CHAPTER II

Staines was a partner in succession to his father in an old-established

firm of stockbrokers with a good connection. He had a small flat in St

James's Place, and thither he brought Zero. Zero accepted metropolitan

life philosophically. There was a dingy cat in the basement of St

James's Place, and he was quite willing to make friends with her. He

looked mildly puzzled at her definite assurance that she would kill him

if he came a step nearer. It never occurred to him to attempt to injure

her. But for one slight lapse--he had killed a collie, and cost Staines

compensation--his behaviour was admirable. He was fortunate in having a

master who was fond of outdoor life, and not at all fond of London.

Every week-end, and occasionally on a fine afternoon, if business was

slack, he got away into the country. He never quite seemed to understand

the terror which his appearance inspired in some young or foolish

people. When children rushed from him shrieking, he would look up at his

master as much as to say, "Can you understand this?" And he was careful

not to increase their terror by running after them.

One day in the Park a muddy-faced little girl of six, who feared nothing

at all, came up and patted him, examined his teeth with curious

interest, and finally sat on him. These attentions Zero received with

great joy. Weeks passed, and he had not given the slightest sign of the

curious instinct with which his former master had credited him.

Staines liked him, principally because he so obviously liked Staines.

Staines thought him a faithful and affectionate beast, with nothing to

distinguish him from the normal. When he recalled Smith's story of the

snatched railway ticket, he explained it all as a chance. These flukes

did happen sometimes.

And then one afternoon he went to call upon the Murrays--a practice that

was becoming rather common with him--and as Jane was particularly fond

of Zero, Zero accompanied him. When they reached the square, Zero sat

down on the pavement. Staines called him, and the dog wagged his tail,

but did not move. Staines went on without him, but presently had to

stop, for Zero had now changed his tactics, and was running round and

round Staines' legs. The incident of the railway ticket flashed across

his mind. He was a business man, and not superstitious; however, it did

not matter to him in the least which two sides of the square he took,

and he determined to turn back and take the other two sides, and see

what would happen. As soon as he turned back, Zero followed at heel in

his usual quiet and unobtrusive manner.

A loud crash caused him to look round. A heavy stone coping had fallen

from a roof, and if the dog had not brought him back it would have

fallen upon him. Here was a nice little story with a mildly sensational

interest for Staines to tell over the teacups.

Mr Murray was matter-of-fact.

"Your story is true, of course," he said. "Your dog did make you take

the other two sides of the square, and the fact that you turned back

probably saved your life. But, all the same, the dog didn't know. By

what means could the brain of a dog recognise the imminent dissolution

of part of the roof of a house?"

"Zero did know," said Jane. She was Mr Murray's only daughter, and

without being wildly beautiful, was an extremely pleasing and friendly

young woman to look at. At present she was feeding Zero with thin

bread-and-butter. Zero had been told, even by Jane herself, that this

form of diet was bad for his figure, but he accepted it with

resignation--rather an enthusiastic kind of resignation.

"What makes you say that Zero knew?" her father asked, with indulgent

superiority.

"Because I know he knew," said Jane firmly and finally.

"And then," said Mr Murray, "women tell us they ought to have the vote."

"Miss Murray," said Richard firmly, "that dog is not to be fed any more,

please."

"Last piece," said Jane. "And he's promised to do Swedish exercises."

Richard was inclined to agree with Mr Murray. The coincidence was again

remarkable; it might even be called very extraordinary. And, given a

choice of two things, Richard preferred to believe the easier. Why, fond

though he was of Zero, he had to admit that the dog was not even clever.

He had tried to teach Zero to find a hidden biscuit, but though he had

hidden the biscuit in all manner of places he had never yet selected a

place that Zero had been able to discover. He was just a dear old fool

of a bulldog, and it was absurd to suppose that he was a miracle.

But Jane Murray remained firm in her belief, and even condescended to be

serious about it.

"Look here," she said, "if you put your horse at a jump, and you're

feeling a bit shy of it yourself, do you mean to say the horse doesn't

know?"

"Of course he knows. But he only knows it by the way you ride him."

"Well, I've had it happen to me. All I can say is that I wasn't

conscious of riding any differently. It was my first season in Ireland,

and I wasn't used to the walls. I said to myself, 'It's got to be.' I

did really mean to get over. But the horse knew the funk in my head and

refused. However, I'll give you another point. How do you explain the

homing instinct of animals?"

"I've never thought about it. I suppose when a pigeon gets up high it

can see no end of a distance."

"That won't do. Dogs and cats have the same instinct--especially cats.

For that matter, crabs have been taken from the sea and returned to it

again at a point eighty miles away, and have found their way back. It's

not done by sight, scent, or hearing. It must be done by some special

sense which they have got and we have not."

"It sounds plausible."

"It's the only possible explanation. And when once we've admitted that

animals have a special sense which we have not, I don't quite see how we

are to say what the limitations of that sense are. It is not really a

bit more wonderful that Zero should have the sense of impending danger

than that a crab, eighty miles from home, should be able to find its way

back."

"Well, you may be right. I wish now that I'd asked that chap Smith a bit

more about the dog."

A few days later one of the partners in Richard's business announced his

intention of getting married. He was a junior partner, two years younger

than Richard.

"Well, Bill," said Richard, after he had offered his congratulations,

"what shall I give you for a wedding-present?"

"Give us that dog of yours."

"Never. Try again."

"Oh, I was only rotting. But, seriously, I'd as soon have a dog as

anything. Not a bulldog--they're too ugly."

"It's a good, honest kind of ugliness. What breed then?"

"Gwen's keen on black poodles."

That settled it. Richard hunted up Smith's card. He had always meant to

do some business with the man if he got an opportunity, and here was the

opportunity. On the following day he journeyed to Wandsworth and found

Smith. Smith looked less spruce and prosperous than before. He did not

actually declare that the performing dog had had his day, but he

admitted that business was not what it had been.

"Too many of us in it. And, I tell you, I'm afraid to bring out a new

idea--it's pinched before you've had a week's use of it. Public's a bit

off it, too. I'm doing practically nothing with the 'alls. I train for

others, and I'm trying to build up a business as a dealer. Only

first-class dogs, mind."

"That's what I want. I came here to buy a dog."

"Let's see. Bulldogs were your fancy. Well, I've got one of the Stone

breed that's won the only time it was shown and will win again."

"This is not for myself. It's a present. Black poodle."

"I see. Well, you've come to the right market. How far were you prepared

to go?"

"Show me a really valuable dog and I will pay the real value. I'm not

buying for the show-bench; but I want the best breed, good health, good

temper, cleverness and training--two years old for choice."

"Ask enough," said Smith, smiling. "Well, if you don't mind stepping

into the yard I can fit you. I'm asking twenty guineas, and he's worth

every penny of it--he'd bring that money back, to anybody who cared to

take it, before a year was out."

The dog was shown--an aristocrat with qualities of temper and

intelligence not always to be found in the aristocrat. Richard Staines

thought he would be paying quite enough, but decided to pay it. He

returned to the house to write his cheque.

"There you are, Mr Smith. By the way, do you remember Zero, the dog you

gave me? He's sitting in my taxi outside."

"I remember him. He'd never win prizes for anybody--not like that poodle

you've just bought. You couldn't teach him anything either. But he could

see ahead, that dog could."

Smith heard how Richard Staines had been saved from the falling roof,

and evinced no surprise at it at all. "Yes," he said, "that dog always

knew. Did I tell you about the milk?"

"No. What was that?"

"Me and Cowbit next door got our milk from the same man. I went out one

morning to take the can in, when Zero came bullocking past me and

knocked the can over. He never tried to drink the milk that was spilled,

but just stood there, wagging his old tail. Mind you, sir, that was

after he had saved me from the train smash. 'Well,' I said to him, 'I

suppose you know'; and I went in to Cowbits' to tell them not to touch

that milk. Cowbit laughed at the story, and took milk in his tea. But

his missus wouldn't have any, and wouldn't let the baby have none

either. Cowbit was ill for days and pretty near died. Mineral poison it

was, from one of the milk-pans going wrong."

"How do you suppose the dog knew?"

"Me suppose? Why, I never asked myself the question. He did know--that

was all about it. Still, if I had to explain it, I should say it was

some kind of an instinct."

And Richard mercifully forebore to ask Mr Smith how he would explain

that particular kind of instinct.

CHAPTER III

Richard was best-man at his partner's wedding. He afterwards attended a

crowded reception. It was too crowded; and there were far too many

people there who wanted to talk to Jane Murray. She was popular, and

there was a group round her all the time. Not for five minutes could

Richard get her to himself. It was this selfishness on the part of

others which depressed him, not the reception champagne, which was no

worse than is usual on such occasions.

The crowds bored him and when he got back to his flat the solitude bored

him. Not even Zero was there. Richard's valet had taken the dog out for

exercise; this had been done in obedience to Richard's own orders, but

it now seemed to him in the light of a grievance. The grievance became

more acute when his servant returned without the dog.

"Very sorry, sir; I wouldn't have had it happen for anything. I was

walking in Regent's Park, with the dog at my heels, and all of a sudden

he made a bolt for it. I whistled and called, but he went straight on.

And when I started running after him, he made a dash into a big

shrubbery. That was how he foxed me, sir. While I was hunting him on one

side, he must have bolted out on the other. Never known the dog act like

that before. It was just as if something had come over him. Speaking in

a general way--"

"Well, what did you do?" asked Richard sharply.

"I spoke to the park-keepers, and to a couple of policemen outside, and

then I went on to Scotland Yard. The address is on the collar, sir. I

should think there's no doubt you'll--"

"That'll do!" snapped Richard. "I thought you could be trusted to take a

dog out, at any rate. Well, my mistake."

With a further expression of contrition, the man withdrew, and almost

instantly the telephone-bell on Richard's desk rang sharply.

He went slowly to the telephone, and managed to put the concentration of

weariness and disgust into the word "Hallo!"

The voice that answered him was the voice of Mr Murray.

"That you, Staines? ... Right--yes, quite well, thanks.... I wanted to

say when Jane got back this evening she found Zero waiting for her

outside our front door.... He's here now, and seems quite cheerful about

it.... Thought you might like to know."

Richard rapidly changed his tone of dejection for that of social

enthusiasm. He thanked profusely. He would send for the dog at once.

