I
For a Marquis he was disconcertingly hairy. So much so that even those
fast diminishing people who still force themselves to believe that a
title necessarily places men on a high and ethereal plane were obliged
to confess that Feo's father might have been any one,--a mere
entomologist for instance, bland, concentrated and careless of
appearance, who pottered about in the open after perfectly superfluous
insects and forgot that such a thing as civilization existed. He had the
appearance indeed of a man who sleeps in tents, scorns to consult a
looking-glass and cuts his own hair with a pair of grass clippers at
long intervals. On a handsome and humorous face, always somehow
sun-tanned, white wiry hairs sprouted everywhere. A tremendous
moustache, all akimbo, completely covered his mouth and spread along
each cheek almost to his ears, from which white tufts protruded. The
clean-cut jaw was shaved as high as the cheek bones, which were left,
like a lawn at the roots of a tree, to run wild. Deep-set blue eyes were
overhung by larky bushes and the large fine head exuded a thick thatch
of obstreperous white stuff that was unmastered by a brush. And as if
all this were not enough, there was a small cascade under the middle of
the lower lip kept just long enough to bend up and bite in moments of
deep calculation. There may have been hairs upon his conscience too,
judging by his exquisite lack of memory.
His was, nevertheless, a very old title and a long line of buried
Marquises had all done something, good and bad, to place the name of
Amesbury in the pages of history. Rip Van Winkle, as most people called
the present noble Lord, had done good and bad things too, like the rest
of us,--good because his heart was kind, and bad from force of
circumstances. If he had inherited a fine fortune with his father's
shoes instead of bricks and mortar mortgaged from cellar to ceiling, his
might have been a different story and not one unfortunately linked up
with several rather shady transactions. At fifty-five, however, life
found him still abounding in optimism on the nice allowance granted to
him by Fallaray, and always on the lookout, like all Micawbers, for
something to turn up.
He had driven the large brake to the station to meet Feo and her party
who were on their way down for the week-end. His temporary exile at
Chilton Park, brought about by a universal disinclination to honor his
checks, had been a little dull. He was delighted at the prospect of
seeing people again, especially Mrs. Malwood. He was fond of Angoras and
liked to hear them purr. So with a rather seedy square felt hat over one
eye and a loose overcoat of Irish homespun over his riding kit, he
clambered down from the high box, saw that the groom was at the horses'
heads and strolled into the station to talk over the impending strike of
the Triple Alliance with the station master,--the parlor Bolshevist of
Princes Risborough. An express swooped through the station as he stood
on the platform and made a parachute of his overcoat. The London train
was not due for fifteen minutes.
Tapping on the door of Mr. Sparrow's room, he entered to find that
worthy exulting over the morning paper, his pale, tubercular face
flushed with excitement. The headlines announced that "England faces
revolution. Mines flood as miners steal coal and await with confidence
the entire support of allied unions. Great Britain on the edge of a
precipice."
"All wrong," said Rip Van Winkle quietly. "Panicky misinterpretation of
the situation, Sparrow,--much as you desire the opposite."
The station master whipped round, his fish-like eyes strangely magnified
by the strong glasses in his spectacles. "What makes yer say that, m'
Lord?" he asked, even at that moment flattered at the presence of a
Marquis in his office. "Labor has England by the throat."
"England has Labor by the seat of the pants, you should say, Sparrow.
Take my word for it, the strike is not only doomed to eventual failure,
however the fluctuations go, but the Labor movement will grow less and
less terrorist in its methods from this day onwards."
Mr. Sparrow threw back his head and laughed loudly,--showing an
incomplete collection of very disastrous teeth. "Well, there won't be a
damned train running by this time Monday," he said.
"I'll bet you a thousand oak apples to one there will," replied Lord
Amesbury, "and I'll tell you why. Every sane and law-abiding Englishman,
from the small clerk to the most doddering duke, has begun to organize
and this mighty revolution of yours is already as dead as mutton."
"Oh, is that so?" Mr. Sparrow laughed again.
