turning his wife's

wrath to Mary's head. For self-preservation, at whatever cost to

another, is the most compelling of instincts: its power great in

proportion as we have allowed our fleshly impulses to master us. If,

when they prompt, we coldly and impersonally regard them, find

them unworthy and crush them back humiliated, they become in time

disciplined--wither and die. In proportion as we permit them, upon the

other hand, they come in time to drive us with a fierceness that cannot

be checked.

Mr. Chater had disciplined no single impulse that came to him with his

flesh.

In pious horror he turned upon the girl.

“Managed to jump out!” he exclaimed, speaking as one re-echoing a horror

hardly to be believed.

“Managed to jump out! Miss Humfray, I would not have thought it of you!”

She cried: “Mr. Chater, I fell!”

Disregarding, and with a deeper note of pained reproach, he continued:

“So many ties, I should have thought, would have bound you to my wife

in such an emergency--the length of time you have been with us;

the unremitting kindness she has shown you, treating you as one of

ourselves, in sickness tending you, bountifully feeding and clothing

you, going out of her way to make you happy. Oh, Miss Humfray!”

The strain on his invention paused him. Mrs. Chater, moved by this

astonishing revelation of her love, assumed an air in keeping--an air

of some pain but no surprise at such ingratitude. She warmed to this

husband who, if no hero in the matter of ferocious cabmen, could at

least champion her upon occasion.

Mary cried: “But I did not jump out! Indeed I did not, Mr. Chater; I

fell.”

Mrs. Chater said _“Fell!”_ With sublime forbearance she added, “Never

mind; the incident is past.”

“Mrs. Chater, you must know that I fell out. I was leaning out--you had

asked me to see the name of the street--when the horse stumbled.”

“It is curious,” said Mrs. Chater, with a pained little smile, “that you

managed to 'fall out' before the horse could recover and bolt.”

“Very, very curious,” Mr. Chater echoed.

How hateful they were, the girl felt. She broke out: “I--”

“Miss Humfray, that is enough. Help me upstairs. I will lie down.”

Mr. Chater jumped brightly to the bell. “My dear, do; I will send you a

hot-water bottle.”

His wife recalled the shortcomings for which she had been taking him to

task. “Send a fiddlestick,” she rapped; “on a boiling day like this!”

She took Mary's arm; leaning heavily, passed from the room.

CHAPTER III.

Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine.

Her mistress disrobed, head among pillows, slippered, coverleted,

eau-de-Cologne on temples, with closed eyes inviting sleep to lull the

tumults of the day. Mary climbed to her room.

About her mouth there was a ridiculous twitching; and as she watched it

in the mirror she strove to wrap herself in the armour in which she had

learned to take buffetings.

To be dispassionate was the salve she had schooled herself to use upon

a wounded spirit--to regard this Mary with the comically twitching face

whom now she saw in the glass as a second person whose sufferings might

be coldly regarded and dissected.

It is a most admirable accomplishment. Nothing is so easy as to be

philosophic upon the cares of another--nothing so easy as to wax

impatient with an acquaintance who allows himself to be overridden by

troubles and pains which appear to us of trifling moment. If, then, we

can school ourselves to regard the figure that bears our name as one

person, and our ego as another, we have at least a chance of chiding

that figure out of all the fancied sufferings it may undergo.

With some success Mary had studied the art; now gave that

Mary-in-the-glass who stood before her a healthy reproof.

“The ridiculous thing you did,” Mary-in-the-glass was told--“the

ridiculous thing you did to make yourself miserable was to go thinking

about--about Ireland.”

The mouth of Mary-in-the-glass ominously twitched.

“There you go again. And it is so absolutely forbidden to think about

that. Whatever's the use of it?”

Mary-in-the-glass could adduce no reason, and must be prodded.

“Does it do you any good? Does it do _them_ any good, do you suppose, to

know that you can never think of them without making yourself unhappy?”

Mary-in-the-glass attempted a weak quibble; was instantly snapped.

“I'm not saying you are _never_ to think of them. Goodness knows what

I should do if I did not. It's all right to think of them when you are

happy and they can share the happiness with you; but, when you choose

to be idiotically miserable, that's the time you are not to go whining

anywhere near them--understand? You only make them unhappy and make your

troubles worse. Troubles! if you can't see the fun of Mrs. Chater, you

must be a wretched sort of person. Her face when the cab brought her

back! And trying to feel her heart! And her rage with that little worm

of a Mr. Chater! Can't you see the fun of it instead of crying over it?”

Mary-in-the-glass could. The successive recollections induced the

prettiest dimples on her face. She was at once forgiven.

Indeed, to snuggle back into her and to merge into her again was just

now very desirable to the censorious Mary-outside-the-glass. For, merged

in her sentimental and romantic personality, a most delectable line of

thought could be pursued--a delectable line, since along this trail was

to be encountered that stranger who had caught her in her wild ejection

from the cab.

Sinking in a chair, Mary adventured upon it; she was instantly met.

Mary-outside-the-glass essayed her best to prevent the interview.

“Poof!” Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold young person, sneered. “Poof!

You little idiot! A stranger with whom you spoke for five minutes, whom

you will never again see, and from whose recollections you have most

certainly passed unless to be recalled as a joke--perhaps to some

other girl!” (A nasty dig that, but they are monsters these

Marys-outside-the-glass.) “Why, you must be a donkey to think about

him! For goodness' sake come away before you make yourself too utterly

ridiculous! You won't. Well, perhaps you will try to recall the figure

you must have cut in his eyes? Do you remember what you must have looked

like as you shot out of the cab like a sack of straw? Pretty sight, eh?

And can you imagine the expression on your face as you banged into his

arms? Charming you must have looked, mustn't you? And can you by any

means realise the idiot you must have looked when Mrs. Chater came

up and swept you off like an escaped puppy, recaptured and in for a

whipping? Striking figure you cut, didn't you? You didn't happen to

peep back through the little window at the back of the cab and see him

laughing, I suppose? Ah, you should have looked....”

And so on. This was the attitude of that cold, calculating,

dispassionate Mary-outside-the-glass. But Mary smothered the

voice--would not hear a word of it. Completely she became

Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, and in that personality

tripped along the path of thought where stood her stranger.

Delectably she relived the encounter. Paced down the street, took again

his arm; without a fault recalled his words, without a check gave her

replies; recalled the pitch of his voice to the nicest note, struck

again the light in his eyes.

Now why? She had met other men; in Ireland had thrice wounded her tender

heart by negations that had caused three suitors most desperate

anguish. None had awakened in her a deeper interest; and yet here was

a stranger--suddenly encountered, as suddenly left--who in her mind had

appropriated a track which she was eager to make a well-beaten path.

Why?

But Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, was no prober of

emotions. They veiled the hard business of commonplace life; and amid

them mistily she now floated afar into dim features where her stranger,

stranger no more, walked with her hand in hand.

There was attempt at first to construct an actual re-encounter.

Mary-in-the-glass, that romantic young woman, very speciously pointed

out that in London when once you see a man you may reasonably suppose

that you will again meet him. For in London one does not aimlessly

wander; one has some set purpose and traverses a thousand times the same

streets, crossing daily at the same points as though upon the pursuit

of a chalked line. Mary-in-the-glass, therefore, constructing a

re-encounter, happened to be strolling along the scene of the accident,

and lo! there was he!

Unhappily this vision was transient. Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold

young woman, got in a word here that erased the picture. The square

where the cab crashed was too far afield to take the children for

their walk; holiday was a boon rarely granted and never granted at

the particular hour of the catastrophe--the only time of day at which,

according to the chalked-line theory, she might reasonably expect to

find the stranger in the same spot.

But Mary did not brood long upon this melancholy obstacle; drove away

Mary-outside-the-glass; became again Mary-in-the-glass. And they are

impossible creatures these Marys-in-the-glass. They will approach

an unbridged chasm across which no Mary-out-side could by any means

adventure, and, floating the gulf, will deliriously roam in the fields

beyond.

So now. And in that dream-world of the musing brain Mary with her

stranger sublimely wandered. With her form and his she peopled all

the favourite spots she knew; contrived others and strolled in

them; introduced other persons, and marked their comment on her dear

companion.

It was he whom she made to do mighty deeds in those misty fields; of

herself hers were merely a girl's gentle fancies, held modest by

her sex's natural desire to be loved for itself alone--not for big

behaviour.

CHAPTER IV.

Excursions In A Nursery.

The loud bang of a door was the gong that called Mary back from

those pleasant fields. They whirled from her, leaving her in sudden

realisation of the material.

She glanced at the clock.

“Goodness!” cried she, and fell to scattering her outdoor finery at a

speed dangerous under any but the deftest fingers. Into a skirt of black

and a simple blouse she slipped, and down, skimming the stairs, to where

her charges bided their bedtime.

Opening the nursery door she paused upon the threshold with a little

“Oh!” of surprise. There was a reek of cigar smoke; its origin between

the lips of a burly young man who stood drumming a tune upon the

window-pane.

Mr. Bob Chater turned at her entry. “I've been waiting for you a long

time,” he said.

She asked, “Whatever for?” and in her tone there was a chill.

“Didn't I tell you yesterday that I was coming to see the kids tubbed?”

“I didn't think you meant it.”

Mr. Bob Chater laughed. “Well, now you see that I did. I've been looking

forward to this all day.”

Plainly she was perturbed. She said: “Mr. Chater, I really would rather

you did not, if you don't mind.”

“Well, but I do mind, d'you see? I mind very much indeed. It would be

the bitterest disappointment.”

His playfulness sat ill upon him. This was a stout young man,

black-eyed, dark-moustached, with a thick and heavy look about him.

She would not catch his mood. “I am sure when I ask you--”

“Well, you're jolly well wrong, you know,” he laughed; “'cause I ain't

going.”

Mary flushed slightly; moved to the hearthrug where sat David and

Angela, her small charges, watching, from their toys, the scene.

It occurred to Mr. Bob Chater that she was annoyed.

“I say, be decent to a fellow, Miss Humfray,” he said. “Look here, I

hadn't seen the kids for two years when I came back yesterday. They

hardly remember their kind big brother.” He addressed the small girl

whose round eyes, moving from speaker to speaker since Mary had entered,

were now upon him. “Do you, Angela?” he asked.

“I--hate--you,” Angela told him, in the slow utterance of one giving

completest effect to a carefully weighed sentiment.

With equal impressiveness, David, seated beside her, lent his authority

to the statement. “I--hate--you--too,” he joined.

Mr. Bob Chater laughed a little stupidly.

Mary cried: “Oh, Angela! Oh, David! How can you speak like that!”

“He is perfectly abom'able,” Angela said, unmoved. “He made Davie cry.

He trod on Davie's beetle.”

The cracked corpse of a mechanical beetle, joy of David's heart, was

produced in evidence; its distressed owner reddening ominously at this

renewed recollection of the calamity.

Mary took the sad pieces tenderly. “Silly children! He never meant to

break it. Oh, such silly children!”

Angela protested, “He did! He did! He put his foot over it while it was

running, and stopped it. He told David to get it away if he could, and

David bit his leg, and he said 'Damn you!' and crushed it crack.”

Mary whipped a glance at the murderer. She ignored the evidence.

“To-morrow!” said she. “Why, what fun! To-morrow we'll play hospital

like we did when Christabel broke her arm. We'll make Mr. Beetle just as

well as ever he was before!”

“I'll be doctor!” cried David, transported into delight.

“Yes, and Angela nurse. Look, we'll put poor Mr. Beetle on the

mantelpiece to-night, right out of the draughts. If he got a draught

into that crack in his back, goodness knows what wouldn't happen. He

must eat slops like Christabel did. _What_ fun! Now, bed--_bustle!_”

Their adored Mary had restored confidence. They clung about her.

“It was a pure accident,” explained Mr. Bob Chater, gloomily watching

this scene. “I'll buy you another to-morrow.”

“There!” Mary cried. “Think of that!”

David reflected upon it without emotion. He regarded his big brother

sullenly; sullenly said, “I don't want another.”

Mary cried brightly: “Rubbish! Come, kiss your brother good-night, and

say 'thank you!' Both of you. Quick as lightning!”

They hung back.

Mary had obtained so complete a command of their affections that her

word was the wise law which, ordinarily, they had come unquestioningly

to accept. In their short lives David and Angela had experienced a

procession of nurses, of nursery-governesses, of lady-helps, each one of

whom received or gave her month's notice within a few weeks of arrival,

and against whom they had conducted a sullen or a violent war. From the

first it had been different with Miss Humfray. As was their custom (for

this constant change tried tempers) upon the very day of her arrival

they had met her with frank hostility, had declared mutiny at her

first command. But her reception of this attitude they found a new and

astonishing experience. She had not been shocked, had not been angry,

had ventured no threat to tell their mother. Instead, at the outbreak of

defiance, she went into the gayest and most infectious laughter, kissed

them--and they had capitulated before they realised the event.

A second attempt at mutiny, made upon the following day, met with a

reception equally novel. Again this pretty Miss Humfray had laughed, but

this time had fully sympathised with their view of the point at issue

and had made of the affair a most entrancing game. She, behold, was a

pirate captain; they were the rebellious crew. In five minutes they had

marooned her upon the desert island represented by the hearthrug; had

rowed away with faces which, under her instructions, were properly

stern; and only when she waved the white flag of truce had they

taken her aboard again. Meanwhile the subject of the quarrel had been

forgotten.

Never a dispute arose thereafter. They idolised this pretty Miss

Humfray: whatsoever she said was clearly right.

Here, however, was a dangerous conflict of opinion. They hung back.

“Quickly,” Mary repeated. “Kiss him, and say thank-you quickly, or there

will be no story when you are in bed.”

It was a terrific price to pay; their troubled faces mirrored the

conflict of decision.

David found solution. In his slow, solemn voice, “You kiss him first,”

he said. Miss Humfray always took their medicine first, and David argued

from the one evil necessity to this other.

Mr. Bob Chater laughed delightedly. “That's a brilliant idea!” he cried;

came two strides towards Mary; put a hand upon her arm.

So sudden, so unexpected was his movement, that by the narrowest chance

only did she escape his purpose. A jerk of her head, and he had mouthed

at the air two inches from her face.

She shook her arm free. “Oh!” she cried; and in the exclamation there

was that which would have given a nicer man pause.

Mr. Bob Chater was nothing abashed. A handsome face and a bold air

had made conquests easy to him. It was an axiom of his that a girl who

worked for her living by that fact proclaimed flirtation to be agreeable

to her--at all events with such as he. Chance had so shaped affairs that

this was the first time his theory had found disproof. He saw she was

offended; so much the more tickling; conquest was thereby the more

enticing.

He laughed; said he was only “rotting.”

Mary did not reply. The command to kiss their brother went by default;

she hurried her charges through the door to the adjoining night nursery.

When they were started upon undressing she came back.

“You're going to let me see you tub them?” Bob asked her.

Busy replacing toys in cupboards, she did not reply.

“You're not angry, are you?”

She gave him no answer.

Bob Chater discarded the laugh from his tone. “If you are angry, I'm

very sorry. You must have known I was only fooling. It was only to make

the kids laugh.”

So far as was possible she kept her back to him.

The continued slight pricked him. His voice hardened. “When I have the

grace to apologise, I think you might have the grace to accept it.”

Mary said in low tones: “If you meant only to make them laugh, of course

I believe you. It is all right.”

“Good. Well, now, may I see them tubbed?”

“I have told you I would rather not.”

“Dash it all, Miss Humfray, you're rather unkind, aren't, you? Here have

I been away nearly two years--I've been travelling on the Continent for

the firm-you know that, don't you?”

She said she had heard Mr. and Mrs. Chater talking of it.

“Well, and yet you won't let me come near my darling little sister and

my sweet little brother to tell 'em all about it?”

“But I'm not keeping you from them, Mr. Chater. You have had plenty of

time.”

“Time! Why, I only got back yesterday!”

“You have been in here this afternoon.”

“Ah, they were shy. They're better when you are here.”

She had finished her task, and she turned to him. “Mr. Chater, you know

I could not keep David and Angela from you even if I dreamed of doing

such a thing. Only, I say I would rather you did not come in while I

bath them, that is all.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Mrs. Chater would not like it for one thing, I feel sure.”

“Oh, that's all rot. Mother wouldn't mind--anyway, I do as I like in

this house.”

From all she had heard of Mrs. Chater's beloved Bob, Mary guessed this

to be true. Long prior to his arrival she had been prejudiced against

him; acquaintance emphasised the prophetic impression.

“Another night, then,” she said.

He felt he was winning. No girl withstood him long.

“No, to-night. Another thing--I want to know you better. This

arrangement is all new to me. There was a nurse here in your place when

I went. I've hardly spoken to you. Have you ever been abroad?”

“No.”

“Well, I'll tell you--and the kids--some of my adventures while you're

tubbing 'em. Lead on.”

She was at the night-nursery door. Evidently this man would not see her

conventional reason for not wishing him at the tubbing. Angela had grown

a biggish girl since he went away.

She said, “Please not to-night.”

“I'm jolly well coming,” he chuckled.

The lesson of dependence was wilfully forgotten. Mary agreed with Angela

and David: she hated this Bob.

“No,” she said sharply, “you are not.”

He had thrown his cigar into the grate; taken out another; stooped to

the hearth to scratch a match. His back was to her; to him all her tone

conveyed was that a “rag” was on hand.

“We'll see,” he laughed; struck the match.

She stepped swiftly within the door; closed it.

Bob Chater laughed again; ran across.

The lock clicked as she turned the key.

“Let me in!” he cried, rattling the handle. “Let me in!”

The splash of water answered him.

He thumped the panel. “Open the door!”

“Now, Angela,” he heard her say, “quick as lightning with that chimmy.”

Bob's face darkened; he damned beneath his breath. Then with a laugh

he turned away. “I'm going to have some fun with that girl,” he told

himself; and on the way downstairs, her pretty face and figure in his

mind, pleased himself with vicious anticipation.

CHAPTER V.

Excursions At A Dinner-Table.

I.

Two distressing reasons combined to compel Mrs. Chater to give

Mary place at the evening meal. There was the aggravating fact that

mothers'-helps, just as if they were ordinary people, must be fed; there

was also the contingency that servants most strongly objected to serving

a special meal--even “on a tray”--to one who was not of the family, yet

who had airs above the kitchen.

Except, then, when there were guests Miss Humfray must be accommodated

at late dinner. Mrs. Chater considered it annoying, yet found in it

certain comfortable advantages--as sympathy from friends: “Mustn't it

be rather awkward sometimes, Mrs. Chater?” A plaintive shrug would

illustrate the answer: “Well, it is, of course, very awkward sometimes;

but one must put up with it. That class of person takes offence so

easily, you know; and I always try to treat my lady-helps as well as

possible.”

“I'm sure you do, Mrs. Chater. How grateful they should be!” And this

time a sad little laugh would illustrate: “Oh, one hardly expects

gratitude nowadays, does one?”

Mary at dinner must observe certain rules, however. Certain dishes--a

little out of season, perhaps, or classed as luxuries--were borne

triumphantly past her by a glad parlour-maid acting upon a frown and

a glance that Mrs. Chater signalled. Certain occasions, again, when

private matters were to be discussed, were heralded by “Miss Humfray,”

in an inflexion of voice that set Mary to fold her napkin and from the

room.

The girl greeted these early dismissals with considerable relief.

Dinner was to her a nightly ordeal whose atmosphere swept appetite

sky-high--took the savour from meats, dried the throat.

II.

Descending to the dining-room upon this evening, her normal shrinking

from the meal was considerably augmented. On the previous night--the

first upon which Mr. Bob Chater's legs had partnered hers beneath the

table--his eyes (like some bold gallant popping out on modesty whenever

it dared peep from the doorway) had captured her glance each time

she ventured look up from her plate. The episode of the nursery was

equivalent to having slapped the gallant's face, and the re-encounter

was proportionately uncomfortable.

Taking her place she was by sheer nervousness impelled to meet his

gaze--so heavily freighted it was as to raise a sudden flush to

her cheek. Her eyes fled round to Mrs. Chater, received a look that

questioned the blush, drove it duskier; through an uncomfortable

half-hour she kept her face towards her plate.

It was illuminative of the relations between husband and wife that Mrs.

Chater carved; her husband dealt the sweets. The carving knife is the

domestic sceptre of authority: when it is wielded by the woman, the man,

you will find, is consort rather than king.

III.

Upon the previous evening Mr. Bob Chater had led the conversation.

To-night he was indisposed for the position--would not take it despite

his mother's desperate attempts to board the train of his ideas and

by it be carried to scenes of her son's adventures. A dozen times she

presented her ticket; as often Bob turned her back at the barrier.

It was a rare event this refusal of his to carry passengers. So loudly

did he whistle as a rule as to attract all in the vicinity, convinced

that there was an important train by which it would be agreeable to

travel.

For Mr. Bob Chater was a loud young man, emanating a swaggering air

that the term “side” well fitted. To have some conceit of oneself is

an excellent affair. The possession is a keel that gives to the craft a

dignified balance upon the stream of life--prevents it from being sailed

too close to mud; helps maintain stability in sudden gale. Other craft

are keelless--they are canoes; bobbing, unsteady, likely to capsize in

sudden emergency; prone to drift into muddy waters; liable to be swept

anywhither by any current. Others, again--and Mr. Bob Chater was of

these--are over-freighted upon one quarter or another: they sail with a

list. Amongst well-trimmed boats these learn in time not to adventure,

since here they are greeted with ridicule or with contempt; yet among

the keelless fleets they have a position of some authority; holding

it on the same principle as that by which among beggars he who has a

coin--even though base--is accounted king.

Bob Chater's list was ego-wards. His mighty “I”--I am, I do, I say, I

know, I think--bulged from him, hanging from his voice, his glance, his

gesture, his walk. In it Mrs. Chater bathed; to be carried along in the

train of his mighty “I” was delectable to her. But to-night she could

not effect the passage.

A final effort she made to get aboard. “And in St. Petersburg!” she

tempted. “I wonder if you ever saw the _Tsar_ when you were in St.

Petersburg?”

Bob drove her back: “St. Petersburg's a loathsome place.”

Mrs. Chater tried to squeeze through. “So _gay_, they say.”

Bob slammed the gate. “I wish you'd _tell_ me something instead of

expecting _me_ to do all the talking. I want to hear all that's been

going on here while I've been away, but I'm hanged if I can find out.”

A little mortified, Mrs. Chater said: “I've hardly seen you, dear,

except at meals”--then threw the onus for her son's lack of local

gossip upon her husband. Addressing him, “You've been with Bob all the

morning,” she told him. “I wonder you haven't given him all the news.

But, there! I suppose you've done nothing but question him about what

business he's done!”

Mr. Chater, startled at the novelty of being drawn into table

conversation while his son and his wife were present, dropped his

spoon with a splash into his soup, wiped his coat, frowned at the

parlour-maid, cleared his throat, and, to gain time to determine whether

he had courage to say that which was burning within him, threw out an

“Eh?” for his pursuing wife to Worry.

Mrs. Chater pounced upon it; shook it. “What I said was that I suppose

you've been doing nothing but question poor Bob about what he has done

for the firm while he's been away.”

Mr. Chater nerved himself to declare his mind. “There wasn't very much

to question him about,” he said.

His words--outcome of views forcibly expressed by his partners in

Mincing Lane that morning--were the foolhardy action of one who pokes a

tigress with a stick.

The tigress shook herself. “Now, I wonder what you mean by _that_?” she

challenged.

Mr. Chater dropped the stick; precipitantly fled. “Of course it was all

new to Bob,” he granted, throwing a bone.

Very much to his alarm the tigress ignored the bone; rushed after him.

“All you seem to think about,” cried she, “is making the boy slave. He's

never had a proper holiday since he left school, and yet the very first

time he goes off to see the world you must be fidgeting yourself to

death all the time that he's not pushing the firm sufficiently; and

immediately he comes back you must start cross-examining just as if he

was an office-boy--not a word about his health or his pleasure. Oh, no!

of course not!”

Squirming in misery, Mr. Chater remarked that he had his partners to

consider. “I'm only too glad that Bob should enjoy himself--only too

glad. But you must remember, my dear, that part of his expenses for this

trip was paid for by the firm--the _firm_. He was to call on foreign

houses--”

The tigress opened her mouth for fresh assault. Mr. Chater hurriedly

thrust in a bone. “I don't say he hasn't done a great deal for us--not

at all; I'd be the last to say that. What I say is that in duty to my

partners I must take the first opportunity to ask him a few questions

about it. Bob sees that himself; don't you, Bob?”

“Oh, do let's keep shop off the table,” Bob snarled. “Fair sickens me

this never getting away from the office.”

“There you are!” Mrs. Chater cried. “There you are! Always business,

business, business--that's what _I_ complain of.”

With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: “My dear, you

started it.”

Mrs. Chater quivered: “Ah, put it on me! Put it on me! Somehow you

always manage to do that. Miss Humfray, when you've _quite_ finished

your soup _then_ perhaps Clarence can take the plates.”

Mary's thoughts, to the neglect of her duty, had crept away beneath

cover of these exchanges. Now she endured the disaster of amid silence

clearing her plate with four pairs of eyes fixed upon her. Clarence

removed the course; Mr. Chater, leaping as far as possible from the

scene of his ordeal, broke a new topic.

He enticed tentatively: “I saw a funny bit in the paper this morning.”

The tigress paused in the projection of another spring; sniffed

suspiciously. “Oh!”

“About that young Lord Comeragh,” Mr. Chater hurried on, delighted

with his success. “He was up at Marlborough Street police-court this

morning--at least his butler was; of course his lordship wouldn't go

himself--charged with furiously driving his motorcar; and who do you

think was in the car with him at the time? Ah!”

Mrs. Chater, naming a young lady who nightly advertised a pretty leg

from the chorus of a musical comedy, announced that she would not be

surprised if that was the person. Being told that it was none other, and

that Mr. Chater had heard in the City that morning that Lady Comeragh

was taking proceedings and had named the nicely-legged young lady the

cause of infidelity, became highly astonished and supremely diverted.

Conversation of a most delectable nature was by this means supplied. A

pot of savoury gossip, flavoured with scandal, was upon the table; and

Mary, lost to sight behind the cloud of steam that uprose as the three

leaped about it, finished her dinner undisturbed.

A nod bade her leave before dessert. As she passed out the signaller

spoke. “I want to see you,” Mrs. Chater said. “Wait for me in the

drawing-room.”

The command was unusual, and Mary, waiting as bid, worried herself with

surmises upon it. She prayed it did not mean she was to soothe Mr.

Bob Chater's digestion with lullabies upon the piano; that it boded an

unpleasant affair she was assured.

She did not err. Mrs. Chater came to her, dyspeptic-flushed, sternly

browed.

“Miss Humfray, I have one thing to say to you, no more. No explanations,

no excuses, please. I hear you have been trying to entertain my son

in the nursery this evening. If that, or anything like it, occurs

again--You understand?”

“Mrs. Chater--”

A massive hand signalled Stop. “I said 'not a word.' That is all. Good

night.”

And Mary, crimson, to her room.

BOOK III.

Of Glimpses at a Period of this History: of Love and of War.

CHAPTER I.

Notes On The Building Of Bridges.

Within the limits of this short section of our story we shall cram two

months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages as

they plod through it.

This is well within our power, since the position of the novelist in

regard to his characters may be compared with that of the destiny which

in the largest comedy moves to and fro mankind its actors. As destiny

moves its puppets, so the novelist moves his--upraising, debasing;

favouring, tormenting; creating, wiping from the page.

And of the pair the novelist is the more just. Has villainy in a

novel ever gone unpunished? Has virtue ever failed of its reward?

Your novelist is of all autocrats the most zealous of right and wrong.

Villain may through two-thirds of his career enjoy his wicked pleasures,

exceedingly prosper despite his baseness; but ever above him the cold

eye of his judge keeps watch, and in the end he is apportioned the most

horrible deserts that any could wish. Virtue may by the gods be hounded

and harried till the reader's heart is wrung. But spare your tears;

before Finis is written, down swoops the judge; the dogs are whipped

off; Virtue is led to fair pastures and there left smiling.

Contrasted with this autocrat of the printed page, the destiny whose

comedy began with the world and is indefinitely continued makes sorry

show. Here the wicked exceedingly flourish and keep at it to the end of

their chapter; here virtue, battling with tremendous waves of adversity,

is at last engulfed and miserably drowned. Truly, their fit rewards are

apportioned, we are instructed, after death. But there is something of a

doubt; the novelist, in regard to his characters, takes no risks.

Upon another head, moreover, the novelist shows himself the more kindly

autocrat. There is his power, so freely exercised, to bridge time.

Whereas destiny makes us to watch those in whom we are interested plod

every inch and step of their lives-over each rut, through each swamp,

up each hill,-the novelist, upon his characters coming to places dull or

too difficult, immediately veils from us their weary struggles. Destiny

will never grant such a boon: we must watch our friends even when they

bore us, even when they cause us pain. Yet this boon is the commonest

indulgence of the novelist-as it now (to become personal) is mine.

I bridge two months.

And you must imagine this bridge as indeed a short and airy passage

across a valley, down into which the persons of our story must carefully

climb, across which they must plod, and up whose far side they must

laboriously scramble to meet us upon the level ground. For we are

much in the position, we novel readers, of village children curiously

watching a caravan of gipsies passing through their district. The

gipsies (who stand for our characters) plod wearily away along a bend

of dusty road. The children cease following, play awhile; then by a

short-cut through the fields overtake the travellers as again they come

into the straight.

So now with you and me. We have no need to follow our gipsies down

the valley that takes two months in the traversing: we skip across the

bridge.

But, leaning over, we may take a shot or two at them as here and there

they come into view.

CHAPTER II.

Excursions Beneath The Bridge.

I.

Thus we see the meeting again of George and Mary.

When the agitated young man on the day following the cab accident

had alighted from the omnibus at the bottom of Palace Gardens he was

opposite No. 14 by half-past ten; waiting till eleven; going, convinced

she did not live there; returning, upon the desperate hope that indeed

she did; waiting till twelve--and being most handsomely rewarded.

Her face signalled that she saw him, but her eyes gave no

recognition--quickly were averted from him; the windows behind her had

eyes, she knew.

My agitated George, who had made a hasty step at the red flag that

fluttered on her cheeks, as hastily stepped away beneath the chill of

her glance; in tremendous perturbation turned and fled; in tremendous

perturbation turned and pursued. In Regent's Park he saw her produce a

brilliant pair of scarlet worsted reins, gay with bells; heard her hiss

like any proper groom as tandemwise she harnessed David and Angela,

those restive steeds.

The equipage was about to start--she had cracked her whip, clicked her

tongue--when with thumping heart, with face that matched the flaming

reins, hat in hand he approached; spoke the driver.

Her steeds turned about; with wide, unblinking eyes, searched his face

and hers.

“Your faces are very red,” Angela said. “Are you angry?”

“You have got very red faces,” David echoed. “Are you in a temper?”

Mary told them No; George said they were fine horses; felt legs; offered

to buy them.

His words purchased their hearts, which were more valuable.

After the drive they would return to the stable, which was this seat,

Mary told him; she could not stay to speak to him any longer. George

declared he was the stable groom and would wait.

Away they dashed at handsome speed, right round the inner circle;

returned more sedately, a little out of breath. There had been,

moreover, an accident: leader, it appeared, had fallen and cut his

knees.

“I shied at a motor,” David explained, proud of the red blood now that

the agony was past.

George unharnessed them; dressed the wounds; scolded the coachman

because no feed had been brought for the horses; promised that to-morrow

he would bring some corn--bun corn.

“Will you come to-morrow?” Angela asked.

George glanced at Mary. “Yes,” he told them.

“Every to-morrow?”

“Every to-morrow.”

Tremendous joy. Well delighted, they ran to a new game.

Every to-morrow ran but to three: George and Mary had by then exchanged

their histories. The pending examination was discussed, and Mary simply

would not speak to him if, wasting his time, he came daily to idle with

the children (so she expressed it). She would abandon the Park, she told

him--would take her charges to a Square gardens of which they had the

entry, where George might not follow.

George did not press the point. As he wrestled out the matter in the

hours between their meetings she was a fresh incentive to work. But once

a week he must be allowed to come: here he was adamant, and she gladly

agreeable. Saturday mornings was the time arranged.

Mary had been fearful at this first re-encounter that it would be the

last. The children would certainly tell their mother; Mrs. Chater would

certainly make an end to the acquaintance.

“Ask them not to tell,” George had suggested.

Impossible to think of such a thing: it would be to teach them deceit.

“Well, I'll ask them.”

“But that would be just as bad. No--if they tell, it cannot be helped.

And after all--”

“Well, after all...?”

“After all--what would it matter?”

George said: “It would matter to me--a lot.”

He glanced at her, but she was looking after Angela and David. He asked:

“Wouldn't it matter to you?”

She flushed a little; answered, with her eyes still averted towards the

children, “Why--why, of course I should mind. I mean--”

But there are meanings for which it is difficult to find clothes in

which they may decently take the air; and here the wardrobe of Mary's

mind stood wanting.

George enticed. “Do you mean you would be sorry not to--not to--”

He also found his wardrobe deficient.

Then Mary sent out her meaning, risking its decency. “Why, yes, I would

be sorry not to see you again; why should I mind saying so? I have liked

meeting you.” And, becoming timid at its appearance, she hurried after

it a cloak that would utterly disguise it. “I meet so few people,” she

said.

But George was satisfied; she had said she would mind--nay, even though

she had not spoken it, her manner assured him that indeed she would

regret not again meeting him. It was a thought to hug, a memory to spur

his energies when they flagged over his studies; it was a brush to paint

his world in lively colours.

Nor, as the future occurred, need either have had apprehension that the

children would tell their mother and so set up an insurmountable barrier

between them. A previous experience had warned Angela that it were

wise to keep from her mother joys that were out of the ordinary run of

events.

Returning homeward that day, a little in advance of Mary, she therefore

addressed her brother upon the matter.

“Davie, I hope that man will come to-morrow.”

“I hope it, too.”

“We won't tell mother, Davie.”

“Why?”

“Because mother'll say No.”

“Why?”

“Because she _always_ says No, stupid.”

“Why?”

“Oh, Davie, you _are_ stupid! I don't know why; I only _know_. Don't you

remember that lady that used to talk to Miss Humf'ay and play with us?

Well, when we told mother, mother said No, didn't she? and the lady

played with those abom'able red-dress children that make faces instead.”

“Will he play with the abom'able red-dress children that make faces if

we tell mother?”

“Of _course_ he will.”

“Why?”

“They always _do_, stupid.”

“Why?”

Angela ran back. “Oh, Miss Humf'ay, Davie is so _irrating!_ He will say

_Why_ ....”

There is a lesson for parents in that conversation, I suspect.

II.

Leaning from our bridge we may content ourselves with a hurried shot

at George, laboriously toiling at his books, sedulously attending his

classes, with his Mary spending glorious Saturday mornings that, as

they brought him nearer to knowledge of her, sent him from her yet more

fevered; and, straining towards another point, we will focus for an

instant upon Margaret his cousin, and Bill Wyvern, her adored.

Mr. William Wyvern had most vigorously whacked about among events since

that evening when his Margaret had composed her verses for George. At

that time a fellow-student with George at St. Peter's Hospital, he had

now abandoned the profession and was started upon the literary career

(as he named it) that long he had wished to follow. The change had been

come by with little difficulty. Professor Wyvern--that eminent biologist

whose fame was so tremendous that even now a normally forgetful Press

yet continued to paragraph him while he spent in absent-minded seclusion

the ebb of that life which at the flood had so mightily advanced

knowledge--Professor Wyvern was too much attached to his son, too docile

in the hands of his loving wife, to gainsay any wish that Bill might

urge and that Mrs. Wyvern might support.

Bill achieved his end: the stories he had had printed in magazines,

secretly shown to his proud mother, were now brought forth and chuckled

over with glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled through

one of the stories, vowed he had read them all, cheerily patted Bill's

arm with his shaky old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had

held of seeing his son a great surgeon.

It was Bill's burning ambition to obtain a post upon a paper. Not until

later did he learn that it is the men outside the papers who must have

a turn for stringing sentences; that those inside are machines, cutting

and serving the material with no greater interest in it than has the

cheesemonger in the cheese he weighs and deals. Meanwhile, the glimpse

we may take of him shows Bill Wyvern urging along his pen until clean

paper became magic manuscripts; living upon a billow of hope when the

envelopes were sped, submerged beneath oceans of gloom when they were

returned; trembling into Fleet Street deliciously to inhale the thick

smell of printer's ink that came roaring up from a hundred basements;

with goggle eyes venerating the men who with assured steps passed in

and out the swing-doors of castles he burned to storm; snatching brief

moments for the boisterous society of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, those

rare bull-terriers; and finally, expending with his Margaret moments

more protracted--stealthy meetings, for the most part--in Mr. Marrapit's

shrubbery.