"Well, look here," said Mr Murray, "Jane and I have got a night

off--dining alone. If by any chance you're free, I wish you'd join us.

Then you can take the intelligent hound back with you."

Richard said that he was free, which was a lie; and that he would be

delighted to come, which was perfectly true.

He subsequently rang up a man at his club, cancelled an engagement on

the score of ill-health, and went to dress. Such was his elation that he

even condescended to tell his servant that the dog had been found and

was all right.

Zero had done wrong. He must have known that he had done wrong; but he

welcomed his master with gambols in the manner of an ecstatic bullock,

and showed no sign of penitence at all. It was the habit of Richard to

punish a dog that had done wrong, but he did not punish Zero. He called

him a silly old idiot, and asked him what he thought he had been doing,

but Zero recognised that this was badinage and exercised his tail

furiously.

At dinner, Mr Murray said that Zero was an interesting problem. The dog

was apparently a fine judge at sight of the stability of structures, but

could not find his way home.

"That's not proved," said Richard, laughing. "He knew his way home all

right, but he was trying to better himself. He's not fed at tea-time in

St James's Place."

"He's had nothing here," said Jane.

"Really, Jane," said her father.

"Practically nothing. A few biscuits and the least little bit of

wedding-cake for luck."

"Pity I didn't take him to the reception; then he could have had a

vanilla ice as well."

"Wrong," said Jane. "They hadn't got vanilla--only the esoteric sorts. I

know, because I tried. Never you mind, Zero. When the election comes on,

you shall wear papa's colours round your strengthy neck and kill all the

collies of the opposition."

"By the way," said Richard, "how's old Benham?"

"Poor old chap, he's still dying," said Mr Murray. "It makes me feel a

bit like a vulture, waiting for his death like this. Still, I suppose it

can't be helped."

Benham was the sitting member for Sidlington, and Mr Murray had been

predestined to succeed him. Murray had fought two forlorn hopes for his

party, and had pulled down majorities. He had fairly earned

Sidlington--an absolutely safe seat. He had moderate means and no

occupation. He had taken up with politics ten years before--shortly

after the death of his wife--and had found politics a game that

precisely suited him.

The discussion for the remainder of dinner was mostly political, and

Jane--as was generally the case when she chose to be serious--showed

herself to be a remarkably well-informed and intelligent young woman.

"I've no chance; she's too good for me," said Richard to himself--by no

means for the first time--as he looked at her and listened to her with

admiration.

Jane had just left the two men to their cigars when a servant entered

with a card for Mr Murray.

"Where have you put him?" he asked the man.

"The gentleman is in the library, sir."

"Good! Say I'll be with him directly. Awfully sorry, Staines; this is a

chap from Sidlington, and rather an important old cock down there."

"Go to him, of course. That's all right."

"I'm afraid I must. But here's the port and here's the cigars. When you

get tired of solitude, you'll find Jane in the drawing-room. Smoking's

allowed there, you know."

Staines got tired of solitude very soon. In the drawing-room, the

conversation between Jane and himself took a new note of earnestness and

intimacy. Zero slept placidly through it all.

An hour later Mr Murray came back to the drawing-room with the news of

Benham's death. He in return received, with goodwill and no surprise,

the news that a marriage bad been arranged, and would shortly take

place, between his daughter and Richard Staines.

CHAPTER IV

During the engagement, which was brief, Zero found that two people--of

whom his master was one--had very little time to talk to him; but he was

not absolutely forgotten.

"What are we to do with Zero while we're away?" asked Richard.

"Could we take him with us?" asked Miss Murray.

"I don't think so," said Richard. "There would be bother at these

foreign hotels; and there's the quarantine to think about."

"Suppose I said that if Zero didn't go, I wouldn't go either?"

"Quite simple. In that case, I should go alone."

And then they both laughed, being somewhat easily pleased at that time.

Zero was offered to Mr Murray temporarily as an election mascot, but Mr

Murray was not taking any risks--one of his principal supporters had a

favourite collie. Finally, it was decided that Zero should pay a visit

to his former master, Smith, until his master returned. He made one

brief appearance at the wedding reception, where his supreme but honest

ugliness conquered the heart of every nice woman present. He refused

champagne, foie-gras sandwiches, and vanilla ices offered to him by the

enthusiastic and indiscreet. However, he managed to find Jane, and Jane

found bread-and-butter until word was brought that a person of the name

of Smith had called for the dog.

"Bit fat, you are," said Smith, as he ripped the white rosette off the

dog's collar. "Been doing yourself too well. Ah, now you're going to

live healthy!"

Smith was as good as his word. Zero was sufficiently and properly fed,

and given plenty of exercise. He mixed with some very aristocratic

canine society, where the sweetness of his temper was much commended and

imposed upon. After two months his master called for him, and Zero once

more behaved like an ecstatic bullock.

"Yes," said Smith, "he's in good condition, as you say. Otherwise, he's

not much changed. He's as big a fool as ever he was. If a toy Pom growls

at him, he runs away; and if a collie tries to get past him alive--well,

it can't. He'd tear the throat out of any man as struck you, and if the

cat next door spits at him he goes and hides in the rhubarb."

"Seen any more of that wonderful instinct of his?"

"No, sir, I have not. But I should have done if there had been any

occasion for it. It's a fact that I never feel so safe as I do when I've

got that dog here. Don't you believe in it yourself, sir?"

"Sometimes I do--Mrs Staines does absolutely. If there's nothing in it,

then there has been the most extraordinary lot of coincidences I ever

came across."

Richard Staines and his wife had agreed that they would live principally

in the country, and one day during their engagement Jane took Richard

down to Selsdon Bois to show him the house of her dreams, known to the

Post Office as Midway. Then, when he came to select, he would know the

kind of thing to look for. Jane had known Midway in her childhood, and

had loved its wide and gentle staircases, its fine Jacobean panelling,

its stone roof, and its old garden with the paved walks between yew

hedges.

"Well," said Richard, "if you are so keen on the place, why shouldn't we

wait for a chance to get it, instead of looking for something more or

less like it?"

"Because you can't," said Jane. "We're general public, and general

public is never allowed to buy a place like Midway. People live in it

till they die, and then leave it to the person they love best, and that

person lives in it till he dies. And so on again. It never comes into

the market. Things that are really valuable hardly ever do."

The conversation took place in the train which was conveying them to

Selsdon Bois.

"Ah, well," said Richard, "what is there? It needn't be very big to be

too big for us."

"Not a big house at all. I never counted, but I should think about

twenty rooms." She made guesses as to acreage of garden, orchard, and

grass-land. She admitted that they were merely guesses.

"The only thing that I really remember is that it was thirty-six acres

in all. Could we do it?"

"Yes," said Richard; "we ought to be able to do that."

"Still, it doesn't matter," said Jane despondently, "because, of course,

places like that are never to be got."

Then they stepped out on to the platform of Selsdon Bois Station, where

a man was busily pasting up a bill. It announced the sale by auction,

unless previously disposed of, of Midway.

"Miracle!" said Jane, subsiding gracefully on to a milk-can. "It's

ours!"

And a fortnight later it was really theirs. The house was as delightful

as Jane had said, but it was an old house, and during the last ten years

had not been well kept up. There was a good deal to be done to make it

quite comfortable and satisfactory. The work was to have been finished

by the time Richard and his wife returned from the honeymoon.

"It's been simply funny the way we've been kept back," said the builder

cheerfully. "But you might be able to get in, say, in another week or

so."

They remained for a month in town, and this gave Jane time to discover

that it was not possible to teach Zero to do trust-and-paid-for, and to

look up a really admirable train by which Richard might travel from

Selsdon Bois to the city every weekday morning.

"Yes," said Richard, a little doubtfully, "it's quite a good train,

but--"

"But what?"

"Oh, nothing. I shall probably take it whenever I go up, though it's a

bit earlier than is absolutely necessary. You see, I don't regard my

presence at the office as so essential as I once did. My partners are

most able and trustworthy men, and they like the work. Of course, I

shall keep an eye on things."

"Then how many days a week will you go up?"

"Well, just at first I shall go up--er--from time to time."

"Come here, Zero," said Jane. "See that man? He's idle. Kill him!"

"Idle? Why, I shall have any amount of things to do down at Midway!

Gardeners and grooms want a deal of looking after at first, until they

pick up the way you want things done. Then there's that car your father

gave us. I've got to learn how to drive it; I've got to know all about

its blessed works right up to the very last word. The man who don't is

open to be robbed and fooled by his chauffeur. That won't be done in a

week. Then I've had an idea that we might lay out a golf-course--quite a

small affair, just for practice."

"Richard, you're a genius! (You needn't bite him after all, Zero.) That

will be the very thing for guests on Sunday afternoons--not to mention

us ourselves."

"I was thinking principally of us ourselves."

"Where is that big-scale plan of the land? We'll pin it down flat on the

table, and start arranging it now. We shall probably have to alter it

all afterwards, but that don't matter."

CHAPTER V

Six years had passed; and Zero had got a new master, a somewhat

dictatorial gentleman, but with genuine goodness of heart, aged five,

bearing the same name as his father, Richard Staines, but never by any

chance addressed by it. His father called him Dick. His mother called

him by various fond and foolish appellations. He was known to the

servants of the household as the Emperor. He had two sisters, whom he

always spoke of collectively as "the children." He always spoke of Zero

as "my dog."

Zero was rather an old dog now, but hale and hearty. In his own circle

he was highly valued, but his formidable appearance still struck terror

among strangers, willing though he was to make friends with them. The

tradespeople, who had at first approached very delicately, had now grown

used to him; but the tramp or hawker who entered the garden at Midway,

and found Zero looking at him pensively, as a rule retired quickly to

see if the road was still there. No further instance had occurred of

Zero's mysterious powers, and in consequence they tended to become

legendary. Richard Staines had now definitely adopted the theory of

coincidence.

"Zero's a good old friend of mine, and I love him," he said; "but we

must give up pretending he's a miracle." Jane's faith, however, remained

unshaken.

And then, one summer evening, Dick came into the drawing-room with

determination in his face.

"Mother," he said, "I want a stick or whip, please."

"Well, now," said Jane, "what for?"

"To beat my dog with. He's got to be punished."

"That's a pity, Dickywick. What's he been doing?"

"He won't let me go out into the road. Every time he caught hold of my

coat and pulled me back. He's most frightfully strong, and he pulled me

over once. He wants a lamming."