"That is so. You see, Sparrow, you Labor gentlemen, talking
paradoxically, have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, not merely
in this country but all over the world. You have been the bullies of the
school and for a considerable number of years you have made our
politicians stiff with fright. They have licked your boots and given way
to you whenever you demanded higher wages. They pampered and petted you
all through the War, from which you emerged with swollen heads and far
too many pianos. When history turns its cold eye upon you, you will be
summed up as a set of pretty dirty blackguards who did less to win the
War than all the dud shells piled into a heap. You slacked, grumbled,
threatened and held up governments for wages out of all proportion to
your work. You proved the possession of criminal as well as unpatriotic
instincts and you finally showed yourselves up in your true light when
you deserted the mines and took the pumpers away. There isn't any word
in any dictionary to define the sort of indignation which that dastardly
and wanton action has caused. The result of it has been to put the first
big nail in the coffin of Labor unions. You have been discovered as men
with a yellow streak. Governments now see, what they have never been
able to recognize before, that labor does not form the most important
section of the three sections of society, the other two being capital
and the purchasing power. You have made clear to them, Master Sparrow,
that labor and capital are at the mercy of the third element,--the great
middle class, the people who buy from capital, pay your wages and who
can at any moment, by not buying, reduce both capital and labor to
nothingness. The new strike, the epoch-making strike, is of this middle
class, and they haven't struck against you but against strikes. At last
the worm has turned and I venture to prophesy, foolish as it is, that
after a series of damaging and expensive kicks, labor will descend to
its proper place, with a just share in profits that will enable it to
get a little joy out of life, freed from the tyrannical hand of unions,
and with more spare time than is at present enjoyed by the members of
the middle class who will continue to take the rough with the smooth,
without squealing, as heretofore. In fact, I look upon this strike of
miners as one of the best things that has ever happened in history and
nothing gives me greater joy and greater satisfaction than to watch, as
I shall do from to-day onwards, the gradual diminishing of the excessive
size of the labor head.--How are your potatoes coming along?"
Without waiting for an answer, the tall old man turned quietly and left
the room; while the parlor Bolshevist, stuffed with the pamphlets of
Hyndman and Marks, Lenin and Trotsky, gave a vicious kick to the leg of
the table and eyed the receding figure with venom.
The train was late and so Rip Van Winkle killed time by studying the
contents of the bookstall, looking with a sort of incredulity at the
stuff on which the public is fed,--illiterate fiction with glaring
covers and cheap weeklies filled with egregious gossip and suggestive
drawings. The extra fifteen minutes of waiting was passed very
pleasantly by his Lordship because many of his old friends from the
village came up to him and talked. The chemist, who had driven down
personally to collect his monthly box of drugs from London, was very
affable. So also was the blacksmith who had known Lord Amesbury for many
years and treated him with _bonhomie_. They talked racing with great
earnestness. The postman, the gardener from the house of the war
profiteer, and the village policeman, all of them very good friends of
the man upon whom they looked as representing the good old days, livened
things up. With the real democracy that belongs solely to the
aristocrat, Rip Van Winkle knew all about the ailments of their wives,
the prospects of their children, the number of their hens and pigs and
their different forms of religious worship, which he duly respected,
whether they were Little Baptists, Big Baptists or Middle-sized
Baptists, Minor Methodists or Major Methodists, Independent Churchmen or
Dependent Churchmen, Roman Catholics or Anglicans whose Catholicism is
interpreted intelligently. The village consisted perhaps of twenty-five
hundred souls, but they all had their different cures, and there were as
many churches and chapels in and off the High Street as there were
public houses. It had always seemed to Feo's father that honest beer is
infinitely preferable to the various sorts of religion which were to be
obtained in those other public houses in their various bottles, all
labeled differently, and he hoped that the prohibition which had been
the means of developing among the people of the United States so many
drinks far more injurious than those in which alcohol prevailed would
never be forced by graft and hypocrisy, self-seeking and salary-making
upon the tight little island,--not always so tight as prohibitionists
supposed.
Lady Feo bounded out of the train, followed by Mrs. Malwood and their
two new friends recently picked up,--Feo's latest fancy, Gordon
Macquarie, a glossy young man who backed musical plays in order that he
might dally with the pretty members of his choruses, and Mrs. Malwood's
most recent time-killer whose name was Dowth,--David Dowth, the Welsh
mine owner, who had just succeeded to his father's property and had
invaded London to see life. Cambridge was still upon the latter's face
and very obviously upon his waistcoat. He was a green youth who would
learn about women from Mrs. Malwood. They were both new to Rip Van
Winkle and for that reason all the more interesting. Lola, carrying a
jewel case, emerged from a compartment at the back of the train with
Mrs. Malwood's maid, similarly burdened, and it was at Lola that Lord
Amesbury threw his most appreciative glance.