III.

But two more peeps from our bridge need we take, and then our characters

will be ready to meet us upon the further side.

A glance from here will reveal to us Mrs. Major, that masterly woman,

inscribing in her diary:

“_Getting on with Mr. M. Should sue. Precip. fat._”

Fill out the abbreviations to which Mrs. Major, in her diary, was prone,

and we have:

“_Getting on with Mr. Marrapit. Should succeed. Precipitancy fatal._”

Succeed in what? To what would precipitancy of action be irreparable?

Listen to a conversation that may enlighten us--spoken upon the lawn

of Herons' Holt; Mr. Marrapit in his chair making a lap for the Rose of

Sharon; Mrs. Major on a garden seat, crocheting.

A stealthy peep assuring her that his eyes were not closed, Mrs. Major

nerved herself with a deep breath; with a long sigh let it escape in the

form, “A year ago!”--dropped hands upon her lap and gazed wistfully at

the setting sun. She had seen the trick very successfully performed upon

the stage.

Mr. Marrapit turned his eyes upon her.

“You spoke, Mrs. Major?”

With an admirable start Mrs. Major appeared to gather in wandering

fancies. “I fear I was thinking aloud, Mr. Marrapit. I beg pardon.”

“Do not. There is no occasion. You said 'A year ago.'”

“Did I, Mr. Marrapit?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Marrapit.

A pause followed. The wistful woman felt that, were the thing to be done

properly, the word lay with her companion. To her pleasure he continued:

“To-day, then, is an anniversary?”

“It is.”

“Of a happy event, I trust?”

Mrs. Major clasped her hands; spoke with admirable ecstasy. “Oh, Mr.

Marrapit, of a golden--golden page in my life.”

“Elucidate,” Mr. Marrapit commanded.

Mrs. Major put into a whisper:

“The day I came here.”

Mr. Marrapit slowly moved his head towards her.

Her eyes were averted. “The time has passed swiftly,” he said.

Mrs. Major breathed: “For me it has flown on--on--” She searched wildly

for a metaphor. “On wings,” she concluded.

Again there was a pause, and again Mrs. Major felt that for this passage

to have fullest effect the word lay with Mr. Marrapit. But Mr. Marrapit,

himself considerably perturbed, did not speak. The moments sped. Fearful

lest they should distance beyond recovery the sentiments she felt she

had aroused, Mrs. Major hastened to check them.

She said musingly: “I wonder if they are right?”--sighed as though

doubtful.

“To whom do you refer?”

“Why, the people who say that time flies when it is spent in pleasant

company.”

“They are correct,” Mr. Marrapit affirmed.

“Oh, I do not doubt it for my part, Mr. Marrapit. I never knew what

happiness was until I come here--came here. But if--” The masterly woman

paused.

“Continue” Mr. Marrapit commanded.

The hard word was softly spoken. Mrs. Major's heart gave two little

thumps; her plan clear before her, pushed ahead. “But if to you also,

Mr. Marrapit, the time has seemed to fly, then--then Mr. Marrapit, my

company has--has been agreeable to you?”

Certainly there was a softness in Mr. Marrapit's tones as he made

answer.

“It has, Mrs. Major,” he said, “it has. Into my establishment you have

brought an air of peace that had for some time been lacking. Prior to

your arrival, I was often worried by household cares that should not

fall upon a man.”

Earnestly Mrs. Major replied: “Oh, I _saw_ that. I strove to lift them.”

“You have lifted them. You have attended not only my cats but my

kitchen. I am now able often to enjoy such evenings as these. This peace

around us illustrates the tranquillity you have brought--”

The tranquillity was at that moment disastrously shattered. A bed of

shrubbery lay within a few feet of where they sat. What had appeared

to be a gnarled stump in its midst now quivered, broadened, fell into a

line with the straightening back of Mr. Fletcher.

Mr. Marrapit was startled and annoyed. “What are you doing there, sir?”

“Snailin',” said Mr. Fletcher gloomily; exhibited his snail.

“Snail elsewhere. Do not snail where I am.”

“I snails where there's snails.”

“Cease snailing. You must have been there hours.”

“What if I have? This garden's fair planted with snails.”

“Snail oftener. Depart.”

Mr. Fletcher moved a few steps; then turned. “I should like to ast if

this is to be part of my regular job. First you says 'cease snailin','

then you says 'snail oftener,' then you says 'snail elsewhere.'

Snails take findin'. They don't come to me; I has to go to them. It's

'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a lettuce-leaf.”

He gloomily withdrew.

Mr. Marrapit's face was angrily twitching. The moment was not propitious

for continuing her conversation, and with a little sigh Mrs. Major

withdrew.

But it was upon that night that she inscribed in her diary:

_“Getting on with Mr. M. Should suc. Precip. fat.”_

IV.

A last peep, ere we hurry across the bridge, will disclose to us Mr. Bob

Chater still pressing upon Mary the attentions which her position, in

relation to his, made it so difficult for her to escape. Piqued by her

attitude towards him, he was the more inflamed than ordinarily he would

have been by the fair face and neat figure that were hers. Yet he made

no headway; within a month of the date of his return to Palace Gardens

was as far from conquest as upon that night in the nursery.

To a City friend, Mr. Lemuel Moss, dining at 14 Palace Gardens with him

one night, he explained affairs.

“Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is,” said

Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after dinner.

“Lucky beggar you are, Bob. My mater won't have even a servant in the

place that wouldn't look amiss in a monkey-house. Knows me too well,

unfortunately,” and Mr. Moss, taking a squint at himself in the

overmantel, laughed--well enough pleased.

Bob pointed out that there was not so much luck about it as Mr. Moss

appeared to think. “Never seen such a stand-offish little rip in all my

life,” he moodily concluded.

“What, isn't she--?”

Bob understood the unvoiced question. “Won't even let a chap have two

minutes' talk with her,” he said, “let alone anything else.”

Mr. Moss stretched himself along the sofa; rejoined: “Oh, rats! Rats!

You don't know how to manage 'em--that's what it is.”

“I know as well as you, and a dashed sight better, I don't mind

betting,” Bob returned with heat. In some circles it is an aspersion

upon a man's manliness to have it hinted that a petticoat presenting

possibilities has not been ruffled.

“Well, it don't look much like it. I caught her eye in the passage when

we were coming downstairs, and you don't tell me--not much!”

“Did you though?” Bob said. Himself he had never been so fortunate.

“No mistake about it. Why, d'you mean to say you've never got as far as

that, even?”

“Tell you she won't look at me.”

Mr. Moss laughed. Enjoyed the “score” over his host for a few moments,

and then:

“Tell you what it is, old bird,” said he, “you're going the wrong way

about it. I know another case just the same. Chap out Wimbledon way.

His people kept a girl--topper she was, too--dark. He was always messing

round just like you are, and she was stand-offish as a nun. One night

he came home early, a bit screwed--people out--girl in. Met her in the

drawing-room. Almost been afraid to speak to her before. Had a bit of

fizz on board him now--_you_ know; didn't care a rip for anybody. Gave

her a smacking great kiss, and, by Gad!--well, she _was_ all right. Told

him she'd always stood off up to then because she was never quite sure

what he meant--afraid he didn't mean anything, and that she might get

herself into no end of a row if she started playing around. Same with

this little bit of goods, I'll lay.”

Bob was interested. “Shouldn't be surprised if you're right,” he said;

and moodily cogitated upon the line of action prescribed.

Mr. Moss offered to bet that where girls were concerned he was never

far wrong. “Slap-dash style is what they like,” he remarked, and with a

careless “It's all they understand” dismissed the subject.

It remained, however, in Bob's mind throughout the evening; sprang

instantly when, after breakfast upon the following day, he caught a

glimpse of Mary as he prepared for the City.

Standing for a moment in the hall, it occurred to him that this very

evening offered the opportunity he sought. Mr. and Mrs. Chater were

to dine at the house of a neighbour. The invitation had included

Bob--fortunately he had refused it. Returning to the morning-room, “I

shan't be in to-night,” he told his mother.

“Then I needn't order any dinner for you?”

“No.” He hung about irresolute, then lit a cigar, and between the puffs,

“Shall you be late?” he asked carelessly.

“Sure to be,” Mrs. Chater told him. “It's going to be a big bridge

drive, you know. We shan't get back before midnight. Don't sit up for

us, dear.”

Bob inhaled a long breath from his cigar, exhaled it deliciously. The

chance for the slap-dash style was at hand.

“Oh, I'll be later than you. Lemmy Moss has got a bachelors' party on.

We're going to have a billiard match.”

“That's capital then, dear. I shall let the servants go to Earl's

Court--I've promised them a long time.”

Bob whistled gaily as he mounted his 'bus for the City. The opportunity

was surely exceptional.

At eight o'clock he returned; noiselessly let himself in.

The gas in the hall burned low. Beneath the library door gleamed a

stronger light. Bob turned the handle.

Mary was curled in a big chair with a book. Certainly the opportunity

was exceptional.

At the noise of his entry she sprang to her feet with a little cry. “Oh,

dear!” she exclaimed: “what a fright you gave me!”

Bob pushed the door. He laughed. “Did I?”; came towards her. “Are you

all alone? What a shame!”

“Minnie is in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Chater said you wouldn't be in

to-night.”

“Why do you think I came?”

“I don't know.”

“I came to see you.”

She gave a nervous little laugh and made to pass him.

Bob fell back a pace, guarding the door. “Don't you think that was

thoughtful of me?”

“I don't know what you mean. There was no need.”

“What! No need! You all alone like this when all the rest are enjoying

themselves!”

“So was I. A long evening with a book.”

She had fallen back as he, speaking, had slowly advanced.

Now the great chair in which she had been seated was alone between them.

“Oh, books! Books are rot.” He stepped around the chair.

She fell back; was cornered between the hearth and a low table.

Bob dropped into the chair; boldly regarded her; his eyes as expressive

of his slap-dash intentions as he could make them: “Look here, I want

you to enjoy yourself for once. I'm going to take you to a music-hall or

somewhere.”

He stretched a foot; touched her.

She drew back close against the mantelpiece, her agitation very evident.

“Well, don't that please you?”

“You know it is impossible.”

Bob paid no regard. This was that same diffidence with which the chap

near Wimbledon had had to contend.

“We'll come out of the show early and have a bit of supper and be back

before half-past eleven. Who's to know? Now, then?”

“It's very kind of you. I know you mean it kindly--”

“Of course I do--”

“But I'd rather not.”

“Are you afraid?”

She was desperately afraid. Her face, the shaking of her hand where it

was pressed back against the wall, and the catch in her voice advertised

her apprehension. She was afraid of this big young man confidently

lolling before her.

She said weakly: “It would not be right.”

Bob sat up. “Is that all?” he laughed. His hands were upon the arms of

the chair, and he made to pull himself up towards her.

She saw her mistake. “No,” she cried hurriedly--“no; I would not go with

you in any case.”

A shadow flickered upon Bob's face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say. Please let me pass.”

“I want to be friends with you. Why can't you let me?”

“Please let me pass. Mr. Chater.”

Bob lay back. He said with a laugh, “Well, I'm not stopping you, am I?”

She hesitated a moment. The passage between the table and the long

chair was narrow. But truly he was not stopping her--so far as one might

judge.

She took her skirts about her with her left hand; stepped forward; was

almost past the chair before he moved.

Then he flung out a hand and caught her wrist, drawing her.

“Now!” he cried, and his voice was thick.

She gave a half-sound of dismay--of fear; tried to twist free. Bob

laughed; pulled sharply on her arm. She was standing sideways to

him--against the sudden strain lost her balance and half toppled across

the chair.

As Bob reflected, when afterwards feeding upon the incident, had he not

been as unprepared as she for her sudden stumble, he would have made--as

he put it--a better thing of it. As it was, her face falling against

his, he was but able to give a half kiss when she had writhed herself

free and made across the room.

But that embrace of her had warmed Bob's passions. Springing up, he

caught her as she fumbled with the latch; twisted her to him.

For a moment they struggled, he grasping her wrists and pressing towards

her.

With the intention of encircling her waist he slipped his hold. But

panic made her the quicker. Her outstretched arms held him at bay for

a breathing space; then as he broke them down she dealt him a swinging

blow upon the face that staggered him back a step, his hand to his

cheek.

Mrs. Chater opened the door.

“Oh, he kissed me! He kissed me!” Mary cried.

Bob said very slowly, “You--infernal--little--liar.”

Mrs. Chater glowered upon Mary with cruel eyes. “It was a fortunate

thing,” she said coldly, “that a headache brought me home. Go to your

room, miss.”

We may hurry across the bridge.

CHAPTER III.

Excursions In Love.

I.

Saturday was the day immediately following this scene.

George, on a 'bus carrying him towards Regent's Park, was in spirit

at one with the gay freshness that gave this September morning a

spring-like air.

A week of torrid heat, in which London crawled, groaned, and panted, had

been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the

pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets.

No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight,

continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty

roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and

polished; torrents had poured down the gutters--whenever temporarily the

pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by

the gurgle and rush of frantic streams driving before them the collected

debris of many days.

Upon this morning, in the result, a tempest might have swept the town

and found never a speck of dust to drive before it. The very air had

been washed and sweetened; and London's workers, scurrying to and from

their hives, seemed also to have benefited by some attribute of the

downpour that tinted cheeks, sparkled eyes, and, rejuvenating limbs,

gave to them a new sprightliness of movement.

George, from his 'bus, caught many a bright eye under a jaunty little

hat; gave each back its gleam from the depths of gay lightness that

filled his heart. Nearing the Park he alighted; made two purchases. From

a confectioner bun-corn for David and Angela, those ramping steeds;

from a florist the reddest rose that an exhaustive search of stock could

discover.

Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear

it back to Palace Gardens--it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's

curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom,

and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him

to lend him inspiration as he worked.

It is almost certain that such a part is one for which flowers were

especially designed.

II.

Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been duly exercised,

groomed, and turned out to browse upon bun-corn, George rushed at once

upon the matter that was singing within him.

Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from any but chance

obtrusion. She had taken off her gloves, and George gave her hands, as

they lay in her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap of the baton

with which the conductor calls together his orchestra--for this was a

song that George was about to tune, very confident that the chords of

both instruments that should give the notes were in a harmony complete.

He said: “Mary, do you know what I am going to talk about?”

She had been a little silent that morning, he had thought; did not

answer now, but smiled.

He laid a hand upon both hers. “You must say 'yes.' You've got to say

'yes' about twenty times this morning, so start now. Do you know what

I'm going to talk about?”

“Yes.”

“No objections this time?”

“Yes.”

He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved

will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) “No, no; you are only to say

'yes' when I tell you. No objections to the subject this morning?”

His Mary told him “No.”

“Couldn't have a better morning for it, could we?”

She took a little catch at her breath.

George dropped the banter in his tone. “Nothing wrong to-day, is there,

dear? Nothing up?”

How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined not to

tell him until she more certainly knew its extent. She shook her head;

reassuringly smiled.

“Well, that's all right--there couldn't be on a morning like this. Now

we've got to begin at the beginning. Mary, I planned it all out last

night--all this conversation. We've got to begin at the beginning--Do

you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though,

didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?”

“George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?”

“Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it.

It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you.”

“After last Saturday.”

“Oh, Mary! Much earlier than _that_! You must have!”

“Well, I thought perhaps you--you cared after that first day when you

came here.”

“Not before that?”

She laughed. “Come, how _could_ I? Why, I'd hardly seen you.”

“Well, I did, anyway,” George told her. “I loved you from the very

minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't the

proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four words to

you--just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you.”

She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone

thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so

uniquely her own possession.

“Oh, I say, you mustn't do that,” George cried. He was really perturbed.

“I can't help it. You are so utterly foolish.”

“I'm not. It's the proper thing. I tell you I've planned it all out. I

love you. I've never said it to you before. Now it's your turn.”

“But what on earth am I to say?”

“You've got to say that you love me.”

“You're making a farce of it.”

“No, I tell you I've planned it all out. I can't go on till you've said

it.”

“You can't expect me to say: 'George, I love you.' It's ridiculous. It's

like a funny story.”

“Oh, never mind what it's like. Do be serious, Mary. How can I be sure

you love me if you won't tell me?”

For the first moment since its happening the thought of Bob Chater and

of Mrs. Chater passed completely from Mary's mind. She looked around:

there was no soul in sight. She listened: there was no sound. She

clasped her fingers about his; leaned towards him, her face upturned....

He kissed her upon the lips....

“The plans,” said George after a moment, “have all gone fut. I never

thought of that way.”

“It's much better,” Mary said.

“The other's not a patch upon it,” said George.

III.

You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first

kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in

such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips

is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly

conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived

never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever

again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world an

aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world from the

material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at first--for

the space of that silence after the first kiss--pushed very close by

those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing

moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer

world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence--vagabond

tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling

the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift

smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon

its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent and the

interior becomes at one with the outer world. The process is gradual,

indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of what has been done dawns

suddenly. One knocks against an intruder especially drab, starts into

wakefulness to rub the bruise, and looking around exclaims, “And this is

love!”

Well, it was love. But a rose-garden will not long remain beautiful if

no care is taken of what may intrude.

If we but stand sentinel at the door, exercising a nice discretion, the

garden may likely remain unsoiled, its air uncontaminated.

IV.

George said that though across the first portion of the scheme he had so

laboriously planned he had been shot at lightning speed by the vehicle

of Mary's action, its latter portion yet remained to be discussed.

“We've got to marry, dearest--and as quick as quick. We can't go on like

this--seeing each other once a week. No, not even if it were once a day.

It's got to be always.”

“Always and always, dear,” Mary said softly.

Women are more intoxicated than men by the sudden atmosphere of that

new world. The awe of it was still upon her. The light of love comes

strongly to men, with the sensation of bright sunshine; to women as

through stained glass windows, softly.

She continued: “Fancy saying 'always' and being glad to say it! I never

thought I could. Do you know--will this frighten you?--I am one of those

people who dread the idea of 'always.' I never could bear the idea of

looking far, far ahead and not seeing any end. It frightened me. Ever

since father died, I've been like that--even in little things, even in

tangible things. When we go to the seaside in the summer I never

can bear to look straight across the sea. That gives me the idea of

always--of long, long miles and miles without a turn or a stop. I

want to think every day, every hour, that what I am doing can't go

on--mustchange. It suffocates me to think otherwise. I want to jump out,

to scream.”

Then she gave that laugh that seldom failed to come to her relief,

and said: “It's a sort of claustrophobia--isn't that the word?--on a

universal scale. But why is it? And why am I suddenly changed now? Why

does the thought of always, always, endless always with you, bring a

sort of--don't laugh, dear--a sort of bliss, peace?”

This poor George of mine, who was no deep thinker, nevertheless had the

reason pat. He said:

“I think because the past has all been unhappy and because this, you

know, means happiness.”

She gave a little sigh; told him: “Yes, that's it--happiness.”

V.

And now they fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a

bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred

of wool--George would do this and George would do that; here the

house would be and thus would they do in the house. Probabilities were

outraged, obstacles vaulted.

Castles that are builded in the air spring into being quicker than

Aladdin's palace--bricks and mortar, beams and stones are featherweight

when handled in the clouds; every piece is so dovetailed, marked and

numbered that like magic there springs before the eye the shining

whole--pinnacled, turreted, embattled.

Disaster arrives when the work is completed. “There!” we say, standing

back, a little flushed and out of breath with the excitement of the

thing. “There! There's a place in which to live! Could any existence be

more glorious?” And then we advance a step and lean against the walls

to survey the surrounding prospect. It is the fatal action. The material

body touches the aerial structure and down with a crash the castle

comes--back we pitch into the foundations, and thwack, bump, thwack,

comes the masonry tumbling about us, bruising, wounding.

VI.

George had built the castle. Mary had sat by twittering and clapping her

hands for glee as higher and higher it rose. He knew for a fact, he told

her, that his uncle had not expended upon his education much more than

half the money left him for the purpose. He was convinced that by

hook or by crook he could obtain the 400 pounds that would buy him the

practice at Runnygate of which the Dean had told him. They would have

a little house there--the town would thrive--the practice would

nourish--in a year--why, in a year they would likely enough have to be

thinking of getting a partner! And it would begin almost immediately!

In three weeks the examination would be held. He could not fail to

pass--then for the 400 pounds and Runnygate!

And then, unhappily, George leaned against this castle wall; provoked

the crash.

“Till then, dear,” he said, “you will stay with these Chater people.

I know you hate it; but it will be only a short time, a few weeks at

most.”

Instantly her gay twittering ceased. Trouble drove glee from her eyes.

Memory chased dreams from her brain. Distress tore down the gay colours

from her cheeks. She clasped her hands; from her seat half rose.

“Oh!” she cried; and again, “Oh! I had forgotten!”

“Forgotten? Forgotten what?”

“Dearest, I should have told you at the beginning, but I could not. I

wanted to wait until I knew. I have not seen her yet this morning.”

My startled George was becoming pale. “Knew what? Seen whom? What do you

mean?”

She said, “No, I won't tell you. I won't spoil all this beautiful

morning we have spent. I will wait till next week.”

“Mary, what do you mean? Wait till next week? No. You must tell me now.

How could I leave you like this, knowing you are in some trouble? What

has happened? You must tell. You must. I insist.”

“Ah, I will.” Her agitation, as her mind cast back over the events of

the previous night, was enhanced by the suddenness of the change from

the sunshine in which she had been disporting to the darkness that now

swept upon her. She was as a girl who, singing along a country lane, is

suddenly confronted from the hedgeside by some ugly tramp.

She said, “You know that young Mr. Chater?”

Dark imaginings clouded upon George's brow. “Yes,” he said. “Yes;

well--?”

“Last night--” And then she gave him the history of events.

This simple George of mine writhed beneath it.

It was a poison torturing his system, twisting his brow, knotting his

hands. Her presence, when she finished, did not stay his cry beneath

his rackings: he was upon his feet. “By Gad,” he cried, “I'll thrash the

life out of him! The swine! By Gad, I'll kill him!”

She laid a hand upon his arm. “Georgie, dear,” she pleaded. “Don't,

don't take it like that. I haven't finished.”

Roughly he turned upon her. “Well, what else? What else?”

“I haven't seen him since. He went away early this morning for the

week-end. And I have not seen Mrs. Chater again either. I am to see her

this afternoon. She sent me word to take the children as usual and that

she would see me at three.”

My poor George bitterly broke out: “Oh! Will she? That's kind of her!

That's delightful of her! Are you going to see her?”

“Of course I shall see her.”

“'Of course'! 'Of course'! I don't know what you mean by talking in that

tone. You won't stay there another minute! That's what you'll tell her

if you insist upon seeing her. If you had behaved properly you'd have

walked out of the house there and then when it happened last night.”

Spite of her trouble Mary could not forbear to laugh. “Dearest, how

could I?”

But this furious young man could not see her point. His fine passion

swept him above contingencies.

“Well, then, this morning,” he laid down. “The first thing this morning

you should have gone.” He supplied detail: “Packed your box, and called

a cab and gone.”

His dictatory air drew from her another sad little laugh.

“Oh, George, dear,” she cried, “gone where?”

It was a bucket of water dashed upon his flames, and for a moment they

flickered beneath it--then roared again: “_Where? Anywhere!_”

“Oh!” she cried, “you are stupid! You don't see--you don't understand!

Easy to say 'anywhere,' but where--_where_? I have no money. I have no

friends--I--”

The knowledge of her plight and her outlook crowded upon her speech;

broke her voice.

Her distracted George in a moment had her hands in his. “Oh, my dear,”

he cried, “what a fool I am! What a beast to storm like that! I was

so wild. So mad. Of course you had to think before you moved. You were

right, of course you were right. But, my darling, I'm right now. You see

that, don't you? You can't stay a moment longer with those beasts.”

And then he laughed grimly. “Especially,” he added, “after what I'm

going to do to Master Bob.”

She too laughed. The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition

of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to

her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied--this she saw clearly as

the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about

the task of explaining it to George.

She said: “Oh, my dear, you're not right. Georgie, I can't go--if Mrs.

Chater will let me stay I must stay.”

He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to understand his Mary.

“But why?” he asked. “Why?”

“Dearest, because I must bridge over the time until you are ready to

take me. You see that?”

“Of course. But why there? You can easily get another place.”

“Oh, easily! If you had been through it as I have been! The first thing

they ask you for is a reference from your former situation. Think what a

reference Mrs. Chater would give me!”

He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering, man fashion:

“In time you could get a place where they would not ask questions--or

rather--yes, of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that happened.

Who could see you and not believe you? Tell them everything. There must

be some nice people in the world.”

“There may be. But they don't want helps or governesses--in my

experience.” The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.

He was still angry. “You can't generalise like that. There are thousands

who would believe you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have to wait

a bit--well, you have a little money that she must give you; and I--oh,

curse my poverty!--I can borrow, and I can sell things.”

The help that a man would give a woman so often has lack of sympathy; he

is unkind while meaning to be kind. George's obdurateness, coming when

she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble welled in her eyes.

“I wouldn't do that,” she said. “For one thing, we want all our money.

Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which I shall only be

for a few weeks longer? Another thing--another thing--” She dragged

a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve; dabbed her brimming eyes.

“Another thing--I'm afraid to risk it. I'm afraid to be alone and

looking for a place again. There--now you know. I'm a coward.”

She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched George, cursing

himself for the grief he had evoked, cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs.

Chater, cursing his uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her

to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically moaned that he

was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored forgiveness; entreated calm; by

squeezing her with his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes

with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little damp ball, strove to

stem the flood that alarmingly welled from them.

VII.

It was an awful position for any young man; and just as my poor George,

distinguished in nothing, inept, bewildered, was in a mood murderous to

the whole world save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman

must needs come sunning himself down the path, making for this seat with

hobbling limbs.

He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right, was struck with

palpitations by sight of the heaving back of a young woman over whose

shoulder glared at him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.

“Dear me, dear me,” said he; “nothing wrong, sir, I trust?”

“Go away!” roared my distracted George.

“Eh?” inquired the old gentleman, horribly startled.

“Go away! Go away!”

The fire of those baleful eyes, of that bellowing voice, struck terror

into the aged heart. He clutched his stick.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said he; hobbled away at a speed dangerous to his

life and limbs to seek protection of a park-keeper.

The sobs grew longer, less hysterical: changed into long “ohs” of

misery; died away.

“There, there,” said George, patting, dabbing. “There, there.”

With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession.

“I'm a little f--fool,” said she.

“I'm a brute,” said George.

The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned.

Mary said, “Now you must listen and believe, dear.”

“Let me have your hand, then.”

She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she

continued: “You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas

to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl”--she rebuked his

negation with a gesture--“if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I

should leave Mrs. Chater at once--walk out and not care what I might

suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would

do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through

it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know--I have told

you--what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of

people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go

through it again. And after all-don't you see?--if Mrs. Chater will

let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if

anything. Mrs. Chater has always been--well, sharp. She may be a little

worse--there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has

been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful

and he--what shall I say? angry, ashamed--why, he will pay no further

attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?--if only she will

let me stay.”

“I don't like it,” George said. “I don't like it.”

“Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be

the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright

about it. Am I not? Look at me.”

George looked. Then he said, “All right, old girl.”

She clapped her hands. “Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out--you

mustn't touch the detestable Bob.”

With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said,

“I suppose I mustn't.” He added, “I tell you what, though. You mustn't

interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and

marry you I'll pull him out--and pay him.”

They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell

him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the

especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just

two minutes on Monday morning.

And each went home, thinking, not of that portending interview with Mrs.

Chater, but upon the love they had declared.

CHAPTER IV.

Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter.

I.

At ten o'clock that night Mary took up her pen.

“First, my dear, to tell you that it is all right. I may stay. I had

lunch with the children in the nursery, and just as we had finished

a maid came to say that Mrs. Chater would see me in the study. Down I

crawled, wishing that I was the heroine of a novel who would have passed

firmly down the stairs and into the room, 'pale, but calm and serene.'

Oh! I was pale enough, I feel sure. But as to serene!--my heart was

flapping about just like a tin ventilator in a wind, and I was jumpy all

over. You see what a coward am I.

“Mrs. Chater had grown since last I saw her. Of that I am convinced. She

sat, enormous, thunder-browed, bolt upright in a straight chair. I stood

and quivered. Books are all wrong, dear. In books the consciousness of

virtue gives one complete self-possession in the face of any accusation,

however terrible. In books it is the accuser of the innocent who is ill

at ease. Oh, don't believe it! Mrs. Chater had the self-possession, I

had the jim-jams.

“'I have not seen you since last night,' she said.

“I gave a kind of terrified little squeak. I had no words.

“'Your version of what happened I do not wish to hear,' she went on.

“This relieved me, because for the life of me I could not have told her

had she wished to hear it. So I gave another little mouse-squeak.

“'My son has told me.' Her voice was like a deep bell. 'How you can

reconcile your conduct with the treatment that you have received at my

hands, here beneath my roof'--she was very dramatic at this point--'I do

not know.'

“Nor did I--but not in the way she meant. I was thinking how ignoble was

my meek attitude in light of what had happened. But you don't know what

it was like, facing that woman and dreading the worse fate of being

turned out into this awful London again. Another wretched little squeak

slipped out of me, and she went on.

“'My boy,' said she, 'has implored me to overlook this matter. My

boy has declared there were faults on both sides' (!!!!). 'If I acted

rightly as a mother, what would I do?'

“I didn't tell her, Georgie. Could I tell her that if she acted rightly

as a mother she would box her boy's fat ears until his nose bled? I

couldn't. I squeaked instead.

“'If I acted rightly as a mother,' said she, 'I would send you away. I

am not going to.'

“I squeaked.

“'I choose to believe that your behaviour in this matter was a slip. I

believe the episode will be a lesson to you. That is all. Go.' I goed.”

II.

George, when he had read thus far, was broadly grinning. Obviously

Mrs. Chater was not such a bad sort after all. If--as no doubt--she

implicitly believed her son's version of the incident, then her attitude

towards Mary was, on the whole, not so bad.

But his Mary, when she had written thus far, laid down her pen, put her

pretty head upon the paper and wept.

“Oh, my dear!” she choked. “There, that will make you think it was all

right. You shall never know--never--what really happened. Oh, Georgie,

Georgie, come very quick and take me away! How can I go on living with

these beasts? Oh, Georgie, be quick, be quick!”

Then this silly Mary with handkerchief, with india-rubber, and with

pen-knife erased a stain of grief that had fallen upon her pretty story;

sniffed back her tears; lifted again her pen.

Now she wrote in an eager scrawl; nib flying. Had her George not been so

very ordinary a young man he must have perceived the difference between

that first portion so neatly penned--parti-coloured words showing where

the ink had dried while the poor little brain puzzled and planned at

every syllable--and this where emotion sped the thoughts.

III.

“So that's all right” (she wrote), “and now we've only got to wait, a

few, few weeks. Dearest, will they fly or will they drag? What does love

do to time, I wonder--whip or brake?--speed or pull? Georgie mine, I

feel I don't care. If the days fly I shall be riding in them--galloping

to you, wind in the face; shouting them on; standing up all flushed with

the swing and the rush of it; waving to the people we go thundering past

and gazing along the road where soon I will see you--nearer and nearer

and nearer.

“And if the days creep? Well, at first, after that picture, the thought

seems melancholy, unbearable. But that is wrong. The realisation will

not be unbearable. If they creep, why, then I shall lie in them, very

comfortable, very happy; dreaming of you, seeing you, speaking with you,

touching you. Yes, touching you. For, my dear, you are here in the

room with me as I write. I look up just to my right, and there you are,

Georgie mine; sitting on the end of my bed, smiling at me. You have

not left me, my dear, since we parted on the seat this morning. Why, I

cannot even write that it is only in imagination that I see you. For me

it is not imagination. I do, do see you, Georgie mine. You are part of

me, never to leave me.

“How new, how different, love makes life! Everything I do, everything

I see, everything I hear has a new interest because it is something to

share with you, something to save up and tell you. I am in trouble

(you understand that I am not, shall never be again; this is only

illustration--you must read it 'if I were in trouble'). I am in trouble,

and you are sharing it with me, sympathising so that trouble is an

unkind word for what is indeed but an opportunity acutely to feel

the joy of loving and being loved. I am happy, and the happiness is a

thousandfold increased because it comes to me warmed through you. I

am amused, and it is something to tell you and to laugh at the more

heartily by the compelling sound of your own laughter.

“Everything is new. Why, my very clothes are new. Look, here in my left

hand is my handkerchief. Only a handkerchief this morning, and to other

eyes still but a handkerchief. But to mine! Why, you have had it in your

hand and indeed it speaks to me of you. Here you laid your arm, this was

the side upon which you touched me as we sat together, here in my hair

your fingers caressed me--each and all they are new--different from this

morning.

“Are you thinking me silly when I write like this, or are you dreadfully

bored with it? I can't help it, Georgie; love means so much more to us

women than to you men. It is essentially different. When a man in

love thinks of the woman he thinks of her as 'mine,' and that thrills

him--possession. But when the woman thinks of him she thinks of

herself as 'his,' and that moves every fibre of her, strikes every

chord--capitulation. The man expresses love by saying 'You are mine';

the woman by 'I am yours.' That is how it is with me. I sing to myself

that I am yours, yours, yours. I want you to have every bit of me. I

want you to know every thought I have. If I had bad thoughts, I would

tell them you. If I had desires, I would make them known and would

not blush. I want you to see right into my very heart. I want to lay

everything before you--to come to you bound and naked. That is what love

is with women, dear. Some of us resist it, school it otherwise--but I do

not think they are happy; not really happy. It is our nature to be as I

have said, and to fight against nature is wearying work, leaving marks:

it is to get tossed aside out of the sun.

“Are you thinking me unutterably tiresome and foolish?--but you will not

think that; because you love me.

“Ah, let me write that again!-because you love me. And let me write

this: I love you.

“My dear, is not that curious?--the precious joy of saying 'I love you,'

and the constant yearning to hear it said. Not lovers alone have this

joy and this desire. Mothers teach their babies to say 'I love you,

mother,' and constantly and constantly they ask, 'Do you love me, baby?

'--yes, and are not satisfied until they have the assurance. And babies,

too, will get up suddenly from their toys to run to say, 'Mother, I _do_

love you.'

“Why is it? Why is love so doubted that it must for ever be declared? So

doubted that even those who do love must constantly be proclaiming

the fact to the object of their affections, impelled either by the

subconscious fear that that object mistrusts the devotion, or by the

subconscious fear that they themselves are under delusion and must

protest aloud--just as a child upon the brink of being frightened in the

dark will say aloud, 'I'm not afraid!' Why is it?

“Actions are allowed to proclaim hate, deeds suffice to advertise

sympathy, but love must be testified by bond. To what crimes must love

have been twisted and contorted that it should come to such a pass? How

often must it have been used as disguise to be now thus suspected?

“You never knew I thought of things like this, did you?

“My dear dear, I who am so frivolous think of yet deeper things. And I

would speak of them to you tonight, for I would have you know my heart

and mind as, dearest (how dear to think!), you know my face. Yes, of

deeper things. I suppose clever people would laugh at the religion my

mother and father lived in, taught me, died in, and now is mine. They

believed--and I believe--in what I have heard called the Sunday School

God! the God who lives, who listens, and to whom I pray. I have read

books attempting to shatter this belief--yes, and I think succeeding

because written with a cunning appeal only to the intelligence of man.

Can such a Being as God exist? they ask. And since man's intelligence

can only grasp proved facts, proofs are heaped upon proof that

He cannot. The impossibilities are heaped until man must--of his

limitations--cry that it is impossible. But in my belief God is above

the possibilities--not to be judged by them, not to be reduced to them.

I suppose such a belief is Faith--implicit Faith--the Faith that we are

told makes all things possible. Well, fancy, for the sake of having a

'religion' that comes into line with 'reason,' abandoning the sense of

comfort that comes after prayer! Fancy receiving a 'reasoned' belief and

paying for it the solace of entreating help in the smallest trouble and

in the largest!

“Do you know, my dear dear, that I pray for you every night?--for your

health, your happiness, and your success?