"I wonder if he would let me go out," said Jane. "Let's go and see,

shall we?"

"Right-oh," said Dick, perfectly satisfied.

In the garden they found Zero cheerful and quite unrepentant. As a rule,

he rushed to the gate in the hopes of being taken out for a run. But

this evening, as Jane neared the gate, he became disquieted. He caught

hold of her dress and tried to drag her back. He ran round and round

her, whimpering. He flung himself in front of her feet.

"Now, you see," said Dick triumphantly.

"Yes, I see."

"Well, I shall go and fetch a stick."

"Oh, no. Zero does not want us to go out because he believes there's

some danger on the road."

"O-o-oh! Do you really mean it?"

"Honest Injun."

"Then he's not a bad dog at all, and I told him he was. Come here,

Zero." He patted the dog's head. "You're a good dog really. My mistake.

Sorry. What are you laughing at, mother? That's what Tom always says.

Now let's go and see the danger on the road."

"Well, it wouldn't be quite fair to Zero, after all the trouble he's

taken. Besides, I want to see the rabbits at their games. They ought to

be out just now."

"All right," said Dick. "You follow me, and I'll show you them. But you

mustn't make the least sound. You must be very Red-Indian."

Dick's mother followed him obediently, and was very Red-Indian. The

rabbits lived in a high bank just beyond the far end of the garden, and

what the gardener had said about them before the wire-netting came could

not be printed. Jane watched the rabbits, and conversed about them in

the hoarse whisper enjoined by her son, but she was thinking principally

about Zero.

Then Dick went to bed, and his father came back from the city. He went

up at least one day a week, and came back full of aggressive virtue and

likely to refer to himself as a man who earned his own living, thank

Heaven.

At dinner Richard said: "By the way, I'd been meaning to speak of

it--what's the matter with Zero?"

"Why?"

"He won't leave the gate. He was there when I drove in. I called him in,

but he went back almost directly. I saw him through the window as I was

dressing, and he was still there--lying quite still, with his eyes glued

on the road."

And then Jane recounted the experience of Dick and herself.

"You may laugh, Richard, but something is going to happen, and Zero

knows what it will be."

"Well," said Richard, "if anybody is proposing to burglarise us

to-night, I don't envy him the preliminaries with Zero. But, of course,

it may be nothing. All the same I've always said there ought to be a

lodge at that gate."

But to this Jane was most firmly opposed. A new semi-artistic red-brick

lodge would be out of keeping with Midway altogether. "And what are you

going to do about Zero?"

"Oh, anything you like. What do you propose?"

"I don't know what to say. Whatever is going to happen, apparently Zero

thinks he can tackle it by himself. Still, you might have your revolver

somewhere handy to-night."

"I will," said Richard.

Zero remained at his post until the dawn, and then came a black speck on

the white road. Zero stood up and growled. The skin on his back moved.

Down the road came the lean, black retriever, snapping aimlessly, foam

dropping from his jaws. Zero sprang at him and was thrown down and

bitten. At his second spring he got hold and kept it. The two dogs

rolled off the road, and into the ditch.

At breakfast, next morning, Richard was innocuously humorous on the

subject of revolvers, burglars, and clairvoyant bulldogs. He was

interrupted by a servant, who announced that Mr Hammond wished to speak

to him for a moment.

"Right," said Richard. "Where is he?"

"He is just outside, sir," said the man. "Mr Hammond would not come in."

Hammond was a neighbour of Richard's, a robust and heavily built man. As

a rule he was a cheerful sportsman, but this morning his countenance was

troubled. His clothes were covered with dust, and he looked generally

dishevelled.

"Hallo, Jim," said Richard cheerily. "How goes it? You look as if you'd

been out all night."

"I have," said Hammond grimly. "So have several other men."

"Why? What's up?"

"Outbreak of rabies at Barker's farm. He shot one of the dogs, but the

other got away. There must have been some damned mismanagement. A lot of

us have been out trying to find the brute all night."

"But, by Jove, this is most awfully serious. Can't I help? I'm ready to

start now if you like."

"Thanks, but I found the dog five minutes ago--dead in a ditch not

twenty yards from your gate. He's there still."

"Who shot him?"

"Nobody. That's the trouble. He had been killed by another dog, as

you'll see when you look at his windpipe. The chances are the other dog

got bitten or scratched, and he'll carry on the infection. It's the

other dog we've got to hunt."

"Could it be--" Richard paused.

"I'm afraid so," said Hammond. "Not many dogs would tackle a mad

retriever, but your bulldog would. And it was close to your gate that

the retriever was killed."

"If you'll wait half a minute, I'll see where Zero is."

But the dog was not to be found. Nobody had seen him that morning. In

truth, Richard had not expected to find him. He left word that if the

dog came back he was to be shut up in an empty stable. And then he and

Hammond went out together.

"You've got a revolver, I suppose," said Richard.

"I don't hunt mad dogs without one. This is most awfully hard lines on

you, Richard. He was a ripping good dog, Zero was."

"He was. It's Dick I'm thinking about. The dog was a great pal of his."

They found young Barker watching by the dead retriever. He explained

gloomily that he had sent a boy for a cart. The body would be taken back

and buried in lime. "And even then, sir, we've not got the dog that

killed him."

"We're just going to get him," said Richard quietly.

They walked on in silence for a mile and then at a turn of the road they

saw Zero, apparently asleep in the sunlight in the white dust.

"I ought to do this," said Richard, "but I wish you would."

"Right, old chap. It'll be over in a moment, and he'll be dead before he

knows he's hurt. Look the other way."

"Richard turned round and waited, as it seemed to him, for a long time,

waiting for the shot. Suddenly he heard Hammond's voice behind him.

"No need to shoot. The poor beggar's dead--been run over by a motor-car,

I should say. It's a lucky accident."

"I wonder," said Richard.

"Wonder what?"

"Wonder if it was really an accident."

WHEN I WAS KING

I was in a part of the country where it is a good deal safer to kill a

child than to take a pheasant. There are more people to look after the

pheasants. I have always felt as if a man who could get his bird without

a gun and cook it without a kitchen had a kind of right to the bird. An

empty stomach is an argument too. Well, I got my bird, and then Bates

got me. He is a big man and can use his hands. But all the same I am

ready for him, man to man, at any time. He had three to help him that

time, and that was why I had to stand up and look penitent while old

White-whiskers talked nonsense before he sent me to prison.

I can talk the common talk, and I can talk like a gentleman by birth and

education, which is what I happen to be. To Bates I gave the common

talk--and very common some of it was. Just for a whim, to amuse myself,

I gave the magistrate the other kind, knowing very well the sort of

thing it would make him say.

"It is deplorable," said old White-whiskers, "that an evidently

well-educated man like yourself, possessed of some abilities, and in a

position to get your living by honest work, should take to this crime of

poaching. The fact that you used violence towards the keeper makes the

case all the worse. Men like you are a curse to the country."

Well, I have tried honest work. I have been a classical tutor. I have

been an actor. I have been a bookmaker's clerk. But I like to go my own

way at my own time. And that does not conduce to regular employment. My

great-grandmother, I was always told, was a gipsy woman, and it may be

that I have thrown back to her. I cannot say. I do know that I must go

my own way at my own time, and that my own way is mostly out in the

open, and that I do not love bricks and mortar.

It is not often that I stay for long in one place, and I had stayed too

long in that village. There was a reason, of course, and if you guess

that the reason was a woman, you need not trouble to guess again. I had

a room at Mrs Crewe's cottage and paid my rent for it regularly. I had

done very well with plovers' eggs earlier in the season, and had not

spent all my money yet. It was a mistake to stop so long, because the

keepers began to study me a little. They began to watch where I went and

to ask themselves why. I had been marked by them long before I met Bates

in the wood that night. They put me in prison, and it did not do me any

good. It made me angry. I was a nice, well-conducted prisoner though,

for the people who had to look after me had no responsibility in the

matter. They did not make the laws, they were merely getting a living. I

was principally angry with myself, because I had allowed another man to

beat me. I made up my mind as soon as I got out of prison to take to the

road again. I thought it would be better for my health if I could smell

the air of a different county. It is a solemn fact that prison is not

good for your health or strength. When I came out I was not the man that

I had been.

And then I found out something which changed my mind. While I was in

prison, Bates went after my girl and made love to her. That settled it.

I had got to finish with Bates before I could go on.

I went to Mrs Crewe's cottage by night. When a man who has been in

prison walks about in a small village in the daytime, remarks are likely

to be made. If remarks were made, I was likely to take notice of them,

and I did not want to get into trouble again. I made up my mind that

Bates should be my next trouble. So, as I say, I went to Mrs Crewe by

night, to do the fair thing by her. I told her that I must find a

different room, if I had a room at all; for if old White-whiskers found

that she was keeping the convicted poacher on, she would lose her

cottage. "So, Mrs Crewe," I said, "I have come to say good-bye to you

and Elsie."

Elsie is Mrs Crewe's little girl--a pretty kid of ten, but with bad

health. It was not a good cottage for a sick child, and the food was not

good enough for her, and the doctor was not good enough. He charged Mrs

Crewe nothing--I'll say that for him--but it was as much as he was

worth. Mrs Crewe's other daughter, Lizzie, was eight years older and in

service in London.

Mrs Crewe heard all I had to say, but it made no effect upon her. She

said that she had always paid her rent and conducted herself

respectably, and that old White-whiskers dared not put her out, and that

if he did put her out she would get somebody to write to the London

newspapers about it. She had a great belief in the London newspapers.

She said, moreover, that she took people as she found them, and that I

had always treated her and Elsie well. That was true enough. If Elsie

did not get that last pheasant, she had had others.

Mrs Crewe wanted, too, the money she would get from me for the room, and

said so. She would take no money that she had not earned. She was that

kind. She worked pretty hard too--sold the vegetables out of her bit of

garden, did charing work whenever she could get it, and made a little

out of her fowls. She said, too, that Elsie had not been so well, and

had asked for me.

"Very well, Mrs Crewe," I said. "But there is one thing I have to tell

you. I have been in prison, as you know, and something is going to

happen which will put me back there again, and this time I shall not

come out alive."

She said that she knew what I meant. Bates had not done the fair

thing--that was acknowledged in the village. Still, I could do no good

by getting violent again, and it was just as well that I should stop

with her and let her talk me into a better frame of mind. I laughed. She

was a good woman, but no amount of talk would have stopped me. And then

I said I would sleep that night at her cottage.