"French," he said to himself. "The reincarnation of those pretty little
people made immortal by Fragonard."
Feo threw her arms round her father's neck and kissed him on those
places of his cheeks which were clear of undergrowth. "Good old Rip,"
she said. "Always on the spot. Been bored, old boy?"
Lord Amesbury laughed. "To be perfectly frank, yes," he said. "I have
missed my race meetings and my bridge at Boodles, but I have been
studying the awakening of spring and the psychology of bird life, all
very delightful. Also I have been watching the daily changes among the
trees in the beech forest. Amazingly dramatic, my dear. But it's good to
see you again and I hope your two friends are gamblers. Possibly I can
make a bit out of them."
He patted her on the shoulder and looked her up and down with admiration
not unmixed with astonishment. Among the many riddles which he had never
been able to solve he placed the fact that he of all men was Feo's
father. What extraordinary twist had nature performed in making his only
daughter a girl instead of a boy? Standing there in her short skirt and
manly looking golf shoes with lopping tongues, her beautiful square
shoulders lightly covered with a coarsely knitted sweater of chestnut
brown and a sort of Tyrolean hat drawn down over her ears, she looked
like a young officer in the First Life Guards masquerading in women's
clothes.
II
When Lord Amesbury mounted the box with Feo at his side and turned out
of the station yard into the long road which led to the old village of
Princes Risborough, the first thing that caught Lola's eyes was the
white cross cut by the Romans in the chalk of the hill, on the top of
which sat Chilton Park. Again and again she had stood in front of
photographs of this very view. They hung in Miss Breezy's room, neatly
framed. Many times Miss Breezy herself had explained to Lola the meaning
of that cross, so far as its historical significance went, and Lola had
been duly impressed. The Romans,--how long ago they must have lived. But
to her, more and more as her love and adoration grew, that white cross
stood as a mark for the place to which Fallaray went from time to time
for peace, to listen to the wind among the beech trees, to watch the
sheep on the distant hills, to wander among the gardens of his old house
and forget the falsity and the appalling ineptitude of his brother
Ministers. The photographs had indicated very well the beauty of this
scene but the sight of it in the life, all green in the first flush of
spring, brought a sob to Lola's throat. Once more the feeling came all
over her that it would be at Chilton Park that she would meet Fallaray
at last alone and discover her love to him,--not as lady's maid but as
the little human thing, the Eve.
She sat shoulder to shoulder with the groom opposite to Mrs. Malwood's
maid,--Dowth, Macquarie and Mrs. Malwood in close juxtaposition. But she
had no ears for their conversation. As the village approached, not one
single feature of it escaped her eager eyes,--its wide cobbled street,
its warm Queen Anne houses, its old-fashioned shops, its Red Lion and
Royal George and Black Bull, its funny little post office up three
stairs, its doctor's house all covered with creeper, its ancient church
sitting hen-wise among her children. It seemed to her that all these
things, old and quiet and honest, had gone to the making of Fallaray's
character; that he belonged to them and was part of them and represented
them; and it gave her a curious feeling of being let into Fallaray's
secrets as she went along.
From time to time people hatted Lady Feo and one or two old women,
riddled with rheumatism, bobbed--not because of any sense of serfdom,
but because they liked to do so--a pleasant though inverted sense of
egotism which is at the bottom of all tradition. Rip Van Winkle saluted
every one with his whip; the butchers--and there were several, although
meat was still one of the luxuries--the landlords of the public houses
who were not so fat as they used to be before the War, the vicar, a high
churchman with an astonishingly low collar, and the usual comic person
who invariably retires to such villages, lives in a workman's cottage
among the remnants of passed glory and talks to any one who will listen
to him of the good old days when he tooled his team of spanking bays and
hobnobbed in London, when society really _was_ society, with men of
famous names and ladies of well-known frailty. This particular
gentleman, Augustus Warburgh, pronounced Warborough, made himself up to
look like Whistler and wore the sort of clothes which would have
appealed greatly to a character actor. What he lived on no one knew. One
or two people with nasty minds were convinced that his small income was
derived from blackmail,--probably a most pernicious piece of libel. On
his few pounds a week, however, he did himself extremely well and lived
alone in a four-room cottage as antediluvian as himself, in which there
were some very charming pieces of Jacobean furniture, a collection of
excellent sporting prints and numerous books all well-thumbed, "Barry
Lyndon" being the most favored.