“Now you know a little more of me. Is there more to learn, I wonder? Not

if I can make it clear.

“The candle is in a most melancholy condition: in the last stage of

collapse. I have prodded it out from its socket with my knife and set it

flabbily on a penny--so it must work to its very last drop of life. That

will not be long delayed. I shall suddenly be plunged into darkness

and must undress in the dark. I shall be smiling all the time I am

undressing, my thoughts with you.

“At eleven--ten minutes' time--I am to be leaning from the window gazing

at Orion as you too--so we agreed--will be gazing. Each will know

the other has his thoughts, and we will say 'good-night.' How

utterly foolish! How contemptibly absurd, common!--and how mystically

delightful! You and I with Orion for the apex of eye's sight and our

thoughts flying from heart to heart the base!

“Georgie mine, if we had never met could we have ever been so happy?

Impossible! Impossible! Before I pray for you to-night, I thank God for

you.

“I have kissed the corner where I shall just be able to squeeze

in--good-night.”

Such was her letter-disloyal to women in its exposure of those truths

of women's love which are theirs by the heritage of ages, by their

daily training from childhood upward, and against which they should most

desperately battle; simple in its ideas of religion; silly in its baby

sentiment.

Such was my Mary.

CHAPTER V.

Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens.

I.

Friday was the night of the incident in the library between Bob Chater

and Mary; Saturday the exchange of love in the Park between Mary and

her George; Saturday evening the writing of Mary's letter; upon Monday

George read it.

Now it was Monday morning, and precisely at ten o'clock three persons

set out for the same seat in Regent's Park--the mind of each filled with

one of the others, empty of all thought of the third.

Mary--accompanied by David and Angela--carried towards the seat the

image of her George, but had no heed of Mr. Bob Chater's existence; she

was the magnet that drew Bob, ignorant of George; George sped to his

Mary and had no thought of Bob.

Our young men were handicapped in point of distance. Mary, with but

a short half-mile to go, must easily be first to make the seat; Bob,

coming to town from a week-end up the river, would occupy little short

of an hour. George from Herons' Holt to that dear seat, allowed full

seventy-five minutes.

II.

Upon the whole, Mr. Bob Chater had not enjoyed his week-end; ideally

circumstanced, for once the attractions it offered had failed to allure.

Mr. Lemmy Moss, in the tiny riparian cottage he rented for the summer

months, was the most excellent of hosts; Claude Avinger was widely known

as a rattling good sort; the three young ladies who came down early on

Sunday morning and had no foolish objections to staying indecorously

late, were in face, figure and morals all that Bob, Lemmy, and Claude

could desire. Yet throughout that day in the cushioned punt Bob won more

pouts than smiles from the lady who fell to his guardianship.

Disgustedly she remarked to her friends on the home journey, “Fairly

chucked myself at him, the deadhead “--wherein, I apprehend, lay her

mistake. For whether a man's assault upon a woman be dictated by love

or desire, its vehemence is damped by acquiescence, spurred by rebuff.

Doubtless for our lusty forefathers one-half the fascination of

obtaining to wife the naked ladies who caught their eye lay in the

tremendous excitement of snatching them from their tribes; while for the

ladies, the joy of capture comprised a great proportion of the amorous

delights.

The characteristics remain. Maidens are more decorously won to-day;

their tribes do not defend them; but they do the fighting for

themselves. The sturdier the defence they are able to make, the greater

the joy of at length being won; while, for the suitor, the more pains he

hath endured in process of conquest the more keenly doth he relish his

captive.

So with Bob. The young lady fairly chucking herself at him in the punt

he could not forbear to contrast with the enticing reserve of Mary. The

more playfully (or desperately, poor girl) she chucked herself at him,

the more did her charms cloy as against those of that other prize who so

stoutly kept him at arm's-length. Nay, the more strenuously did she

seek to entice his good offices, the more troubled was he to imagine why

another of her sex should so slightingly regard him.

Thus, as the day wore on, was Bob thrice impelled towards Mary--by

initial attraction of her beauty; by natural instinct to show himself

master where, till now, he had been bested; and by the stabbings of his

wounded vanity.

On Monday morning, then, he caught the ten o'clock train to town, hot

in the determination immediately to see her and instantly to press his

suit. He would try, he told himself, a new strategy. Bold assault had

been proved ill-advised; for frontal attack must be substituted an

advance more crafty. Its plan required no seeking. He would play--and,

to a certain extent, would sincerely play--the part of penitent. He

would apologise for Friday's lapse; would explain it to have been the

outcome of sheer despair of ever winning her good graces.

As to where he would find her he had no doubts. Dozing one day over a

book, he had not driven David and Angela from the room until they

had forced upon him a wearisome account of the secluded seat they had

discovered in Regent's Park. His patience in listening was an example of

the profit of casting one's bread upon the waters; for, making without

hesitation for the seat, he discovered Mary.

III.

The children, as he approached, were standing before her. David had

scratched his finger, and the three were breathlessly examining the

wounded hand for traces of the disaster. Brightly Mary was explaining

that the place of the wound was over the home of very big drops of

“blug,” which could not possibly squeeze out of so tiny a window; when

Angela, turning at footsteps, exclaimed: “Oh, dear, oh, dear, what

_shall_ we do? Here's Bob!”

Alarm drummed in Mary's heart: fluttered upon her cheeks. She had felt,

as she told her George, so certain that from Bob she had now not even

acknowledgment to fear, that this deliberate intrusion set her mind

bounding into disordered apprehensions--stumbling among them, terrified,

out of breath.

When he had raised his hat, bade her good morning, she could but sit

dumbly staring at him-questioning, incapable of speech.

It was Angela that answered his salutation: “Oh, why _have_ you come

here? You spoil _everything_.”

“Hook!” said Bob.

David asked: “What's hook?”

“Run away.”

“Why?”

“Because I tell you to.”

“Why?”

Bob exclaimed: “Hasn't mother told you not to say 'Why' like that? Run

away and play. I want to speak to Miss Humfray.”

David swallowed the rising interrogation; substituted instead an

observant poke: “Miss Humfray doesn't want to speak to you. She hates

you.”

The uncompromising directness of these brats, their gross

ill-mannerliness, was a matter of which Bob made constant complaint to

his mother. The belief that he observed a twitch at the corner of Mary's

mouth served further to harden his tones.

He said: “Look here, you run away when I tell you, or I'll see you don't

come out here any more.”

“Why?”

Bob swallowed. It was necessary before he spoke to clear his tongue of

the emotions that surged upon it.

Angela, in the pause, entreated David: “Oh, don't keep saying 'Why?',

David,” and before he could ask the reason she addressed Bob: “We won't

go for you. If Miss Humf'ay tells us to go, _then_ we will go.”

Bob looked at Mary. “I only want to speak to you for a minute.”

Amongst the slippery apprehensions in which she had taken flight Mary

had struggled to the comfortable rock that Bob's appearance must have

been chance, not deliberate--how should he have known where to seek

them? Sure ground, too, was made by the belief that it were well to take

the apology with which doubtless he had come--well to be on good terms.

Encouraged by these supports, “Shoo!” she cried to her charges. “Don't

you hear what your brother asks?”

“Do _you_ want us to go?”

“Oh, shoo! shoo!”

Laughing, they shoo'd.

Bob let them from earshot. “I want to say how sorry I am about Friday

night.”

“I have forgotten all that.”

“I want to know that you have forgiven me.”

“I tell you I have forgotten it.”

“That is not enough. You can't have forgotten it.” He took a seat beside

her; repeated: “You can't have forgotten it. How can you have forgotten

a thing that only happened three days ago?”

“In the sense that I have wiped it out--I do not choose to remember it.”

“Well, I remember it. I cannot forget it. I behaved very badly. I want

to know that you forgive me.”

She told him: “Yes, then--oh yes, yes.” His persistence alarmed her, set

her again to flight among her apprehensions.

“Not when you say it like that.”

Her breath came in jerks, responsive to the unsteady flutters of her

heart. She made an effort for control; for the first time turned to him:

“Mr. Chater, please go.”

Her words pricked every force that had him there--desire, obstinacy,

wounded vanity.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“You happened to be passing--”

“Nothing of the kind,” he told her.

“You have come purposely?” One foothold that seemed safe was proving

false.

“Of course. I tell you--why won't you believe me?--that I have been

ashamed of myself ever since that night. At the first opportunity I have

come straight to tell you so, I ought to be in the City. I could not

rest until I had made my apology.”

“Well, you have made it--I don't mean to say that sharply. I think--I

think it is very nice of you to be so anxious, and I freely accept your

apology. But don't you see that you are harming me by staying here? I

beg you to go.”

“How am I harming you? Am I so distasteful to you that you can't bear me

near you?”

This was the personal note that of all her apprehensions had given Mary

greatest alarm. “Surely you see that you are harming me--I mean hurting

me--I mean, yes, getting me into trouble by staying like this with me.

Mrs. Chater might have turned me off on Saturday--”

“I spoke for you.”

“Yes.” The words choked her, but she spoke them--“I am grateful to you

for that. But if she found me talking to you again--especially if she

knew you came here to see me, she would send me away at once. She told

me so.”

“How is she to know?”

“The children--”

“I'll take care of that.”

“You can't prevent it. In any case--”

Bob said bitterly: “In any case! Yes, that's it. In any case you hate

the sight of me.”

She cried: “Oh, why will you speak like that? I mean that in any case it

is not right. I promised.”

Bob laughed. “If that's all, it is all right. You didn't promise for

me.”

“It makes no difference. You say you are sorry--I believe you are sorry.

You can only show it one way. Mr. Chater, please leave me alone.”

Her pretty appeal was fatal to her desire. It enhanced her graces.

In both phrase and tone it was different from similar request in the

petulant mouths of those ladies amongst whom Bob purchased his way.

Dissatisfied, they would have said “Oh, chuck it! Do!” But “Mr. Chater,

please leave me alone!”--that had the effect of moving Mr. Chater a

degree closer along the seat.

He said: “You shan't have cause to blame me. Look here, you haven't

asked me to explain my conduct on Friday.”

“I don't wish you to.”

“Don't you want to know?”

She shook her head.

“Aren't you curious?” His voice was low with a note of intensity. This

was love-making, as he knew the pursuit.

He went on: “I'm sure you're curious. Look here, I'm going to tell you.”

“I'm going,” she said; made to rise.

He caught her hand where it lay on her lap; pressed her down. “You're

not. If you do I shall follow--but I won't let you,” and he pressed

again in advertisement.

Now she was alarmed--not for the result of this interview, but for its

very present perils. Fear strangled her voice, but she said, “Let me

go.”

“You must hear me, then.”

“I wish to go.”

“You must stay to hear me.” He believed a fierce assault would now win

the heights. He released her hand; but she was still his prisoner, and

he leant towards her averted head.

“I'm going to tell you why I behaved like that that night. It was

because I could not contain myself any longer. You had always been so

icy to me; kept me at arm's-length, barely let me speak to you; and all

the time I was burning to tell you that I loved you--there, you know

it now. On that night you were still cold when you might have been only

barely civil and I could have contained myself. But you would not give

me a word, and at last all that was in me for you burst out and I could

not hold myself. It was unkind; it was frightening to you, perhaps; but

was it a crime?--is it a crime to love?”

His flow checked, waiting an impulse from her.

She was but capable of a little “Oh!”--the crest of a gasp.

He misread her emotion. “Has it all been pretence, your keeping me from

you like this? I believe it has. But now that you know you will be kind.

Tell me. Speak.”

Encouraged by her silence he took her hand.

That touch acted as a cold blast upon her fevered emotions. Now she was

calm.

She shook off his hand. “Have you done?”

The tone more than the question warned him.

“Well?” he said; sullen wrath gathering.

“Well, never speak to me again.”

“You won't be friends?”

“Friends! With you!”

Her meaning--that he had lost--stung him; her tone--that she despised

him--was a finger in the wound.

He gripped her arm. “You little fool! How are you going to choose? If

I want to be friends with you, how are you going to stop it? By God,

if you want to be enemies it will be the worse for you. If I can't be

friends with you at home, I'll get you turned out and I'll make you be

friends outside.”

She was trying to twist her arm from his grasp.

He gripped closer. “No, I don't mean that. I love you--that's why I talk

so when you rebuff me. I'll not hurt you. We shall--I will be friends.”

His right arm held her. He slipped his left around her, drew her to

him, and with his lips had brushed her cheek before she was aware of his

intention.

The insult swept her free of every thought but its memory. By a sudden

motion she slipped from his grasp and to her feet; faced him.

“You beast!” she cried. “You beast!”

He half rose; made a half grab at her.

She stepped back a pace; something in her action reminded him of that

stinging blow she had dealt him in the library; he dropped back to his

seat and she turned and fled up the path whither Angela and David had

toddled.

IV.

It was while Bob sat gazing after her, indeterminate, that he felt a

hand from behind the seat upon his shoulder; looked up to see a tall

young man, fresh faced, but fury-browed, regarding him.

“What's your name?” asked George.

“What the devil's that to do with you?”

The tone of the first question had been of passion restrained. The

passion broke now from between George's clenched teeth, flamed in his

eyes.

He tightened his grip upon the other's shoulder so that he pinched the

flesh.

“A lot to do with me,” he cried. “Is it Chater?”

“What if it is? Let me go, damn you!”

“Let you go! I've been itching for you for weeks! What have you been

saying to Miss Humfray?”

“Damn you! Take off your hand! She's a friend of yours, is she?”

My furious George choked: “Engaged to me.” Further bit upon his passion

he could not brook. He brought his free hand down with a crash upon

the face twisted up at him; relaxed his hold; ran round the seat--those

brown hands clenched.

If Bob Chater at no time had aching desire for a brawl, he was at least

no coward: here the events he had suffered well sufficed to whip

his blood to action. He sprang to his feet, was upon them as George,

sideways to him, came round the arm of the seat; lunged furiously and

landed a crack upon the cheekbone that spun George staggering up the

path.

It was a good blow, a lusty blow--straight from the shoulder and with

body and leg work behind it; a blow that, happier placed, might well

have won the battle.

A ring upon Bob's finger cut the flesh he struck, and he gave a savage

“Ha!” of triumph as he saw George go spinning and the red trickle come

breaking down his cheek.

A great ridge in the gravel marked the thrust of foot with which George

stayed his stagger, from which he impelled the savage spring that

brought him within striking distance.

There was no science. This was no calmly prepared fight with cool brains

directing attack, searching weak points, husbanding strength, deft in

defence. Here was only the animal instinct to get close and wound; to

grapple and wound again.

George it was that provoked this spirit. Till now he had not seen this

flushed face before him. But he had for many days conjured it up in

his fancy--sharpening upon it the edge of his wrath, bruising himself

against the wall of wise conduct that kept him from meeting and visiting

upon it the distress his Mary had endured.

Now that he saw it in the flesh (and it was not unlike his conception),

he came at it with the impulse of one who, straining against a rope,

rushes headlong forward when a knife parts the bond.

The impulse thus given more than countered the greater bulk and reach

that should have told in Bob's scale. Bob felt his wits and his courage

simultaneously deserting him before the pell-mell of blows that came

raining against his guard. Whensoever he effected a savage smash that

momentarily checked the fury, it served but to bring back this seemingly

demented young man with a new rush and ardour.

Bob gave step by step, struck short-arm, felt the faint saltness of

blood upon his lips, staggered back before a tremendous hit between the

eyes, stumbled, tripped, fell.

“Get up!” George bellowed; waited till Bob came rushing, and sent him

reeling again with a broken tooth that cut the brown knuckles.

Bob lacked not courage and had proved it, for he was sorely battered.

But the pluck in him was whipped and now venom alone bade him make what

hurt he could.

His heavy stick was leaning against the seat. He seized it; swung it

high; crashed a blow that must have split the head it aimed.

George slipped aside; the blow missed. He poised himself as Bob,

following the impulse, went staggering by; put all his weight behind a

crashing hit and sent him spinning prone with a blow that was fittingly

final to the exhibition of lusty knocks.

Bob propped himself on one arm, rose to his feet; glared;

hesitated--then fell to brushing his knees.

It was a masterly white flag.

“Had enough?” George panted. “Had enough? Are you whipped, you swine?”

Bob assiduously brushed.

“When you're better, let me know,” George cried; turned and hurried up

the path whither Mary had disappeared.

The forced draught of fury, pain, and exertion sent Bob's breath roaring

in and out in noisy blasts--now long and laboured, now spasmodic quick.

He examined his bill of health and damage. Face everywhere tender to the

touch; clothes dust-covered and torn; both knees of trousers rent; silk

hat stove in when in a backward rush he had set his foot upon it. His

tongue discovered a broken tooth, his handkerchief a bleeding nose, his

fingers blood upon his chin, trickling to his shirt front.

So well as might be he brushed his person; straightened his hat; clapped

handkerchief to his mouth; past staring eyes, grinning faces, hurried

out of the Park to bury himself in a cab.

V.

From a window Mrs. Chater saw the bruised figure of her darling boy

alight; with palpitating heart rushed to greet him.

“Bob! My boy! My boy! What has happened?”

Her boy brushed past; bounded to his room. Laboriously, sick with fear,

the devoted mother toiled in pursuit--found him in his room tearing off

his coat.

“My boy! My boy!”

Her boy bellowed: “_Hot water!_”

Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?

Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this

devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as

she runs: “Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!”

Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants rushed

responsive.

Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.

“Oh, m'am! What is it?”

Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature with

her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in dragging one

from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.

Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: “Oh, m'am!

M'am! Whatever is it?”

Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them. This

way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge, demented,

hysterical, she gave them--slopping boiling water on to agonised toes;

bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.

The three plunged after her: “Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?”

The devoted woman paused at the head of the stairs; screamed down

orders: “Sticking-plaster! Lint! Cotton-wool! Mr. Bob has had an

accident! Hot-water bottles! Ice! Doctor! Go for the doctor, one of

you!”

A figure with battered face above vest and pants bounded from its room.

“No!” Bob roared. “No!”

“No!” Mrs. Chater echoed, not knowing to what the negative applied, but

hysterically commanding it.

“No!” screamed the agitated servants, one to another.

“No! no doctor!” bellowed Bob; grabbed the can from his mother; shot

back to his room.

“No doctor!” Mrs. Chater screamed to the white-faced pack upon the

stairs; fled after him.

“My boy! Tell me!”

Her boy raised his dripping face from the basin. “For God's sake shut

the door!” he roared.

She did. “Tell me!” she trembled.

“It's that damned girl.”

“That girl?”

“Miss Humfray!”

“Miss Humfray! Done that to you! Oh, your poor face! Your poor face!”

“No!--no! Do be quiet, mother! Some infernal man she goes about with in

the Park! I spoke to him and he set on me!”

“The infamous creature! The wicked, infamous girl! A bad girl, I knew

it!--”

Agitated tapping at the door: “The cotton-wool m'am.” “Sticking-plaster,

m'am.” “'Ot bottle, m'am.”

“Go away!” roared Bob. “Go away! O-oo, my face!” He hopped in wrath and

pain. “Send those damned women away!”

Mrs. Chater rushed to the door. Passing, she for the first time caught

full sight of her son's face now that the hot water had exposed its

wreck. “Oh, your eyes! Your poor eyes! They're closing up!”

Bob staggered to the mirror; discovered the full horror of his marred

beauty. “Curse it!” he groaned and gave an order.

Mrs. Chater flew to the telephone.

In the office of Mr. Samuel Hock, purveyor of meat, by appointment, to

the Prince of Wales, the telephone bell sharply rang. Mr. Hock stepped

to the receiver, listened, then bellowed an order into the shop:

“One of beefsteak to 14 Palace Gardens, sharp!”

CHAPTER VI.

A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens.

I.

With tremendous strides, with emotion roaring in and out his nostrils in

gusty blasts of fury, my passionate George encompassed the Park this way

and that until he came at length upon his trembling Mary.

Save for that first blow where Bob's ring had marked his cheek he had

suffered but little in the fight--sufficiently, notwithstanding, coupled

with his colossal demeanour, for Mary's eyes to discover that something

was amiss.

She came to him; cried at a little distance: “Oh, dearest, I--I could

not meet you at the seat.”

Then she saw more clearly. She asked: “What has happened?” and stood

with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.

George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his

boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. “I've pretty well

killed that Chater swine,” he said.

“Mr. Chater?--you've met Mr. Chater?”

Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: “I saw you

run from him. I saw--what had he been doing?”

“Oh, Georgie!”

“Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever

it was.”

“You fought? Oh, and your face--and your hand bleeding too!”

Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the

wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous

mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it

was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought

home by the brave--in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the

hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.

My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.

“Oh, don't make a fuss about that, Mary,” he cried irritably. “It's

nothing. Master Bob won't be able to see for a month.”

“Oh, George, why did you do it?”

Then the tremendous young man flamed. “Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul,

Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by

and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of you,

and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you do

it?' _Do_ it? _Do_ it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me

do--apologise for you?”

She turned away, dropped his hand.

My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. “Mary, darling,

dearest, you know I didn't mean that.”

She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.

He cried in misery, striving to see her face: “What a brute I am! What a

brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that.”

She gasped: “You ge-get angry so quick.”

“I know, I know. I'm not fit--I couldn't help--Mary, do look up.”

She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.

He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the

tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words

to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of

his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.

There are conditions of the male mind--and this George was in the very

heart of one--when softness in a woman positively goads to fury.

The mind is in an itching fever, and--like a bull against a

gate-post--requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease

the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the

wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch

his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal

conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate-post

into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.

Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit

not to cry “Oh!” in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for

good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath

like a hooked shark--this little hand the rope that held him. Soon its

influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker. The venom

oozed out of him.

He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.

He groaned. “Now you know me at last.”

She patted those brown hands; did not speak.

“You know the awful temper I've got,” he went on. “Uncontrollable--angry

even with you--foul brute--”

“But I annoyed you, Georgie.”

He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. “How? By being sweet

and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!”

She told him: “You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't.

Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie.”

The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before

sunshine that took its place. He laughed. “You're a dear, dear old

thing.”

She gave a whimsical look at him. “I ought to have said at once what I

am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?”

“I bashed him!” George said, revelling in it. “I fairly bashed him!”

She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.

II.

It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with

which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for

action.

The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence

he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was

a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this

introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern

reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray.

“I would very much like to know,” he concluded, “what their ma would

say.”

“My plump gentleman,” said George pleasantly, “meet me at this

trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified.”

The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had

contemplated; contented himself with: “Funny, ain't yer?”

“Screaming,” said George. “One long roar of mirth. Hundreds turned away

nightly. Early doors threepence extra. Bring the wife.”

The park-keeper withdrew with a morose air.

III.

And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future. Conning

the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and almost

horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be followed

offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle at 14 Palace

Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of Mrs. Chater,

gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her first-born. She

must be faced.

George flared a torch to light the gloom: “But why should you go near

her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her.

I'll get your boxes.”

Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the

preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds

hold right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull

companions on the highway.

Mary said: “It wouldn't be _right_, dear. The children are in my charge;

how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a strange

man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look as if I

admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her.”

George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: “Well,

I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while

I'm there.”

“Oh, it wouldn't be _right_, Georgie. You oughtn't to come to the

house--to see her--after what you've done to the detestable Bob. No,

I'll go alone and I'll go now. You shall come as far as the top of the

road and there wait.”

“And then?” George asked.

This was to research the map for rest-houses and for fortunes that might

be won after the ogre castle had been passed.

Mary conned and peered until the strain squeezed a little moisture in

her eyes. “I don't know,” she said faintly.

Her bold George had to know. “It won't be for very long, dear old girl.

You must find another situation. Till then a lodging. I know a place

where a man I know used to have digs. A jolly old landlady. I'll raise

some money--I'll borrow it.”

Mary tried to brighten. “Yes, and I'll go to that agency again. I must,

because I shall have no character, you see. I'll tell her everything

quite truthfully, and I think she'll be nice.”

“It's no good waiting,” George said. His voice had the sound of a

funeral bell.

Mary arose slowly, white. She said: “Come along.”

With a tumbril rumble in their ears, the children dancing ahead, they

started for Palace Gardens.

IV.

The groans and curses of her adored Bob, his bulgy mouth and shutting

eyes, his tender nose and the encrimsoned water where he had layed his

wounds--these had so acted upon Mrs. Chater's nerves, plunged her into

such vortex of hysteria, that the manner of her reception of Mary was

true reflection of her fears, nothing dissembled.

Withdrawing her agitated face from the dining-room window as Mary and

the children approached, she bounded heavily to the door; flung it ajar;

collapsed to her knees upon the mat; clasped David and Angela to that

heaving bosom.

“Safe!” she wailed. “Safe! Thank God, my little lambs are safe!”

Distraught she swayed and hugged; kissed and moaned again.

David pressed away. “You smell like whisky, mummie,” he said.

It was a dash of icy water on a fainting fit; wonderfully it strung the

demented woman's senses. She pushed her little lambs from her; fixed

Mary with awful eye.

“So you've come back--_Miss?_”

Mary quivered.

“I wonder you dared. I wonder you had the boldness to face me after

your wicked behaviour. You've got nothing to say for yourself. I'm not

surprised--”

Mary began: “Mrs. Chater, I--”

“Oh, how can you? How can you dare defend yourself? Never, never in

all my born days have I met with such ingratitude; never have I been

deceived like this. I took you in. I felt sorry for you. I fed you,

clothed you, cared for you, treated you as one of my own family; and

this is my reward. There you stand, unable to say a word--”

“If you think, Mrs. Chater--”

“Don't _speak_! I won't hear you. Here have I day after day been

entrusting my beloved lambs to your care, and heaven alone knows what

risks they have run. My boy--my Bob, who would die rather than get a

living soul into trouble--sees you with this man you have been going

about with. He does his duty to me, his mother, and to my precious

lambs, his brother and sister, by reproving you, and you set this

man--this low hired bully--upon him to murder him. I'll have the law

on the coward. I'll punish him and I'll punish you, miss. No wonder you

were frightened when my Bob caught you. No wonder.”

“That is untrue, Mrs. Chater.”

“Don't _speak!_”

“I will speak. I shall speak. It is untrue.”

“You dare--”

“It is a lie. Yes, I don't mind what I say when you speak to me like

that. It is a wicked lie.”

“Girl--!”

“If your son told you he caught me with the man who thrashed him as he

deserved, he told you a lie. He never saw me with him. He followed me

into the Park this morning and tried to repeat what he did on Friday

night. He is a coward and a cad. The man to whom I am engaged caught him

at it and thrashed him as he deserved. There! Now you know the truth!”

Very white, my ridiculous Mary pressed her hand to her panting breast;

stopped, choked by the wild words that came tumbling up into her mouth.

Very red, swelling and panting in turkey-cock fury, Mrs. Chater,

towering, swallowed and gasped, breathless before this vixenish attack.

But she was the first to find speech; and incoherently she stormed as

at a scratching do those persons whose true selves lie beneath a tissue

film of polish.

She bubbled and panted: “Oh, you wicked girl!--oh, you wicked girl!--oh,

you wicked girl!--bold as brass-calling me a liar--_me_--and my

battered boy--engaged indeed!--I'll have the law and the police and

the judges--my solicitors--libel and assault, and slander and attempted

murder--boxes searched--my precious lambs to hear their mother spoken

to like this--get out of the hat-rack, David, and go upstairs this

instant--Angela, don't stand there--if I wasn't a lady I'd box your

ears, miss--only a week ago didn't I give you a black silk skirt of

mine?--and fed you like a princess, with a soft feather pillow too,

because you said the bolster made your head ache--servants to wait on

you hand and foot--and this is my reward--how I keep my hands off you

heaven only knows--but you shall suffer, miss--oh, yes you shall--I'll

give you in charge--I'll call a policeman.”

She turned towards the kitchen stairs; screamed “Susan! Kate! Jane!

Susan!”

Small need to bellow. Around the staircase corner three white-capped

heads--Kate holding back Susan, Susan restraining Jane, Jane holding

Kate--had been with delighted eyes and straining ears bathing in this

rare scene. With glad unanimity they broke their restraint one upon the

other; crushed pell-mell, hustling up the narrow stairs.

Mrs. Chater plumped back into a chair; with huge hands fanned her heated

face. “Fetch a policeman!”

They plunged for the door.

Bob's swollen countenance came over the banisters. He roared “Stop!”

Kate, Jane and Susan swung between the conflicting authorities.

“Call a policeman! Summon a constable! Fetch an officer!” In

gusty breaths from behind Mrs. Chater's hands, working like a red

paddle-wheel, came the commands.

“Stop!” roared Bob; and to enforce pushed forward the battered face till

it stuck out flat over the hall.

His alarmed mother screamed: “Bob, you'll fall over the banisters!”

The two kept up a battledore and shuttlecock of agitated conversation.

“Well, stop those women!” Bob cried; “for God's sake, stop them, mother!

What on earth are you thinking of?”

“I'll give her in charge!”

“You can't, you can't. Oh, my God, what a house this is!”

“She called me a liar!”

“You can't charge her for that.”

“She half murdered you!”

“She never touched me. Why don't you do as I told you? Why don't you

send her away?”

“Mercy, Bob! you'll fall and kill yourself!”

“Do as I say, then! Do as I say!”

“Well, put back your head! Put back your head.”

“Do as I say, then!”

Mrs. Chater stopped the paddle-wheel; rose to her feet. Bob's ghastly

face drew in to safer limits. She addressed Mary: “Again my boy has

interceded for you. Oh, how you must feel!” She addressed the maids: “Is

her box packed?”

They chorused “Yes”; pointed, and Mary saw her tin box, corded, set

against the wall.

“Call a cab,” Mrs. Chater commanded; and as the whistle blew she turned

again upon Mary.

“Now, miss, you may go. I pack you off as you deserve. But before you

go--”

The battered face shot out again above the banisters: “Pay her her wages

and send her away, mother. Do, for goodness' sake, send her away!”

“Wages! Certainly not! Mercy! Your head again! Go back, Bob!”

The maddened, pain-racked Bob bellowed: “Oh, stop it! stop it! I shall

go mad in a minute. She is entitled to her wages. Pay her.”

“I won't!”

“Well, I will. Susan! Susan, come up here and take this money. How much

is it?”

“She is not to be paid,” Mrs. Chater trumpeted.

“She is to be paid,” bawled her son. “Do you want an action brought

against you? Oh, my God, what a house this is!”

“My boy! You will fall! Very well, I'll pay her.” Mrs. Chater turned to

Mary. “Again and yet again my son intercedes for you, miss. Oh, how you

must feel!” She grabbed around her dress for her pocket; found a purse;

produced coins; banged them upon the table. “There!”

And now my Mary, who had stood upright breasting these successive

surges, spoke her little fury.

With a hand she swept the table, sending the coins flying this way and

that--with them a card salver, a vase, a pile of prayer-books. With her

little foot she banged the floor.

“I would not touch your money--your beastly money. You are contemptible

and vulgar, and I despise you. Mr. Chater, if you are a man you

will tell your mother why you were thrashed. Do you dare to say you

interfered because you found me with someone? Do you dare?”

With masterly strategy Bob drove home a flank attack. To have affirmed

he did dare might lead to appalling outburst from this little vixen. He

said very quietly, as though moved by pity: “Please do not make matters

worse by blustering, Miss Humfray.” He sighed: “I bear you no ill-will.”

My poor Mary allowed herself to be denuded of self-possession. His words

put her control to flight; left her exposed. Tears started in her eyes.

She made a little rush for the stairs. “Oh, you coward!” she cried. “You

coward! I will make you say the truth.”

Would she have clutched the skirts of his dressing-gown, forgetting the

proper modesty of a nice maiden, and dragged him down the stairs?

Would she indelicately have pursued him to his very bedroom, and there,

regardless of his scanty dress, have assaulted him?

Bob believed she would. It is so easy for the world's heroines to remain

calm against attack. My Mary was made of commoner stuff--the wretched,

baser clay of which not I, but my neighbours, not you, but your

acquaintances, are made.

Bob believed she would. He cried, “Send her away! Why the devil don't

you send her away?”; gathered his skirts; fled for the safety of a

locked door.

Mrs. Chater believed she would. Mrs. Chater plunged across the hall;

stood, an impassable and panting guardian, upon the lowermost step. Her

outstretched arm stayed Mary; a voice announced, “The cab'm.”

My Mary stood a moment; little fists clenched, flashing eyes; blinked

against the premonition of a rush of tears; then, as they came, turned

for the door.

“Go!” trumpeted Mrs. Chater. “Go!”

Mary was upon the mat when Angela and David made a little rush; caught

her skirts. The alarming scenes had hurtled in sequence too rapid and

too violent to be by the children understood. But a scrap here and a

scrap there they had caught, retained, correctly interpreted; and the

whole, though it supplied no reason, told clearly that their adored Mary

was going from them.

“You're coming back soon, aren't you?” David cried.

“You're not going away, are you, Miss Humf'ay?” implored Angela.

Mrs. Chater shrilled: “Children, come away. Come here at once.”

Mary dropped one knee upon the mat; caught her arms about the

children. She pressed a cool face against each side her wet and burning

countenance, gave kisses, and upon the added stress of this new emotion

choked: “Good-bye, little ducklings!”

“Oh, darling, _darling_ Miss Humf'ay, we _will_ be good if you'll stay!”

They felt this was the desperate threat that so often followed their

misdemeanours put into action.

She held them, hugging them. “It isn't that. You have been good.”

“Then you said you would stay for ever and ever if we were good.”

“Not ever and ever; I said--I said perhaps a fairy prince would come to

take me. Didn't I?”

This was the romance that forbade tears. But David had doubts. He

regarded the hansom at the door: “That's a cab, not a carriage. Fairy

princes don't come in cabs.”

“The prince is waiting. Kiss me, darling Davie. Angie, dear, dear Angle,

kiss me.”

She rose. Mrs. Chater had come from the stairs, now laid hands upon the

small people and dragged them back from the pretty figure about which

they clung.

They screamed, “Let me go!”

David roared; dropped prone upon the mat to kick and howl: “Take away

your _hand_, mother!”

Angela gasped: “Oh, comeback, comeback, darling Miss Humf'ay!”

With a glare of defiance into Mrs. Chater's stormy eyes, my Mary stooped

over David.

“David!” The calm ring of the tones he had learned to obey checked his

clamour, his plunging kicks. She stooped; kissed him. “Be good as gold,”

she commanded. “Promise.”

“Good as gold--yes--p'omise,” David choked.

Angela was given, and gave, the magic formula. Mary stepped back. Susan

slammed the door.

With quivering lips my Mary walked to the cab.

“Drive down the street,” she choked; lay back against the cushions; gave

herself to shaking sobs.

V.

Her George met her a very few yards down the street. He gave an order to

the cabman and sat beside her.

It was not long before her grief was hushed. She dried her eyes; nestled

against this wonderful fellow who, as love had now constituted her

world, was the solace against every trouble that could come to her, the

shield against any power that might arise to do her hurt.

They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the

immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was

irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling

of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices,

striking notes from love.

The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down

the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street

and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.

To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.

It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street

ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be

fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student

who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.

None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for

him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy

young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the

little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should

have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no

lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.

So it was settled--and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking

made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It

was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared

himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would

not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them--which meant

the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were

meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour

forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the

Agency failed them--They shuddered.

Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into

which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took

his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his

work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation

everything now depended.

Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her.

She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency.

He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with

great news.

So they parted.

BOOK IV.

In which this History begins to rattle.

CHAPTER I.

The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will Lose

Nothing By Not Accompanying Him.

In pursuit of our opinion that the novel should hark back to its origin

and be as a story that is told by mouth to group of listeners, here we

momentarily break the thread.

It is an occasion for advertisement.

As when the personal narrator, upon resumption of his history, will at a

point declare, “Now we come to the exciting part,” so now do I.

Heretofore we have somewhat dragged. We have been as host and visitor at

tea in the drawing-room. Guests have arrived; to you I have introduced

them, and after the shortest spell they have taken their leave.

My Mary and my George--favoured guests--have sat with us through our

meal; but how fleeting our converse with those others--with Mr. William

Wyvern, with Margaret, with Mrs. Major and with Mr. Marrapit! I grant

you cause to grumble at their introduction, so purposeless has been

their part. I grant you they have been as the guests at whose arrival,

disturbing the intimate chatter, impatient glances are exchanged; at

whose departure there is shuffle of relief.

Well, I promise you we shall now link our personages and set our history

bounding to its conclusion. We have collected them; now to switch on the

connection and set them acting one against the other until the sparks do

fly; watching those sparks shall be your entertainment.