I did, and nearly all night I heard that kid crying.

"What is the matter with Elsie?" I said.

Mrs Crewe told me. Lizzie had got permission to have Elsie up to London

in the following week to see the King go past. Now the doctor had

forbidden it. He was right too. She seemed to me to be pretty bad, and

in the evening she was light-headed. I asked Mrs Crewe what she had

done.

"Told her that as she can't go to London to see the King, I have written

to Buckingham Palace to ask the King to come and see her. Anything to

keep her quiet. Funny the way her mind is set on seeing the King."

"And why don't you write?" I asked. "If he knew, and if he could come, I

believe he would."

"Aye," she said, "and so do I. But he might never see the letter, and

kings have a deal to do, they tell me."

That day I tramped into Helmston to buy something that I wanted for Mr

Bates, and as I walked into Helmston I could not get the thoughts of

that kid out of my mind. Then a funny sort of idea struck me. I had been

an actor, as I have already said, and I am pretty good at make-up. I

bought a few other things in Helmston besides the revolver.

When I got back I told Mrs Crewe my idea, and at first she was opposed

to it. She said that Elsie would be certain to recognise my face and

voice, in spite of my disguise, and that if she found out she had been

deceived, she would never forgive her.

"No," I said, "she will not recognise me. You yourself will not

recognise me. I may not look very much like the King, but I shall not

look in the least like myself. However, you yourself shall see first. If

you think it is all right, as soon as it is dusk you shall go and tell

her that the King has come."

I went to my room and spent about half an hour on that make-up. I think

the result was pretty good, seeing that I had not got all the materials

that I wanted to work with. I called Mrs Crewe up and she was astounded.

She said now that it was perfectly safe, that nobody on earth could have

recognised me.

"Very well," I said. "You must wait until ten minutes after the

down-train is in. Elsie knows the trains and can hear them from where

she is lying. You must tell her that the King does not wear his crown

and his gorgeous robes when he is travelling, but only a black coat,

just like the doctor."

When I was an actor I was never afflicted with nervousness; but as I

heard Mrs Crewe in the next room tell Elsie exactly what I had told her

to say, I shivered with fear. Suppose, after all, the child should find

me out!

Elsie slept in a small bed in her mother's room. As I entered she tried

to raise herself a little, and said in her best voice--the one that she

used in church on Sunday--"I am so sorry that I cannot get up to make a

curtsy to you. And ought I to call you 'Your Majesty' or just 'King'?"

"The correct etiquette," I said, "is for children to call me 'King'. I

am very glad to have been able to come down to see you, Elsie. It was

only by the merest chance that I could get away."

I gave her my whitened hand with the flash rings on it. She put her lips

to it. "That will be something to tell the other girls," she said.

His Majesty inquired who the other girls were. He was told that Elsie

had not been seeing much of them lately, because she had been ill; but

she would be well and strong again very soon now--her mother had told

her so. The other girls were very nice girls. Sarah Miggs had made a

daisy-chain and sent it to her, and it was twice as long as the bed.

All this time Mrs Crewe had, by my direction, remained standing. She

adopted a most respectful attitude, and curtsied whenever I looked at

her. I now heard from her an ominous sniffling. If the silly woman began

to blubber, there was a chance that the thing would be given away.

"Mrs Crewe," I said, with dignity, "you have our permission to retire."

She backed out of the room, and presently we heard her very busy in the

kitchen, making an almost unnecessary noise with pots and pans. But

perhaps that was intended to cover other sounds.

Elsie now demanded information about the interior of Buckingham Palace.

I invented splendours, and she listened with rapture; she said it

sounded more like Heaven than anything else. She put a plain question to

me as to the value of the enormous diamond on my finger. She found that

it had cost even more than she supposed, and she was interested in

hearing the history of it. The diamond had once been the eye of an idol

in India.

Presently she said, with distress: "Oh dear me, King, I do wish you

could stop. There is such a lot more I want to ask you. But you will

only just have time to catch the nine-thirteen, and that's the last

up-train to-night."

"It is of no consequence," I said. "I had arranged to return to-night by

motor-car."

"Shall I see it?"

"No," I said, "because by that time you will be asleep. It would not be

a good thing for you to keep awake much longer. And if I tell you to go

to sleep, then of course you must do it, because I am the King."

"Of course," she echoed. "Because you are the King."

But I could tell her all about the motor. It was really more like a

house than a car. It had three rooms in it, and all the walls and

ceilings were covered with a pattern of lilies made in silver and gold.

The stalks and the leaves were silver and the flowers were gold. One of

the rooms in the car was like a bedroom, and in one of the other rooms

there was a cupboard which was entirely filled with glass jars of

sweets. Elsie named several kinds; they were all there.

She held my hand as she talked, and she was still holding it as she fell

asleep. The room was almost dark now, though outside it was a light

night. Then quite suddenly she sat up in bed and flung wide her arms.

"God save the King!" she cried.

In a moment she was asleep again, and I slipped from the room. I was a

king no longer. She slept well that night.

Old White-whiskers had his points after all. He took it into his head to

have a look into his cottages himself, and in consequence a highly

respectable firm lost a highly lucrative job. When Elsie and her mother

get back from the seaside--White-whiskers is paying for them--they will

find their cottage in decent repair.

And this morning I take the road again, never to return. Of course Mrs

Crewe thinks that it is her wise counsel which has kept me out of the

hands of the hangman; but that is not so.

I have not seen Bates again, and I have planned not to see him again,

lest at the sight of him I should forget a decision to which I came when

that kid of Mrs Crewe's sat up in bed and called upon God to save the

King.

THE SATYR

Myra Larose was a good governess, capable, and highly certificated.

At Salston Hill School they rewarded her services with forty pounds per

annum, and board and lodging during term-time. She had often been

fortunate enough to secure private pupils for the holidays, and she knew

a stationer who bought hand-painted Christmas cards. At the end of four

years' work she had thirty-five pounds saved and in the Post Office. And

then Aunt Jane, the last of her relatives, died, and left her a fine two

hundred and fifty. This meant another ten pounds per annum.

Things were not so bad, but they did not, of course, justify the very

mad idea that came into her pretty head--a head that, so far, had proved

itself sane and practical.

The girls of the school considered that Miss Larose was strict but just,

and that she had nice eyes. The principal, Mrs Dewlop, when prostrate

from the horrible Davenant scandal, had declared that she would never

think highly of any human being again; but she did think highly of Myra,

even to the extent of considering the possibility of an increase of

salary. Myra's fellow-teachers thought her sensible, and chaffed her

mildly at times about her economies and her accumulation of wealth. No

one would have supposed her capable of anything wild and extravagant.

Possibly a book that she had been reading put the idea into her head.

Then there was the accident that nearly all her clothes were new

simultaneously. Her eyes fell on the advertisement which showed her the

advantages of hiring a petrol landaulet by the day in London. Thoughts

of the theatre swam into her head. She loved the theatre, and had not

been in one for years. She might lunch at the Ritz. She might deny

herself nothing--for one day. Grey routine and miserable economies

suddenly found her insurgent. Yes, she would have one great day--one day

during which she would live at the rate of two thousand a year.

So, on one splendid morning, at the station of her northern suburb, she

had occasion to be severe with the booking-clerk. ("I said _first_

return--not third. You should pay more attention.") She bought a

sixpenny periodical to read on the way up, and when she reached King's

Cross she deliberately left the valuable magazine in the carriage behind

her. That struck the high, reckless note. How often had she nursed a

halfpenny paper through the whole of a traffic-distracted day that she

might read the feuilleton at night!

"Taxi, miss?" suggested the porter when he had ascertained that she had

no luggage.

"I think not," said Myra. "I believe my car's waiting for me." She felt

that she had said it perfectly--without obvious pleasure, and without

that air of intense languor that is always accepted on the stage as

indicative of aristocracy, and never seen elsewhere.

She could tell the porter how to recognise the car--information supplied

to her by the company from whom she had hired it--and the porter brought

it up for her. Her first thought was that it looked splendid. Her second

thought was that beyond a doubt she had recognised the face of the

liveried driver.

She gave the porter a shilling, and sent him away. (Her usual tips for

porters had varied from nothing to twopence, with a preference for the

former.) Then she turned to the driver, a young man, with a handsome,

clean-shaven face and dark, rebellious eyes.

"I know you," she said. "You are Mr Davenant."

"Quite true, Miss Larose. But that need make no difference. You have

bought my services for the day, you know. You will find me just as

attentive and respectful as any other servant. Where to, miss?"

"No, no. I want to talk to you. I must. Oh, it's too awful that you

should have come down to this. Mrs Dewlop must have been vindictive

indeed."

"She was certainly angry." He smiled reminiscently--he had a charming

smile. "She had every right to be."

"Look here," she said impulsively, "what is to prevent you from lunching

with me?"

"Your plans for the day--this car--and, for the matter of that, my

clothes."

"I have no appointments, and no fixed plans. I was going to amuse myself

just anyhow. I shall like this far better. Oh, can't you arrange it for

me?"

"I should like it, too, and I can arrange it all very easily if you

don't mind waiting half an hour."

"Of course I'll wait--wait here, if you like."

"You would find the National Gallery more interesting, and I can take

you there in a few minutes."

"Yes, that's better. Thanks awfully. This is splendid."

At the National Gallery she looked at certain pictures with appreciative

intelligence. Then she sat down and half-closed her eyes, and saw a

picture from the gallery of her memory.

It was the big classroom at Salston Hill School. At one end of the room

Myra Larose took the elementary class in drawing. At the other end, much

older girls took the lesson in advanced drawing from a master who was,

as the prospectus stated, an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His name

was Hilary Davenant, and in the bills he was charged extra. The older

girls were ten in number, and were provided with easels, charcoal, and

stumps. They formed the circumference of a circle of which the centre

was a life-size cast with a blackboard adjacent.

Myra watched as she saw Davenant going from one drawing-board to

another, and noted the waning of patience and the growth of irritation.

He went to the blackboard and addressed the entire class on the anatomy

of the hand, illustrating his remarks by rapid drawings on the

blackboard. They were admirable drawings in their way--swift, right,

certain, slick. And suddenly he flung the chalk to the floor and spake

with his tongue. He also used gesture--a foreign and reprehensible

practice.