In this little place, with its old beams and uneven floors of oak,
Augustus Warburgh "did" for himself, cooking his own meals, making his
own bed and bringing home from his occasional trips to London mysterious
bottles filled with delicatessen from Appenrodts, amazing pickles and an
occasional case of unblended Balblair which he got from a relative of
his who owned half of the isle of Skye. Nips of this glorious but
dangerous juice he offered to his cronies in his expansive moods and
delighted in seeing them immediately slide under his table with the
expression worn by Charlie Chaplin after he has been plumped on the head
with a meat axe. Needless to say that he and Rip Van Winkle got along
together like a house on fire. They talked the same language, enjoyed
the same highly spiced food, dipped back into the same period and had
inevitably done the same people. The Warburgh bow as the brake passed in
the High Street was not Albertian but Elizabethan.
Feo laughed as she waved her hand. "When he dies," she said, "and I
don't think he ever will, Princes Risborough will lose one of its most
beautiful notes,--like London when they did away with Jimmies. Not that
I remember Jimmies, except from what you've told me about it. Let's have
him up to dinner one night and make him drunk."
"You can't," said Lord Amesbury. "It's impossible. There is a hole in
every one of the soles of his shoes through which all the fumes of
alcohol leak. You can stew him, you can pickle him, you can float him,
but you cannot sink him. When everybody else is down and out, that is
the time when Augustus takes the floor and rises to the eloquence and
vitriolic power of Dr. Johnson.--Tell me, Feo, who is that remarkable
child that you have got in tow?"
"My maid, you mean? She's the niece of my old Breezy. Isn't she
charming? Such an honest little soul too. Does her job with the most
utter neatness and nicety of touch and listens excellently. I rescued
her from the stage,--I mean, of course, the chorus. A good deed in a
naughty world." That's how she liked to put it, her memory being a
little hazy. "I don't know what will become of her. Of course, she can't
be my maid forever. Judging from the way in which my male friends look
at her whenever they get the chance, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if
one of these days she eloped with a duke. It would fill me with joy to
meet her in her husband's ancestral home all covered with the family
jewels and do my best to win a gracious smile. Or else she'll marry
Simpkins, who is, I hear, frightfully mashed on her, and retire to a
village pub, there to imitate the domestic cat and litter the world with
kittens. I dunno. Anything may happen to a girl like that. But whatever
it is, it will be one of these two extremes. I hate to think about it
because I like her. It's very nice to have her about me."
Rip Van Winkle smiled. "To parody a joke in last week's _La Vie
Parisienne_, I am not so old as I look, my dear."
"You dare," said Feo. But she laughed too. "Good Lord, Father, don't go
and do a thing like that. If I had to call that girl Mother, I think
that even my sense of humor would crack."
"A little joke, Feo," said Rip. "Nothing more. I can't even keep myself,
you see."
Whereupon, having left the village, the brake turned into the road that
ran up to Whitecross at an angle of forty-five. The old man slowed the
horses down to a walk and waved his whip towards the screen of trees
which hid Chilton Park from the public gaze. "It's been a wonderful
spring," he said. "I have watched it with infinite pleasure. It has
filled my old brain with poetry and very possibly with regrets. All the
same, I'm glad you have come down. I've been rather lonely here. The
evenings are long and ghosts have a knack of coming out and standing
round my chair.--How is Edmund? I regret that I have forgotten to ask
you about him before. One somehow always forgets to ask about Edmund,
although I see that he is regarded by George Lytham and his crowd as the
new Messiah."
Feo laughed again, showing all her wonderful teeth. "I had a quaint few
minutes with Edmund the other night on the steps of Langham Hall. He had
taken his mother and Aunt Betsy to a symphony concert. Do you know, I
rather think that George is right about Edmund? He has all the makings
of a Messiah and of course all the opportunities. I shouldn't be a bit
surprised if he emerged from the present generation of second-raters and
led England out of its morass. But he'll only achieve this if he
continues to remain untouched by any feminine hand. Of course, he's
absolutely safe so far as I'm concerned, but there was a most peculiar
look in his face the other night which startled me somewhat. I thought
he'd fallen in love with me,--which would have been most inconvenient.
But I was wrong.--Well, here we are at the old homestead. How it reeks
of Fallaray and worthiness."