The switch which thus sets active the play of forces I shall call

circumstance. If it has been long delayed, I have the precedent of

all the story of human life as my excuse. For we are the children

of circumstance. We move each in our little circle by a stout hedge

encompassed. Circumstance suddenly will break the wall: some fellow man

or woman is flung against us, and immediately the quiet ambulation of

our little circle is for some conflict sharp exchanged. To-day we are at

peace with the world, to-morrow warring with all mankind.

I say with all mankind, because so narrow and so selfish is our outlook

upon life that one single man or woman--a dullard neighbour or a

silly girl--who may interfere with us, throws into turmoil our whole

existence. Walls of impenetrable blackness shut out all life save only

this intruder and ourself; that other person becomes our world--engaging

our complete faculties.

Deeper misfortune cannot be conceived. It is through allowing such

occurrences to crush us that brows are wrinkled before their time;

nerves broken-edged while yet they should be firmly strung; death

reached ere yet the proper span of life is lived.

For these unduly wrinkled brows, too early broken nerves, too soon

encountered graves, civilised man has agreed upon an excuse. He names it

the strain of life in modern conditions. There is no body in this plea.

It is not the conditions that matter; it is our manner of receiving

those conditions. Bend to them and they will crush; face them and they

become of no avail; allow them to be the Whole of life, and immediately

they are given so great a weight that to withstand them is impossible;

regard them in their proper proportion to the scheme of things, and they

become of airy nothingness.

For if we regulate each to its right importance all that surrounds us,

not forgetting that since life is transient time is the only ultimate

standard of value, how unutterably insignificant must small human

troubles appear in their relation to the whole scheme of things, to the

enduring hills, the immense seas, vast space.

Gain strength from strength. Compare vexations encompassed by the

artifice of man with the tremendous life that is mothered by nature.

Gain strength from strength. Set troubles against the enduring hills,

misfortunes against the immense seas, perplexities against vast space,

torments against the stout trees. Learn to take tribute of strength from

every object that is built of strength--the strength of solidity that

a stout beam may give, the strength of beauty that from a picture or a

statuary irradiates.

Gain strength from strength. It is a first principle of warfare to band

undisciplined troops with tried regiments, to shoulder recruits with

veterans. The horse-breaker will set the timid colt in harness with the

steady mare. Thus is stiffening and a sense of security imparted to

the weaker spirit; timidity oozes and is burned by the steady flame

of courage that from the stronger emanates. In the heat of that flame

latent strength warms and kindles in the weaker.

Gain strength from strength. Seek intercourse with the minds that are

above you; if not to be encountered, they are to be purchased in books.

Avoid communion with the small minds below you and of your level.

No man, nor book, nor thing can be touched without virtue passing thence

into you. See to it that who or what you touch gives you strength, not

weakness; uplifts, not debases. The aspiring athlete does not seek to

match his strength against inferiors. These give him--easy victory.

Contact with them is for him effortless; they tend to draw him to their

plane. Rather, being wise, he shuns them to pit his prowess against such

as can give him best, from whom he may learn, out of whom he will take

virtue, by whom he will be raised to all that is best in him. Gain

strength from strength. The attributes strength and weakness are

as infectious as the plague. Make your bed so that you may lie with

strength and catch his affection.

I do not pretend that these are thoughts which influenced the persons of

my history. My unthinking George and my simple Mary would care nothing

for such things. Sight of the enduring hills would evoke in my George

the uttered belief that they would be an infernal sweat to climb; sound

of the immense seas if in anger would move my Mary to prayer for all

those in peril on the wave, if in lapping tranquillity to sentimental

thoughts of her George. But they had laughter and they had love.

Adversity can make little fight against those lusty weapons.

And now we have an exquisite balcony scene and rare midnight alarms for

your delectation.

CHAPTER II.

An Exquisite Balcony Scene; And Something About Sausages.

I.

On that day when George left his Mary at the little lodgings in Meath

Street, Battersea, Bill Wyvern returned to Paitley Hill after absence

from home for a week upon a visit.

His Margaret was his first thought upon his arrival. Letters between

the pair were, by the sharpness of Mr. Marrapit's eye, compelled to be

exchanged not through the post but by medium of a lovers' postal box

situate in the hole of a tree in that shrubbery of Herons' Holt where

they were wont by stealth to meet. Thus when Bill, upon this day of his

return, scaled the tremendous wall and groped among the bushes, he

saw the trysting bower innocent of his love--then searched and found a

letter.

A sad little note for lover's heart. Mr. Marrapit, it said, abed of a

chill, prevented Margaret meeting her Bill that afternoon. Her father

must be constantly ministered; impossible to say when she would be

released. She heard him calling, she must fly to him. With fondest love.

No time for more.

II.

The lines chilled Bill's heart. His was a fidgety and nervous love

that took fright at shadow of doubt. The week that had divided him

from Margaret was the longest period they had not embraced since their

discovery one of another. Was it not possible, he tortured himself,

that loss of his presence had blurred his image in her heart? Countless

heroes of his own stories who thus had suffered rose to assure him that

possible indeed it was. The more he brooded upon it the more probable

did it become.

Bedtime found him desolated. In apprehension he paced his room. The

thought of sleep with this devil of doubt to thump his pillow was

impossible. Leaning from his window he gazed upon the stars and groaned;

dropped eyes to the lawn, silvered in moonlight, and started beneath the

prick of a sudden thought. It was a night conceived for lovers' tryst.

He would seek his Margaret's open window, whistle her from her bed, and

bring this damned doubt of her to reality or knock the ghostly villain

dead.

It was an inspiriting thought, and Bill started to whistle upon it until

he remembered the demeanour in which he would have sent forth one of

his own heroes upon such a mission. “Dark eyes gleaming strangely from a

pale, set face,” he would have written. Bill's eyes were of a clearest,

childlike blue which interfered a little with the proper conception of

the role he was to play; but blanketing his spirits in melancholy he

stepped from his room and passed down the stairs.

That favoured bull-terrier Abiram, sleeping in the hall, drummed a

tattoo of welcome upon the floor.

“Chuck it,” said Bill morosely.

The “faithful hound” that gives solace to the wounded heart is a pretty

enough thing in stories; Abiram had had no training for the part. This

dog associated his master not with melancholy that needed caressing but

with wild “rags” that gave and demanded tremendous spirits.

Intelligence, however, showed the wise creature that the tone of that

command meant he was to be excluded from whatever wild rag might be

now afoot. It was not to be borne. Therefore, to lull suspicion,

Abiram ceased his drumming; rose when Bill had passed; behind him crept

stealthily; and upon the door being opened bounded around his master's

legs and into the moonlight with a joyous yelp.

Fearful of arousing Korah and Dathan in their kennels to tremendous din

if he bellowed orders, Bill hissed commands advising Abiram to return

indoors under threat of awful penalties.

Abiram frisked and skipped upon the lawn like a young lamb.

Bill changed commands for missiles.

Abiram, entering into the thing with rare spirit, caught, worried, and

killed each clod of earth hurled at him, then bounded expectant forward

for the next sacrifice that would be thrown for his delight in this

entrancing game.

“Very well,” spoke Bill between his teeth. “Very well. You jolly well

come, my boy. Wait till you get near enough for me to catch you, that's

all.”

Beneath this understanding they moved forward across the lawn and down

the road; Abiram sufficiently in the rear to harass rats that might be

going about their business, without himself being in the zone of his

master's strength.

Heaving a sigh burthened with fond memory as he passed the wall

of Herons' Holt where it gave upon the secret meeting-place in the

shrubbery, Bill skirted the grounds; for the second time in his life

passed through the gate and up the drive.

III.

Well he knew his adored's window. From the shrubbery she had pointed it

him. Now with a bang of the heart he observed that the bottom sash stood

open so that night breezes, mingling freely with the perfumes of her

apartment, unhindered could bear in to her his tremulous love-signals.

He set a low whistle upon the air. It was not louder, he felt, than the

agitated banging of his heart that succeeded it.

Again he whistled, and once again. There was a rustling from within.

“Margaret!” he softly called. “Margaret!”

She appeared. The blessed damosel leaned out. About her yearning face

the long dark hair abundantly fell; her pretty bed-gown, unbuttoned low,

gave him glimpse of snowy bosom, beautifully rounded.

“Oh, Bill!” she cried, stretching her arms.

Then, glancing downwards at her person, she stepped back swiftly.

Reappearing, the soft round of her twin breasts was not to view.

She had buttoned up her night-dress.

“Oh, Bill!”

“Oh, Margaret!”

“_Wow!_” spoke Abiram in nerve-shattering welcome. “_Wow!_”

The blessed damosel fled. Bill plunged a kick. Abiram took the skirt of

it; waddled away across the lawn, his waving stern expressing pleasure

at having at once shown his politeness by bidding a lady good evening,

and at being, like true gentleman, well able to take a hint.

Bill put upon the breeze:

“It's all right. He's gone.”

No answer. Shuddering with terror lest that hideous _wow!_ had disturbed

the house the blessed damosel lay trembling abed, the coverings pressed

about her straining ears.

“He's gone,” Bill strained again, his larynx torn with the rasp of

whispers that must penetrate like shouts and yet speed soft-shod. “He's

gone!”

Margaret put a white leg to the ground--listened; drew forth its

companion--listened; glimpsed her white legs; shuddered at such

immodesty with a man so close; veiled them to their toes with her

bed-gown; listened; stepped again to the window.

“Oh, Bill!”

“Oh, Margaret!”

“Has anyone heard, do you think?”

“My darling, not a soul. It sounded loud to us. Oh, Margaret--”

“Hush! Yes?”

“Do you know why I am come?”

“Hush!--no.”

“I thought--from your note--that you didn't care to see me again. I

thought-being away like that--that you found you didn't-love me after

all. Oh, I was tortured, Margaret. Oh--!”

“Hush! Listen!”

“Damn!” said Bill.

The blessed damosel poked her beautiful head again into the night. “It's

all right. I thought I heard a sound. We must be careful.”

“Oh, Margaret, I was tortured--racked. I had to come to you. Tell me I

was wrong in thinking--”

“Oh, Bill, Bill, I--”

This girl was well-nigh in a swoon of delicious excitement. Emotion took

her and must be gulped ere she found voice. She stretched her arms down

towards him.

“Oh, Bill, I thought so, too.”

A steely pang struck at his heart. “You thought you didn't love me after

all?”

“No, no, no.”

Emotion dragged her from the window to her waist. Her long hair cascaded

down to him so that the delicious tips, kissing his face, might by his

lips be kissed.

“No, no,” she breathed; “I thought the same of you. I thought you might

have found--”

“Yes?”

“Hush!”

“Damn!” said Bill.

She reappeared; again her tresses trickled to him. “It's all right. I

thought you might have found you didn't love me after all. Dearest, not

hearing from you--”

In sympathy of spirit Bill groaned: “What could I do?”

She clasped her hands in a delicious ecstasy. “I know, I know. But you

know how foolish I am. I felt--oh, Bill, forgive me!--I felt that, if

you had really cared, a way of sending me a message might have been

found. Of course, it was impossible. And there was more than that. When

we parted last week, I thought you seemed not to care very much--”

“Oh, Margaret!”

“I know, I know. I know now how foolish I was, but that is what I

thought--and, Bill, it tortured me. I've not been able to sleep at

nights. That is how I was awake just now.”

“Margaret, I believe you're crying.”

“I'm so--so happy now.”

“Oh, so am I! Aren't you glad I came, Margaret?”

She murmured, “Oh, Bill!”; gave him a smile that pictured her answer.

Mutually they gazed for a space, drinking delight.

Her thirst quenched, Margaret said:

“Bill, those nights, those terrible nights when I have been doubtful of

you, filled me with thoughts that shaped into a poem last night.”

“A poem to me?”

“About us. Shall I read it?--now that the doubt is all over.”

He begged her read.

She was a space from his sight; then, bending down to him, in her hand

paper of palest heliotrope, whispered to him by light of the beautiful

moon:

“Our meeting! Do you remember, dear,

How Nature knew we met?

Twilight soft with a gentle breeze

Bearing scent of the slumbering seas;

Music sweet--'twas a nightingale,

Trilling and sobbing from laugh to wail--

Golden sky that was flecked with red

(Ribands of rose on a golden bed).

Ah, love! when first we met!”

She paused. “It was raining as a matter of fact, dearest,” she

whispered, “and just after breakfast. But you know what I mean. That is

the imagery of it--as it seemed to me.”

Bill said: “And to me; a beautiful imagery.”

She smiled in the modest pride of authorship: “Oh, it's nothing, really.

You know how these things come. To you in prose, to me in song. One has

to set them down.”

“One is merely the instrument,” Bill said.

“Yes, the instrument.” She hugged the phrase. “The _instrument_. How

cleverly you put things!”

Bill disavowed the gift. Margaret breathed, “Oh, you do; I have so often

noticed it.” Bill again denied.

IV.

Conventionality demanded this little exchange of them, and to-day the

empress sway of conventionality is rarely rebelled. Even, as here, when

treading the path of love, the journey must constantly be stopped while

handfuls of the sweet-smelling stuff are tossed about our persons.

Neglect the duty and you must walk alone. For to neglect conventionality

is like going abroad without clothes; the naked man appears. Now,

nothing can be more utterly horrid to our senses than a stark woman or

stark man walking down the street. We should certainly pull aside the

blind to have a peep, and the more we could see of the nakedness the

further would we crane our heads (provided no one was by to watch); but

to go out and chat, to be seen in company with the naked creature,

is another matter. We would sooner chop off our legs. So with the

conventions. The fewer of them you wear, the more naked (that is to say,

real) do you become. Eyes will poke at you round the blinds, but you

must walk quickly past the gate, please. If you will not go through

the machine and come out a nice smooth sausage, well, you must remain

original flesh and gristle; but you will smell horrid in nice noses.

Is it not warming, as you read this, to know perfectly well that you are

not one of the sausages?

V.

When they had sufficiently daubed themselves, Margaret asked:

“Shall I read the next verse? That was the imagery of our meeting; this

of our parting.”

Bill gulped. This man was fondling the scented tresses that trickled

about his face; speech was a little difficult.

She put her page beneath the moon; gave her voice to its rapture:

“Our parting! Do you remember, dear,

How Nature our folly knew?

Mournful swish of the sobbing rain;

Distant surge of the Deep in pain;

Whispering wail of the wandering wind,

Seeking, sobbing, a rest to find;

Fitful gleam from a troubled sky

(Nature weeping to see love die).

Ah, love, when last we met!

“It was a perfect day, really,” she said. “Very hot, and just before

lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is the _imagery_ of it

as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is the

_instrument_.”

Bill's voice was hoarse. “Margaret, come down to me,” he said.

“I dare not.”

“You must. I must touch you--kiss you. You must come down!”

“Bill, I dare not; I should be heard.”

He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them

rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black

square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver

night that lit its picture--her dusky face between her streaming hair,

her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the

soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of

her weight drew close her gown.

It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He

gasped:

“Then I am coming up!”

Was she aghast at him? he asked himself. He stood half-checked while her

steady eyes left his face, roamed from him--contrasting, as ashamed he

felt, the purity of the still night with the clamour of his turbulent

passions--and settled on an adjacent flowerbed.

At last she spoke, very calmly.

“There is a potting-box just there,” she said. “If you turned it on end

you could reach the window, and then--”

The box gave him two feet of reach. He jumped for the ledge--caught it;

pulled; fetched the curve of an arm over the sill.

Then between earth and paradise he hung limp; for a sudden horror was in

his Margaret's eyes.

She put upon his brow a hand that pressed him back; gave words to her

pictured alarm: “A step upon the gravel!”

'Twixt earth and window, with dangling legs and clutching arms, in

muscle-racking pain he hung.

Truly a step, and then another step.

And then a very tornado of sound beat furiously upon the trembling

night; with it a flash; from it the pattering of a hundred bullets.

Someone had discharged a gun.

As Satan was hurled, so, plumb out of the gates of Paradise, Bill fell.

And now the still air was lashed into a fury of sound-waves, tearing

this way and that in twenty keys; now the sleeping garden was torn by

rushing figures, helter-skelter for life and honour.

Sounds!--the melancholy bellow of that gardener, Mr. Fletcher, as the

recoil of the bell-mouthed blunderbuss he had fired hurled him prone

upon the gravel; the dreadful imprecations of Bill striving to clear

his leg of the potting-box through whose side it had plunged; piercing

screams of Mrs. Major from a ground-floor room; shrills of alarm from

Mr. Marrapit; _gurr-r-ing_ yelps from Abiram in ecstasy of man-hunt.

Rushing figures!--Bill, freed from his box, at top speed towards the

shrubbery; Mr. Fletcher, up from his fall, with tremendous springs

bounding across the lawn; Abiram in hurtling pursuit.

More sounds!--panic screams from Mr. Fletcher, heavily labouring; the

protest of a window roughly raised; from George's head, thrust into the

night: “Yi! Yi! Yi! Hup, then! Good dog! Sock him! Sock him! Yi! Yi!

Yi!”

We must seek the fuse that touched off this hideous turbulence.

CHAPTER III.

Alarums And Excursions By Night.

I.

We are going into a lady's bedroom, but I promise you the thing shall be

nicely done: there shall not be a blush.

It was midnight when Bill Wyvern projected the scheme whose execution

we have followed through sweetness to disaster. Two hours earlier the

Marrapit household had sought its beds.

It was Mr. Marrapit's wise rule that each member of his establishment

should pass before him as he or she sought their chambers. Night is the

hour when the thoughts take on unbridled licence; and he would send

his household to sleep each with some last admonition to curb fantastic

wanderings of the mind.

Upon this night Mr. Marrapit was himself abed of the chill that Margaret

had mentioned in her note to Bill. But the review was not therefore

foregone. Upon his back, night-capped head on pillow propped, he lay as

the minute-hand of his clock ticked towards ten.

His brow ruffled against a sound without his door. He called:

“Mrs. Armitage!”

“Sir?” spoke Mrs. Armitage through the oak.

“Breathe less stertorously.”

Mrs. Armitage, his cook, waiting outside upon the mat, gulped wrath;

respirated through open mouth.

The clock at Mr. Marrapit's elbow gave the first chime of ten. Instantly

Mrs. Armitage tapped.

“Enter,” said Mr. Marrapit.

She waddled her stout figure to him. Behind her Clara and Ada, those

trim maids, took place.

Mr. Marrapit addressed her. “To-morrow, Mrs. Armitage, arouse your girls

at six. Speed them at their toilet; set them to clean your flues.”

He glanced at a tablet taken from beneath his pillow. “At 4.6 this

afternoon I smelt soot.”

“The flues were cleaned this morning, sir.”

“Untrue. Your girls were late. Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears

tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes

after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect

paraffin.”

Mrs. Armitage wriggled to displace the blame. “I rose them at six, sir.

They sleep that heavy and they take that long to dressing, it's a wonder

to me they ever do get down.”

Mr. Marrapit addressed the sluggards. “Shun the enervating couch. Spring

to the call. Cleanliness satisfied, adorn not the figure; pursue the

duties. Ponder this. Seek help to effect it. Contrive a special prayer.

To your beds.”

They left him; upon the mat encountered Frederick, and him, in abandon

of relief, dug vitally with vulgar thumbs.

II.

Squirming, Frederick, the gardener's boy, advanced to the bedside.

Mr. Marrapit sternly regarded him: “Recite your misdeeds.”

“I've done me jobs, sir.”

“Prostrated, I cannot check your testimony. One awful eye above alone

can tell. Upon your knees this night search stringently your heart.

Bend.”

Frederick inclined his neck until his forehead was upon the coverlet.

Mr. Marrapit scanned the neck.

“Behind the ears are stale traces. Cleanse abundantly. To your bed.”

Without the door Frederick encountered Mr. Fletcher. “You let me catch

you reading abed to-night,” Mr. Fletcher warned him.

“Cleanse yer blarsted ear-'oles,” breathed Frederick, pushing past.

III.

Mr. Fletcher moved in to the presence.

“Is all securely barred, bolted and shuttered?” Mr. Marrapit asked.

“It's all right.”

“I am apprehensive. This is the first night I have not accompanied you

upon your round. Colossal responsibility lies upon you. Should thieves

break through and steal, upon your head devolves the crime.”

Wearily Mr. Fletcher repeated: “It's all right.”

Mr. Marrapit frowned: “You do not inspire confidence. Sleep films your

eye. I shudder for you. Women and children are in your care this night.

The maids, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Major, my daughter, the young life of

Frederick, are in your hands. What if rapine and murder, concealed in

the garden, are loosed beneath my roof this night?”

Mr. Fletcher passed a fist across his brow; spoke wearily: “It's all

right, Mr. Marrapit. I can't say more; I can't do more. I tell you again

it's all right.”

“Substantiate. Adduce evidence.”

Mr. Fletcher raised an appealing hand: “How can I prove it? My word's a

good word, ain't it? I tell you the doors are locked. I can't bring 'em

up to show you, can I? I'm a gardener, I am.”

“By zeal give proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night

you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber.

Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To

your couch.”

Battling speech, Mr. Fletcher moved to the door. At the threshold

protest overcame him. He gave it vent: “I should like to ast if I was

engaged to work by night as well as day? Can't I even have me rest?

'Ow many nights am I to patrol the house? It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a

gardener, I am; not a watchdog.”

“Away, insolence.”

Insolence, upon the stairs, morosely descending, drew aside to give room

to Margaret and George.

Margaret parted her lips at him in her appealing smile. “Oh, Mr.

Fletcher,” in her pretty way she said, “you locked me out. Indeed you

did.” She smiled again; tripped towards Mr. Marrapit's door.

Mr. Fletcher stayed George, following. “Mr. George, did you shut up

secure behind Miss Margaret?”

George reassured him; questioned his earnestness.

Mr. Fletcher pointed through a window that gave upon the garden. “I've

the 'orrors on me to-night,” he said. “According to Master there's

rapine lurking in them bushes. Mr. George, what'll I do if there's

rapine beneath this roof to-night?”

“Catch it firmly by the back of the neck and hold its head in a bucket

of water,” George told him.

Mr. Fletcher passed, pondering the suggestion. “Only something to do

with rats after all,” he cogitated with wan smile of relief.

IV.

Margaret, at her father's bedside, luxuriously mouthed the fine phrases

of the Book of Job which nightly she read him. Her chapter finished, she

inquired: “Shall I read on?”

“Does Job continue?”

“No, father. The next begins, 'Then answered Bildad, the Shuite.'”

George coughed upon the threshold.

“Terminate,” said Mr. Marrapit. “Bildad is without.”

“Oh, father, George is not!”

“He torments me. He is Bildad. Terminate. To your bed.”

She pressed a warm kiss upon Job's brow; took on her soft cheek the

salute of his thin lips. “You have everything, dear father?”

“Prone on my couch I lack much. I am content. You are a good girl,

Margaret.”

“Oh, father!” She tripped from the room in a warmth of satisfaction.

The rough head of Bildad the Shuite came round the door; spoke “Good

night.”

“Approach,” said Job. Bildad's legs came over the mat. “You seek your

room? But not your couch?”

“I'm going to bed, if that's what you mean,” George told him.

Mr. Marrapit groaned. “Spurn it. Shun sloth. In the midnight oil set the

wick of knowledge. Burn it, trim it, tend it.”

George withdrew to his room; set the midnight pipe in his mouth; leaning

from his window sped his thoughts to Battersea.

V.

One member of the house remained to be sent to sleep. Mrs. Major put a

soft knuckle to the door; came at the call; whispered “I thought I might

disturb you.”

“You never disturb me, Mrs. Major.”

A little squeak sprung from the nutter in the masterly woman's heart.

“You sigh, Mrs. Major?”

“Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I can't bear to see you lying there. The”--she paused

against an effort, then took the aspirate in a masterly rush--“the house

is not the same without you.”

“Your sympathy is very consoling to me, Mrs. Major.”

“Oh, Mr. Marrapit!” She plunged a shaft that should try him: “I wish I

had the right to give you more.”

“Your position in this house gives you free access to me, Mrs. Major.

Regard your place as one of my own circle. Do not let deference stifle

intercourse.”

The masterly woman hove a superb sigh. “If you knew how I feel your

kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is

my lot and goodly is my--” Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word

“hermitage” or “heritage”? With masterly decision she filled the blank

with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of

brightness struggling with tears: “The sweetling cats are safely

sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How

well they know you suffer!”

“They do?” A tremble of pleasure was in Mr. Marrapit's voice.

“They does--do.” Mrs. Major recited their day, gave their menu. “I must

not tarry,” she concluded; “you need rest. Good night, Mr. Marrapit.

Good night.”

“Good night, Mrs. Major.”

Mr. Marrapit put out his candle.

VI.

And now in every room, save one, Sleep drew her velvet fingers down

recumbent forms; pressed eyelids with her languorous kiss; upon her warm

breast pillowed willing heads; about her bedfellows drew her Circe arms.

Mrs. Major's room was that single exception, and it is that masterly

woman's apartment we now shall penetrate.

Hurrying to semi-toilet; again assuring herself that the key was turned;

peering a last time for lurking ravishers beneath the bed, Mrs. Major

then fumbled with keys before her box--threw up the lid.

Down through a pile of garments plunged her arm. Her searching fingers

closed about her quest and a very beautiful smile softened her face--a

smile of quiet confidence and of trust.

In greater degree than men, women have this power of taking strength

from the mere contact of an inanimate object. A girl will smile all

through her sleep because, hand beneath pillow, her fingers are about

a photograph or letter; no need, as with Mrs. Major there was no need,

even to see the thing that thus inspires. The pretty hand will delve to

recesses of a drawer, and the thrill that brings the smile will run

up from, it may be, a Bible, a diary, or a packet of letters touched.

Dependent since Eden, woman is more emotionally responsive to aught that

gives aid than is man; for man is accustomed to battle for his prizes,

not to receive them.

Mrs. Major drew up, that smile still upon her face, and the moon through

uncurtained window gave light upon the little joy she fetched from the

depths of her trunk.

“Old Tom Gin.”

The neck of Old Tom's bottle clinked against a glass; Old Tom gurgled

generously; passed away through the steady smile he had inspired.

* * * * *

Mrs. Major set a carafe of water upon a little table; partnered it with

Old Tom; reclined beside the pair on a comfortable seat; closed her

eyes.

At intervals, as the hand crept between eleven and twelve of the clock,

she would open them; when she did so diluted Old Tom in the glass fell

lower, full-bodied Old Tom in the bottle marched steadily behind.

The further Old Tom crept downwards from the neck of his captivity, with

the greater circumspection did Mrs. Major open her eyes. Considerable

practice had told this masterly woman that Old Tom must be commanded

with a steady will: else he took liberties. Eyes suddenly opened annoyed

Old Tom, and he would set the furniture ambulating round the room in a

manner at once indecorous in stable objects and calculated to bewilder

the observer. Therefore, upon setting down her glass, this purposeful

woman would squarely fix the bureau that stood opposite her, would for

a moment keep her gaze upon it with a sternness that forbade movement,

then gently would close her eyes. When Old Tom must be again interviewed

she would lift the merest corner of an eyelid; catch through it the

merest fraction of the bureau; determine from the behaviour of this

portion the stability of the whole.

Thus if the corner she sighted showed indecorous propensities--as,

swelling and receding, fluttering in some ghostly breeze, or altogether

disappearing from view,--she would drop her lid and wait till she might

catch it more seemly. This effected, she would work from that fixed

point, inch by inch, until the whole bureau was revealed--swaying a

little, perhaps, but presently quiescent.

When, and not until, it was firmly anchored she would slowly start

her eye in review around the other objects of her apartment. If

the wash-stand had tendency to polka with the bed, or the wardrobe

unnaturally to stretch up its head through the ceiling, Mrs. Major would

march her gaze steadily back to the bureau, there to take fresh strength

and start again. When all was orderly--then Old Tom.

Masterly in all things, this woman was most masterly in her cups.

VII.

Into Mr. Marrapit's dreams there came a whistle.

He pushed at Sleep; she crooned to him and he snuggled against her.

Upon his brain there rapped a harsh _Wow_!

He wriggled from his bedfellow; she put an arm about him, drew him to

her.

Now there succeeded a steady wash of sound--rising, falling, murmuring

persistent against his senses.

He turned his back upon Sleep. She crooned; he wriggled from her.

Seductively she followed; he kicked a leg and jarred her, threw an arm

and hurt her. Disgusted, she slipped from bed and left him, leaving a

chilly space where she had warmly lain.

Mr. Marrapit shivered; felt for Sleep; found her gone; with a start sat

upright.

The breakwater gone, that wash of sound which had lapped around his

senses rushed in upon them. Lingering traces of the touch of Sleep still

offered resistance--a droning hum. The wash surged over, poured about

him--_VOICES_!

Mr. Marrapit violently cleared his throat. The voices continued.

Violently again. They still continued. Tremendously a third time. They

yet continued. From this he argued that they could not be very close to

his door. Intently he listened, then located them--they came from the

garden. He felt for the bell-push that carried to Mr. Fletcher's room;

put his thumb upon it; steadily pressed.

Sleep toyed no tricks in Mr. Fletcher's bed. Like some wanton mistress

discovered in the very act of betrayal, she at the first tearing clamour

of the electric bell bounded from the sheets, scuttled from the room.

“Rapine!” cried Mr. Fletcher; plunged his head beneath the bedclothes

and wrestled in prayer.

The strident gong faltered not nor failed. Steady and penetrating it

dinned its hideous call. Mr. Fletcher waited for screams. None came. He

pushed the sheet between his chattering teeth, listened for cudgelling

and heavy falls. None came. That bell had single possession of the

night. The possibility that only patrolling was required of him nerved

him to draw from his concealment. He lit a candle; into trousers pushed

his quivering legs; upon tottering limbs passed up the stairs to Mr.

Marrapit's room.

“Judas!” Mr. Marrapit greeted him.

Mr. Fletcher sighed relief: “I thought it was rapine.”

“You have betrayed your trust. You are Iscariot.”

“I come when you rung.”

“Silence. I have heard voices.”

“God help us,” Mr. Fletcher piously groaned; the candle in his shaking

hand showered wax.

“Blasphemer! He will not help the craven. Gird yourself.”

“I'll call Mr. George.”

“Refrain. I will attend to that. Gird yourself. Take the musket from the

hall. It is loaded. Patrol!”

“I don't want the musket.”

“Be not overbold. Outside you may be at their mercy.”

“_Outside!_”

“Assuredly.”

“Me patrol outside!”

“That is your task. Forward!”

By now Mr. Marrapit had risen; swathed himself in a dressing-gown.

Sternly he addressed Mr. Fletcher: “As you this night quit yourself so

will I consider the question of your dismissal. If blood is spilt this

night it will be upon your head.”

Mr. Fletcher trembled. “That's just it. It's 'ard--damn 'ard--”

“Forward, Iscariot.” Mr. Marrapit drove Judas before him; in the hall

took down the gun and pressed it into the shaking hands. He drew the

bolts, impelled Iscariot outward, and essayed to close the door.

Mr. Fletcher clutched the handle. Mr. Marrapit pushed; hissed through

the crack: “Away! Search every nook. Penetrate each fastness. Use

stealth. Track, trace, follow!”

Discarding entreaty, Mr. Fletcher put hoarse protest through the slit of

aperture that remained: “I should like to ast if I was engaged for this,

Mr. Marrapit,” he panted. “I'm a gardener, I am--”

“I recognise that. To your department. With your life forefend it.”

Mr. Marrapit fetched the door against the lintel; in the brief moment he

could hold it close slid the lock.

VIII.

No tremor of fear or of excitement ruffled this remarkable man. Calm in

the breezes of life he was calm also in its tempests. This is a natural

corollary. As a man faces the smaller matters of his life so he will

face its crises. Each smallest act accomplished imprints its stamp upon

the pliable mass we call character; our manner of handling each tiniest

common-place of our routine helps mould its form; each fleeting thought

helps shape the mould.

The process is involuntary and we are not aware of its working.

Character is not made by tremendous thumps, but by the constant

patterings of minutest touches. The athlete does not build his strength

by enormous exertions, but by consistent and gentle training. Huge

strains at spasmodic intervals, separated by periods in which he lies

fallow in sloth, add nothing to his capacity for endurance; it is by the

tally of each minute of his preparation that you may read how he

will acquit himself against the test. Thus also with the shaping of

character, and thus was Mr. Marrapit, collected in minor affairs, mighty

in this crisis.

IX.

Turning from the door he marched steadily across the hall towards the

stairs to arouse George.

At the lowermost step a movement on the landing above made him pause. He

was to be spared the trouble. Placing the candle upon a table he looked

up. He spoke. “George!”

“Wash it?” said a voice. “Wash it?”

“Wash nothing,” Mr. Marrapit commanded. “Who is this?”

The answer, starting low, ascended a shrill scale: “Wash it? Wash it?

Wash it?”

“Silence!” Mr. Marrapit answered. “Descend!”

He craned upwards. The curl-papered head of Mrs. Major poked at him over

the banisters.

“Darling,” breathed Mrs. Major. “Darling--_um!_”

“Mrs. Major! What is this?”

“Thash what _I_ want to know,” said Mrs. Major coquettishly. “Wash it?

Wash _ish_ it?”

“You are distraught, Mrs. Major. Have no fear. To your room.”

The curl-papered head waggled. Mrs. Major beamed. “Darling.

Darling--um!”

“Exercise control,” Mr. Marrapit told her. “Banish apprehension. There

are thieves; but we are alert.”

The head withdrew. Mrs. Major gave a tiny scream: “Thieves!” She took a

brisk little run down the short flight which gave from where she stood;

flattened against the wall that checked her impulse; pressed carefully

away from it; stood at the head of the stairs facing Mr. Marrapit.

He gazed up. “I fear you have been walking in your sleep, Mrs. Major.”

Mrs. Major did not reply. She pointed a slippered toe at the stair below

her; swayed on one leg; dropped to the toe; steadied; beamed at Mr.

Marrapit; and in a high treble coquettishly announced, “_One_!”

Mr. Marrapit frowned: “Retire, Mrs. Major.”

Mrs. Major plumped another step, beamed again: “_Two_!”

“You dream. Retire.”

Mrs. Major daintily lifted her skirt; poised again. The projected

slipper swayed a dangerous circle. Mrs. Major alarmingly rocked. That

infamous Old Tom presented three sets of banisters for her support; she

clutched at one; it failed her; “Three four five six seven eight nine

ten--_darling_!” she cried; at breakneck speed plunged downwards, and

with the “_Darling_!” flung her arms about Mr. Marrapit's neck.

Back before the shock, staggering beneath the weight, Mr. Marrapit went

with digging heels. They could not match the pace of that swift blow

upon his chest. Its backward speed outstripped them. With shattering

thud he plumped heavily to his full length upon the floor; Mrs. Major

pressed him to earth.

But that shock was a whack on the head for Old Tom that temporarily

quieted him. “What has happened?” Mrs. Major asked, clinging tightly.

Mr. Marrapit gasped: “Release my neck. Remove your arms.”

“Where are we?”

“You are upon my chest. I am prone beneath you. Release!”

“It's all dark,” Mrs. Major cried; gripped firmer.

“It is not dark. I implore movement. Our juxtaposition unnaturally

compromises us. It is abhorrent.”

Mrs. Major opened the eyes she had tightly closed during that staggering

journey and that shattering fall. She loosed her clutch; got to her

knees; thence tottered to a chair. That infamous Old Tom raised his head

again; tickled her brain with misty fingers.

Mr. Marrapit painfully rose. He put a sympathetic hand upon the seat of

his injury; with the other took up the candle. He regarded Mrs. Major;

suspiciously sniffed the air, pregnant with strange fumes; again

regarded his late burden.

Upon her face that infamous Old Tom set a beaming smile,

“Follow me, Mrs. Major,” Mr. Marrapit commanded; turned for the

dining-room; from its interior faced about upon her.

With rare dignity the masterly woman slowly arose; martially she poised

against the hat-rack; with stately mien marched steadily towards him.

Temporarily she had the grip of Old Tom--was well aware, at least, of

his designs upon her purity, and superbly she combated him.

With proud and queenly air she drew on--Mr. Marrapit felt that the swift

suspicion which had taken him had misjudged her.

Mrs. Major reached the mat. Old Tom gave a playful little twitch of her

legs, and she jostled the doorpost.

With old-world courtesy she bowed apology to the post. “Beg pardon,” she

graciously murmured; stood swaying.

X.