"You poor, silly idiots! Not one of you will ever do it, except perhaps

Miss Stenson. And if you did, it wouldn't be the real thing." He checked

himself, and went on in a nice, suave schoolmaster's voice. "I was

joking, of course. As I said, this cast presents considerable

difficulties to some of you. But you must face your difficulties and

overcome them. You must not let yourselves be discouraged." And so on.

Dora Stenson, aged sixteen, blushed and put her hand over her eyes. The

other pupils smiled in a weak, wan way. They had been told that it was a

joke, and they believed everything they were told, and did their best.

At the other end of the room Myra Larose developed a good deal of

interest in Hilary Davenant.

An incident which occurred two days later formed another picture in the

memory-gallery. Myra, with other assistants, had been summoned with

every circumstance of solemnity to the principal's private study.

"I have to inform you, ladies," said Mrs Dewlop, "that owing to

circumstances which have come to my knowledge, I have been compelled to

dismiss Mr H. Davenant at a moment's notice." She readjusted her

pince-nez, and her refined face squirmed. "Mr Davenant is not a man: he

is a satyr. I have sufficiently indicated the nature of his offence,

which he admitted; and I do not care to dwell upon the subject further.

This has been a great shock to me. One can only hope in time to live it

down. That," she added tragically, "is all."

It had happened six months before, and at the time had filled Myra with

curiosity and also with a touch of horror. Was it wise of her to make

appointments with a man who had been so described? Had not her feeling

of compassion for an old colleague--one, moreover, whom she had found

sympathetic--carried her too far? This was not at all the kind of thing

she had come out to do. But--well, she had done it. And if the satyr

added punctuality to his other vices, he would be waiting outside for

her.

He was there. He had changed his car as well as his clothes. He did not

look poor. He looked as if he owned that car and a good deal of the rest

of the earth.

"I hope you don't mind," he said. "I thought this open car might be

useful. If you would be kind enough to take the seat beside me we could

talk as we go. I thought, as it was such a ripping morning, you might

like to drive into the country somewhere for lunch. But that must be

just as you like, of course."

"It is exactly what I like. Let's see. We've got lots of time before

lunch. You shall choose where we go."

"If you don't mind lunching a little late, we might do Brighton."

"Yes, we lunch at Brighton," she said decisively. The spirit of

adventure was hot within her. She had meant the day to be rather

exciting. It was more than fulfilling expectations.

As they crawled through the traffic she asked him how he had persuaded

his firm to let her have the open car instead of the other. She was told

that it was the policy of his people to oblige a customer in every

possible way, and that they had made no trouble. Then she spoke of

things she had seen at the National Gallery, and found him just as

enthusiastic about art as she had done once in the old days at the

school, when chance gave them a few minutes' talk together. But it was

not till they sat at lunch in a good little hotel overlooking the sea

that they became confidential.

"I gather," he said, "that you knew that Mrs Dewlop sacked me."

"She told all of us."

"Did she say why?"

"Not exactly. She said that you were a satyr. I--I didn't believe that."

"Well, I'll tell you exactly what I did. I kissed Dora Stenson."

This was a blow. "I don't think I want to hear about it," said Myra

coldly.

"It's all very well," said Davenant mournfully, "but I'd had very little

experience as a teacher. What do you do yourself when a girl begins to

cry?"

"If she's quite a child, I try to comfort her. If it's one of the older

girls, I tell her that I dislike hysteria, and that she had better go

away until she has recovered. But it rarely happens with the older

girls. What made Dora Stenson cry?"

"All my own fault--the whole thing. You know the beauties I had to

teach. Dora was the only one that had any gift. As for the rest, you

might as well have tried to teach blind pigs to draw. What was the

consequence? I gave Dora most of the teaching, and I was harder on her

than I was on the others. I judged her by a different standard, and I

drove her as hard as I could. Well, one day, at the end of the hour, she

brought me up some bad work. She'd taken no trouble. It was rotten. All

the same, if any of the others had shown me anything nearly as good, I

should have been more than satisfied. As it was Dora, I lost my wool and

told her what I thought. Classes were dismissed. You went out. I was

left alone in the room. Back came Dora to pick up some truck she'd left

behind, and she was crying--crying like anything. Well, I couldn't stand

it. I'd never meant to be a brute, and there was that girl--very pretty

she is, too--crying like anything. I began to talk to her, and, before I

knew where I was, I had kissed her. I'm making a clean breast of the

whole thing--I kissed her two or three times."

Miss Myra Larose, who had not wanted to hear about it, had listened with

breathless interest, and now put in a shrewd question.

"And did Dora kiss you?"

"As I was saying, where I was wrong was in--"

"All right, I know. If she had not kissed you, you would have said so.

But, seeing that she did kiss you, why on earth did she complain to Mrs

Dewlop?"

"She never did. She wrote a letter to a girl friend of hers, and left it

lying about. Mrs Dewlop read it. Now, what do you think?"

Myra considered a moment. "I think," she said deliberately, "that Dora

was a braggart, and that Mrs Dewlop was a sneak, and--er--not very wise,

and that you----"

"Do you also think me a satyr?"

"Of course not. You were all wrong, but you were just a baby."

He gave a sigh of relief.

"It makes me angry," said Myra impulsively. "What right had that woman

to ruin you, and turn you into a cab-driver?"

"I must explain further. It is true that she refused me any kind of a

character, and that my teaching career was closed. But I am not exactly

a cab-driver. When I was turned out I had to give up the idea of making

a living by art. I could no longer teach, and modern pictures sell

seldom and badly. But I had another string to my bow. I understand

motors, and I had had plenty of driving experience. An uncle of mine is

in the motor business to some considerable extent. Amongst other things,

he is a director and principal share-holder in the company from which

you hired your car. He has often asked me to join him, and now I did so.

He is a thorough sort of man, and he insisted that I should go through

every side. I've washed cars; for three months I was an ordinary

mechanic; I've been in the office; the last few weeks I've been driving

these privately let cars, and picking up some interesting information as

to the amount of tips that the drivers get. Next week I shall be a

manager. Well, now, I saw your order when it came in. I remembered you

very well--very well, indeed. I determined to drive you myself--to be

your good servant, if that was all that was possible, but to be as much

more as you would let me be."

As the car purred smoothly through the dusk in the direction of the

northern suburb where Myra had her inexpensive lodging, Davenant said:

"Then you will give notice that you leave at the end of next term,

darling?"

And she said: "Yes, dearest."

THE CHOICE

Mrs Halward, a good and earnest lady, was angry with her married

brother, Harry Elton, and took an early opportunity of telling him so.

Elton was a big man, and so quiet as to be almost gloomy.

"What are you angry for?" he asked.

"You know perfectly well. It's shameful. It's scandalous. I can't think

how you can do it. You've only been married six years, and Grace is such

a dear."

"Yes," said Elton, "I'm very fond of Grace."

"I was under the impression," said his sister, "that you were very fond

of Rosamond Fayre. It has been sufficiently obvious lately."

"Yes," said Elton slowly, "I'm extremely fond of Rosamond."

"Don't talk like a fool. A man can't be in love with two women at the

same time."

"If he can't, why accuse me of it? Has Grace complained to you?"

"Of course not. Have you been married to her for six years without

discovering that she has a certain amount of pride?"

"Because, you see, if she has not complained to you, I don't see how it

becomes your business at all. I am sure it is not a thing you would

understand. You mean well, of course; but interference is futile. A man

neither loves nor ceases to love because he is told it is expected of

him, and that the conventions require it. You women who try to direct

the love-affairs of others always remind me of a certain king who

forbade the tide to come in."

"I have done my duty," said his sister stoutly. "You are going to bring

disgrace on the family. I shall certainly speak to Grace about it."

"Do, if you wish. I warn you that Grace is not so patient as I am. If

you succeed you will make mischief. You will precipitate things. That's

curious, you know--the third party who interferes with the relations

between a man and a woman can never do any good, but is able to do a

deal of harm."

Mrs Halward was not convinced. If her sister-in-law had been at home at

the time she would probably have spoken to her then. She could only

repeat that she had done her duty, and leave with dignity.

Mrs Fayre was extremely poor. Her husband held a position in China,

vaguely understood to be mercantile, and sent her one hundred pounds a

year. In addition to this she had a private income of seven hundred; but

eight hundred a year is extreme poverty when most of your friends and

acquaintances approximate to eight thousand a year. She lived in a small

flat in South Kensington, and made a business of pathos. At one time,

Mrs Halward had been enchanted with her, and it was at her house that

Rosamond and Harry Elton first met.

Harry Elton walked up and down the library, and tried to think things

out. He thought Rosamond beautiful. He liked the tone of her voice. He

liked her to be with him. Once or twice he had nearly kissed her, but he

never had kissed her, and he had never told her he loved her. There were

times when he had been on the verge of it, but had been checked by the

thought that he could not do Grace any wrong--not only because it would

hurt her, but because it would hurt himself. What was the use of laying

down stupid rules, that a man could not love two women at once? But the

rule had been laid down, and it was almost universally accepted. If a

man did love two women, it was certain that each of the women would feel

herself wronged.

He had never wanted to face the situation at all. He had been quite

willing to let things drift. His wife was not jealous. He saw Rosamond

Fayre frequently, and without any secrecy. He had interested himself in

her painting--which was abominable--and had tried to get her work.

Sometimes they lunched or dined at a restaurant alone together.

Sometimes he took her to the theatre. But he had never realised that he

had given the thing away, and that the cats--among whom he included his

sister--had marked him down. Now that he did face the situation, he did

not in the least know what to do. He thought of leaving Grace and of

running away with Rosamond, and the thought was intolerable. He thought

of giving up Rosamond by degrees, seeing less and less of her, and that

thought was equally intolerable. He planned to let things remain as they

were, and recognised that _that_ was impossible. No love-affair remains

at a fixed point half-way. It goes on and on.

He stepped over to the telephone at his desk and contemplated it for a

few seconds, as if he were seeking counsel from it. Then he took down

the receiver and asked for a number.

"That is you, Rosamond?"

"Quite."

"I've been thinking about you."

"I've been thinking about you, too."

"I want you to tell me something. Do you think that I love you?"

"Oh, yes, of course." The tone of the voice was mocking.

"I am serious," said Elton.