III
But the party was not a success. Very shortly after lunch, during which
Feo and Mrs. Malwood had put in good work in an unprecedented attempt to
charm their new acquisitions, they all adjourned to the terrace,--that
wonderful old terrace of weather-beaten stone giving on to a wide view
of an Italian garden backed by a panorama of rolling hills and of the
famous beech forest ten miles deep, under which, in certain parts,
especially in the Icknield Way through which the Romans had passed, the
leaves of immemorial summers, all red and dry, lay twenty feet deep.
Gilbert Jermyn, Feo's brother, had dashed over on his motor bicycle from
Great Marlow where he was staying with several friends, ex-flying men
like himself and equally devoid of cash, trying to formulate some scheme
whereby they might get back into adventure once more. Lord Amesbury had
gone down to a pet place of his own to take a nap in the long grass with
the sun on his face. Feo, who had been dancing until five o'clock that
morning, was lying full stretch on a dozen cushions in the shadow of the
house, Macquarie in attendance. Mrs. Malwood, petulant and disgruntled,
was sitting near by with David Dowth. Gilbert Jermyn, who could see that
he was superfluous, sat by himself on the balustrade gazing into the
distance. His clean-cut face was heavy with despondency. He had
forgotten to light his cigarette.
"You're about the liveliest undertaker I've ever struck," said Feo.
"What the deuce is the matter with you?"
Macquarie shrugged his shoulders,--his girlishly cut coat with its tight
waist and tight sleeves crinkling as he did so. "Oh, my dear," he said,
"it's no good your expecting anything from me to-day. Under the
circumstances it's impossible for me to scintillate."
"What do you mean?" asked Feo roughly. She had ordered this man down in
her royal way, being rather taken with his tallness, youngness and
smoothness, and demanded scintillation.
"But look at the position! I hate to be mercenary and talk about money,
but you know, my dear thing, almost every bob I've got is invested in
the three musical comedies now running, and if things go on as they are,
every one of them will be shut down because of the coal strike. That's a
jolly nice lookout. I'm no Spartan, and I confess that I find it very
difficult to be merry and bright among the gravestones of my hopes."
And while he went on like that, dropping in many "my dears" and "you
dear things" as though he had known Feo all his life, instead of more or
less for twenty minutes, making gestures in imitation of those of the
spoilt small-part lady, Lord Amesbury's daughter and Fallaray's wife
became gradually more and more aware of the fact that she had made a
fool of herself. There was something broadly declasse about this man
which, even to one of her homogeneous nature, became a reproach. She was
getting, she could see, a little careless in her choice of friends and
for this one, whom she had picked out of semi-society and the musical
comedy night life of London--so dull, so naked, so hungry and thirsty
and so diamond seeking--to play the yellow dog and find excuses for his
lack of entertainment left her, she found with astonishment, wholly
without adjectives. It was indeed altogether beyond words. And she sat
watching and listening to this vain and brainless person with a sort of
admiration for his audacity.
As for Dowth and Mrs. Malwood they, too, were not hitting it off, and in
reply to Mrs. Malwood's impatient question the young Welshman's answer
had many points of excuse. "Three of my mines have been flooded," he
said gravely, "which knocks my future income all cock-eyed. God knows
how I shall emerge from this frightful business. A week ago I was one of
the richest men in England. To-day I face pauperism. It's appalling. You
expect me to sit at your feet and make love to you with the sword of
Damocles hanging over my head. It can't be done, Mrs. Malwood. And, mind
you, even if the remainder of my mines escape ruin, I go under. That's
as plain as the nose on my face. The Government, always in terror of
labor, has been amazingly supported in this business by the whole sanity
of England, but the end of it will be that the miners will be given less
wages but large shares in the profits of the coal owners. I shall
probably be able to make a better living by becoming a miner myself. You
sit there petulant and annoyed because I am in the depths of
despondency. You'll cry out for cake when bread has run out, like all
the women of your kind, but you see in me a doomed man unable to raise a
finger to save property which has been in my family for several
generations. I simply can't jibber and giggle and crack jokes with you
and talk innuendoes. I was a fool to come down at all."
"Oh," said Mrs. Malwood aghast. "Oh--I suppose you think that I ought to
amuse _you_?"
"Yes, I do," said Dowth.
And Mrs. Malwood also was at a loss for adjectives.