Step by step with her as she had crossed the hall, Mr. Fletcher,

recovering from the coward fear in which he shivered outside the door,

had crept forward along the path around the house. As Mrs. Major stood

swaying upon the threshold of the dining-room he reached the angle;

peered round it; in horror sighted Bill's figure pendant from Margaret's

window.

Thrice the bell-mouth of his gun described a shivering circle; tightly

he squeezed his eyelids--pressed the trigger.

BANG!

Mr. Marrapit bounded six inches--hardly reached the earth again when,

with a startled scream, Mrs. Major was upon him, again her arms about

his neck.

And now shriek pursued shriek, tearing upwards through her throat. Old

Tom had loosed the ends of all her nerves. Like bolting rabbit in young

corn the tearing discharge of that gun went madly through them, and

lacerated she gave tongue.

Stifled by the bony shoulder that pressed against his face, Mr. Marrapit

went black. He jerked his head free, put up his face, and giving cry for

cry, shrilled, “George! George! George!”

The din reached George where from his window he leaned, crying on Abiram

in the man-hunt across the garden. He drew in his head, bounded down the

stairs. Over Mrs. Major's back, bent inwards from the toes to the rock

about which she clung, Mr. Marrapit's empurpled face stared at him.

Upon George's countenance the sight struck a great grin; his legs it

struck to dead halt.

Mrs. Major's shrieks died to moans.

“Action!” Mr. Marrapit gasped. “Remove this creature!”

George put a hand upon her back. It shot a fresh shriek from her; she

clung closer.

“Pantaloon!” Mr. Marrapit strained. “Crush that grin! Action! Remove

this woman! She throttles me! The pressure is insupportable. I am

Sinbad.”

George again laid hands. Again Mrs. Major shrieked; tighter clung.

Mr. Marrapit, blacker, cried, “Zany!”

“Well, what the devil can I do?” George asked, hopping about the pair;

Mrs. Major's back as responsive to his touch as the keys of a piano to

idle fingers.

“You run to and fro and grin like a dog,” Mr. Marrapit told him. “Each

time you touch her she screams, grips me closer. I shall be throttled.

Use discretion. Add to mine your assurance of her safety. She is not

herself.”

George chuckled. “She's not. She's tight as a drum.”

“Liar!” moaned Mrs. Major.

“Intoxicated?” Mr. Marrapit asked.

“Blind.”

Sharp words will move where entreaty cannot stir.

Mrs. Major relaxed her hold; spun round. “Monster” and “Perjurer” rushed

headlong to her lips. “Ponsger!” she cried; tottered back against the

sofa; was struck by it at the bend of her knees; collapsed upon it. Her

head sunk sideways; she closed her eyes.

“You can see for yourself,” George said.

Mr. Marrapit sniffed: “My nose corroborates.”

“Ponsger!” the prone figure wailed.

Mr. Marrapit started: “Mrs. Major!”

She opened her eyes: “Call me Lucy. Darling-_um!_” She began to snore.

“Abhorrent!” Mr. Marrapit pronounced.

Whisperings without made him step to the door. White figures were upon

the stairs. “To your beds!” he cried.

“Oh, whatever is it, sir?” Mrs. Armitage panted.

“Away! You outrage decency.” Mr. Marrapit set a foot upon the stairs.

The affrighted figures fled before him.

George, when his uncle returned, was peering through the blind. “Who

the devil loosed off that gun? It is immaterial. All events are buried

beneath this abhorrent incident. The roof of my peace has crashed about

me.” Mr. Marrapit regarded the prone figure. “Her inspirations grate

upon me; her exhalations poison the air. Rouse her. Thrust her to her

room.”

“You'll never wake her now till she's slept it off.”

“Let us then essay to carry her. She cannot remain here. My shame shall

not be revealed, nor hers uncovered.”

George began: “To-morrow--”

“To-morrow I speed her from my gates. My beloved cats have been in the

care of this swinish form. They have been in jeopardy. I tremble at

their escape. To-morrow she departs.”

A sudden tremendous idea swept over George, engulfing speech.

With no word he moved to the sofa; grasped the prone figure; put it upon

its weak legs. They gave beneath it. “You must take her feet,” he said.

Averting his gaze, Mr. Marrapit took the legs that Old Tom had

devitalised. The procession moved out; staggered up the stairs.

Heavy was the burden; bursting with vulgar laughter was George; but that

huge idea that suddenly had come to him swelled his muscles, lent him

strength.

He heaved the form upon the bed.

On the dressing-table a candle burned. By its light Mr. Marrapit

discovered Old Tom's bottle, two fingers of the villain yet remaining.

He beat his breast. “Extinguish that light. I to my room. Seek Fletcher.

He patrols the garden for malefactors. In the morning I will see you.

Before this disaster my chill is sped. You are of my flesh. Cleave unto

me. In our bosoms let this abhorrent sore be buried. Seek Fletcher.”

The distraught man tottered to his room.

XI.

George went slowly down the stairs, bathing in the delicious thrills of

unfolding the wrappings from about his great idea. He had yet had time

but to feel its shape and hug it as a child will feel and hug a doll

packed in paper. Now he stripped the coverings, and his pulses thumped

as he saw how fine was it. Almost unconscious to his actions he unbarred

the door; stepped into the thin light; was not aroused until, treading

upon Mr. Fletcher's musket, his idea was suddenly jolted from him.

Here the gun that gave the echoes; where the hand that started it?

A hoarse cry came to him: “Mr. George! Mr. George!”

He looked along the sound. Above a hedge below the lawn an apple-tree

raised its branches. Within them he could espy a dark mass that as he

approached took form. Mr. Fletcher.

The grass hushed George's footsteps. Rounding the hedge he came upon the

little drama that gave that note of dread to Mr. Fletcher's calls.

Beneath the gardener's armpits one branch of the apple-tree passed;

behind his knees another. Between them hung his heavy seat. Whitely a

square of it peered downwards; melancholy upon the sward lay the lid of

corduroy that should have warmed the space. For ten paces outwards from

the tree-trunk there stretched a pitted path. Abiram, as George came,

turned at this path's extremity; set his sloe eye upon the dull white

patch in Mr. Fletcher's stern; hurled forward up the track; sprang and

snapped jaws an inch below the mark as Mr. Fletcher mightily heaved.

A lesser dog would have yapped bafflement, fruitlessly scratched upwards

from hind legs. Abiram was perfect dog of the one breed of dog that

is in all things perfect. Silently he plodded back; turned; ran; leapt

again. Again Mr. Fletcher heaved, and again the fine jaws snapped an

inch beneath the pallid square of flesh.

As once more uncomplaining he turned, Abiram sighted George; ruffled.

George spoke his name. Abiram wagged that short tail that marked his

Champion Victor Wild blood, shook the skull that spoke to the same

mighty strain.

This dog expected in his human friends that same devotion to duty which

is the governing trait of his breed. His shake implied, “No time for

social niceties, sir. I have a job in hand.”

“Call 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored. “Call 'im--_ur!_”--he

heaved upward as Abiram again sprang--“off,” he concluded, sinking once

more as the bull-terrier trotted up the little path.

It was a fascinating scene. “You're quite safe,” George told him.

“Safe! I'm _tired!_ I can't keep on risin' and fallin' all night. It's

'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a--_ur!_” He heaved again.

George told him: “You do it awfully well, though; so neat.”

“Call 'im off,” Mr. Fletcher moaned. “He'll have me in a minute. He's

'ad a bit off of me calf; he's 'ad a piece out of me trousers. He'll go

on. He's a methodical dog--_ur!_”

George took a step; caught Abiram's collar. “How on earth did you get up

there?”

“Jumped.”

“Jumped! You couldn't jump up there!”

Mr. Fletcher took a look to see that Abiram was securely held; then

started to wriggle to a pose of greater comfort. “I'd jump a house with

that 'orror after me,” he said bitterly. By intricate squirmings he laid

a hand upon the cold patch of flesh that gazed starkly downwards from

his stern. “If I ain't got hydrophobia I've got frost-bite,” he moaned.

“Cruel draught I've had through this 'ole. Take 'im off, Mr. George.”

George was scarcely listening. His thoughts had returned to the

delicious task of fingering his great idea.

“Take 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored.

George passed a handkerchief under Abiram's collar; tugged for the gate;

there dispatched the dog down the road.

Abiram shook his head; trotted with dejected stern. A job had been left

unfinished.

XII.

Hallooing safety to the apple-tree, too preoccupied to inquire further

into the reason for the gun and the presence of Bill's dog, George

turned for the house.

Awakening birds carolled his presence. They hymned the adventures of

the day that Dawn, her handmaiden, came speeding, silver-footed,

perfume-bearing, fresh from her dewy bath, to herald.

George put up an answering pipe. For him also the day was

adventure-packed and must lustily be hymned. Entering Mr. Marrapit's

study he drew the blinds; upon a telegraph form set Mary's name and her

address; pondered; then to these words compressed his great idea:

“_Go agency this morning. Get name on books. Meet you there. Think can

get you situation here. George._”

“Immediately the office opens,” said George; trod up to his room.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Marrapit Takes A Nice Warm Bath.

I.

As Mr. Marrapit had said, the disaster of the night had sped his

complaint.

He appeared at breakfast. No word was spoken. He ate nothing.

Once only gave he sign of interest. Midway through the meal muffled

sounds came to the breakfast party. Scufflings in the hall struck an

attentive light in Mr. Marrapit's eyes; slam of the front door jerked

him in his seat; wheels, hoofs along the drive drew his gaze to the

window. A cab rolled past--a melancholy horse; a stout driver, legs set

over a corded box; a black figure, bolt upright, handkerchief to eyes.

The vision passed. Mr. Marrapit gazed upwards; his thin lips moved.

Vulgar curiosity shall not tempt us to pry into the demeanour with

which, an hour earlier, this man had borne himself in the study with

Mrs. Major. Of that unhappy woman's moans, of her explanations, of the

tears that poured from her eyes--bloodshot in a head most devilishly

racked by Old Tom--we shall not speak.

Margaret stretched her hand for more bread. Despite the moving scenes in

which during the night she had travelled with her Bill, her appetite

was nothing affected. With her meals her sentimentality was upon the

friendliest terms. This girl was most gnawed by hunger when by emotion

she was most torn.

She stretched for a third slice.

Mr. Marrapit cleared his throat. The sound shot her. She caught his

eye and the glance pierced her. Her outstretched hand dropped upon the

cloth, toyed with crumbs.

Mr. Marrapit said: “I perceive you are finished?”

Margaret murmured: “Yes.” Her voice had a tremulous note. It is a bitter

thing to lose a slice of bread-and-butter for which the whole system

imperatively calls.

“Withdraw,” Mr. Marrapit commanded.

She put a lingering glance upon the loaf; wanly glided from the room.

II.

As she closed the door George prepared for his great idea. He drank

deeply of a cup of tea; drew down his cuffs; pondered them. They were

covered in pencilled notes, evolved by desperate work all that morning,

to aid him when the hour was at hand.

He absorbed Note I; spoke: “I am afraid last night's events very much

distressed you, sir--”

“They are interred. Do not resurrect them.”

George hurried to Note 2. “My sympathies with you--”

“Let the dead bury the dead. Mourn not the past.”

George skipped to Note 3. “What I am concerned about is the cats.”

“You are?”

“Oh, sir, indeed I am. I am not demonstrative. Perhaps you have not

guessed my fondness for the cats?”

“I have not.”

“Believe me, it is a deep affection. When I saw that unhappy woman

tigh--under the influence of spirits, what was my first thought?”

“Supply the answer.”

George took another glimpse at Note 3. “What was my first thought?”

he repeated. “Was it distress at sight of a woman so forgetful of her

modesty? No. Was it sympathy for the cruel deception that had been

practised upon you? Forgive me, sir, it was not.” (He glanced at his

notes.) “What, then?”

He paused brightly.

“It is your conundrum,” said Mr. Marrapit. “Solve it.”

George raised an impressive hand. “What, then? It was the thought of the

risks that the cats I so loved had run whilst beneath the care of this

woman.”

Mr. Marrapit's groan inspirited George. He was on the right track. He

took Note 4. “I asked myself, Who is responsible for the jeopardy in

which these creatures have been placed? Heaven knows, I said, what they

may not have suffered. This woman may have neglected their food, she may

have neglected their comforts. In a drunken fit she might have poisoned

them, beat them, set furious dogs upon them.”

Mr. Marrapit writhed in anguish.

George acted as Note 4 bade him. He dropped his voice. “Let us trust,

sir,” he said, “that none of these things has taken place.”

“Amen,” Mr. Marrapit murmured. “Amen.”

George's voice took a sterner note. “But, I asked myself, Who is

responsible for those horrors that might have been, that may have been?”

Mr. Marrapit dropped his head upon his hands. He murmured: “I am.

Peccavi.”

George rose in noble calm. He read Note 5; gave it with masterly effect:

“No, sir. I am.”

“You!”

“I! I have not slept since I leftyou, sir. I have paced my room and” (he

read a masterly note) “remorse has paced with me, step by step, hour by

hour. Did I help my uncle, I asked myself, when he was selecting this

Mrs. Major? No. Was I by his right hand to counsel and advise him?

No. Has not my training at hospital, my intercourse with ten thousand

patients, taught me to read faces like an open book? It has. Should not

I then have been by his side to help him when he selected a woman for

the post of caring for our-forgive me, sir, I said 'our'--caring for our

cats? I should. I asked myself how I could make amends. Only by begging

my uncle's forgiveness for my indifference and by imploring him to let

me help him in the choice of the next woman he selects.”

A masterly pause he followed with an appeal sent forth in tones of rare

beauty: “Oh, sir, I do beg your forgiveness; I do implore you let me

make amends by helping you in your next choice.”

Mr. Marrapit wiped moist eyes. “I had not suspected in you this

profundity of feeling.”

George said brokenly: “I have given you no reason.”

Mr. Marrapit replied on a grim tone: “Assuredly you have not.”

George glanced at Note 6; fled from the danger zone.

“Where I fear the mistake was made in Mrs. Major,” he hurried, “was that

she was not a perfect lady. Our--forgive me for saying 'our'--our cats

are refined cats, cats of gentle birth, of inherent delicacy. Their

attendant should be of like breeding. She should be refined, her birth

should be gentle, her feelings delicate. She should be a lady.”

“You are right,” Mr. Marrapit said. “As sea calleth to sea, as like

calleth to like, so would an ebb and flow of sympathy be set in motion

between my cats and an attendant delicately born. Is that your meaning?”

George murmured in admiration: “In beautiful words that is my meaning.”

He paused. Now the bolt was to be shot, and he nerved himself against

the strain. He fired: “I have a suggestion.”

“Propound.”

No further need for notes. George pushed back his cuffs; gulped the

agitation that swelled dry and suffocating in his mouth. “This is my

suggestion. Because I have had experience in the reading of faces;

because I wish to make recompense for my share in the catastrophe of

Mrs. Major's presence; because--”

“You are drowning beneath reasons. Cease bubbling. Strike to the

surface.”

George had not been drowning. He had been creeping gingerly from

stepping-stone to stepping-stone. The endeavour had been to come as

close as possible to the big rock upon which he intended to spring. The

less the distance of the leap the more remote the chance of slipping

down the rock and being whirled off in swift water. It is a method of

progression by which, in the race of existence, many lives are lost.

The timid will hobble from stone to stone, landing at each forward point

more and yet more shaky in the knees. The torrent roars about them. Sick

they grow and giddy; stepping-stones are green and slimy; the effort of

balancing cannot be unduly prolonged.

Ere ever they feel themselves ready for the leap they slip, go whirling

and drowning downstream past the stepping-stones that are called

Infirmity of Purpose. Or they may creep close enough the rock, only to

find they have delayed over their hobbling progression until the rock is

already so crowded by others who have been bolder over the stones as to

show no foothold remaining. They leap and fall back.

We are all gifted with strength sufficient for that spring; but disaster

awaits him who scatters his energies in a hundred hesitating little

scrambles.

Now George sprang; poised upon that last “because.”

“And because--I wish--” He sprang--“Therefore I suggest that I should go

to town to-day and search every agency until I find you a lady I think

suitable.”

The thud of his landing knocked the breath out of him. In terror he lay

lest Mr. Marrapit's answering words should have the form of desperate

fellows who would hurl him from his hold, throw him back.

“I agree,” Mr. Marrapit said.

George was drawn to his feet. He could have whooped for joy.

“I agree. I have misjudged you. In this matter I lay my trust in you.

Take it, tend it, nurse it; cherish it so that it may not be returned to

me cold and dead. Speed forth.”

“Have I a free hand?” George asked.

“Emphatically no. Every effort must be made to keep down expenses. Here

are two shillings. Render account. As to salary--”

George burst out: “Oh, she'll come for anything.”

Mr. Marrapit started. “She? Whom?”

George threw a blanket to hide the hideous blunder. “Told of such a home

as this is,” he explained, “a true lady would come for anything.”

The blunder sank, covered. “I earnestly pray that may be so,” Mr.

Marrapit said. “I doubt. Rapacity and greed stalk the land. Mrs. Major

had five-and-twenty pounds per annum. I will not go above that figure.”

George told him: “Rely upon me. But, by a free hand I meant a free hand

as to engaging what I may think a suitable person.”

“Emphatically no. You are the lower court. Sift sheep from goats. Send

sheep here to me. I am the tribunal. I will finally select.”

The refusal placed a last obstacle in the path of George's scheme, but

he did not demur. Primarily he dared not. To demur might raise again

that blunder he had let escape when he had said, “She'll come for

anything”; this time it might rage around and not be captured. All might

be wrecked. Secondly he felt there to be no great need for protest. The

confidence of having won thus far gave him courage against this final

difficulty.

“Trust me, sir,” he said.

Very soberly he paced from the room; gently closed the door; with the

tread of one bearing a full heart heavily moved up the stairs.

He reached his room; ripped off sobriety. “Oh, Mary!” he exultantly

cried, “if I can get you down here, old girl!”

Mr. Marrapit, meanwhile, stepped to the room where his cats lived;

lovingly toyed with his pets; took the Rose of Sharon a walk in the

garden. He was in pleasant mood. Great had been the distress of the

night, but this man had enjoyed a luxurious warm bath--in crocodile's

tears.

CHAPTER V.

Miss Porter Swallows A Particularly Large Sweet.

I.

Mary in the little Battersea lodgings was at breakfast when her George's

telegram arrived. She puckered over its mystery; shaped events this way

and that, but could make of them no keyhole that the message would fit

and unlock.

She flew among the higher improbabilities: George, she conjectured, had

misrepresented this stony-hearted uncle; last night had told all to Mr.

Marrapit, and Mr. Marrapit had warmed to her and bade him fetch her to

Herons' Holt. She ripped George's description of his uncle from about

the old man; dressed Mr. Marrapit in snowy locks and a benign smile;

pictured him coming down the steps with outstretched hand to greet her.

She heard him say, “My daughter”; she saw him draw George to her, lock

their hands; she heard him murmur, “Bless you, my children.”

This was a romantic young woman. A poached egg was allowed to grow cold

as she trembled over her delectable fancies.

But a glance at the telegram pulled her from these delicious flights;

bumped her to earth. “_Think can get you situation here._” “Situation”

drove the fatherly air from Mr. Marrapit; once more rehabilitated him as

her George presented him--grim and masterly.

Further conjecture altogether drove Mr. Marrapit from the picture. What

situation could be offered her in the Marrapit household? Why should

“here” mean Herons' Holt? It must mean at a house in the district.

Upon the magic carpet of this new thought my Mary was whirled again in

an imaged paradise. She would be near her George.

High in these clouds she ran to her bedroom for her hat; but with it

there descended upon her head a new thought that again sent her toppling

earthwards. Characterless, and worse than characterless, how was she

to get any such delightful post? My Mary started up the street for the

Agency, blinking tears.

At Battersea Bridge a new thought came sweeping. She clutched on to it;

held it fast. Into her tread it put a spring; to her chin gave a brave

tilt. If everything failed, if of the telegram nothing came, why, at

least she had the telegram!--was making for the Agency under a direct

command from her George. The thought swelled her with confidence and

comfort. How warm a thing it was to feel that she did not face the world

alone! Her George's arm was striking for her, her George's hand was

pointing a terse command. “Go to Agency.” She was obeying him; she

belonged to him.

II.

Mary had intended to wait outside the Agency until her George should

arrive and explain his mysterious message. But she was scarcely at the

building when Miss Ram, also arriving, accosted her--took her upstairs.

Miss Ram quite naturally regarded the meeting as evidence that Mary had

come for help. Mary, in a flutter as to George's intentions, could but

meekly follow.

In the room marked “Private,” settled at her table, Miss Ram icily

opened the interview. “I have heard from Mrs. Chater. I did not expect

to see you again.”

Mary began: “I don't know what you have heard--”

Miss Ram stretched for a letter.

“Oh, I don't wish to,” Mary cried; put out a hand that stayed the

action. “To hear all she says would again begin it all. It would be like

her voice. It would be like being with her again. Please, please, Miss

Ram, don't tell me.”

“You have your own version?”

“I have the truth.” Mary pointed at the letter-file. “The truth isn't

there. Mrs. Chater isn't capable of the truth. She cannot even recognise

the truth when she hears it.”

In yet more freezing tones Miss Ram replied: “She is an old and valued

client.”

“You only know her in this office,” Mary told her. “You don't know her

in her home.”

“I have suited her with other young ladies. I have heard of her from

them.”

“And they have spoken well of her?”

“Discounting the prejudice of a late employee, they have spoken well.”

“Was her son there with them?”

“They have not told me so.”

“Ah!” said Mary; sat back in her chair.

“Then your version is about the son?”

Mary nodded. Recollection put a silly lump in her throat.

Miss Ram said: “Miss Humfray, when I received that letter from Mrs.

Chater, I said I would have no more to do with you. I told Miss Porter

I would not see you. Why, out of all my ladies, do you come back to me

characterless from your situations? I will listen to your story. Make

it very brief. Don't exaggerate. I have sat in this chair for seventeen

years. I can distinguish in a minute between facts and spleen. You

desire to tell your version?”

“I must,” Mary said. “What I'd like to do would be to get up and say,

'If you doubt me, I'll not trouble to convince you.' I'd like to walk

out and leave you and face anything rather than 'explain.' Why should

I 'explain' to anybody? But I'm not going to walk out. I haven't the

pluck. I know what it is like to be alone out there.” She gave a little

choke. “I've learnt that much, anyway.” She went on. “I'll just tell

you, that's all. I don't want your sympathy; I only want your sense of

justice.”

“I like your spirit,” Miss Ram said. It was a quality she rarely found

in her applicants. “Go on.”

Then Mary told. She phrased bluntly. Her recital was after the manner of

the fireworks called “Roman candles.” These, when lit, pour out fire and

smoke in a rather weak-kneed dribble. They must be held tightly. When

tensely enough constricted, of fire and smoke there is little, but at

intervals out there pops an exceedingly luminous ball of flame.

My Mary kept the pressure of pride upon her throat. There was no dribble

of emotion. Only the facts popped out--hard and dry, and to Miss

Ram intensely illuminative. Mary did not mention George's name. She

concluded her narrative with jerky facts relative to the scene in the

Park. “Then I ran away,” she said, “and a friend of mine came up. He had

seen. And he thrashed him. When I got back to Mrs. Chater's her son had

arrived--battered. He told his mother that he had seen me with a man and

had interfered. That the man assaulted him. That's all.”

“The miserable hound!” pronounced Miss Ram with extraordinary ferocity.

From a drawer in her desk she took a manuscript book, bound in limp

leather, tied with blue ribbon. Herein were contained the remarkable

thoughts which from time to time had come to this woman during her

seventeen years' occupancy of the chair in which she sat. Upon the

flyleaf was inscribed “Aphorisms: by Eugenie Ram.” It was her intent

to publish this darling work when beneath each letter of the alphabet

twelve aphorisms were written.

“The miserable hound!” cried she, when the full tale of Mr. Bob Chater's

vileness was told; drew “Aphorisms” towards her and wrote in hot blood.

Then looked at Mary. “_L,_” she read, “_L. Lust. Lust is the sound meat

of natural instinct gone to carrion. Men eat meat, wolves eat carrion.

Some men are wolf-men_--Hand me the dictionary, Miss Humfray. Two r's in

carrion. I _thought_ so. Thank you.”

She replaced “Aphorisms.” “My dear, I will do what I can for you,” she

told Mary. “I _do_ believe you. Go into the interview room. I hear a

step.”

III.

That step was George's. Abashed in this home of women he shuffled

uneasily in the passage, then put a hesitating knuckle upon “Enquiries.”

From within a violent movement was followed by a strange guttural sound.

George entered.

With scarlet face and watery eyes, Miss Porter--the stout young woman

who presided over this department, and whose habit it was to suck sweets

the better to beguile the tedium of her duties--gazed at him; made

guttural sounds. The start of George's knock had caused this girl

to swallow a particularly large sweet, and its downward passage was

inflicting upon her considerable pain.

Her face was an alarming sight. “I'm afraid--” George began.

“Pardon!” gasped Miss Porter, driving the sweet with a tremendous

swallow. “Pardon!”

“Not at all,” George pleasantly said. “Not at all. I called with

reference to a lady-help.”

The grinding sweet forbade the pleasant dalliance

Miss Porter could have wished with this handsome young man. In a brave

spasm (this girl was in great suffering), “I will tell the Principal,”

she said; trod heavily to Miss Ram's door.

Fate is an abominable trickster; loves to tease us. With one hand

it gave Miss Porter a delectable male; with the other prevented her

enjoying him. Furthermore, it prematurely deprived her of a fine sweet.

Reappearing and holding the door ajar: “Miss Ram will see you,” she

murmured. Tears were in this girl's eyes; the bolted sweet was still

paining her very much indeed.

IV.

In two clever bows Miss Ram without a word greeted George; indicated a

chair.

George sat down. “I want,” he began--“that is, my uncle wants, a

lady-help--”

“Name, please,” rapped Miss Ram, opening the ledger.

George gave it; stretched a leg to indicate a confidence he did not

feel; pitched his voice to aid the presentment. “When I say lady-help--”

“Address, please,” said Miss Ram with a pistol-snap.

George withdrew the signs of confidence with a jerk. He gave the

information. Then waited Miss Ram to give him a lead. He had twice been

shot; was in no desire again to expose his person.

Miss Ram fixed her small black eyes upon him. She said nothing. The

intrusion of a young man into matters essentially domestic she strongly

disapproved. Under “D” in “Aphorisms” this woman had a trenchant note

touching this matter. “_D. Domesticity. Domesticity_,” said this note,

“_is the offspring of all the womanly virtues. The virtues impregnate

the woman, and domesticity is the resultant child. Absence of a single

womanly trait aborts or debilitates the offspring. Men have nothing

whatever to do with it, and nothing is more abominable than a man who

meddles with domestic matters._”

The rays of Miss Ram's disconcerting eye pushed George steadily

backwards from the rock of such small confidence as remained to him.

Assailed by the inquiring bows with which she now interrogated his

further purpose, he slipped from it, plunged wildly into the sea of what

he required, and for five minutes beat this way and that, hurling the

splash of broken sentences at Miss Ram's unbending countenance.

Beginning a description of Mr. Marrapit's household, he floundered

thence to a description of the required lady's duties; abandoning that

unfinished, splashed to a description of the manner of person for whom

he sought.

It was his object to paint a character and appearance as near to his

Mary's as he could master; to induce Miss Ram to suggest her as likely

candidate for the post. He could not introduce his Mary to his uncle

unless she came under the auspices of some recognised institution.

So he floundered on.

Miss Ram did not move. His struggles grew less; he caught at haphazard

words; flung them desperately; at last relapsed; sat sweating.

Miss Ram poked him with a questioning bow. He did not stir.

With a further bow she accepted his defeat; handed him a pink paper.

“Now, kindly fill up this form. State precisely what you require. Write

clearly, please.”

George obeyed. Miss Ram studied the answers to her printed

interrogations; opened her ledger. “I have several suitable ladies.”

She started to read a list. “Miss Minna Gregor; aged 25; daughter of

the late Humphrey Gregor, stockbroker; three years' character from Mrs.

Mountsaffron of Charles Street, to whom she was lady-help and from whom

an excellent reference may be obtained.”

“Too old,” said George.

Miss Ram frowned; returned to the ledger. “Miss Ellen Hay; aged

20; daughter of Lieutenant Hay, late R.N. For two years with Mrs.

Hoyle-Hoyle of Knightsbridge.”

George squeaked, “Too young.” He had not anticipated this ordeal.

Miss Ram read on. At the fifteenth name George was in desperate

agitation. His list of objections was exhausted. Each protest had

narrowed his field.

“This is the last upon my books,” Miss Ram severely told him. “She

fills all your requirements. None of your objections applies. You will

certainly engage her.”

“I feel sure I shall,” George brightly said. If this was the last name

it must be Mary.

“I am glad to hear that,” Miss Ram announced. “You are hard to please.

This is a most admirable young woman.”

George leaned forward with an expectant smile. Miss Ram read: “Miss Rosa

Brump--”

George's smile died. An “Eh?” was startled out of him.

“Brump,” said Miss Ram testily. “Brump. B-r-u-m-p, _Brump_.”

George said “Oh!”; ran a finger around the inside of his collar.

Miss Ram read on, emphasising the Brumps with the suggestion of a ball

bouncing from rock to rock:

“Miss Rosa _Brump_; aged 21; daughter of the late Selwyn Agburn _Brump_,

barrister-at-law. Companion to Miss Victoria Shuttle of Shuttle Hall,

Shuttle, Lines, until that lady's death. The late Miss Shuttle dying

suddenly, Miss _Brump_ has no reference from her. What that reference

would have been, however, is clearly evidenced by the fact that in her

will Miss Shuttle bequeathed 'to my faithful companion Rosa _Brump_,'

her terra-cotta bust of the late Loomis Shuttle, Esq., J.P., inventor of

the Shuttle liquid manure.”

Miss Ram wagged a finger at George. “That speaks for itself,” she said.

George did not answer. He was in a confusion of fear. This terrible

woman would force Miss Brump upon him. He was powerless in her hands. He

was in chains.

“Does it not?” poked Miss Ram.

“Rather,” said George. “Oh, rather.”

“Very good. I congratulate your uncle upon obtaining this estimable

young woman. She should call here in a few minutes. You can then make

final arrangements. Meanwhile, this form--”

George hurled himself free from this hypnotic panic. Anything must be

done to shake off this intolerable Brump.

“One moment,” he said. “I had forgotten--”

“Well?”

“What colour is Miss Brump's hair?”

“Her _what?_”

“Hair. Her hair.”

“How extraordinary! Brown.”

George effected an admirable start. He echoed: “_Brown?_ Oh, not brown?”

“Certainly. Brown.”

George mournfully shook his head. “Oh, dear! How unfortunate! I'm afraid

Miss Brump will not suit, Miss Ram. My uncle--extraordinary foible--has

a violent objection to brown hair. He will not have it in the house.”

“Unheard of!” Miss Ram snapped. “Unheard of!”

George rubbed together his sweating palms; blundered on. “None the less

a fact,” he said impressively. He dropped his voice. “It is a very sad

story. He had fifteen brothers--”

“Fifteen!”

“I assure you, yes. All were black-haired except one, who was brown--the

first brown-haired child in the history of the house. 'Bantam' they used

to call him when they were girls and boys together--'Bantam.'”

“_Girls_! You said brothers!”

“Ah, yes. Girls as well. Twelve, twelve girls.”

“Twelve girls and fifteen boys!”

“I assure you, yes. A record. As I was saying, the brown-haired child,

he took to drink. It is most painful. Died in a madhouse. My uncle, head

of the family, reeled beneath the stigma--reeled. Vowed from that day

that he would never let a brown-haired person cross his threshold.”

George wiped his streaming face; sat back with a sigh. Miss Brump was

buried.

Miss Ram's next words caused him to start in his seat.

“But your hair is brown.”

My contemptible George, all his lies now rushing furious upon him, put

his hand to his head; withdrawing it, gazed at the palm with the air of

one looking for a stain.

“How about _that_?” rapped Miss Ram.

George gave a wan smile. “It is my misfortune,” he said simply--“my

little cross. We all have our burdens in this life, Miss Ram. Pardon me

if I do not care to dwell upon mine.”

With a bow Miss Ram indicated sympathy; decorously closed the subject.

George gave a little sigh. With a simulation of brightness he proceeded:

“You are sure you have no other lady?”

“I have one,” said Miss Ram. “She would not suit.”

“May I be allowed to judge?”

Miss Ram turned to the ledger. “'Miss Mary Humfray.'”

George started. “It is nothing,” he explained. “One of those shivers;

that is all.”

Miss Ram bowed. “'Miss Mary Humfray; aged 21; only child of the late

Colonel Humfray, Indian Army; references from former employer not good,

but with extenuating circumstances.'”

“I think she might suit,” George said. “She--she--” he groped

wildly--“she is the daughter of a colonel.”

“So were four others.”

George wiped his brow. “The--the _only_ daughter.”

“You consider that a merit?”

“My uncle would. He has curious ideas. He is himself an only child.”

Miss Ram stared. George had the prescience of trouble, but could not

find it. “Oh, yes,” he said, “oh, yes.”

“Fifteen brothers and twelve sis--”

George saw the gaping pit; sprang from it. “_Has_ an only child,” he

corrected. “_Has_, not _is_.”

Miss Ram glared, continued: “What of the absence of character?”

“I imagine the fact of being an only child would override that. You said

there were extenuating circumstances?”

“There are. I personally would speak for the young lady.”

Excitement put George upon his feet. “I thank you very much, Miss Ram. I

feel that this lady will suit.”

“You have asked nothing about her. With the others you were unusually

particular.”

“I act greatly by instinct. It is a family trait. Something seems to

assure me in this case.”

Miss Ram gazed searchingly at George; answered him upon an interested

note. “Indeed!” she spoke. “Remarkable. Pray pardon me.” She drew

“Aphorisms” from its drawer; hesitated a moment; with flowing pen wrote

beneath “I.”

She turned towards George. “Pray pardon me,” she repeated. “What you

tell me of acting by instinct greatly interests me as a student of

character. In this little volume here I--allow me.” She emphasised with

a quill-pen. “_I. Instinct. Instinct is the Almighty's rudder with which

He steers our frail barques upon the tempestuous sea of life at moments

when otherwise we should be quite at a loss. Some of us answer quickly

to this mysterious helm and for example something seems to tell them in

the middle of the night that the house is on fire, and they get up and

find it is. Let those who don't answer quickly beware!_”

“That's awfully well put,” said George. “Awfully well.”

For the first time Miss Ram smiled. “You would wish to interview the

young lady?” she asked. “Fortunately she is present. Kindly step to the

Interview Room.”

She led the way. With thundering pulses George followed. His Mary rose.

Miss Ram introduced them.

George rolled his tongue in a dry mouth; passed it over dry lips. He had

no words.

“Have you no questions?” Miss Ram asked severely.

For a third time since he had entered this building, panic broke damply

upon George's brow. He blew his nose; in a very faint voice asked: “Your

age is twenty-one?”

Upon an agitated squeak his Mary told him: “Yes.”

“Ah!” In desperation he paused: caught Miss Ram's awful eye; was goaded

to fresh plunge. “Ah, one-and-twenty?”

In a tiny squeak Mary replied: “Yes.”

He shuffled in desperation. “When will you be twenty-two?”

“In February.”

“Ah! February.” This was awful. “February.”

Miss Ram's eye stabbed him again.

“February. Then you must be twenty-one now?”

“_Tch-tch!_” sounded Miss Ram.

“Twenty-one,” George stammered. “Twenty-one--”

From the other room at that moment Miss Porter called.

“I am required,” said Miss Ram, “elsewhere. I will return in a moment.”

She passed out; closed the door.

V.

“My darling!” cried George.

“Georgie!”

They embraced.

He held her to him; kissed the soft gold hair.

On a movement in the next room his Mary wriggled free. “Tell me.”

“By Gad, it's been awful! Did you hear me in that room?”

She nodded, laughing at him. He kissed the smiles.

“Oh, do be careful! Let _go_, George; let _go_. I couldn't hear what you

said. But you were hours--_hours_.”

“Years,” said George. “Years. Aeons of time. I have aged considerably. I

thought it would never end. It was appalling.”

She clasped her pretty hands. “But tell me, George. Do tell me. I don't

understand _anything_. What has _happened?_”

“Give me time,” George told her. “I am not the same George. The

light-hearted George of yore is dead under Miss Ram's chair. I am old

and seamed with care.”

“George, _do, do_ tell me! Don't fool.”