There were a few seconds of silence. What had happened?

"Are you there?" he asked.

"It is very dangerous to be serious. Good-bye."

"You have not been sleeping well lately, have you?" Grace asked her

husband.

"Oh yes," he lied. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, you look horribly tired, anyhow. I don't believe you're well. I

do wish you'd see a doctor."

Harry reassured her. He was, he said, as fit as could be.

"Well, what are you and Rosamond Fayre going to do after dinner?"

"Don't know exactly. It depends upon what she wants. A theatre, I

suppose. Is there anything going on not too absolutely rotten?"

"Nothing that I have seen lately. If you can get out of it, don't take

her to the theatre. Get home early and go to bed. You really look as if

you wanted a rest."

Grace was going to hear Kubelik that evening, dining first with the

Halwards. Her husband did not hear Kubeliks cheerfully, and it had been

Grace's suggestion that he should take poor Rosamond to dine somewhere.

Everyone felt they must do something for poor Rosamond to get a little

colour and brightness into her days. Eight hundred a year and a husband

in China! What a life!

Harry Elton had accepted the suggestion without enthusiasm. He said he

supposed he might as well do that as anything else.

It was part of the tragedy of Rosamond's poverty that she could not

afford as many taxicabs as she needed. She went about a good deal, and

she found it necessary to go about economically. Left to herself, she

would have taken the tube to Dover Street and then stepped across the

road. But Elton's expensive motor-car, after taking Grace to the

Halwards', went on to South Kensington to fetch Rosamond.

She was grateful, as she always was. "I often wonder," she said

plaintively, "why everybody is so good to me--you especially."

"I am by no means certain that I am good to you. I spoke to you on the

telephone this afternoon."

"Not now, no," said Rosamond firmly.

She was quite right. You cannot discuss the sweet and secret sinfulness

of your heart when the waiter is handing you the entrée. Possibly Elton

also recognised this. But his next remark was rather brutal.

"You have never told me about the man in China. Tell me now."

Rosamond answered in French. There were no waiters near at the moment to

overhear her. If there had been, they all understood French perfectly.

But to Rosamond, French had always given a feeling of security. Her

story was brief and simple. She had married at eighteen. It had been a

girl's infatuation, and it had lasted just two years. No, there had

never been any actual break between them. He had to take up this post in

China. They were too poor for him to refuse it. It brought him five

hundred a year.

"Out of which," said Elton, "he sends you a measly hundred."

"He knows I have some means of my own. Oh no, we have never quarrelled.

It is just that the thing died. I should be sorry for his death, as I

should be for the death of any old companion--nothing more than that. He

would regard my death in the same way. There is no longer any love

between us. He sends me four rather formal letters every year, and I

send him four replies, telling him about London theatres and so on. It's

funny, isn't it? But, my God!" (It did not sound so strong in French.)

"I do not think," said Elton slowly, "that you were meant to spend your

years without love."

"No? How do you know?"

Elton smiled. "Do you know the eyes of women who do without love and do

not need it? They are the eyes of a business-like fish. Your eyes are

not like that."

She leant a little forward over the small table. "Look into them," she

said, "and tell me what you read there."

"Don't do that. Do you want to drive me mad?"

"Yes--sometimes."

"Well, I dare not tell you what I read in your eyes."

She laughed nervously. "Is it so bad as that?" she said, and began to

speak of other matters.

She was intending to send a picture to the Academy, and felt quite

hopeful about it. She described it to him, and he made appropriate

replies; but though he watched her intently all the time he was hardly

conscious of what she was saying. He tried to pull himself together.

"What are we to do this evening? A theatre?"

"I don't think so. I'm tired of theatres. I'm tired of everything. We

will talk for a little in the lounge, and then I will take my train back

again and go through the farce of trying to go to sleep."

"You, too, have not been sleeping well then? Of course, you won't go

back in the train. I shall drive you back."

"It is frightfully good of you, but I don't really deserve so much

kindness to-night. I have the feeling all the time that I am behaving

badly, and talking like an idiot."

"Come on into the lounge. We will both talk like idiots."

They found a secluded corner, and a waiter brought them coffee. Elton

watched the man's back as he went away. Then he turned to Rosamond.

"Now then," he said, "about our conversation on the telephone."

She paused before replying, breathing quickly, and then she spoke very

rapidly and in a low voice.

"Yes, you love me. I have known that for a long time. I wanted you to

love me. You know the rest, don't you? I adore you. There's no one but

you in the world. Now I've said it. It was bound to happen sooner or

later. It's over, and we can never speak to one another again."

He rose from his place. "Come," he said, "I am going to take you home. I

had the car waiting here in case we wanted to go to the theatre."

He signed to a waiter.

"Go and find my car, Mr Elton's car," he said to the man, "and tell the

driver he won't be wanted to-night. He is to go home."

Rosamond looked at him wonderingly. "I--I think I see."

"Of course. Get your cloak quickly, dear."

He put her into the taxi and gave the address, not of the little flat

where she lived, but of her studio.

"Things are better," said Mrs Halward to her husband. "I was afraid at

one time that there was going to be serious trouble between Harry and

his wife about that wretched Fayre. I gave him a word of warning at the

time, and I am convinced it did good."

"What makes you think so?" said her husband, not greatly interested.

"Didn't you notice yourself at dinner last night? He hardly said five

words to Rosamond. He seemed to take no notice of her."

Mrs Halward had observed correctly, but had made wrong deductions. Harry

and Rosamond were meeting more frequently than ever, but nearly always

in secrecy. If his wife suggested that Rosamond should be asked to one

of her dinner-parties, Harry shrugged his shoulders and made some

excuse. He lunched frequently at his club now, so his wife said, and she

said what he had told her. As a matter of fact, he never lunched there

at all. He took Rosamond to out-of-the-way restaurants where he would be

unlikely to meet anybody he knew. Sometimes they improvised a lunch in

the studio together. No day passed that he did not see her, or, at any

rate, hear from her. And there was no happiness for either of them.

Elton hated lies and hated secrecy. Grace had never been jealous of

Rosamond, but Rosamond was furiously jealous of Grace.

"I can see the end of this," said Rosamond one night when he had come

late to the studio. "We cannot possibly go on like this. It is killing

me. I cannot share you with another woman."

"I know, dear," said Elton. "The position is hateful. And it is all my

fault. And what is to be the end of it?"

"Quite simple," said Rosamond. "I take something for my insomnia, you

know. There will be an accident."

"You are not to say that, and you are not even to think about it. That

will not be the end. I am going to take you away. We must face it. A

little scandal, a change of name, and, in a year, it is all over. I

shall be willing enough to live abroad. We will go to your beloved

Sicily."

"Yes, to Taormina. Oh! but that would be too much happiness. That could

never be."

But, there and then, they made their plans how it should be.

Even now, if there was a prospect of happiness for Rosamond, there

seemed to Elton to be none for himself. He would have to leave Grace. It

was against accepted ideas and against rules, but, none the less, he

loved Grace. He could not have said which woman he loved more--Grace or

Rosamond. They were so absolutely different--Grace with her suavity and

Rosamond with her temperament--that no comparison was possible. Both

seemed absolutely necessary to him, and he could not have both.

Grace and her husband had to fulfil an engagement to spend a week-end

with some friends who lived in Oxfordshire. One morning she went out

alone and found the cottage of her dreams--the country cottage she had

always meant to have. She came back in the spirits of a child who has a

new toy. Harry was to go and look at it at once.

"And what do you think I have done? I have telegraphed to that poor

Rosamond Fayre to come down here on Monday morning. I am going to give

her a commission--to paint my cottage garden. She is rather good at

gardens--I mean she is better at gardens."

It was useless to raise any objection, and Harry felt convinced Rosamond

would not come. So he said it was rather a good idea, and discussed

gravely the improvements his wife meant to make at the cottage.

"You see," she said, "I must make it comfortable."

A little later the telegram arrived from Rosamond: "Very many thanks.

Will come by the train you suggest."

Harry met that train at his wife's suggestion.

"Why did you come?" he asked Rosamond anxiously.

"Didn't you want to see me?"

"I always want to see you, but the position is too horrible."

"I know it is difficult, but in three days now it will all be over, and

we shall be at peace together. Meanwhile, if I refuse to meet Grace, she

will think--oh, she may think anything. Come on. Take me to the

cottage."

Harry made an excuse to leave the two women alone there together. He

would be back in an hour. And in a little more than an hour he was

walking back to the station with Rosamond and his wife. There was only

just time to catch Rosamond's train. But it was all right, so Grace

said; there was a short cut across the line. They would be there in

time. And then Grace made a terrible discovery. She had left the key of

the cottage in the door. Harry must run back and fetch it, or the people

who were letting her the cottage would consider she was not a

responsible person.

Harry tried the door of the cottage to see that it was locked, put the

key in his pocket, and ran after them. They had reached the crossing

now, but were standing still. He could not at first make out what it was

they were doing. Rosamond then bent down to her shoe, and Harry realised

what had happened. The shoe had got wedged in the points, and she would

have to take her foot out of it to get free.

And then he heard the scream of the whistle, and dashed forward.

He managed to save one of the two women. It was Grace.

The moment had revealed him to himself. He had made his choice.

THE PIANO-TUNER

CHAPTER I

Miss Caterham was forty-five, and said so, and looked it. She wore black

cashmere in the afternoon, and black silk in the evening. She was

methodical, and professed a hatred of all nonsense. She liked to take

care of everything and to avoid using it. Also, though fundamentally

kind-hearted, she was firm even to the point of obstinacy. Her ideas

were old-fashioned, and she had only hatred and contempt for any other

ideas. She kept fowls and understood them completely. She also kept her

orphan niece, Ruth Caterham, and understood her less completely.

Indisputably she loved the fowls much less than she loved her niece, but

the fowls had comparatively the greater liberty. She maintained a

decent, upper-middle-class state in a Georgian house, on the confines of

a little town that thoroughly respected her. It was not a suburb. It was

too far from London for that. The best trains took forty minutes. Miss

Caterham was rather acidulated about suburban people.

There, from time to time, she entertained the brother of Ruth's deceased

mother. She loved him, and abhorred his opinions. So far as might be,

she kept him in order. His name was George Maniways, and he was in

Parliament, and his politics were of the wrong colour. "You and the

other enemies of England," Miss Caterham would say, in addressing him.