“I'm not fooling. I can't fool. You don't realise what I have been

through. You have no heart. I can't fool. When I was a child I thought

as a child; I did childish things. But now that I have been through

Miss Ram's hands my bright boyhood is sapped. I am old and stricken in

years.”

“Oh, Georgie, _do, do_ tell me!”

This ridiculous George gave a boyish laugh; clasped his Mary again;

squeezed her to him till she gasped. “I've got you, Mary!” he said. He

kissed the gold hair. “I've got you. I'm going to see you every day.

You're coming down to live at Herons' Holt.”

Then he told her.

VI.

Miss Ram returned; directed at George a bow that Was one huge note of

interrogation.

“Quite satisfactory,” George replied. “I am sure my uncle will agree.”

“There is, of course,” objected Miss Ram, “the unfortunate matter of

references.”

George took a frank air. “Miss Ram, I am quite willing to take your

personal assurances on that matter. On behalf of my uncle I accept

them.”

“I will send a written statement of the matter,” said Miss Ram. Her air

was dogged.

“I most solemnly assure you that is unnecessary.”

Miss Ram killed him with a bow. “It is my custom. I have the reputation

of seventeen years to sustain.”

George quailed.

“Your uncle,” Miss Ram exclaimed, “will also wish to see Miss Humfray.

She shall go this afternoon.”

“Not this afternoon,” George told her. “No. To-morrow. He could not see

her to-day.”

“Very well. To-morrow. To-night I will write the references to him.

Kindly pay the fee to Miss Porter in the office. Good morning!”

She pushed him off with a stabbing bow. He fled.

VII.

In that delectable interview during Miss Ram's absence George had

arranged with his Mary that this was a day to be celebrated. She should

not proceed instantly to be weighed by Mr. Marrapit; let that ordeal be

given to the morrow. This splendid day should splendidly end; tremendous

gaiety should with a golden clasp fasten the golden hours of the

morning. In the afternoon he had a lecture and clinical demonstrations.

Like a horse he would work till half-past six. At seven he would meet

his Mary in Sloane Square.

So it was. At that hour George from the top of his 'bus spied his Mary

upon the little island in the Square. He sprang down and his first

action was to show a fat and heavy sovereign, pregnant with delights,

lying in his palm.

“Borrowed,” said George. “One pound sterling. Twenty shillings net. And

every penny of it is going to fly.”

He called a hansom, and they smoothly rolled to Earl's Court.

When sovereigns are rare possessions, how commanding an air the feel of

one imparts! Mary watched her George with pride. How masterful was he!

How deferential the head waiter at the restaurant in the Exhibition

became! The man was putting them off with an inner table. Her George by

a look and a word had him in a minute to right-abouts, and one of the

coveted tables upon the verandah was theirs. Waiters flocked about. With

such an air did George command the cheapest wine upon the list that

the waiter, whose lip ordinarily would have curled at such an order,

hastened to its execution with dignity of task, deference of service.

They ate robustly through the menu: faltered not nor checked at a single

dish. They passed remarks upon their neighbours. At intervals George

would say, “Isn't this fine, Mary?”; or his Mary would say, “Oh,

Georgie, isn't this splendid?” And the other would answer, “Rather!”

A meal and a conversation to make your proper lovers shudder! There was

no nibbling at and toying with food; there was no drinking and feasting

from the light of one another's eyes. When George felt thirsty he

would put his nose in the cheap claret and keep it there till mightily

refreshed; such hungry yearnings as his Mary felt she satisfied with

knife and fork. These were very simple children and exceedingly healthy.

But while his Mary's tongue ached with a cold, cold ice, George was

in the pangs of mental arithmetic. As the bill stood, that pregnant

sovereign had given birth to all the delights of which it was capable;

was shattered and utterly wrecked in child-bed.

A waiter came bustling. There was just time. George leant across. “Mary,

when I ask you if you'll have coffee, say you prefer it outside--it's

cheaper there.”

“Coffee, sir?”

“Special coffee,” George ordered nonchalantly. “Yes, two. One moment.

Would you rather have your coffee outside near the band, Mary?”

His Mary was splendid. She looked around the room, she looked into the

cool night--and there her eye longer lingered. “It's cooler outside,”

she said. “I think it would be nicer outside, if you don't mind.”

“All right.”

“Sure you don't mind?”

“Oh, no; no, not a bit. Bill, waiter.”

The waiter bowed low over his munificent tip; dropped it into a jingling

pocket. George gathered his miserable change; slid it silently to where

it lay companionless; with his Mary passed into the warm night.

In the Empress Gardens they found a hidden table; here sipped coffee,

and here were most dreadfully common. Mary's hand crept into her

George's; they spoke little. The warm night breeze gently kissed their

faces; the band stirred deepest depths; they set their eyes upon the

velvety darkness that lay beyond the lights, and there pictured one

another in a delectable future. Mary saw a very wonderful George; now

and then glimpsed a very happy little Mary in a wonderful home. George

also saw a happy little Mary in a wonderful home, but he more clearly

followed a very wonderful George, magnificently accomplishing the mighty

things that made the little Mary happy.

* * * * *

George kissed his Mary upon the doorstep of the Battersea lodgings;

caught the last train to Paltley Hill; and as he walked home from the

station the scented hedges murmured to him with his Mary's voice.

CHAPTER VI.

The Girl Comes Near The Lugger.

I.

At breakfast upon the following day George set forth the result of

his labours; with urgent eloquence extolled the virtues of this Miss

Humfray.

Before Mr. Marrapit's plate lay an open envelope; upon the back George

could read the inscription “Norfolk Street Agency for Distressed

Gentlewomen.”

What had Miss Ram said of his Mary? The thought that she had written

a reference which at the last moment would dash into dust this mighty

scheme, was as a twisting knife in George's vitals. Every time that Mr.

Marrapit stretched his hand for the letter the agitated young man upon

a fresh impulse would dash into defiant eulogy of his darling; and so

impetuous was the rush of his desperate words that at the beat of every

new wave Mr. Marrapit would withdraw his startled hand from the letter;

frown at George across the coffee-pot.

At last: “Sufficient,” he announced. “Curb zeal. Mount discretion.

Satisfy the demands of appetite. You have not touched food. Tasks he

before you. Do not starve the brain. I am tired of your eulogies of this

person. For twenty-one minutes you have been hurling advertisements at

me. I am a hoarding.”

The bill-sticker pushed a piece of bacon into a dry mouth; sat with

goggling eyes.

The hoarding continued: “I have here this person's reference. It is

good.”

“Down shot the piece of bacon; convulsively bolted like Miss Porter's

sweet.

“Good!” cried George.

“I said good. For faulty articulation I apologise.”

“I know, I heard. I meant that I am pleased.”

“Strive to express the meaning. The person arrives for inspection

at mid-day. For your assistance I tender thanks. The incident is now

closed. Do you labour at hospital to-day?”

George had determined to be at the fount of news. In town, uncertain, he

could have applied himself to nothing. He said:

“No, here; I work here to-day.”

“To your tasks,” commanded Mr. Marrapit.

II.

George went to his room, but his tasks through that morning lay

neglected.

Impossible to work. He was in a position at which at one time or another

most of us are placed. He was upon one end of a balanced see-saw, and he

was blindfolded so that it was impossible to see what might happen upon

the other extremity. Suddenly he might be swung up to highest delight;

suddenly he might be dashed earthwards to hit ground with a jarring

thud. The one eventuality or the other was certain; but he must sit

blindfold and helpless--unable to affect the balance by an ounce. Here

is the position in which all of us are made cowards. Bring the soldier

into action, and his blood will run hot enough to make him intoxicated

and insensible to fear; hold him in reserve, and courage will begin to

ooze. Give us daylight in which we may see aught that threatens us, and

likely enough we shall have desperate courage sufficient to rush in and

grapple; it is in the darkness that uncertainty sets teeth chattering.

More prayers are said, and with more devotion, at night than in the

morning. We creep and crawl and squirm to heaven when the uncertainty of

the night has to be faced; but we can get along well enough, thank you,

when we spring out of bed with the courage of morning.

George could not work until he knew whether he was to be swung high

or thrown low. He paced his room; glimpsed his watch; tremendously

smoked--and groaned aloud as, at every turn, he would receive the

buffets of recollection of some important point upon which he had

omitted to school his Mary.

In those desperate moments he decided finally that Margaret should not

be told that Mary and he were so much more than strangers. Supposing all

went well, and his Mary came to Herons' Holt, her safety and his would

certainly be imperilled by giving the key of their secret to his

cousin. It was a hard resolve. About the beautiful romance of the thing

Margaret's nature would have crooned as a mother over her suckling. She

would have mothered it, cherished it, given them a hundred opportunities

of exchanging for clasps and whispers the chilly demeanour they must

bear one to another. But the pleasure must be foregone. My George had

the astonishing sense to know that the animal instinct in Margaret's

nature would outride the romance. Twice the countless years that

separate us from the gathering of our first instincts may pass, and this

the strongest of them--the abhorrence of secrecy-will never be uprooted.

When all life was a ferocious struggle for life, secrecy--and it would

have been the secret of a store of food--was inimical to the existence

of the pack: it was opposed to the first of the slowly forming laws of

nature. There must be equality of opportunity that all might equally

be tested. Thus it was that a secret hoard of food, when come upon,

instantly was noised abroad by the discoverer, and its possessor torn

to death; and thus it is to-day that a secret once beyond the persons

immediately concerned is carried from mouth to mouth till the world has

it, and its first possessors take the violence of discovery.

For a reason that was almost similar George negatived the impulse which

bade him meet his Mary at the station, walk with her to the house, and

leave her before the gates. For, supposing again that she were accepted

and came to Herons' Holt, this suspicious meeting would come flying to

Mr. Marrapit upon the breezes that whirl in and out of every cranny

and nook in small communities. Towns are blind and deaf; villages have

peeping eyes, straining ears, loose mouths, that pry and listen and

whisper.

Almost upon the hour of twelve there came to the agitated young man's

ears a ring that could be none other than hers.

He tip-toed to the banisters; peered below. His Mary was ushered in.

While she stood behind the maid who tapped on Mr. Marrapit's door, she

glanced up. George had a glimpse of her face; waved encouragement from

the stairhead.

The maid stood aside. His Mary passed in to the ogre's den.

III.

Clad in a dressing-gown, Mr. Marrapit was standing against the

fireplace. My trembling Mary settled just clear of the closing door;

took his gaze. He put his eye upon her face; slowly travelled it down

her person; rested it upon her little shoes; again brought it up; again

carried it down; this time left it at her feet.

The gaze seemed to burn her stockings. She shuffled; little squirms of

fright nudged her. She glanced at her feet, fearful of some hideous hole

in her shoes.

“I am--” she jerked.

Then Mr. Marrapit spoke: “I see you are. Discontinue.”

The command was shot at her. Trembling against the shock she could only

murmur: “Discontinue?”

“Assuredly. Discontinue. Refrain. Adjust.”

“Discontinue...?” With difficulty she articulated the word, then put

after it on a little squeak: “... What?”

“It,” rapped Mr. Marrapit.

“I am afraid--”

“I quake in terror.”

“I don't understand.”

“Pah!” Mr. Marrapit exclaimed. “You said 'I am.' Were you not about to

say 'I am standing on the polished boards'?”

“No.”

“I believed that was in your mind. Let it now enter your mind. You are

on the polished boards. You have high heels. I quake in terror lest they

have left scratch or blemish. Adjust your position.”

Mary stepped to the carpet. She was dumb before this man.

Mr. Marrapit bent above the polished flooring where she had stood.

“There is no scratch,” he announced, “neither is there any blemish.” He

resumed his post against the fireplace and again regarded her: “You are

young.”

“I am older really.”

“Elucidate that.”

“I mean--I am not inexperienced.”

“Why say one thing and mean another? Beware the habit. It is perilous.”

“Indeed it is not my habit.”

“It is your recreation, then. Do not indulge it. Continue.”

“I am young, but I have had experience. I think if you were to engage me

I would give you satisfaction.”

“Adduce grounds.”

“I would try in every way to do as you required. I understand I am to

look after cats.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Abandon that impression. I have not said so.”

“No, I mean if you engage me.”

“Again you say one thing and mean another. I am suspicious. It is a

habit.”

“Oh, _indeed_ it is not.”

“Then if a recreation, a recreation to which you are devoted. You romp

in it. Twice within a minute you have gambolled.”

My Mary blinked tears. Since rising that morning, her nerves had been

upon the stretch against this interview. She had schooled herself

against all possibilities so as to win into the house of her dear

George, yet at every moment she seemed to fall further from success.

“You ca-catch me up so,” she trembled.

Mr. Marrapit expanded upwards. “Catch you up! A horrible accusation. The

table is between us.”

“You mis-misunderstand me.” She silenced a little sniff with a dab of

her handkerchief. She looked very pretty. Mr. Marrapit placed beside her

the mental image of Mrs. Major; and at every point she had the prize. He

liked the soft gold hair; he liked the forlorn little face it enframed;

he liked the slim little form. His cats, he suspected, would appreciate

those nice little hands; he judged her to have nice firm legs against

which his cats could rub. Mrs. Major's, he apprehended, would have been

bony; not legs, but shanks.

Mary made another dab at her now red little nose. The silence increased

her silly fright. “You mis-misunderstand me,” she repeated.

With less asperity Mr. Marrapit told her: “I cannot accept the blame.

You wrap your meanings. I plunge and grope after them. Eluding me, I am

compelled to believe them wilfully thrown. Strive to let your yea be yea

and your nay nay. With circumspection proceed.”

Mary gathered her emotion with a final little sniff. “I like ca-cats.”

“I implore you not to accuse me of misunderstanding you. A question is

essential. You do not always pronounce 'cats' in two syllables?”

“Oh, no.”

“Satisfactory. You said 'ca-cats.' Doubtless under stress of emotion.

Proceed.”

Mary sniffed; proceeded. “I like ca-cats--cats. If you were to engage me

I am sure your cats would take to me.”

“I admit the possibility. I like your appearance. I like your voice.

Had you knowledge of the acute supersensitiveness of my cats you would

understand that they will appreciate those points. I do not require in

you veterinary knowledge; I require sympathetic traits. I do not engage

you to nurse my cats--though, should mischance befall, that would come

within your duties,--but to be their companion, their friend. You are a

lady; themselves ancestral they will appreciate that. I understand

you are an orphan; there also a bond links you with them. All cats are

orphans. It is the sole unfortunate trait of their characters that they

are prone to forget their offspring. In so far as it is possible to

correct this failing amongst my own cats, I have done my best. Amongst

them the sanctity of the marriage tie is strictly observed. The word

stud is peculiarly abhorrent to me. Polygamy is odious. There is a final

point. Pray seat yourself.”

Mary took a chair. Mr. Marrapit, standing before her, gazed down upon

her. From her left he gazed, then from her right. He returned to the

fireplace.

“It is satisfactory,” he said. “You have a nice lap. That is of first

importance. The question of wages has been settled. Arrive to-morrow.

You are engaged.”

BOOK V.

Of Mr. Marrapit upon the Rack: of George in Torment.

CHAPTER I.

Prosiness Upon Events: So Uneventful That It Should Be Skipped.

If we write that Mary's first month at Herons' Holt was uneventful, we

use the term as a figure of speech that must be taken in its accepted

sense; not read literally. For it is impossible that life, in whatever

conditions, can be eventless. The dullest life is often with events the

most crowded. In dulness we are thrown back upon our inner selves, and

that inner self is of a construction so sensitive that each lightest

thought is an event that leaves an impression.

In action, in gaiety, in intercourse we put out an unnatural self to

brunt the beat of events. We are upon our guard. There are eyes watching

us, and from their gaze we by instinct fend our inner self just as by

instinct we fend our nakedness.

Overmuch crowded with such events, the inner self is prone to shrivel,

to fade beneath lack of nutriment; and it may happen that in time the

unnatural self will take its place, will become our very self.

That is gravely to our disadvantage. Overmuch in action, the man of

affairs may win the admiration of a surface-seeing world; may capture

the benefits of strong purpose, of wealth, and of position. But he is

in danger of utterly losing the fruits that only by the inner, the

original, and true self can be garnered.

Life presents for our pursuit two sets of treasures. The one may be had

by the labours of the hands; the other by exercise of the intellect--the

true self. And at once this may be said: that the treasures heaped by

the hands soil the hands, and the stain sinks deep. The stain enters the

blood and, thence oozing, pigments every part of the being--the face,

the voice, the mind, the thoughts. For we cannot labour overlong in the

fields without besweating the brow; and certainly we cannot ceaselessly

toil after the material treasures of life without gathering the traces

of that labour upon our souls. It stains, and the stain is ugly.

Coming to treasures stored by exercise of the intellect, the true

self, these also put their mark upon the possessor; but the action is

different and the results are different. Here the pigment that colours

the life does not come from without but distils from within. Man does

not stoop to rend these treasures from the earth; he rises to them. They

do not bow; they uplift. They are not wrenched in trampling struggle

from the sties where men battle for the troughs; they are absorbed from

the truths of life that are as breezes upon the little hills. They are

in the face of Nature and in Nature's heart; they are in the written

thoughts of men whose thoughts rushed upward like flames, not

dropped like plummet-stones--soared after truth and struck it to our

understanding, not made soundings for earthy possessions showing how

these might be gained.

Yet it is not to be urged that the quest of material treasures is to

be despised, or that life properly lived is life solely dreaming among

truths. The writer who made the story of the Israelites sickening of

manna, wrapped in legend the precept that man to live must work for

life. We are not living if we are not working. We cannot have strength

but we win meat to make strength.

No; my protest is against the heaping of material treasure to the

neglect of treasure stored by the true self. Material treasure is not

ours. We but have the enjoyment of it while we can defend it from the

forces that constantly threaten it. Misfortune, sorrow, sickness--these

are ever in leash against us; may at any moment be slipped. Misfortune

may whirl our material treasures from us; sorrow or sickness may canker

them, turn them to ashes in the mouth. They are not ours; we hold them

upon sufferance. But the treasures of the intellect, the gift of

being upon nodding terms with truth, these are treasures that are our

impregnable own. Nothing can filch them, nothing canker them: they are

our own--imperishable, inexhaustible; never wanting when called upon;

balm to heal the blows of adversity, specific against all things malign.

Cultivate the perception of beauty, the knowledge of truth; learn to

distinguish between the realities of life and the dross of life; and you

have a great shield of fortitude of which certainly man cannot rob you,

and against which sickness, sorrow, or misfortune may strike tremendous

blows without so much as bruising the real you.

And it is in the life that is called uneventful that there is the most

opportunity for storing these treasures of the intellect. Perhaps there

is also the greater necessity. In the dull round of things we are thrown

in upon ourselves, and by every lightest thought and deed either are

strengthening that inner self or are sapping it. Either we are reading

the thoughts of men whose thoughts heap a priceless store within us,

or we are reading that which--though we are unaware--vitiates and puts

further and further beyond our grasp the truths of life; either we are

watching our lives and schooling them to feed upon thoughts and deeds

that will uplift them, or we are neglecting them, and allowing them

to browse where they will upon the rank weeds of petty spites, petty

jealousies, petty gossipings and petty deeds. In action we may have no

time to waste over this poisonous herbage; but in dulness most certainly

we do have the temptation--and as we resist or succumb so shall we

conduct ourselves when the larger events of life call us into the lists.

CHAPTER II

Margaret Fishes; Mary Prays.

I.

Mary's first month at Herons' Holt was uneventful: need not be recorded.

We are following the passage of the love 'twixt her and George; and

within the radius of Mr. Marrapit's eye love durst not creep. She saw

little of her George. They were most carefully circumspect in their

attitude one to another, and conscience made their circumspection trebly

stiff. There are politenesses to be observed between the inmates of a

house, but my Mary and my George, in terror lest even these should be

misconstrued, studiously neglected them.

The aloofness troubled Margaret. This girl wrapped her sentiment about

Mary; delighting in one who, so pretty, so young, so gentle-voiced, must

face life in an alien home. The girls came naturally together, and it

was not long before Margaret bubbled out her vocation.

The talk was upon books. Margaret turned away her head; said in the

voice of one hurrying over a commonplace: “I write, you know.”

She tingled for the “Do you?” from her companion, but it did not come,

and this was very disappointing.

She stole a glance at Mary, sitting with a far-away expression in her

eyes (the ridiculous girl had heard an engine whistle; knew it to be the

train that was taking her George to London). Margaret stole a glance at

Mary; repeated louder: “I write, you know.”

It fetched the delicious response. Mary started: “Do you?”

Margaret said hurriedly: “Oh, nothing worth speaking of.”

Mary said: “Oh!”; gave her thoughts again to the train.

It was wretched of her. “Poems,” said Margaret, and stressed the word

“_Poems_.”

Mary came flying back from the train. “Oh, how interesting that is!”

At once Margaret drew away. “Oh, it is nothing,” she said, “nothing.”

She put her eyes upon the far clouds; breathed “Nothing” in a long sigh.

From this it was not a far step to reading, with terrible reluctance,

her poems to Mary; nor from this again was it other than an obvious step

to telling of Bill. Her pretty verses were so clearly written at some

heart which throbbed responsive, that Mary must needs put the question.

It came after a full hour's reading--the poet sitting upon her bed in a

litter of manuscripts, Mary in a low chair before her.

In a tremulous voice the poet concluded the refrain of an exquisite

verse:

“Beat for beat, your heart, my darling,

Beats with mine.

Skylarks carol, quick responsive,

Love divine.”

The poet gave a little gulp; laid down her paper.

Mary also gulped. From both their pretty persons emotion welled in a

great flood that filled the room.

“I'm sure that is written _to_ somebody,” Mary breathed.

Margaret nodded. This girl was too ravished with the grip of the thing

to be capable of words.

Mary implored: “Oh, do tell me!”

Then Margaret told the story of Bill--with intimate details and in the

beautiful phrases of the poet mind she told it, and the flooding emotion

piled upwards to the very roof.

Love has rightly been pictured as a naked babe. Men together will

examine a baby--if they must--with a bashful diffidence that pulls down

the clothes each time the infant kicks; women dote upon each inch of its

chubby person. And so with love. Men will discuss their love--if they

must--with the most prudish decorum; women undress it.

It becomes essential, therefore, that what Margaret said to Mary must

not be discovered.

When she had ceased she put out a hand for the price of her confidence:

“And have you--are you--I know practically nothing about you, Mary,

dear. _Do_ tell me, are _you_ in love?”

Bang went the gates of Mary's emotion. Here was awful danger. She

laughed. “Oh, I've no time to fall in love, have I?”

Margaret sighed her sympathy; then gazed at Mary.

Mary read the gaze aright. These were women, and they read one another

by knowledge of sex. Mary knew Margaret's gaze to be that of an archer

sighting at his mark, estimating the chances of a hit. She saw the arrow

that was to come speeding at her breast; gathered her emotions so that

she should not flinch at the wound.

Margaret twanged the bow-string. “No time to fall in love?” she

murmured. She fitted the shaft; let fly. “Do you like George, dear?”

Mary stooped to her shoe-laces. Despite her preparations the arrow had

pierced, and she hid her face to hide the blood.

“George?” said she, head to floor.

“Yes, George. Do you like George?”

My Mary sat up, brazen. “George? Oh, you mean your cousin? I daresay

he's very nice. Practically I've never even spoken to him since I've

been here.”

“I know. Of course he's very busy just now. Do you think you would like

him if you did know him?”

It was murderous work. Mary was beginning to quiver beneath the arrows;

was in terror lest she should betray the secret. A desperate kick was

necessary. She wildly searched for a foothold; found it; kicked:

“I'm sure I shouldn't like him.”

The poet softly protested: “Oh why, Mary?”

“He's clean-shaven.”

“And you don't like a--”

“I can't stand a--”

“But if he had a--”

“Oh, if he had a--Margaret, I hear Mr. Marrapit calling. I must fly.”

She fled.

Upon a sad little sigh the poet moved to her table; drew heliotrope

paper towards her; wrote:

“Why are your hearts asunder, ye so fair?”

A thought came to her then, and she put her pen in her mouth; pursued

the idea. That evening she walked to the gate and met George upon his

return. After a few paces, “George,” she asked, “do you like Mary?”

George was never taken aback. “Mary? Mary who?”

“Miss Humfray.”

“Oh, is her name Mary?”

“Of course it is.” Margaret slipped her arm through George's; gazed up

at him. “Do you like her, George?”

“Like whom?”

“Why, Mary--Miss Humfray.”

“Oh, I think she's a little better than Mrs. Major--in some ways. If

that's what you mean.”

Margaret sighed. Such mulish indifference was a dreadful thing to this

girl. But she had set her heart on this romance.

“George, dear, I wish you would do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“How nice you are! Will you grow a moustache?”

She anxiously awaited the answer. George took his handkerchief from his

pocket and wiped his eyes. He did not speak.

She asked him: “What is the matter?”

He said brokenly: “You know not what you ask. I cannot grow a moustache.

It is my secret sorrow, my little cross. There is only one way. It is

by pushing up the hairs from inside with the handle of a tooth-brush

and tying a knot to prevent them slipping back. You have to do it every

morning, and I somehow can never remember it.”

Margaret slipped her arm free; without a word walked to the house.

She was hurt. This girl had the artistic temperament, and the artistic

temperament feels things most dreadfully. It even feels being kept

waiting for its meals.

II.

George followed the pained young woman into the house; set down in the

hall the books he carried; left the house again; out through the gate,

and so, whistling gaily along roads and lanes, came to the skirts of

an outlying copse. By disused paths he twisted this way and that to

approach, at length, a hut that once was cottage, whose dilapidated air

advertised long neglect.

It was a week after Mary's arrival at Herons' Holt that, quite by

chance, George had stumbled upon this hut. He had taken his books into

the copse, had somehow lost his way in getting out, and through thick

undergrowth had plumped suddenly upon the building. Curiosity had taken

him within, shown him an outer and an inner room, and, in the second, a

sight that had given him laughter; for he discovered there sundry empty

bottles labelled “Old Tom,” a glass, an envelope addressed to Mrs.

Major. It was clear that in this deserted place--somehow chanced

upon--the masterly woman had been wont, safe from disturbance, to meet

the rascal who, taken to Herons' Holt on that famous night, had so

villainously laid her by the heels.

Nothing more George had thought of the place until the morning of this

day when, leaving for hospital, his Mary had effected a brief whispered

moment to tell him that Mr. Marrapit had thought her looking pale, had

told her to take a long walk that afternoon. Immediately George gave her

directions for the hut; there he would meet her at five o'clock; there

not the most prying eye could reach them.

Now he approached noiselessly; saw his pretty Mary, back towards him,

just within the threshold of the open door. It was their first secluded

meeting since she had come to Herons' Holt.

Upon tip-toe George squirmed up to her; hissed “I have thee, girl”;

sprang on his terrified Mary; hugged her to him.

“The first moment together in Paltley Hill!” he cried. “The first holy

kiss!”

His Mary wriggled. “George! You frightened me nearly out of my life.

It's not holy. You're hurting me awfully.”

“My child, it is holy. Trust in me.”

“George, you _are_ hurting.”

“Scorn that. It is delicious!”

He let her from his arms; but he held her hands, and for a space,

looking at one another, they did not speak. Despite he was in wild

spirits, despite her roguishness, for a space they did not speak. His

hands were below hers and about hers. The contact of their palms was

the junction whence each literally could feel the other's spirit being

received and pouring inwards. The metals were laid true, and without

hitch or delay the delectable thrill came pouring; above, between their

eyes, on wires invisible they signalled its safe arrival.

They broke upon a little laugh that was their utmost expression of the

intoxication of this draught of love, just as a man parched with thirst

will with a little sigh put down the glass that has touched him back to

vigour. Dumb while they drank, their innate earthiness made them dumb

before effort to express the spiritual heights to which they had been

whirled. In that moment when, spirit mingling with spirit through the

medium of what we call love, all our baseness is driven out of us, we

are nearest heaven. But our vocabulary being only fitted for the needs

about us, we have no words to express the elevation. Debase love and we

can speak of it; let it rush upwards to its apotheosis and we must be

dumb.

With a little laugh they broke.

“Going on all right, old girl?” George asked.

“Splendidly.”

“Happy?”

She laughed and said: “I will give the proper answer to that. How can I

be other than happy, oh, my love, when daily I see your angel form?”

“I forgot that. Yes, you're a lucky girl in that way--very, very lucky.

Beware lest you do not sufficiently prize your treasure. Cherish it,

tend it, love it.”

“Oh, don't fool, George. Whenever we have two minutes together you waste

them in playing the goat. Georgie, tell me--about your exam.”

“To-morrow.”

She was at once serious. “To-morrow?”

“To-morrow I thrust my angel form into the examination room. To-morrow

my angel voice trills in the examiners' ears.”

“I thought you had a paper first, before the viva?”

“Do not snap me up, girl. I speak in metaphors. To-morrow my angel hand

glides my pen over the paper. On Thursday my angel tongue gives forth my

wisdom with the sound of a tinkling cymbal.”

“The paper to-morrow, the viva on Thursday?”

He bowed his angel head.

“George, don't, _don't_ fool. Are you nervous? Will you pass?”

“I shall rush, I shall bound. I shall hurtle through like a great

boulder.”

“_Georgie!_ Will you?”

He dropped his banter. “I believe I shall, old girl. I really think I

shall. I've simply sweated my life out these weeks--all for you.”

She patted his hand. “Dear old George! How I shall think of you! And

then?”

“Then--why, then, we'll marry! Mary, I shall hear the result immediately

after the viva. Then I shall rush back here and tackle old Marrapit at

once. If he won't give me the money I think perhaps he'll lend it, and

then we'll shoot off to Runnygate and take up that practice and live

happily ever after.”

With the brave ardour of youth they discussed the delectable picture;

arranged the rooms they had never seen; planned the daily life of which

they had not the smallest experience.

Twice in our lives we can play at Make-Believe--once when we are

children, once when we are lovers. And these are the happiest times

of our lives. We are not commoners then; we are emperors. We touch the

sceptre and it is a magic wand. We rule the world, shaping it as we

will, dropping from between our fingers all the stony obstacles that

would interfere with its plasticity. Between childhood and love, and

between love and death, the world rules us and bruises us. But in

childhood, and again in love, we rule the world.

So they ruled their world.

III.

That night Mary prayed her George might pass his examination--a prayer

to make us wise folk laugh. The idea of our conception of the Divinity

deliberately thrusting into George's mind knowledge that he otherwise

had not, the idea of the Divinity deliberately prompting the examiners

to questions that George could answer--these are ludicrous to us in

our wisdom. We have the superiority of my simple Mary in point of

intelligence; well, let us hug that treasure and make the most of it.

Because we miss the sense of confidence with which Mary got from her

knees; passed into her dreams. With our fine intellects we should lie

awake fretting such troubles. These simple, stupid Marys just hand the

tangle on and sleep comforted. They call it Faith.

Yes, but isn't it grand to be of that fine, brave, intellectual,

hard-headed, business-like stamp that trusts nothing it cannot see and

prove? Rather!

CHAPTER III.

Barley Water For Mr. Marrapit.

I.

Up the drive George came bounding with huge strides. The fires of

tremendous joy that roared within him impelled him to enormous energy.

Upon the journey from Waterloo to Paltley Hill he could with difficulty

restrain himself from leaping upon the seat; bawling “I've passed! I've

passed! I'm qualified!” He could not sit still. He fidgeted, wriggled;

thrust his head first from one window, then from the other. Every foot

of the line was well known to him. To each familiar landmark his spirit

bellowed: “Greeting! When last you saw me I was coming up in a blue

funk. Now! Oh, good God, now--” and he would draw in, stride the

carriage, and thrust his head from the other window.

His four fellow-passengers regarded him with some apprehension. They

detected signs of lunacy in the young man; kept a nervous eye cocked

upon the alarm cord; at the first stopping place with one accord arose

and fled. One, signing herself “Lady Shareholder,” had her alarming

experience in her daily-paper upon the following morning.

At his station George leapt for the platform a full minute before the

train had stopped. Up the lanes he sent his bursting spirits flying

in shrill whistlings and gay hummings; slashed stones with his

stick; struck across the fields and took gates and stiles in great

spread-eagled vaults.

So up the drive, stones still flying, whistlings still piping.

II.

Upon the lawn he espied Mr. Marrapit and his Mary. She, on a garden

seat, was reading aloud from the _Times_; Mr. Marrapit, on a deep chair

stretched to make lap for the Rose of Sharon, sat a little in advance of

her.

George approached from Mr. Marrapit's flank; soft turf muffled his

strides. The warm glow of kindliness towards all the world, which his

success had stoked burning within him, put a foreign word upon his

tongue. He sped it on a boisterous note:

“Uncle!” he cried. “Uncle, I've passed!”

Mary crushed the _Times_ between her hands; bounded to her feet. “Oh!”

she cried. “Hip! hur--!”

She bit the final exclamation; dropped to her seat. Mr. Marrapit had

twisted his eye upon her.

“You are in pain?” he asked.

“No--oh, no.”

“You have a pang in the hip?”

“Oh no--no.”

“But you bounded. You cried 'hip'! Whose hip?”

“I was startled.”

“Unsatisfactory. The brain, not the hip, is the seat of the emotion.

Elucidate.”

“I don't know why I said 'hip.' I was startled. Mr. George startled me.”

“Me also he startled. I did not shout hip, thigh, leg nor knee. Control

the tongue.”

He turned to George. “Miss Humfray's extraordinary remark has projected

this dilatory reception of your news. I beg you repeat it.”

Sprayed upon between mortification and laughter at the manner of his

greeting, George's enthusiasm was a little damped. But its flame was too

fierce to be hurt by a shower. Now it roared again. “I've passed!” he

cried. “I'm qualified!”

“I tender my felicitations. Accept them. Leave us, Miss Humfray. This is

a mighty hour. Take the Rose. Give her cream. Let her with us rejoice.”

Mary raised the cat. She faced about so that she directly shut Mr.

Marrapit from his nephew; with her dancing eyes spoke her happiness to

her George; passed down the lawn.

III.

Mr. Marrapit drew in the lap he had been making. He sat upright. “Again,

accept my felicitations,” he said. “They are yours. Take them.”

With fitting words George took them. Mr. Marrapit continued: “It is a

mighty hour. Through adversity we have won to peace, through perils to

port, through hurts to harbour.”

He paused.

“You mean--” George said, groping.

“Do not interpose. It is a mighty hour. Let this scene sink into our

minds and march with us to the grave. Here upon the lawn we stand.

Westward the setting sun. Creeping towards us the lengthening shadows.

Between us the horrid discord which has so long reigned no longer

stands. It is banished by a holy peace. The past is dead. My trust is

ended. The vow which I swore unto your mother I have steadfastly kept. I

would nourish you, I declared, until you were a qualified physician.

You are a qualified physician. I have nourished you. Frequently in the

future, upon a written invitation, I trust you will visit this home in

which your youth has been spent. When do you leave?”

The query towards which Mr. Marrapit had been making through his psalm

came to George with a startling abruptness that was disconcerting. He

had not anticipated it. He jerked: “When do I--leave?”

“Certainly. The hour of your departure, unduly deferred by idleness and

waywardness upon which we will not dwell, is now at hand. When does

it fall? Not to-night, I trust? A last night you will, I hope, spend

beneath my roof. To-morrow, perchance? What are your plans?”

George flamed. “You're in a mighty hurry to get rid of me.”

Mr. Marrapit cast upward his eyes. He groaned:

“Again I am misunderstood. All my life I have been misunderstood.” He

became stern. “Ingrate! Is it not patent to you that my desire is not to

stand in your way? You have earned manhood, freedom, a charter to wrest

money from the world. I might stay you. I do not. I bid you Godspeed.”

George remembered his weighty purpose. Making for it, he became humble.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I see what you mean. I appreciate your kindness.

You ask what are my plans. I have come specially to lay them before

you.”

Mr. Marrapit clutched the seat of his chair with the action of one

waiting a dentist's torture. He had a premonition that support of some

kind would be necessary. “Proceed,” he said.

George said: “My plans--” He swallowed. “My plans--” Again he swallowed.

His plans were red-hot within him, but he sought despairingly for one

that would not at the very outset turn Mr. Marrapit into screams. “My

plans--” he stammered.

“My God!” Mr. Marrapit groaned. “My God! What is coming?”

George said on a rush: “These are my plans. I intend to marry--”

Mr. Marrapit gave a faint little bark.

“Then--then--” said George, floundering. “After that--then--I intend to

marry--I--”

“Bigamy,” Mr. Marrapit murmured. “Bigamy.”

“Not twice. I am nervous. I intend to marry. I want to buy a little

seaside practice that is for sale.”

Mr. Marrapit repeated the faint little bark. He was lying back, eyes

half closed, face working upon some inward stress.

“Those are my plans,” George summarised: “to marry and buy this

practice.”

A considerable pause followed. The workings of Mr. Marrapit's face

ceased; he opened his eyes, sat up. “When?” he asked.

“At once.”

“This practice--”

“I have it in my eye.”

“Immaterial. Have you it in your pocket?”

“You mean the price?”

“I mean the money wherewith to finance these appalling schemes.”

“Not exactly. It is about that I wish to speak to you.”

“To _me?_”

“Yes. I wanted to ask--”

“You intend to ask me for money?”

“I want to suggest--”

“How much?”

“Four--five hundred pounds.”

“Great heaven!” Mr. Marrapit wildly fingered the air. Margaret, at the

end of the lawn, crossed his vision. He called huskily: “Margaret!”

She tripped to him. “Father! What is it?”

“Barley water!” Mr. Marrapit throated. “Barley water!”

While she was upon her errand no--words passed between the two. Mr.

Marrapit took the glass from her in shaking hands. “Leave us,” he said.

He drank of his barley water; placed the glass upon the bench beside

him; gave George a wan smile. “I am stricken in years,” he said. “I

have passed through a trance or conscious nightmare. You will have had

experience of such affections of the brain. I thought”--the hideous

memory shook him--“I thought you asked me for five hundred pounds.”

George said defiantly: “I did.”

Mr. Marrapit frantically reached for the barley water; feverishly

gulped. “I shall have a stroke,” he cried. “My hour is at hand.”

My poor George flung himself on a note of appeal. “Oh, I say, uncle,

don't go on like that! You don't know what this means to me.”

“I do not seek to know. I am too fully occupied with its consequences to

myself; it means a stroke. I feel it coming. My tomb yawns.”

George gripped together his hands; paced a few strides; returned. “Oh,

for heaven's sake, don't go on like that! Won't you listen to me? Is it

impossible to speak with you as man to man? If you refuse what I ask,

you have only to say no.”

“You promise that?”

“Of course; of course.”

“I say it now, then. No.”

“But you haven't heard me.”

“Unnecessary.”

The tortured young man raised his voice.

“It is necessary! You shall! You must!”

“Barley water!” Mr. Marrapit gasped. “Barley water! I am going to be

murdered.”

“Oh, this is insupportable!” George cried.

“I endorse that. A double death threatens me. I shudder between a stroke

and a blow. I shall be battered to death on my own lawn.”

“If you would only listen to me,” George implored. “Why can we never be

natural when we meet?”

“Search your heart for the answer,” Mr. Marrapit told him. “It is

because your demands are unnatural.”

“You haven't heard them. Listen. I am on the threshold of my career.

I am sure you will not ruin it. The real price of this practice is

650 pounds--the value of a year and a half's income; that is the usual

custom. I am offered it for four hundred. Then I want to marry and to

have a little balance with which to start--say 100 pounds for that. That

makes 500 pounds altogether. I implore you to lend--lend, not give--that

sum. I will pay you back 50 pounds at the end of the first year and a

hundred a year afterwards. Interest too. I don't know much about these

things. Any interest you like. We would get a solicitor to draw up an

agreement. Say you will lend the money. I feel sure you will.”

“You delude yourself by that assurance.”

“Oh, wait before you refuse. My prospects are so bright if only you

will help me. I have no one else to whom I can turn. It is only a loan I

ask.”

“It is refused.”

George stamped away, hands to head. The poor boy was in agony. Then

returned:

“I won't believe you. You will not be so heartless. Think over what I

have said. Tell me to-night--to-morrow.”

“My answer would be the same.”

“You absolutely refuse to lend me the money?”

“I refuse. It is against my principles.”

My frantic George clutched at a shimmering hope. “Against your

principles to lend? Do you mean that you will give--give me 500 pounds?”

“Barley water!” Mr. Marrapit gasped. He drank; gasped: “Give 500 pounds!

You are light-headed!”

“Then lend it!” George supplicated on a last appeal. “Make any

conditions you please, and I will accept them. Uncle, think of when you

were a young man. Remember the time when you were on the threshold of

your career. Think of when you were engaged as I am now engaged. Imagine

your feelings if you had been prevented marrying. You won't stand in

my way? The happiest life is before me if you will only give your aid.

Otherwise--otherwise--oh, I say, you won't refuse?”

“I implore you to close this distressing scene.”

“Will you lend me the money?”

“My principles prevent me.”

“Then damn your principles!” George shouted. “Damn your principles!”

While he had been battering his head against this brick wall he had been

saved pain by the hope that a last chance would carry him through. Now

that he realised the futility of the endeavour, the stability of the

wall, he had time to feel the bruising he had suffered--the bitterness

of failure and of all that failure meant. The hurts combined to make him

roar with pain, and he shouted furiously again: “Damn your principles!”

“Barley water!” throated Mr. Marrapit on a note of terror. He reached

for the glass. It was empty.

He struggled to his feet; got the chair between George and himself;

cried across it: “Beware how you touch me.”

“Oh, I'm not going to touch you. You needn't be afraid.”

“I have every need. I am afraid. Keep your distance. You are not

responsible for your actions.”

“You needn't be afraid, I tell you. It is too ridiculous.”

“I repeat I have need. Keep your distance. My limbs tremble as one in a

palsy.” Mr. Marrapit gripped the chair-back; his shudders advertised his

distress.

“I only want to say this,” George declaimed, “that if you refuse what

I ask, you are refusing what is lawfully mine. My mother left you 4000

pounds for my education. At the outside you have spent three. The 500

pounds is mine. I have a right to it.”

“Keep your distance, sir.”

My furious George took three steps forward.

“Can you answer what I say?” he shouted.

Mr. Marrapit gave a thin cry: turned, and with surprising bounds made

across the lawn. A slipper shot from his foot. He alighted upon a

stone; bounded heavenwards with a shrill scream; and hopping, leaping,

shuffling, made the corner of the house.

George swung on his heel. It occurred to him to visit Bill Wyvern.

CHAPTER IV.

The Rape Of The Rose.

I.

Bill was away from home, the maid who answered the door told George;

Mrs. Wyvern was out; the Professor was in his study.

George found the great biologist warming his chilly old bones in a vast

armchair before a fire.

With a twinkling of his sky-blue eyes that spoke to pleasant temper, the

Professor greeted George; nodded him into an opposite seat.

“I am reading a letter,” he announced. This man spoke very slowly, never

abbreviated; had now an air of child-like happiness. “It is a letter

from Bill.”

George said: “Ah, what is Bill doing? I've not seen him for days.”

Professor Wyvern chuckled away and fumbled with clumsy old fingers among

the closely-written sheets on his lap. One he selected and inclined

towards George. Its upper half was thickly lettered in heavy red type,

prominent among which there bawled forth in wavy capitals, thickly

underscored:

“THE DAILY.” EVERYBODY'S PAPER. PRICE 1/2d.

“Hot stuff!” George cried. “Is old Bill on the staff of the _Daily_?”

“Old Bill is on the staff of the _Daily_,” the Professor returned with

more chuckling. “You have heard of it?”

“Well, it's advertised everywhere. You can't get away from it. First

number out to-morrow, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is. I think it will be a very terrible production--a very

horrible production indeed. But I am an annual subscriber because

of Bill, and I have written a short article for the first issue also

because of Bill. Bill says” (the Professor fumbled again; ran his nose

twice up and down each sheet; finally struck the passage) “Bill says,

'You were a brick, dear old governor, to send that article. It is a most

thundering scoop for the _Daily_, and made the Boss most awfully bucked

up with me. You are a brick, dear old Governor.”

A little tear rolled out of Professor Wyvern's silly old eye, and he

blew his nose in a series of terrific thunder-claps.

“There!” he said. “You see how pleased Bill is with himself. I am afraid

he uses the most terrible expressions in his letters, but he does not

use them when he is writing his stories. He is a clever boy, and I am

very proud of him. Now let me tell you.” He fell to nosing the sheets

again. “All this first part is about his dogs. '... if Abiram and Dathan

start scrapping, just hoof Abiram--it's his fault.'”

The Professor looked up at George. “I would more readily kick a police

constable than I would kick Abiram,” he said. “I must tell Hocken all

this.”

He continued, “'... see that Korah is kept short of meat for a bit ...

when they are exercising, for goodness' sake don't let them be taken

down Windmill Lane. There is a collie there that they have got a grudge

against and will tear to bits if they catch.'”

The Professor paused. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! I must give all this part to

Hocken to keep. Ah! Now here is about his work. They have engaged him

at four pounds a week. He does not know exactly what he is. Not a

sub-editor. Not a reporter. He thinks they will put him on to what he

calls 'special jobs,' or he may have to do what he calls 'ferret round'

and find jobs for himself. The understanding is that he is only on

probation. If he does anything very good they will put him on the

permanent staff; if not, he is liable to go at a week's notice. Then he

says, 'Tell all this to George, and give him my love. He was up for his

exam--'”

Professor Wyvern broke off. “Dear me!” he cried; “oh, dear me, I have

forgotten! You have been up for your examination?”

George nodded.

Kindly old Professor Wyvern misinterpreted the lack of enthusiasm. “When

I was a medical student,” he said, “I failed dozens of times in my final

examination--dozens. It's no criterion of knowledge, you know: it

is just luck. Never let examination failure dishearten you. Go along

happily, George, and take your chance when it comes.”

“It's come,” George said, beaming; recollection of his splendid success

temporarily overshadowed recollection of his tragic failure.

“You have qualified?”

“Yes.”

The Professor's sky-blue eyes danced with glee. He struggled on to his

tottery old legs; before George could save him the exertion, had hobbled

over the hearth-rug and was wringing his hand in tremendous pleasure.

“Well done, George!” he bubbled. “Well done! Well done! It is the

most splendid news. I have not had such a happy day for a long time.

Qualified! Well, that is splendid! Splendid!”

He fell back into his chair, panting with his excitement. “Ring that

bell, George. We must celebrate this.”

A maid appeared. “Susan,” said the Professor, “bring up a small bottle

of champagne and two glasses. Mr. George has passed his examination. Be

very quick, Susan.”

Susan was very quick. The cork popped; the glasses foamed and fizzed.

“Now we will have one glass each,” the Professor said. “I think, it will

kill me at this hour, and if my wife catches me she will send me to bed;

so we must be very quick. Now, this is your health, George. God bless

you and good luck!”

He drained his glass like the brave old boy that he was; and when his

eyes had done streaming, and he had finished gasping and choking, bade

Susan hurry away the signs of the dreadful deed before her mistress

should catch her.

“And now tell me your plans, George. Which road to Harley Street, eh?”

Then George poured into those kindly old ears all the tragic story--the

girl he was going to marry; the practice he was going to buy; the

wrecker who had wrecked his fair ships ere ever he had put to sea.

There were in the Professor's nature no sympathies that enabled him even

to comprehend miserliness in any degree. Made aware of the taint in Mr.

Marrapit, he became red and furious in his abhorrence of it. With snorts

and fumes he punctuated the recital; when it closed, burst out: “Why,

but it is yours! the money is yours. It is misappropriation.”

“That's just what I say.”

“Well, he must be made to give it you.” George laughed grimly. “I say

that, too. But how?”

“Are you certain of your facts, George?”

“I've been to Somerset house and seen my mother's will.”

“Legally, then--we'll get it out of him by law.”

“I've thought of that,” George said. “I don't think it is possible.

Look, the passage runs like this. I have it word for word. 'To my

brother Christopher Marrapit 4000 pounds, and I desire him to educate in

the medical profession my son George.' Not even 'with which I desire

him,' you see. I don't think there's any legal way of getting the money

I want--the five hundred.”

II.

For full ten minutes Professor Wyvern made no answer. He stared in the

fire, and every now and again one of his little chuckles set his bent

old shoulders bobbing. Upon a longer chuckle they waggled for a

space; then he turned to George. “Not legally; well, then, what about

illegally, George?”

George did not comprehend.

“A very bad notion has come into my head,” the Professor continued. “I

ought to be ashamed of it, but I am not. I think it would be very funny.

I think your uncle would deserve it. I am sure it would be very funny,

and I think it would be proper and justifiable.”

“Go on,” George said. “Tell me.”

The Professor's old shoulders bobbed about again. “No, I will not tell

you,” he said. “I will not be a party to it; because if my wife found

out she would send me to bed and keep me there. But I will tell you a

little story, George. If it sets up a train of action that you like to

follow--well, I think it will be very funny. Only, don't tell me.”

“I say, this is mysterious. Tell me the story.”

“Yes, I will. This is the story. When I was a student in Germany we had

a professor called Meyer. He wore a wig because he was quite bald. He

was very sensitive about his baldness and would have no one know--but we

knew. Upon one afternoon there was a great violinist who was coming to

play at our town. All the professors announced that for this occasion

they would postpone the lectures they should then have given, so that

their classes might attend the concert. But this Professor Meyer said

that he would not postpone his lecture. It was a link in a series, you

understand--not to be missed,--so his class, of which I was one; were

very furious. We told him that we were entitled to a holiday this day

since all had it, but he would not hear us. We were very angry, for

this holiday was our right. Now, also, one week before the concert the

burgomaster of our town was to give a great banquet to the celebration

of the centenary of a famous citizen. Here our Professor Meyer was to

make a speech. Well, when he remained adamant, determined to give us

no holiday, we had a great meeting, and thus we arranged to procure

the holiday that was ours by right. Our plot was justified by his

mulishness. He should lose the thing he most cherished--he should lose

his wig two days before his banquet with the burgomaster. One of us

would take his wig, seizing him as by night he walked to his rooms.

Before his distress we should be most sympathetic, offering every aid.

Perchance he would encourage our efforts by offer of the prize we most

desired. The plot worked, with no misadventure, to a brilliant triumph.

We took the wig. We enveloped him in our sympathy. 'Search out and

restore my wig,' said he, 'and you shall have your holiday.' Then we

found his wig and we enjoyed the holiday that was our right. That is the

story,” Professor Wyvern ended.

Mystification clouded George's face. He pushed out a leg, stared at the

toe. He stared at the fire; at the Professor, chuckling and rubbing

his hands, he stared. His brain twisted the story this way and that,

striving to dovetail it into his own circumstances.

In such a process the eyes are the mouth of the machine whence the

completed manufacture sends forth its sparkling. But while the mechanism

twists and turns the fabrics there is no sparkle--the eyes are clouded

in thought, as we say.

The eyes that George turned upon toe, upon fire, and upon Professor

Wyvern, were dull and lack-lustre. The machine worked unproductive;

there was a cog that required adjustment, a lever that wanted a pull.

George sought the foreman machinist; said slowly: “But I don't see how

the story helps me?”

“Well, you must think over it,” Professor Wyvern told him. “I dare

not tell you any more. I must be no party to the inference that can be

drawn. But do you not see that the thing our Professor cherished most

was his wig? Now, Bill has told me that the thing your uncle cherishes

above all price is--”

Click went the machine; round buzzed the wheels; out from George's eyes

shot the sparkles. He jumped to his feet, his face red. “Is his cat!” he

cried. “His Rose of Sharon! I see it! I see it! By Gad, I'll do it! Look

here now--”

“No, I will not,” the Professor said. “I do not wish to know anything

about it. I hear my wife's step.”

“I understand. All right. But don't tell a soul--not even Bill.”

“I cannot tell, because I do not know. But I suspect it is something

very funny,” and the Professor burst into a very deep “Ho! ho! ho!”

“My dearest,” said Mrs. Wyvern at the door, “whatever can you be

laughing at so loudly?”

“Ho! ho! ho! ho!” boomed the Professor, belling like a bloodhound. “It

is something very funny.”

Mrs. Wyvern kissed the thin hairs on the top of his mighty head. “Dear

William, I do trust it was not one of those painful stories of your

young days.”

George stayed to dinner. By nine he left the house. He did not make for

home. Striking through lanes he climbed an ascending field, mounted a

stile, and here, with an unseeing eye upon Herons' Holt twinkling its

bedroom lights in the valley below, he smoked many pipes, brooding upon

his scheme.

III.

It was not a melancholy process. Every now and again a crack of laughter

jerked him; once he took his pipe from his mouth and put up a ringing

peal of mirth that sent a brace of bunnies, flirting near his feet,

wildly scampering for safety. Long he brooded....

A church clock gave him eleven. At ten he had been too deeply buried.

Now his head was pushed clear from the burrow in which he had been

working, and the sound caught his attention. No light now pricked

Herons' Holt upon the dusky chart stretched beneath him. Its occupants

were abed.

“I'll do it to-night!” cried George. “I'll do it at once!”

He drew on his pipe. A full cloud of smoke came. The pipe was well

alight, and caution bidding him that it were well to bide a while

so that sleep might more cosily warm the beds of the household, he

determined that he would have out his last smoke as plotter: his next

would be smoked as doer of the deed.

He rehearsed his plan. A knife would slip back the catch of the window

behind which the Rose of Sharon lay. Possessing himself of her person

he would speed to that tumbled hut in the copse. There she might lie in

safety for the night: neither hut nor copse was in any man's road. Upon

the morrow, when the hideous circumstance had been discovered, he would

bear himself as events seemed to demand. He would be boundless in his

sympathy, a leader in the search. If the idea of reward did not occur to

Mr. Marrapit, he must suggest it. Unlikely that in the first moment

of loss, when the Rose would still seem to be near, the reward would

approach the figure at which he aimed. That was for his cunning to

contrive. But obviously it would be impossible permanently to keep the

Rose in the hut. To-morrow, when pretending to search for her he could

guard the place where she lay; but he could not always be sentinel.

The countryside would be scoured; no stone left unturned, no spinney

unbeaten.

As he saw the matter, the plan would be to get somewhere down the

railway line on pretext of a clue, taking the Rose of Sharon with him;

for the success of the whole scheme depended upon his concealing the cat

until Mr. Marrapit should be upon his bended knees in his distress,

in deepest despair as to the Rose's recovery, and hence would be

transported to deepest gratitude when it was restored to his arms.

George told himself he must be prepared against the eventuality of his

uncle failing to offer in public reward so large a sum as 500 pounds.

That did not greatly distress. Best indeed if that sum were offered,

but, failing it, it was upon Mr. Marrapit's gratitude that George

ultimately reckoned. Surely when he “found” the cat it would be Mr.

Marrapit's natural reply to give in exchange the sum he had that

afternoon so violently refused. At the least, he could not refuse to

lend it.

Early in his brooding George had decided he must not tell his Mary.

First, it would be cruel to set her upon the rack of acting a part

before Mr. Marrapit, before the household, before every questioner she

must encounter; second--second, my ignoble George had doubts as to in

what spirit his Mary would regard this plot did he make her partner in

it. That it was wholly justifiable he personally would have contended

before archangels. This miserly uncle was keeping from him money that

was as incontestably his own as the being which also his mother

had given him. Before all the angelic host he would thus have

protested-without stammer, without blush; with the inspiration of

righteousness, with the integrity of innocence. But to protest his

cause before his Mary was another matter. There might be no occasion

to protest; his Mary might see eye to eye with him in the matter. She

might; but it was an eventuality he did not care to try against a test.

His Mary was a girl--and girls are in their conduct narrowed by scruples

that do not beset men. His Mary--and this it was that would make a test

so violent--his Mary was his Mary, and well he knew, and loved, the

little heart so delicately white as instantly to discover the finest

specks of sootiness--if specks there were--in any breeze that might

cross its surface.

No, he would not tell his Mary. When the thing was done--when he, the

black-hearted rogue, had the little saint safe in the toils she would

find so delicious, then--then he would tell her, would silence her

frightened squeals--if she squealed--by his intention to pay back the

money, whether won as reward (which was improbable) or earned as token

of gratitude (which was highly likely). He had only asked to borrow, and

it should only be a loan.

Across the dark fields in spirit he kissed his little saint. ... Of

course--of course--one must admit these brutal things--of course the

scheme might fail. Anything might happen to crash it about his ears.

That was a deadly, dismal thought, but he flattened it from sight with

that lusty hammer that gay youth uses--“I shan't be any worse off if it

does fail.”

The smoke came through his pipe in burning whiffs. He shook it bowl

downwards. Ashes and sparks fell in a shower. The pipe was done.

_Whoop! forrard!_ The game was afoot.

IV.

A moon as clear as that which shone when Bill stole to Herons' Holt

to woo his blessed damosel, gave a clear light to George as now he

approached the house. He took his way across the fields, and his

progression was that of no stealthy-footed conspirator. Two miles of

downward-sloping land lay between the stile whereon he had brooded and

the home that his plottings were to disturb. In buoyant spirits--for

this was action, and action makes lusty appeal to youth--he trotted or

galloped as the descent was easy or sharply inclined; the low hedges he

took in great sprawling jumps, the ditches in vast giant strides--arms

working as balance-pole, humming as he ran.

Upon the lawn he became more cautious. But the moon showed Herons' Holt

sleepy-eyed-blinds drawn.

The cats' parlour, back of the house, gave upon a little strip of turf

that kept away the kitchen garden. George drew his knife; approached the

window. Now he was a criminal indeed.

To slip the catch was easy work; between upper and lower sash there was

clear space. George inserted his pen-knife. Tip of blade grated against

catch; a little pressure--an answering movement; a little more--and,

_click_, the trick was done!

Now he raised the sash, and now he is in the room. Glimmer of a match

shows him the sleeping-baskets; its steadier flame discloses the Rose,

snugly curled, a little free of her silken coverlet.

Wake, now, Rose--as an older school of novelists would have addressed

you. Wake, Rose! Wake, pretty Rose! Queenly Rose, awake! Wake precious,

virgin Rose! Squeal! scratch! bite! Claw those wicked hands descending

into your pure bed! Spring like spotless maiden aroused to find ravisher

at her couch! Spring, Rose, spring! Squawking news of outrage to all the

house, bound wildly, Rose, about this room that else you shall not see

until through searing perils you have passed! Spring! Rose, spring!

Not Rose!

II.

The ravisher's hands descended upon her person--she only purred. They

passed about her warm and exquisite form--she purred the more. They

tickled her as they laid hold--she stretched a leg; purred with fuller

note. Perchance this virgin cat dreamed of some gallant young Tom wooing

her bed; perchance these ticklings had their deliciously transfigured

place in her visions; perchance--she only purred.

Now George tucked her beneath his arm. Legs dangled wretchedly; gallant

young Tom leapt from her dreams and she awoke. She stirred. George had a

foot upon the window-sill, and the night air ruffled her downy coat.

She was pressed against bony ribs; a rough arm squeezed her wretchedly;

long, poky fingers tortured her flank; her legs draggled dismally. She

voiced protest in a plaintive, piercing, long-drawn _“Mi-aow!”_

_Clout!_

Ah, Rose! Pretty, foolish Rose--as our older school again would have

written--why did you entertain sensuous dreams when you should have been

stirring?

_“Mi-aow!”_

_Clout!_

Too late, Rose! Too late! That beauteous head--that prize-winning head

which from kittenhood upwards has known none other than caress, is now

a mark for battering bumps if you do but open those perfect jaws--those

prize-winning jaws. Too late, Rose! Too late! Do not cry now, Rose! The

ravisher has you. His blood congeals in terror at your plaintive cry.

In his brutish panic he will answer it with thuds. Too late, Rose! Too

late!

“_Mi-aow!_”

_Clout!_

Ah, Rose, Rose!

He is outside now. “Shut up, you fat idiot!” he hisses. Squeezing her

yet more villainously with one arm, with the other he draws down the

sash. Through the gate, into the lane, over the stream, down the ride,

into the copse--up to the hut.

The outer door hangs grinningly upon its hinges. The door going to

the inner room has a working latch; George kicks it open; elbows it to

behind him; drops the Rose with jarring plump; strikes a match. There is

the dusty pile of Old Tom bottles, there the little heap of bracken upon

which Mrs. Major doubtless had reclined while with Old Tom she talked.

Excellent!

The match goes out. He lights another. The Rose is standing forlornly at

his feet. While the match lasts he lifts her to the bracken bed; presses

her down; backs out; closes the door.

His watch, put beneath the moon, tells him it is upon one o'clock. He

pulls to the outer door; wedges beneath it a stump of wood that keeps it

firmly shut; makes for home.

In an hour he is sleeping the dreamless, childlike slumber that comes

to those who, setting their hand to the plough, have manfully laboured a

full day's work.

CHAPTER V.

Horror At Herons' Holt.

I.

Sleep does not necessarily shun the bed of the wicked. She is a wanton

mistress, and will cuddle where her fancy chances, careless whether vice

or virtue is her bedfellow; coy when most eagerly supplicated, seductive

when least desired.

George, steeped in crime, snuggled warmly to her until aroused by a rude

shaking.

Night-capped and dressing-gowned, white-faced and trembling, awful in

grief Mr. Marrapit stood near him.

“Get up! The Rose of Sharon is lost.”

“Impossible!”

“I tell you it is so. Up!”

George pushed a shaking leg out of bed. He was had unawares. As a

sleeper pitched sleeping into the sea, so from unconsciousness he was

hurled plump into the whirlpool of events. And as the sleeper thus

immersed would gulp and sink and kick, so now he blinked, shivered, and

gasped.

He repeated: “Impossible!”

“I tell you it is so. I have eyes; I have been to her room.” Mr.

Marrapit's voice rose in a wailing cry. “I have been to her room. Gone!

Gone!”

George put out the other leg--crime-steeped legs that quivered. He had

looked for a space between awaking and meeting his uncle in which to

prepare his plans, rehearse his words. This abrupt rousing stampeded his

senses. He quavered “Wher--where can she be?”

Mr. Marrapit flung up his arms. “Oh, my God! If I knew that would I be

here? Up! Up! Join the searchers in the garden.”

George pushed a criminal leg into his trousers. Conscience made thumbs

of his fingers, trembled his joints. He hopped frantically, thrusting

with the other foot.

“Dance!” Mr. Marrapit moaned bitterly. “Dance! That is right! Why do you

not sing also? This is nothing to you! Dance on! Dance on!”

George cannoned the wash-stand. “It _is_ something to me. I can hardly

believe it!”

“Is sorrow expressed in a gavotte? Grief in a hornpipe?”

“I'm not dancing. My damned bags are stuck!”

Mr. Marrapit wrung his hands. “Discard them! Discard them! Must decency

imperil the Rose?”

With a tremendous kick George thrust in past the obstruction.

“They're on now--my slippers--coat--what shall I do?”

“Join the searchers. Scour the grounds. Search every shrub. Climb every

tree.”

The agonised man led downstairs. “I found the window open,” he moaned.

“Night by night, year in year out, I have shut it. Impossible that I

forgot. If I forgot, the Rose is in the garden or in the vicinity. If I

did not forget, the window was forced--the Rose was stolen. A detective

shall decide.”

George grew quite cold. Employment of a detective had not occurred to

him. They were at the front door. He put a hand on Mr. Marrapit's arm.

“Oh, not a detective. Don't get a detective.”

“If need be I will get forty detectives. I will blacken the countryside

with detectives.”

George grew quite hot. “Uncle, let us keep this private. Leave it with

me. Rely on me. I will find your cat.”

“Into the garden,” cried Mr. Marrapit. “Join the searchers. They have

failed once. Lead, animate, encourage.”

“And you won't get a detective?”

Mr. Marrapit did not reply. He had opened the hall door; Mr. Fletcher in

the middle distance approached moodily.

Mr. Marrapit thrust out a hand. “Back! Back!” he cried hoarsely.

Wearily Mr. Fletcher gave answer. “It's no use, Mr. Marrapit. It's no

good saying 'back.' I've been back. I've been back and I've been front

and I've been both sides. I've looked here, I've looked there; I've

looked up, I've looked down. I'm giddy with looking.” He approached;

stood before them. Woe heavily draped herself about this man.

“Oh, easily discouraged!” Mr. Marrapit cried.

“Oh, infirm of purpose! Back, faint-heart! Do not say die.”

Faint-heart mopped a streaming brow. “But I do say die. I do say die,

Mr. Marrapit, and I damn well shall die if I go creepin' and crawlin'

and hissin' much longer. It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not

a cobra.”

Mr. Marrapit slammed the door. George hurried out of sight; in the

kitchen garden sat down to think. He was frightened. Thus far the plot

had not worked well. Detectives!

He gave an hour to the search he was ostensibly conducting; when he

again entered the house was more easy-minded. Employed in meditation

that hour gave him back his coolness of the night. Rudely awakened,

given no time in which firmly to plant his feet, securely to get a

purchase with his hands before the storm burst, he had been whirled

along helpless and bewildered before Mr. Marrapit's gusty agony. Instead

of resisting the torrent, directing its course, he had been caught where

it surged fiercest, hurled down-stream. In the vulgar simile of his

reflections he was rotting the whole show.

But now he had steadied himself. He girded his loins against the part he

had to play; with new determination and confidence entered the house.

II.

There was no breakfast at Herons' Holt that morning. When George,

dressed, bathed and shaved, sought out his uncle, it was to find Mr.

Marrapit in the study.

The distracted man was pacing the floor, a closely written sheet of

paper in his hands. He turned upon George.

“In the hour of my travail I am also beneath the burden of earlier

griefs. Yesterday a disastrous scene took place between us. Oaths rasped

from your lips.”

“Forget that, sir. Forget it.”

“That is my desire. Misery wails through the corridors. In her presence

let us bury private differences. In this appalling catastrophe every

help is required. You have youth, manhood; you should be invaluable.”

George declared: “I mean to be. I will not rest until the Rose is

restored.”

This was perfectly true, as he was to discover.

“Commendable,” Mr. Marrapit pronounced. Now that this volunteer was

enlisted, Mr. Marrapit discarded supplication, resumed mastery. “While

you have searched,” he said, “I have schemed.” He indicated the paper he

carried. “These are my plans. Peruse them.”

George read; returned the paper. “If these arrangements do not restore

the Rose,” he declared, “nothing will. I see you do not mention my name.

I fear you doubted my assistance. I think I will join the--the----“--he

glanced at the paper--“the _extra-mural_ searchers. I know the

countryside well. I can go far and fast.”

Mr. Marrapit agreed. “Summon the household,” he commanded.

George called Margaret; the two carried out the order.

In a semicircle the household grouped about their master; from Mrs.

Armitage at the one horn to George at the other they took their

places--Mrs. Armitage, Clara, Ada, Mr. Fletcher, Frederick, Mary,

Margaret, George.

Paper in hand Mr. Marrapit regarded them. He pointed at Frederick.

“That boy is sucking a disgusting peppermint. Disgorge.”

Glad of relief, all eyes went upon the infamous youth. He purpled,

struggled, gulped, swallowed--from his eyes tears streamed.

“Stiffneck!” Mr. Marrapit thundered. “Disgorge, I said. You are

controlled by appetite; your belly is your god.”

“Well, I ain't 'ad no breakfast,” Stiffneck answered fiercely. Like Miss

Porter upon a similar occasion this boy was in great pain.

“And no breakfast shall you have until the Rose is restored. Heartless!

How can you eat while she, perhaps, does starve?” The angry man

addressed the group. “These are the plans for her recovery. Give ear.

You, vile boy, will rush to the dairy and order to be sent at once as

much milk as Mrs. Armitage will command you. Mrs. Armitage, you with

your maids--Fletcher, you with that boy, are the _intramural_

workers, the workers within the walls. George, Margaret, Miss

Humfray--_extra-mural_. Mrs. Armitage, with milk let every bowl and

saucer be filled. Fletcher, at intervals of thirty feet along the wall

let these be placed. If our wanderer is near she will be attracted.

Margaret, with Miss Humfray to the village. Collect an army of village

boys. Describe our Rose. Set them to scour the countryside for her.

Yourselves join that search. Let the call of 'Rose! Rose!' echo through

every lane. George, you also will scour far and wide. Upon your way

despatch to me a cab from the station. I drive to the post-office to

telephone for a detective. I have not yet decided which detective. It is

a momentous matter.” He flung out both hands. “To your tasks! Let zeal,

let love for our lost one spur each to outvie the efforts of another.

Fletcher, raise the window. That pungent boy has poisoned the air.”

They trooped from him.

CHAPTER VI

A Detective At Herons' Holt.

I.

Bolt Buildings, Westminster, is a colossal red structure reared upon

the site of frightened-looking little houses which fell beneath the

breaker's hammer coincident with the falling in of their lease. Here you

may have a complete floor of rooms at from three to five hundred a

year; or, high under the roof, you may rent a single room for forty-five

pounds.

Mr. David Brunger, Private Detective and Confidential Inquiry Agent,

appeared on the books of the Bolt Buildings management as lessee of one

of these single rooms. The appearance of his quarters as presented to

the visitor had, however, a more pretentious aspect.

Shot to the topmost floor in the electric lift, passing to the left

and up five stairs in accordance with the lift boy's instructions,

the intending client would be faced by three doors. Upon the first was

inscribed:

DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks).

Upon the middle door:

DAVID BRUNGER (Private).

And upon the third:

DAVID BRUNGER (Office).

These signs of large staff and flourishing business were in keeping with

the telling advertisements which Mr. David Brunger from time to time

caused to appear in the Press.

“Watch your wife,” said these advertisements, adding in smaller type

that had the appearance of a whisper: “David Brunger will watch her.”

“What keeps your husband late at office?” they continued. “David Brunger

will find out. Confidential inquiry of every description promptly and

cheaply carried out by David Brunger's large staff of skilled detectives

(male and female). David Brunger has never failed. David Brunger has

restored thousands of pounds' worth of stolen property, countless

missing relatives. David Brunger, 7 Bolt Buildings, Strange Street, S.W.

Tel. 0000 West.”

In London, with its myriad little eddies of crime and matrimonial

infelicity, there is a neat sum to be made out of detective work.

Scotland Yard wolfs the greater part of these opportunities; there are

established names that absorb much of the remainder. In the surplus,

however, there is still a livelihood for the David Brungers. For if the

Brungers do not go nosing after silken petticoats covering aristocratic

but wanton legs; if the Brungers do not go flying across the Continent,

nose to ground, notebook in hand, after the fine linen worn by my lord

who is making holiday with something fair and frail under the quiet

name of Mr. and Mrs. Brown; if the Brungers are not employed to draggle

silken petticoats and fine linen through the Divorce Court, there is

work for them among humbler washing baskets. Jealous little shop-keepers

have erring little wives, and common little wives have naughty little

husbands: these come to your Brungers. And if, again, the Brungers

do not dog the footsteps of your fifty-thousand-pound men, your

embezzlement-over-a-period-of-ten-years men, your cheque-forging

men--if the Brungers are invited to do no dogging after these, there are

pickings for them in less flashy crimes. Hiding in cupboard work while

the sweated little shop-assistant slips a marked shilling from the till,

hiding in basement work while a trembling little figure creeps down and

pilfers the stock--these are the pranks that come to your Brungers.

II.

While Mr. Marrapit at Herons' Holt was addressing to his household

grouped about him his orders relative to the search for the Rose of

Sharon, Mr. David Brunger at Bolt Buildings was entering the door marked

“DAVID BRUNGER (Private).”

A telephone, a gas stove, a roll-top desk, an office chair, an armchair,

a tiny deal table and a wooden-seated chair comprised the furniture of

the apartment.

“For myself, I like severity and simplicity of surroundings,” Mr. David

Brunger in the office chair would tell a client in the armchair. “For

_myself_--” and he would waggle his head towards the side walls with an

air that seemed to imply prodigal luxury in the fittings of “(Clerks)”

and “(Office).”

Entering the room Mr. Brunger unlocked the roll-top desk; discovered the

stump of a half-smoked cigarette; lit it and began to compare the day's

racing selections of “Head Lad,” who imparted stable secrets to one

tipster's organ, with those of “Trainer,” who from the knowledge of his

position very kindly gave one horse snips to another.

At ten o'clock the large staff of trained detectives (male and female),

mentioned in Mr. Brunger's advertisements, came pouring up the stairs,

knocked at the door and filed into the room. Its name was Issy Jago, a

Jewish young gentleman aged seventeen, whose appearance testified in the

highest manner to the considerable thrift he exercised in the matter of

hair-dressers and toilet soap.

Mr. Issy Jago sat himself on the wooden-seated chair before the small

deal table; got to work upon his finger-nails with the corner of an

omnibus ticket; proceeded to study the police court reports in the

_Daily Telegraph_.