She would probably have quarrelled with him, frequently, but for the

fact that it takes two to make a quarrel, and Mr Maniways was too lazy

to play up properly. His temper was so good as to be almost

pusillanimous. He was almost the only male who ever entered her house,

except in a menial capacity. She had been compelled to allow Ruth to

accept the Sotherings' dance and Lady Rochisen's. But when young Bruce

Sothering wrote to ask if he might call, she replied that they were just

going away, but that she would write on her return. She did not write on

her return. And she cannot have forgotten it, for Ruth reminded her

twice. Rather a difficult woman, Miss Caterham.

The day being hot, George had arrayed his long and meagre body in white

flannel. The conformation of his large grey moustache and his apologetic

blue eyes gave him the appearance of rather a meek kind of walrus--one

that would feed from the hand and do trust-and-paid-for. He reposed

himself after luncheon in a large deck-chair on the veranda. He held

between his teeth an amber tube with a cigarette in it. He had a box of

matches in one hand, and intended to light the cigarette when he felt

more rested. In the meantime he nursed a straw hat, and watched Miss

Caterham's wise and just restraint of a climbing geranium. Miss

Caterham, in the intervals of her work, watched George, with a glance

which indicated rapidly increasing displeasure. The fire kindled, and at

last she spake with her tongue.

"I am extremely sorry, George, but I simply cannot stand it any longer.

Will you kindly either light that cigarette or throw it away."

"I was just about to light it, Jane. This weather, especially after

luncheon, invests one's actions with a certain amount of deliberation."

"If you showed as much deliberation about your words, George, as you do

about your actions, it would be better for everybody."

George's astonishment was such that he let out the match which he had

just lit. "Oh, really, Jane, I wasn't conscious of having said anything

particular."

"It's not what you said now, it's what you said at luncheon. If you

don't strike another match and light that cigarette, I shall have to

go."

George followed his instructions obediently. "At luncheon?" he said

meditatively. "Don't seem to remember having said anything particular at

luncheon either. While I'm here, I'm always careful to avoid politics."

"So long as you follow blindly the foes of your own country, that is

just as well. The treacherous and unpatriotic duffers, with whom you

have chosen to ally yourself----"

"Yes," said George. "You're perfectly right. It's much better to avoid

politics. But what did I say at luncheon?"

"Ruth was there."

"She was. Very charming she looked. I'm proud to be her uncle."

"I have the charge of her education, and the formation of her moral

character, and I considered what you said to be most unwise. Praise is

nearly always bad, and it is specially injudicious to praise a child's

beauty to her face."

"Oh, that's it, is it? Well, Ruth ain't exactly a child, you know. She's

eighteen."

"Only just eighteen, and I'm not sure that that does not make it worse.

I've always been careful to guard against anything of the kind. I do not

wish my niece to grow up vain and self-conscious."

"Oh, she's all right," said George feebly.

"Far from it. She is wilful, and there is nothing I hate so much as

wilfulness. I must have my own way, and I cannot be opposed in my views

by you or by Ruth. Also, it is quite untrue that she is beautiful. She

is nice-looking enough, but her mouth is certainly a little too large,

and she has permitted the sun to ruin her complexion--in spite of my

advice. I must request you, George, to abstain from saying anything of

the kind again."

George refused an invitation to inspect a new fowl-run, and said that he

preferred to sit and think over things. Amongst other thoughts, it

occurred to him that his niece did not in all probability have much of a

time. Where he sat, he could hear faintly the sound of the piano in the

drawing-room. It was obviously something of Grieg's, and appallingly

difficult. He was glad that he had not got to play it, and was merely an

audience. He had chosen the better part. After all, Ruth had her music

to occupy her, and she played tennis with the Vicarage girls, and what

else could she want? He was just dropping off to sleep when the

cessation of the music roused him again. A moment later his niece stood

before him.

She was a tall girl, and carried herself well. Most people would have

agreed with her uncle's estimation of her looks. She wore no hat, and

her face was certainly slightly tanned.

"Uncle George," she said, "I want you to do something."

"Not tennis," said George sleepily. "Nothing violent. After tea,

perhaps, when it's cooler."

"That's not it at all. Now listen. When you're at the House, you have

tea on the Terrace sometimes, don't you?"

"Sometimes. Whisky-and-soda sometimes. What do you want?"

"You can ask people to come and have tea on the Terrace, can't you?

Well, you've got to ask me. Next Tuesday, please. And you've got to

persuade Aunt Jane to let me go, too."

"I'm not so sure about that," said George. "I've just been getting into

a row about you. I'm not at all sure that I'm not a bad influence, and

that any proposal of mine would not be vetoed."

"You can do it all right," said the girl decisively, "if you go the

right way about it. Say that it's historical. I mean that your silly old

House of Commons is historical. It would have a great educational value

for me. You could show me where Chatham stood when he made his last

grand speech, and fell down in the middle of it."

"That happened to be in another place, to wit, the House of Lords."

"It's all the same. And rub it in a bit about Burke--she's keen on

Burke. Keep up a good strong educational line, and Aunt Jane will be

glad to let me go."

"Very well. I'll do what I can. Next Tuesday at four o'clock. Tell me

what time your train gets to Euston, and I'll meet it."

Ruth looked away from him, and appeared to be addressing one of the

pillars of the veranda. "I don't think you need meet it. In fact, I'd

rather you didn't. I know my way about London very well. You just wait

at the House of Commons. And if I'm not there by a quarter past four,

don't worry. It will only mean that I've changed my mind and gone

somewhere else."

George whistled. "Well I never," he said. "And what might you be up to?"

"I'd much rather you didn't ask about it."

"Well, at any rate, who is he?"

George did not in the least suppose that there was any "he" in the case,

and was rather surprised that Ruth blushed.

"There," said Ruth, "I told you not to ask. Now I suppose you won't do

it."

"Reverting to the original question, who is he?"

"Well, you've always said that all men are equal, haven't you?"

"In one sense, yes. All men are not equally desirable as companions for

my niece."

"He is the man who came to tune the piano last week. You always said

class distinctions were all rot. We are going to see some pictures

together, and then he's going to give me tea--at least, he was. But now

I suppose you won't let us, though he's quite nice really. But at any

rate you'll have to promise not to sneak about it to Aunt Jane."

"Promise for promise. Will you promise not to marry a piano-tuner?"

Ruth burst out laughing. "Rather," she said. "Absolutely."

CHAPTER II

Like most lazy and good-tempered men, George could show a good deal of

energy and decision, when the occasion arose. He began work that night,

after Ruth had gone up to bed.

"You're not such a careful housekeeper as you used to be, Jane."

This was quite untrue, and he knew it to be untrue. He also knew that it

would make Jane angry.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will tell me, George, what prompts you to make

such a perfectly senseless remark. One of the glasses on the

dinner-table to-night was not properly polished. I have already spoken

about it. But I'm quite positive you never noticed it."

"No," said George. "I noticed that your piano was out of tune. Why don't

you have it done regularly?"

"Everything in this house is done regularly. The piano is tuned once

every three months. In this case you're more particularly in the wrong,

because it had an extra tuning last week. Ruth thought it wanted it, and

wrote to Brinswoods to send a man."

"That man ought to get the sack," said George with confidence. "What was

his name?"

"My dear George, how on earth should I know? Piano-tuners don't have

names. They have sherry and a biscuit. They are just the piano-tuner. It

was Ruth who showed him what was required--I never even saw him. And she

was quite satisfied with what he had done. I think you must own that

Ruth is a better judge in musical questions than yourself."

"Very likely," said George, and changed the subject. The newspaper

provided him with a topic. A young lady had just eloped with her

father's chauffeur. A young lady, moreover, who had been most strictly

brought up. He remembered other instances. Miss Caterham seemed uneasy.

"But Ruth is not in the least like that," she said.

"Of course not. Who's thinking about Ruth? Besides, she's not brought up

in that silly way. She sees plenty of society, plenty of young men of

her own class, and is not likely to make a mistake."

"Ruth has been brought up with the greatest care, and I hope with

wisdom. Where you go so wrong about Ruth, George, is in regarding her as

a mere child. She is eighteen. You are inclined to forget that."

George took the rebuke meekly. Miss Caterham continued: "I have always

been intending to make some slight changes in view of her age. She has

already been to two dances."

"You don't want to overdo it," said the subtile George. "You needn't be

in the least nervous about Ruth."

Before returning to London next day, George had a few moments of serious

conversation with Ruth. At least, George was perfectly serious. Ruth

rather presented the appearance of an amused person with a secret. Her

Uncle George gave her six invitations, and she accepted all of them.

"But will Aunt Jane stand it?" she asked.

"I think," said George, "that your aunt will make no difficulties."

Ruth went to tea on the Terrace. Ruth went to theatres and concerts. On

three occasions she met Mr Bruce Sothering.

And when, a few days later, she announced her engagement to Mr Bruce

Sothering, she met with the heartiest congratulations from her uncle,

and with no serious opposition from her aunt. And in the ordinary course

of events, Mr Bruce Sothering came to see Miss Caterham.

Miss Caterham would have been interested if she could have heard what

they said about it in the kitchen.

"I'm making no mistake at all," said the parlour-maid. "I don't care how

rich he is or how well connected. That Mr Bruce Sothering is the young

man who came to tune the piano last time. It's not a question of a

likeness."

"But why?" said the cook.

"Hintrigue," said the butler darkly.

THE PEARLS AND THE SWINE

CHAPTER I

Miss Markham in certain respects was a fortunate lady. She had a flat in

town and had recently acquired a little bungalow for week-end purposes

on a cliff that overlooked the sea. There are one or two other little

bungalows in the vicinity, and the people who own them do not give away

the name of the place; they fear the penalties of popularity.

Miss Markham had sufficient means and no worries; she was good-looking

enough for all practical purposes. She was forty-five years of age, had

never been engaged, had never even come within a mile of being engaged.

In her London flat Miss Markham was quite conventional, and kept the

usual servants; in the sacred privacy of her bungalow by the sea, she

kept no regular servants at all. An old woman who lived in the village

was paid to keep an eye on the place while Miss Markham was away, though

no one could have said precisely what good it had done the place to have

an eye kept there. The same old woman, when Miss Markham grew tired of

town and came down for the week-end, spent the day at the bungalow,

and--to use her own expression, which is not to be taken literally--"did

for her".