It was his duty, whenever he noted plaintiffs or defendants to whom Mr.

David Brunger's services might be of benefit, to post to them Mr.

David Brunger's card together with a selection of entirely unsolicited

testimonials composed and dictated by Mr. Brunger for the occasion.

Also his duty to receive clients.

When a knock was heard at “DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)” Mr. Issy Jago

would slip through from “DAVID BRUNGER (Private)” to the tiny closet

containing the cistern into which the door marked “DAVID BRUNGER

(Clerks)” opened. Sliding through this door in such a manner as to give

the client no glimpse of the interior, he would inform the visitor,

with a confidential wink, “Fact is we have a client in there--a very

well-known personage who does not wish it to be known that he is

consulting us.” The impressed caller would then be conducted into “DAVID

BEUNGER (Private).”

Between “DAVID BRUNGER (Private)” and “DAVID BRUNGER (Office),” on the

other hand, there was no communication. Indeed there was no room behind

“(Office)”: the door gave on to the roof. When, therefore, a hesitating

client chose to knock at “(Office)” Mr. Issy Jago, emerging from

“(Private),” would give the whispered information: “Fact is there's a

very important private consultation going on in there--Scotland Yard

consulting us.” And the impressed client would forthwith be led into

“DAVID BRUNGER (Private).”

In either event, the client trapped, Mr. Issy Jago would skip into

“(Clerks)” and sit on the cistern till Mr. Brunger's bell summoned him.

For the privilege of adding to the dignity of his single apartment

by having his name inscribed upon the cistern cupboard and upon the

emergency exit to the roof, Mr. Brunger paid thirty shillings extra per

annum.

III.

By half-past ten Mr. Brunger was occupied in composing an unsolicited

testimonial to be sent to the wife of a green-grocer in the Borough who,

on the previous day, had summoned her husband for assault at Lambeth

Police-Court.

“I had suspicions but no proof of my 'usband's infidelity,” dictated

Mr. Brunger, pacing the floor, “until I enlisted your services. I must

say--”

At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Brunger ceased dictation;

took up the receiver.

“Are you David Brunger, the private detective?” a voice asked.

“We are,” replied Mr. Brunger in the thin treble he used on first

answering a call. “Who are you, please?”

“I am Mr. Christopher Marrapit of Herons' Holt, Paltley Hill, Surrey.

I--”

“One moment,” piped Mr. Brunger. “Is it confidential business?”

“It is most urgent business. I--”

“One moment, please. In that case the private secretary must take your

message.”

Mr. Brunger laid down the receiver; took a turn across the room;

approached the telephone; in a very deep bass asked, “Are you there?”

The frantic narrative that was poured into his ears he punctuated with

heavy, guttural “Certainly's,” “Yes's,” “We comprehend's,” “We follow

you's.” Then: “Mr. David Brunger himself? I'm afraid that is impossible,

sir. Mr. Brunger has his hands very full just now. He is closeted

with Scotland Yard. At this moment, sir, the Yard is consulting him

...'m...'m. Well, I'll see, sir, I'll see. I doubt it. I very much doubt

it. But hold the line a minute, sir.”

In his capacity of Mr. David Brunger's private secretary, Mr. David

Brunger drank from the carafe of water on the mantelpiece to clear his

tortured throat.

In his capacity of the great detective and confidential inquiry agent

himself, he then stepped to the telephone and, after exhibiting a power

of invention relative to startling crimes in hand that won even the

admiration of Mr. Issy Jago, announced that he would be with Mr.

Marrapit at three o'clock.

“It may be a big job, Issy,” he remarked, relighting the stump of

cigarette, “or it may be a little job. But what I say and what I do is,

_impress your client. Impress your client,_ Issy. Let that be your maxim

through life. And if I catch you again takin' a draw at my cigarette

when my back's turned, as I see you just now, I'll damn well turn you

inside out and chuck you through that door. So you watch it. You've made

this smoke taste 'orrid-'orrid. No sauce, now; no sauce.”

IV.

By two o'clock the results of Mr. Marrapit's colossal scheme began to

pour in.

The bowls of milk, gleaming along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every

stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a

clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the immediate

generalship of Mr. Marrapit.

Throughout the morning cats bounded, flickered and disappeared upon the

wall. Fat cats, thin cats; tom cats, tabby cats; white cats, black cats,

yellow cats, and grey cats; young cats and old cats. As each appeared,

Mr. Marrapit, first expectant then moaning, would wave his assistants to

the assault. Up would go the clothes-prop of Mr. Fletcher or Frederick;

down would go the stranger cat. It was exhausting work.

At two-thirty the village boys who had been searching were mustered at

the gate. Each bore a cat. Some carried two. Leaving his clothes-prop

lancers, Mr. Marrapit hurried down the drive to hold review.

“Pass,” he commanded, “in single file before me.”

They passed. “Dolt! Dolt!” groaned Mr. Marrapit, writhing in the

bitterness of crushed hope as each cat was held towards him. “Dolt and

pumpkin-head! How could that wretched creature be my Rose?”

How, indeed, when at that moment the Rose of Sharon in the ruined hut

was lapping milk taken her by George in a lemonade bottle, her infamous

captor smoking on the threshold?

Precisely at three o'clock Mr. David Brunger arrived. Conducted to the

room whence the Rose had disappeared, the astute inquiry agent was there

closeted with Mr. Marrapit for half an hour. At the end of that time Mr.

Marrapit appeared on the lawn. His face was white, his voice, when he

spoke, hollow and trembling. He called to the clothes-prop lancers:

“Cease. Cease. Withdraw the milk. The Rose of Sharon is not strayed. She

is stolen!”

“Thenk Gord!” said Frederick. “Thenk Gord! I've pretty well busted

myself over this game.”

Mr. Fletcher said nothing; drew his snail from his pocket; plunged head

downwards in a bush. Woe sat heavy upon him; beneath the indignity and

labour of thrusting at stranger cats with a clothes-prop this man had

grievously suffered.

V.

The Rose was stolen. That was Mr. Brunger's discovery after examination

of the window-latch where George's knife had marked it, the sill where

George's boots had scratched it. Outside the great detective searched

for footmarks--they had been obliterated by heavy rainfall between

the doing of the hideous deed and its discovery. Upon the principle of

impressing his client, however, Mr. Brunger grovelled on the path with

tape measure and note-book; measured every pair of boots in the house;

measured the window; measured the room; in neat little packets tied up

specimens of the gravel, specimens of the turf, specimens of hair from

the Rose of Sharon's coat, picked from her bed.

It was six o'clock when he had concluded. By then George had returned;

the three held council in the study. Addressing Mr. Marrapit, Mr.

Brunger tapped his note-book and his little packages. “We shall track

the culprit, never fear, Mr. Marrapit,” he said. “My impression is that

this is the work of a gang--a _gang_.”

“Precisely my impression,” George agreed.

Mr. Brunger took the interruption with the gracious bow of one who

condescends to accept a pat on the back from an inferior. Mr. Marrapit

twisted his fingers in his thin hair; groaned aloud.

“A _gang,_” repeated Mr. Brunger, immensely relishing the word. “We

detectives do not like to speak with certainty until we have clapped our

hands upon our men; we leave that for the amateurs, the bunglers--the

_quacks_ of our profession.” The famous confidential inquiry agent

tapped the table with his forefinger and proceeded impressively. “But I

will say this much. Not only a gang, but a desperate gang, a dangerous,

stick-at-nothing gang.”

Mr. Marrapit writhed. The detective continued: “What are our grounds for

this belief?” he asked. “What are our _data_?”

He looked at George. George shook his head. Easy enough, and useful,

to acquiesce in the idea of a gang, but uncommonly hard to support the

belief. He shook his head.

Mr. Brunger was disappointed; a little at sea, he would have clutched

eagerly at any aid. However, “impress your client.” He continued: “These

are our data. We have a valuable cat--a cat, sir, upon which the eyes of

cat-breeders are enviously fixed. Take America--you have had surprising

offers from America for this cat, sir, so you told me?”

“Eight hundred pounds,” Mr. Marrapit groaned.

“Precisely. Observe how our data accumulate. We have dissatisfaction

among breeders at home because you will not employ this cat as, in their

opinion, for the good of the breed, she should be employed.”

Mr. Marrapit moaned: “Polygamy is abhorrent to me.”

“Precisely. Our data positively pile about us. We have a thousand

enthusiasts yearning for this cat. We have your refusal to sell or

to--to--” Mr. Brunger allowed a hiatus delicately to express his

meaning. “Then depend upon it, sir, we have a determination to secure

this cat by foul means since fair will not avail. We have a conspiracy

among unscrupulous breeders to obtain this valuable cat, and hence, sir,

we have a gang--a _gang_.”

Mr. Marrapit put his anguish of mind into two very deep groans.

“Keep calm, my dear sir,” Mr. Brunger soothed. “We shall return your

cat. We have our data.” He continued: “Now, sir, there are two ways of

dealing with a _gang_. We can capture the _gang_ or we can seduce the

_gang_--by offering a reward.”

George jumped in his chair. “Anything wrong?” Mr. Brunger inquired.

“Your--your extraordinary grasp of the case astonishes me,” George

exclaimed.

“Experience, sir, experience,” said Mr. Brunger airily. Addressing Mr.

Marrapit, “We must put both methods to work,” he continued. “I shall

now go to town, look up the chief breeders and set members of my trained

staff to track them. Also I must advertise this reward. With a cat of

such value we cannot use half measures. Shall we say one hundred pounds

to start with?”

“Barley water!” gasped Mr. Marrapit. “Barley water!”

George sprang to the sideboard where always stood a jug of Mr.

Marrapit's favourite refreshment. Mr. Marrapit drank, agitation rattling

the glass against his teeth.

“Think what it means to you, sir,” persuaded Mr. Brunger, a little

alarmed at the effects of his proposal.

The detective's tone had a very earnest note, for he was thinking

with considerable gratification what the hundred pounds would mean to

himself. On previous occasions he had urged rewards from his clients,

put Mr. Issy Jago in the way of securing them, and paid that gentleman a

percentage.

“Think what it means to you,” he repeated. “What is a hundred pounds or

thrice that sum against the restoration of your cat? Come, what is it,

sir?”

“Ruin,” answered Mr. Marrapit, gulping barley water. “Ruin.”

Mr. Brunger urged gravely: “Oh, don't say that, sir. Think what our dumb

pets are to us. I've got a blood-'ound at home myself that I'd give

my life for if I lost--gladly. Surely they're more to us, our faithful

friends, than mere--mere--”

“Pelf,” supplied George, on a thin squeak that was shot out by the

excitement of seeing events so lustily playing his hand.

“Mere pelf,” adopted Mr. Brunger.

Mr. Marrapit gulped heavily at the barley water; set his gaze upon

a life-size portrait in oils of his darling Rose; with fine calm

announced: “If it must be, it must be.”

With masterly celerity Mr. Brunger drew forward pen and paper;

scribbled; in three minutes had Mr. Marrapit's signed authority to offer

one hundred pounds reward.

He put the document in his pocket; took up his hat. “To-morrow,” he

said after farewells, “I or one of my staff will return to scour the

immediate neighbourhood. It has been done, you tell me, but only by

amateurs. The skilled detective, sir, will see a needle where the

amateur cannot discern a haystack.”

VI.

He was gone. His last words had considerably alarmed George. No time was

to be lost. All was working with a magic expediency, but the Rose

must not be risked in the vicinity of one of these needle-observing

detectives. She must be hurried away.

“Uncle,” George said, “I did not say it while the detective was here--I

do not wish to raise your hopes; but I believe I have a clue. Do not

question me,” he added, raising a hand in terror lest Mr. Marrapit

should begin examination. “I promise nothing. My ideas may be wholly

imaginary. But I believe--I believe--oh, I believe I have a clue.”

Mr. Marrapit rushed for the bell. “Recall the detective! You should have

spoken. I will send Fletcher in pursuit.”

George seized his uncle's arm. “On no account. That is why I did not

speak before. I am convinced I can do better alone.”

“You do not convince me. You are an amateur. We must have the skilled

mind. Let me ring.”

George was in terror. “No, no; do you not see it may be waste of time?

Let me at least make sure, then I will tell the detective. Meanwhile

let him pursue other clues. Why send the trained mind on what may be a

goose-chase?”

The argument had effect. Mr. Marrapit dropped into a chair.

George explained. To follow the clue necessitated, he said, instant

departure--by train. He would write fullest details; would wire from

time to time if necessary. His uncle must trust him implicitly. The

detective must not be told until he gave the word.

Eager to clutch at any hope, Mr. Marrapit clutched at this. George was

given money for expenses; at eight o'clock left the house. There had

been no opportunity for words with his Mary. She did not even know

that Mr. Marrapit had refused the money that was to mean marriage and

Runnygate; she had not even danced with her George upon his success in

his examination. Leaving the household upon his desperate clue, George

could do no more than before them all bid her formal farewell. At

half-past eight he is cramming the peerless Rose of Sharon into a basket

taken from Mr. Fletcher's outhouses; at nine the villain is tramping

the railway platform, in agony lest his burden shall mi-aow; at ten the

monster is at Dippleford Admiral; at eleven the traitor is asleep in the

bedroom of an inn, the agitated Rose uneasily slumbering upon his bed.

CHAPTER VII.

Terror At Dippleford Admiral.

I.

“Impress your client,” was the maxim of Mr. David Brunger. “Make a

splash and keep splashing,” was that of Mr. Henry T. Bitt, editor of

Fleet Street's new organ, the _Daily_.

Muddy pools were Mr. Bitt's speciality. His idea of the greatest

possible splash was some stream, pure and beautiful to the casual eye,

into which he could force his young men and set them trampling the

bottom till the thick, unpleasant mud came clouding up whence it had

long lain unsuspected. There was his splash, and then he would start to

keep splashing. By every art and device the pool would be flogged till

the muddy water went flying broadcast, staining this, that, and the

other fair name to the nasty delight of Mr. Bitt's readers. Scandal was

Mr. Bitt's chief quest. Army scandal, navy scandal, political scandal,

social scandal--these were the courses that Mr. Bitt continuously strove

to serve up to his readers. Failing them--if disappointingly in evidence

on every side was the integrity and the honour for which Mr. Bitt raved

and bawled when in the thick of splashing a muddy pool,--then, argued

Mr. Bitt, catch hold of something trivial and splash it, flog it,

placard it, into a sensational and semi-mysterious bait that would set

the halfpennies rising like trout in an evening stream.

Bringing these principles-indeed they won him his appointment--to the

editorship of the _Daily_, Mr. Bitt was set moody and irritable by the

fact that he had no opportunity to exercise them over the first issue of

the paper.

But while preparing for press upon the second night the chance came.

There was no scandal, no effective news; but there was matter for a

sensational, semi-mysterious “leading story” in a tiny little scrap of

news dictated by Mr. David Brunger, laboriously copied out a dozen times

by Mr. Issy Jago and left by that gentleman at the offices of as many

newspapers.

Seven sub-editors “spiked” it, three made of it a “fill-par.,” one gave

it a headline and sent it up as an eight-line “news-par.”; one, in the

offices of the _Daily_, read it, laughed; spoke to the news-editor;

finally carried it up to Mr. Bitt.

Mr. Bitt's journalistic nose gave one sniff. The thing was done. Some

old idiot was actually offering the ridiculously large sum of one

hundred pounds for the recovery of a cat. Here, out of the barren,

un-newsy world, suddenly had sprung a seed that should grow to a forest.

The very thing. The _Daily_ was saved.

Away sped a reporter; and upon the following morning, bawling from the

leading position of the principal page of the _Daily_, introducing a

column and a quarter of leaded type, these headlines appeared:

COUNTRY HOUSE OUTRAGE.

VALUABLE CAT STOLEN.

SENSATIONAL STORY.

HUGE REWARD.

CHANCE FOR AMATEUR DETECTIVES.

All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.

_Daily_ readers revelled in it. It appeared that a gang of between five

and a dozen men had surrounded the lonely but picturesque and beautiful

country residence of Mr. Christopher Marrapit at Herons' Holt, Paltley

Hill, Surrey. Mr. Marrapit was an immensely wealthy retired merchant

now leading a secluded life in the evening of his days. First among

the costly art and other treasures of his house he placed a magnificent

orange cat, “The Rose of Sharon,” a winner whenever exhibited. The gang,

bursting their way into the house, had stolen this cat, despite Mr.

Marrapit's heroic defence, leaving the unfortunate gentleman senseless

and bleeding on the hearth-rug. Mr. Marrapit had offered 100 pounds

reward for the recovery of his pet; and the _Daily_, under the heading

“Catchy Clues,” proceeded to tell its readers all over the country how

best they might win this sum.

All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.

II.

_Daily_ readers revelled in it. Upon three of their number it had a

particular effect.

Bill Wyvern had not been at the _Daily_ office that night. Employed

during the day, he had finished his work at six; after a gloomy meal had

gone gloomily to bed. This man was on probation. His appointment to a

permanent post depended upon his in some way distinguishing himself; and

thus far, as, miserable, he reflected, he utterly had failed. The “copy”

he had done for the first issue of the _Daily_ had not been used; on

this day he had been sent upon an interview and had obtained from his

subject a wretched dozen words. These he had taken to the news-editor;

and the news-editor had treated them and him with contempt.

“But that's all he would say,” poor Bill had expostulated.

“All he would say!” the news-editor sneered. “Here, Mathers, take this

stuff and make a quarter-col. interview out of it.”

Thus it was in depressed mood that Bill on the following morning opened

his _Daily._

The flaring “Country House Outrage” hit his eye; he read; in two minutes

his mood was changed. A sensation at Paltley Hill! At Mr. Marrapit's!

Here was his chance! Who better fitted than he to work up this story?

Fortunately he knew Mr. Henry T. Bitt's private address; had the good

sense to go straight to his chief.

A cab took him to the editor's flat in Victoria Street. Mr. Bitt was

equally enthusiastic.

“Hot stuff,” said Mr. Bitt. “You've got your chance; make a splash. Go

to the office and tell Lang I've put you on to it. Cut away down to the

scene of the outrage and stay there as our Special Commissioner till I

wire you back. Serve it up hot. Make clues if you can't find 'em. Hot,

mind. H-O-T.”

III.

Professor Wyvern was the second reader upon whom the sensational story

had particular effect.

Through breakfast the Professor eyed with loving eagerness the copy of

the _Daily_ that lay folded beside his plate.

At intervals, “I have made a very good breakfast, now,” he would say.

“Now I will try to find what Bill has written in this terrible paper.”

But thrice Mrs. Wyvern lovingly checked him. “Dear William, no. You have

hardly touched your sole. You must finish it, dear, every scrap, before

you look at the paper. You have been eating such good breakfasts lately.

Now, please, William, finish it first.”

“It is as big as a shark,” the Professor grumbles, making shots with his

trembling fork.

“Dear William, it is a very small sole.”

At last he has finished. A line catches his eye as he unfolds the

_Daily_, and he chuckles: “Oh, dear! This is a very horrible paper.

'Actress and Stockbroker--Piccadilly by night.'”

“Dear William, we only want to read what Bill has written. An interview,

he tells us, with--”

Dear William waggles his naughty old head over the actress and the

stockbroker; shaky fingers unfold the centre pages; nose runs up one

column and down another, then suddenly starts back burnt by the flaring

“Country House Outrage.”

“Dearest! Dearest! Whatever is the matter?”

But dearest is speechless. Dearest can only cough and choke and splutter

in convulsions of mirth over some terrific joke of which he will tell

Mrs. Wyvern no more than: “He has done it. Oh, dear! oh, dear! He has

done it. Oh, dear! This will be very funny indeed!”

IV.

It will be seen that two out of the three readers particularly

interested in Mr. Bitt's splash were agreeably interested. Upon the

third the effect was different.

It was George's first morning in the little inn at Dippleford Admiral.

An unaccustomed weight upon his legs, at which thrice he sleepily kicked

without ridding himself of it, at length awoke him.

He found the morning well advanced; the disturbing weight that had

oppressed him he saw to be a hairy object, orange of hue. Immediately

his drowsy senses awoke; took grip of events; sleep fled. This object

was the Rose of Sharon, and at once George became actively astir to the

surgings of yesterday, the mysteries of the future.

Pondering upon them, he was disturbed by a knock that heralded a voice:

“The paper you ordered, mister; and when'll you be ready for breakfast?”

“Twenty minutes,” George replied; remembered the landlady had overnight

told him she was a little deaf; on a louder note bawled: “Twenty

minutes, Mrs. Pinner!”

Mrs. Pinner, after hesitation, remarked: “Ready now? Very well, mister”;

pushed a newspaper beneath the door; shuffled down the stairs.

In the course of his brief negotiations with Mrs. Pinner upon the

previous evening, George, in response to the proud information that the

paper-boy arrived at nine o'clock every morning on a motor bicycle,

had bellowed that he would have the _Daily_. For old Bill's sake he had

ordered it; with friendly curiosity to see Bill's new associations he

now withdrew his legs from beneath the Rose of Sharon; hopped out of

bed; opened the paper.

Upon “Country House Outrage” George alighted plump; with goggle eyes,

scalp creeping, blood freezing, read through to the last “Catchy Clue”;

aghast sank upon his bed.

It had got into the papers! Among all difficult eventualities against

which he had made plans this had never found place. It had got into the

papers! The cat's abduction was, or soon would be, in the knowledge of

everyone. This infernal reward which with huge joy he had heard offered,

was now become the goad that would prick into active search for the

Rose every man, woman, or child who read the story. It had got into the

papers! He was a felon now; fleeing justice; every hand against him.

Discovery looked certain, and what did discovery mean? Discovery meant

not only loss of the enormous stake for which he was playing--his

darling Mary,--but it meant--“Good God!” groaned my miserable George,

“it means ruin; it means imprisonment.”

Melancholy pictures went galloping like wild nightmares through this

young man's mind. He saw himself in the dock, addressed in awful words

by the judge who points out the despicable character of his crime;

he saw himself in hideous garb labouring in a convict prison; he

saw himself struck off the roll at the College of Surgeons; he saw

himself--“Oh, Lord!” he groaned, “I'm fairly in the cart!”

Very slowly, very abject, he peeled off his pyjamas; slid a white and

trembling leg into his bath.

But the preposterous buoyancy of youth! The cold water that splashed

away the clamminess of bed washed, too, the more vapoury fears from

George's brain; the chilly splashings that braced his system to a

tingling glow braced also his mind against the pummellings of his

position. Drying, he caught himself whistling; catching himself in such

an act he laughed ruefully to think how little ground he had for good

spirits.

But the whistling prevailed. This ridiculous buoyancy of youth! What

luckless pigs are we who moon and fret and grow besodden with the waters

of our misfortunes! This cheeky corkiness of youth! Shove it under the

fretted sea of trouble, and free it will twist, up it will bob. Weight

it and drop it into the deepest pool; just when it should be drowned,

pop! and it is again merrily bobbing upon the surface.

It is a sight to make us solemn-souled folk disgustingly irritated. We

are the Marthas--trudging our daily rounds, oppressed with sense of the

duties that must be done, with the righteous feeling of the hardness of

our lot; and these light-hearts, these trouble-shirkers, this corkiness

of youth, exasperate us enormously. But the grin is on their side.

The whistling prevailed. By the time George was dressed he had put his

position into these words--these feather-brained, corky, preposterous

words: “By gum!” said George, brushing his hair, “by gum! I'm in a devil

of a hole!”

The decision summed up a cogitation that showed him to be in a hole

indeed, but not in so fearsome a pit as he had at first imagined. He had

at first supposed that within a few minutes the earth would be shovelled

in on him and be buried. Review of events showed the danger not to be

so acute. On arrival the previous night, after brief parley with Mrs.

Pinner he had gone straight to his room, bearing the Rose tight hid in

her basket. No reason, then, for suspicion yet to have fallen upon him.

He must continue to keep the Rose hid. It would be difficult, infernally

difficult; but so long as he could effect it he might remain here

secure. The beastly cat must of course be let out for a run. That was a

chief difficulty. Well, he must think out some fearful story that would

give him escape with the basket every morning.

V.

Breakfast was laid in a little sitting-room over the porch, adjoining

his bedroom. George pressed the poor Rose into her basket; carried it

in.

Mrs. Pinner was setting flowers on the table. George carried the basket

to the window; placed it on a chair; sat upon it. With his right hand

he drummed upon the lid. It was his purpose to inspire the Rose with a

timid wonder at this drubbing that should prevent her voicing a protest

against cramped limbs.

“Some nice tea and a bit of fish I'm going to bring you up, mister,”

Mrs. Pinner told him.

Recollecting her deafness, and in fear lest she should approach the

basket, George from the window bellowed: “Thank you, Mrs. Pinner. But I

won't have tea, if you please. Won't have tea. I drink milk--_milk_. A

lot of milk. I'm a great milk-drinker.”

The Rose wriggled. George thumped the basket. “As soon as you like, Mrs.

Pinner. As quick as you like!”

Mrs. Pinner closed the door; the Rose advertised her feelings in a long,

penetrating mi-aow. In an agony of strained listening George held his

breath. But Mrs. Pinner heard nothing; moved steadily downstairs. He

wiped his brow. This was the beginning of it.

When Mrs. Pinner reappeared, jug of milk and covered dish on a tray,

George's plan, after desperate searchings, had come to him.

He gave it speech. “I want to arrange, Mrs. Pinner--”

“If you wait till I've settled the tray, mister, I'll come close to you.

I'm that hard of hearing you wouldn't believe.”

George sprang from the basket; approached the table. His life depended

upon keeping a distance between basket and Pinner.

“I want to arrange to have this room as a private sitting-room.”

It had never been so used before, but it could be arranged, Mrs. Pinner

told him. She would speak to her 'usband about terms.

“And I want to keep it very private indeed, I don't want anyone to enter

it unless I am here.” George mounted his lie and galloped it, blushing

for shame of his steed. “The fact is, Mrs. Pinner, I'm an inventor. Yes,

an inventor. Oh, yes, an inventor.” The wretched steed was stumbling,

but he clung on; spurred afresh. “An inventor. And I have to leave

things lying about--delicate instruments that mustn't be disturbed.

Awfully delicate. I shall be out all day. I shall be taking my invention

into the open air to experiment with it. My invention--” He waved his

hand at the basket.

Mrs. Pinner quite understood; was impressed. “Oh, dear, yes, mister. To

be sure. An inventor; fancy that, now!” She gazed at the basket. “And

the invention is in there?”

“Right in there,” George assured her.

“You'll parding my asking, mister; but your saying you have to take it

in the open hair--is it one of them hairships, mister?”

“Well, it _is,_” George said frankly. This was a useful idea and he

approved it. “It _is._ It's an airship.”

“Well, I never did!” Mrs. Pinner admired, gazing at the basket. “A

hairship in there!”

“_Mi-aow!_” spoke the Rose--penetrating, piercing.

Mrs. Pinner cocked her head on one side; looked under the table. “I

declare I thought I heard a cat,” she puzzled. “In this very room.”

George felt perfectly certain that his hair was standing bolt upright on

the top of his head, thrusting at right angles to the sides. He forced

his alarmed face to smile: “A cock crowing in the yard, I think, Mrs.

Pinner.”

Mrs. Pinner took the explanation with an apologetic laugh. “I'm that

hard o' hearing you never would believe. But I could ha' sworn. Ill not

keep you chattering, sir.” She raised the dish cover.

A haddock was revealed. A fine, large, solid haddock from which a cloud

of strongly savoured vapour arose.

George foresaw disaster. That smell! that hungry cat! Almost he pushed

Mrs. Pinner to the door. “That you, thank you. I have everything now. I

will ring if--”

“_Mi-aow!_”

“Bless my soul!” Mrs. Pinner exclaimed. “There is a cat”; dropped on

hands and knees; pushed her head beneath the sofa.

George rushed for the basket. Wreaking his craven alarm upon the hapless

prisoner, he shook it; with a horrible bump slammed it upon the floor;

placed his foot upon it.

Mrs. Pinner drew up, panting laboriously. “Didn't you hear a cat,

mister?”

George grappled the crisis. “I did not hear a cat. If there were a cat

I should have heard it. I should have felt it. I abominate cats. I can

always tell when a cat is near me. There is no cat. Kindly leave me to

my breakfast.”

Poor Mrs. Pinner was ashamed. “I'm sure I do beg you parding, mister.

The fact is we've all got cats fair on the brain this morning. In this

here new paper, mister, as perhaps you've seen, and they're giving us

a free copy every day for a week, there's a cat been stole, mister. A

hundred pounds reward, and as the paper says, the cat may be under your

very nose. We're all a 'unting for it, mister.”

She withdrew. George crossed the room; pressed his head, against the

cold marble of the mantelpiece. His brows were burning; in the pit of

his stomach a sinking sensation gave him pain. “All a 'unting for it!

all a 'unting for it!”

When the Rose had bulged her flanks with the complete haddock, when,

responsive to a “Stuff your head in that, you brute,” the patient

creature had lapped a slop-bowl full of milk, George again imprisoned

her; rushed, basket under arm, for open country.

Mr. Pinner in the bar-parlour, as George fled through, was reading from

a paper to a stable hand, a servant girl, and a small red-headed Pinner

boy: “It may be in John o' Groats,” he read, “or it may be in Land's

End.” He thumped the bar. “'Ear that! Well, it may be in Dippleford

Admiral.”

It was precisely because it was in Dippleford Admiral that his young

inventor lodger fled through the bar without so much as a civil “good

morning.”

* * * * *

At the post-office, keeping a drumming foot on the terrified Rose,

George sent a telegram to Mr. Marrapit.

_“Think on track. Must be cautious. Don't tell Brunger.”_

He flung down eightpence halfpenny; fled in the direction of a wood that

plumed a distant hill. Fear had this man.

CHAPTER VIII.

Panic At Dippleford Admiral.

I.

George left Dippleford Admiral that night.

He left at great speed. There was no sadness of farewell. There was no

farewell.

Returning at seven o'clock to his sitting-room at the inn, melancholy

beneath a hungry and brooding day in the woods with the Rose tethered

to a tree by the length of two handkerchiefs, he ordered supper--milk,

fish, and chops.

Mrs. Pinner asked him if that would be all. She and 'usband were going

to a chapel meeting; the servant girl was out; there would only be a

young man in the bar.

George took the news gratefully. His nerves had been upon the stretch

all day. It was comforting to think that for a few hours he and this

vile cat would have the house to themselves.

Immediately Mrs. Pinner left the room he greedily fell to upon the

chops. All day he had eaten nothing: the Rose must wait. Three parts of

a tankard of ale was sliding at a long and delectable draught down upon

his meal when the slam of a door, footsteps and a bawling voice in

the yard told him that Mrs. Pinner and 'usband had started, chatting

pleasantly, for their chapel meeting.

The dish cleared, George arranged his prisoner's supper; stepped to the

basket to fetch her to it. As he lifted her splendid form there came

from behind him an exclamation, an agitated scuffling.

In heart-stopping panic George dropped the cat, jumped around. The

red-headed Pinner boy, whom that morning he had seen in the bar-parlour,

was scrambling from beneath the sofa, arms and legs thrusting his

flaming pate at full-speed for the door.

“Stop!” George cried, rooted in alarm.

The red-headed Pinner boy got to Ms feet, hurled himself at the door

handle.

“Stop!” roared George, struggling with the stupefaction that gripped

him. “Stop, you young devil!”

The red-headed Pinner boy twisted the handle; was half through the door

as George bounded for him.

“Par-par!” screamed the flaming head, travelling at immense speed down

the passage. “Par-par! It ain't a hairship. It's a cat!”

George dashed.

“Par-par! Par-par! It's a cat!” The redheaded Pinner boy took the first

short flight of stairs in a jump; rounded for the second.

George lunged over the banisters; gripped close in the flaming hair;

held fast.

For a full minute in silence they poised--red-headed Pinner boy, on

tip-toe as much as possible to ease the pain, in acute agony and great

fear; George wildly seeking the plan that must be followed when he

should release this fateful head.

Presently, with a backward pull that most horribly twisted the

red-headed face: “If you speak a word I'll pull your head off,” George

said. “Come up here.”

The pitiful procession reached the sitting-room. “Sit down there,”

George commanded. “If you make a sound I shall probably cut your head

clean off. What do you mean by hiding in my room?”

Between gusty pain and terror: “I thought it was a hairship.”

“Oh!” George paced the room. What did the vile boy think now? “Oh, well,

what do you think it is now?”

“I believe it's the cat wot's in the piper.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Yes, this was a very horrible position indeed.

“Oh, you do, do you? Now, you listen to me, my lad: unless you want your

head cut right off you sit still without a sound.”

The red-headed Pinner boy sat quite still; wept softly. Life, at the

moment, was a bitter affair for this boy.

II.

George paced. The hideous nightmares of the morning had returned

now--snorting, neighing, trampling iron-shod; stampeding in hideous

irresistible rushes. This was the beginning of the end. He was

discovered--his' secret out.

Flight--immediate flight--that was the essential course. Par-par, thanks

to sweet heaven, was at a chapel meeting. The thing could be done.

A timetable upon the mantelpiece told him that a down-train left the

station at 8.35. It was now eight. Better a down-train than an up. The

further from London the less chance of this infernal _Daily_ with its

Country House Outrage. Examining the time-table he determined upon

Temple Colney--an hour's run. He had been there once with Bill.

But what of this infernal red-headed Pinner boy? In agony wrestling with

the question, George every way ran into the brick wall fact that there

was no method of stopping the vile boy's mouth. The red head must be

left behind to shriek its discovery to par-par. All that could be done

was to delay that shriek as long as possible.

George packed his small hand-bag; placed upon the table money to pay his

bill; lifted the crime-stained basket; addressed the red-headed Pinner

boy:

“Stop that sniffling. Take that bag. You are to come with me. If you

make a sound or try to run away you know what will happen to you. What

did I tell you would happen?”

“Cut me 'ead off.”

“Right off. Right off--_slish_! Give me your hand; come on.”

Through a side door, avoiding the bar, they passed into the street.

Kind night gave them cloaks of invisibility; no one was about. In a few

minutes they had left the bold village street, were in timid lanes that

turned and twisted hurrying through the high hedges.

Half a mile upon the further side of the station George that morning had

passed a line of haystacks. Now he made for it, skirting the railway by

a considerable distance.

The red-headed Pinner boy, exhausted by the pace of their walk, not

unnaturally nervous, spoke for the first time: “Ain't you going to the

station, mister?”

“Station? Certainly not. Do you think I am running away?”

The red-headed Pinner boy did not answer. This boy was recalling in

every detail the gruesome story, read in a paper, of a bright young lad

who had been foully done to death in a wood.

George continued: “I shall be back with you at the inn this evening, and

I shall ask your father to give you a good thrashing for hiding in my

room.”

In an earnest prayer the red-headed Pinner boy besought God that he

might indeed be spared to receive that thrashing.

III.

They reached the haystack. George struck a match; looked at his watch.

In seven minutes the train was due.

The ladder George had noticed that morning was lying along the foot of

a stack. Uprearing it against one partially demolished, “Put down that

bag,” he commanded. “Up with you!”

Gustily sniffing in the huge sighs that advertised his terror, the

red-headed Pinner boy obeyed. George drew down the ladder. “Stop up

there; I shall be back in five minutes. If you move before then--”

He left the trembling boy out of his own agitated fear to fill the

unspoken doom. He walked slowly away in the direction opposite from the

station until the haystack was merged and lost in the blackness that

surrounded it. Then, doubling back, he made for the road; pounded along

it at desperate speed.

Most satisfactorily did that bounding, lurching, stumbling run along the

dark, uneven lane punish this crime-steeped George. Well he realised,

before he had sped a hundred yards, that guilt lashes with a double

thong. She had scourged him mentally; now with scorpions she physically

lashed him. As it had been racked throbbed that left arm encircling

the basket wherein in wild fear the Rose clung to ease the dreadful

bruisings that each oscillation gave her; as it were a ton-weight did

that hand-bag drag his right arm, thud his thigh; as he were breathing

fire did his tearing respirations sear his throat; as a great piston

were driving in his skull did the blood hammer his temples.

Topping a low rise he sighted the station lights below. Simultaneously,

from behind a distant whistle there sprang to his ears the low rumble of

the coming train.

This history is not to be soiled with what George said at the sound.

With the swiftness and the scorching of flame his dreadful commination

leapt from the tortured Rose, terrified in her basket, to the red-headed

Pinner boy wrestling in prayer upon the haystack--from the roughness of

the lane that laboured his passage to the speed of the oncoming train

that hammered at his fate.