July in London was very hot that year. Miss Byles said that she would

only be too delighted to go down to the bungalow, at the place which may

not be mentioned, in company with Miss Markham. At the last moment Miss

Byles was compelled, by health, to break her engagement. She did

everything at the wrong time; she got hay fever at the wrong time;

therefore Miss Markham went down alone, and the old woman made some

perfunctory preparations for her, cooked an alleged dinner for her, and

made no secret of the fact that she regarded it as a grievance that she

should have to do anything whatever in return for the money which she

received.

Having done as little as possible, she returned, so to speak, to her

nest, and Miss Markham was left absolutely alone in the bungalow.

At ten o'clock that night Miss Markham, who was almost excessively

refined, had just put down her copy of Walter Pater's "Imaginary

Portraits", and was thinking of crossing the passage to go to bed. At

that moment, her attention was attracted by a gentle tap on her front

door: it was not the urgent, sharp, business tap of the Post Office; it

was the rippling, social tap. Miss Markham was not nervous; she looked

out of the window before deciding to open the door. Even with the moon

to help her she could see nothing very distinctly, but it was obviously

a man who was standing there, and he appeared to be a well-dressed man.

She at once decided that he was a guest on his way to one of the other

bungalows, and that he had called on her by mistake. Having come to this

totally erroneous conclusion, she opened the door.

The visitor stood in the light now, and there was nothing about him to

cause her perturbation. He was a tall man, about thirty years of age,

with a short yellow beard and trustful, melancholy blue eyes. He wore a

grey lounge suit and patent leather shoes, and he carried in his hand a

very small brown bag.

"Miss Markham?" he said, raising his hat.

"I am Miss Markham."

"I really must apologise for disturbing you at this time of night. The

fact of the case is that you live in a lonely spot; I wish to inquire if

you are insured against burglary."

Miss Markham was rather amused by the impertinence of him. It was all

very well for an insurance-office tout to call upon her to get her to

take out a policy, but it did seem a little bit too much that he should

call at so late an hour. If Miss Markham had not liked the man's

appearance, she would have been even more severe than she was.

"I am afraid," she said, "that you have troubled yourself, and

incidentally have troubled me, to no purpose. I am already insured

against burglary, fire, employers' liabilities, and all the rest of it,

and I am not proposing to take out any further policy."

"I am so glad," said the stranger, and in a flash stepped into the hall,

and shut the door behind him.

"What are you doing?" said Miss Markham. "You must not come in here like

that. Go away at once!"

"I know, my dear lady, it is quite unconventional and wrong, and I can

only assure you if you had not been insured against burglary I should

never have come in. You may believe me that in the exercise of my

profession, I have always done my best to consult the feelings of

others."

"Your profession! What profession?"

"We won't give it a name. 'What's in a name?' Some of my confrères are

rough and violent; I am nothing of the kind. Naturally if you began to

make a noise, I should have to take some steps to prevent it. The police

in this neighbourhood are few in number and quite inefficient, and I

think there is no other bungalow within a quarter of a mile."

Miss Markham was now alive to the state of the case.

"I think," she said, "that a police-whistle can be heard at that

distance."

She raised her police-whistle just as he raised his revolver; the two

hands went up together.

"Really, Miss Markham, you ought not to force me into such a totally

false position. My feelings towards you are those of a chivalrous

gentleman; it absolutely repels me to do anything whatever which would

appear in the nature of a threat. You have put the police-whistle down?

That's right. Now then we can talk about this necklace. It would be

pleasanter if we sat down; we will go into the dining-room, shall we? I

say the dining-room rather than the drawing-room, because I think you

might possibly like to ask me to take a whisky-and-soda, and the

decanters are there."

Miss Markham followed him into the dining-room; she did not ask him to

take a whisky-and-soda. Notwithstanding this, he took it.

"Tell me one thing," she said, "how did you know about this necklace?"

"That is just it; servants will talk. They are an eternal nuisance,

aren't they? If their employer has anything which is believed to be

valuable, they like to brag about it a little. You know, one can

understand it; they enjoy reflected glory. It is exactly twelve months

ago since I learned in casual conversation with a lady of inferior

station to myself--your housemaid, I believe--that you not only

possessed a pearl necklace valued at £500, but that you always wore it."

"The jeweller told me that pearls should always be worn; they keep their

colour better that way."

"Yes," said the stranger, "they do give that advice; very useful advice

it is too."

"If there is nothing else that you want to take," said Miss Markham,

"perhaps you would not mind going."

"Certainly, my dear lady. I understand your point of view exactly. Here

we have an abominable intrusion at a late hour; my sex makes the

intrusion all the worse. When you are about to summon assistance, I

raise my revolver, and if you had not put the police-whistle down, I

should have been reluctantly compelled to shoot you dead. I then take

away from you, as I shall do presently, a pearl necklace, which you

value at £500, though I shall be quite satisfied if I get £120 for it

myself. Well, when you come to think of it, you must admit that you have

suffered nothing but a little inconvenience. The insurance company will

give you £500 to buy another necklace, and the one which I am about to

take away with me has no sentimental associations for you."

"How do you know that?"

"You bought the silly thing yourself; correct me if I am wrong."

She did not correct him. She said, "I don't see how you know."

"Ah!" said the burglar, "there we come to another point--my point of

view; we have had yours, but you have not had mine. I wonder if it would

interest you to hear it? It might possibly, simply on the score of

novelty. One hears a very great deal about the feelings of the

householder towards the burglar, but precious little of the feelings of

the burglar towards the householder; and I am not even a common burglar,

as I hope you have recognised. It might interest you to talk the thing

over for a few minutes, and it would be a great privilege and pleasure

to myself. It might not, and in that case I will leave you at once."

Miss Markham hesitated. Then she took a chair by the table and sat down.

"Well," she said, "I will hear what you have to say."

"I have never seen you before to-night. I opened the door and you stood

in the light. In the background were the white walls of the bungalow and

on them good mezzotints after the eighteenth-century masters, and on a

small rosewood table was your bedroom candlestick--Sheffield, and I

should say a very good piece; good Sheffield, as you know, fetches more

than silver nowadays. But it was upon you principally that my attention

was centred. The rest all came in a flash; your grey quaker dress, the

green serge curtains, the copper knocker, everything told the same story

of simplicity and taste. But in your face I read very much more, so much

that was not simple, so much that still perplexes me."

Miss Markham was slightly embarrassed. It was not usual for her to hear

herself discussed. One part of her said this was monumental

impertinence, and she must check it. The other part said that she rather

liked it. It was the other part of her that won. If he had not been an

unusually handsome man, with melancholy blue eyes and a beautiful

respectful manner, perhaps the other part would have won.

She laughed. "I do not see what there is to puzzle you."

"I saw the face of a saint. You have lived absolutely apart from the

world; in a walled-in garden as it were. Now I personally have all the

vices." He took from his pocket a gold cigarette case with another man's

monogram on it, took out a cigarette and lit it. "As I was saying, I

have all the vices, but that does not mean that I am without a very keen

appreciation of the other thing; perhaps the keener, because I have not

got it. I have seen faces like yours before, but they have always

belonged to someone who wore the garb of a nun. The nuns shut out the

world from them; you, on the contrary, have lived in the world, and have

still kept apart from it. I cannot make out how you have done it. I

cannot make out how you have been allowed to do it. Tell me, has no man

ever kissed you?"

"Never," she said fervently.

"I believe you," said the burglar. "I think I have never met another

woman in whom I would have believed a similar declaration. You will

observe that I did not offer you a cigarette, because I knew for a fact

that you have never smoked."

"Never," she said.

"I knew it; just as I knew that you had bought this pearl necklace

yourself; just as I knew that you had never been kissed; just as I knew

that you were good enough to compel even the abject reverence of as bad

a man as myself."

Her hand, toying nervously with things on the table, happened to strike

the decanter. "But won't you have some more of this?" she said.

He glanced at a gold watch, on the back of which another man's armorial

bearings were engraved. "I have only two minutes," he said, "but I must

drink your health at parting. Do you know that it is absolutely right

for you to wear pearls? Coloured stones would be quite wrong; diamonds

are too hard; pearls give just the right note of purity and softness. I

suppose you have realised that with the exception of one ring, you wear

no other gems. I noticed that ring as I came in. Those large table-cut

emeralds, when they are of that fine quality, fetch a good deal of

money. I should sell it if I were you. It is not in keeping. Perhaps it

seems to you a trifle not worth mentioning, but you remember what Walter

Pater says about some trifling and pretty graces being insignia of the

nobler world of aspiration and idea."

Miss Markham clasped her hands. "How strange," she said. "I was reading

that just as you came in. How strange that you should have known it!"

"My dear lady, you must not imagine that I am a romantic man, for I am

not, nor am I a good man. I am not highly connected, and I have not got

a better self; the only self I have got is the one before you. But I do

claim to be able to appreciate. I have appreciated this evening

immensely. Walter Pater is not the last word just now, but I have always

appreciated beautiful prose. Far more than beautiful prose I appreciate

the pure poetry of your own temperament." He raised his glass. "To your

good health, Miss Markham, and good night."

As he neared the door, she called him back. "You have forgotten the

pearls," she said.

"No, but I wanted you to remind me."

She unclasped them, and handed them to him. He held them in his hand for

a moment. "They are warm," he said, "from your soft, round neck." He

raised them to his lips for a moment and then dropped them into a

prosaic inside pocket of his coat.

"Yes," he said, "from time immemorial women have been fond of casting

their pearls before swine, haven't they? But you have kept the real

pearls." He bowed low to her, and in a moment was gone.

In a letter which Miss Markham wrote to Miss Ryles appeared the

following passage:

"It was such a pity, dear, that you could not come down to the bungalow

the other week-end, it was so quiet and peaceful; incidentally, by mere

chance, I met quite the most charming man I have ever seen in my life.

No more news, except that I got tired of my old pearl necklace and am

getting another.

"Oh, and I was quite forgetting; you said that if ever I wanted to part

with my emerald ring, I was to give you the first refusal of it. My

dear, you can have it. I have decided that pearls are the only things I

can wear."

Naturally Miss Markham had to give notice to the police of the fact that

she had lost her pearl necklace.

She had heard something moving in her bedroom, and on entering it a man

had jumped out through the window. All she could say for certain was

that he was clean-shaven, and had close-cropped black hair.