And when, presently, Rip Van Winkle appeared, smiling and sun-tanned to
join what he expected to be a jovial group, he found a strange silence
and a most uncomfortable air of jarring temperaments. He was well
accustomed to these little parties of Feo's and to watch her at work
with new men whom she collected on her way through life. Usually they
were rather riotous affairs, filled with mirth and daring. What in the
name of all that was wonderful had happened to this one? He joined his
son and put his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Gibbie," he said, "enlighten me."
But he got no explanation from this young man, who seemed to be like a
bird whose wings had been cut. "My dear Father," he said, "I've no
sympathy with Feo's little pranks. She and the Malwood girl seem to have
picked up a bounder and a shivering Welsh terrier this time, and even
they probably regret it. I ran over this afternoon to yarn with you, as
a matter of fact. Come on, let's get out of this. Let's go down to the
stream and sit under the trees and have it out."
And so they left together, unnoticed by that disconcerted foursome with
whose little games fate had had the impudence to interfere. And
presently, seated on the bank of the brook which ran through the lower
part of the park, Lord Gilbert Jermyn, ex-major Royal Air Force, D. S.
O., M. C., got it off his chest. "O God," he began, "how fed up I am
with this infernal peace."
The old man gazed at his son with amazement. "I don't follow you," he
said. "Peace? My dear lad, we have all been praying for it and we
haven't got it yet."
The boy, and he was nothing more than that, sat with rounded shoulders
and a deep frown on his face, hunched up, flicking pieces of earth into
the bubbling water.
"I know all about that," he went on. "Of course you've prayed for peace.
So did everybody over twenty-four. But what about us,--we who were
caught as kids, before we knew anything, and taught the art of flying
and sent up at any old time, careless of death, the eyes of the
artillery, the protectors of the artillery, the supermen with beardless
faces. What about us in this so-called peace of yours? Here we are at a
loose end, with no education, because that was utterly interrupted, able
to do absolutely nothing for a living,--let down, let out, looked on
rather as though we were brigands because we have grown into the habit
of breaking records, smashing conventions and killing as a pastime. Do
you see my point, old boy? We herd together in civics when we're not in
the police courts for bashing bobbies and not in the divorce courts for
running off with other people's wives, and we ask ourselves, in pretty
direct English, what the hell is going to become of us,--and echo
answers what. But I can tell you this. What we want is war, perpetual
bloody war, never mind who's the enemy. You made us want it, you fitted
us for it and for nothing else. We're all pretty excellent in the air
and in consequence utterly useless on earth. And when I read the papers,
and I never read more than the headlines anyway, I long to see that
Germany is going to take advantage of the damned stupidity of all the
Allied governments, including that of America, gather up the weapons
that she hasn't returned and the men who are going to refuse to pay
reparations and start the whole business over again. My God, how eagerly
I'd get back into my uniform, polish up my buttons, stop drinking and
smoking and get fit for flying once more. I'd sing like Caruso up there
among the clouds and empty my machine gun at the first Boche who came
along with a thrill of joy. That's my job. I know no other."
The old man's hair stood on end,--all of it, like a white bush.
IV
Something happened that afternoon which might have swung Lola's life on
to an entirely different set of rails and put Fallaray even farther out
of her reach. The unrest which had followed the War had made the
acquisition of servants very difficult. The young country girls who had
been glad enough to go into service in the large houses now preferred to
stick to their factories, because they were able to have free evenings.
The housekeeper at Chilton Park was very short-handed and in consequence
asked Lola and Mrs. Malwood's maid if they would make themselves useful.
Mrs. Malwood's didn't see it. She had been well bitten by the
trades-union bug and, therefore, was not going to do anything of any
sort except her specific duties, and those as carelessly as she could.
The housekeeper could go and hang herself. Violet, the girl in question,
intended to lie on her bed and read _Scarlet Bits_ until she was needed
by her mistress. Lola, whose blood was good, was very glad to lend a
hand. With perfect willingness she committed an offence against lady's
maids which shocked Violet to the very roots of her system. She donned a
little cap and apron and turned herself into a parlor maid, a creature,
as all the world knows, many pegs of the ladder beneath her own position
as a lady's maid. When, therefore, tea was served on the terrace, Lola
assisted the butler, looking daintier than ever, and so utterly free
from coquetry, because there was no man in the world except Fallaray for
her, that she might have been a little ghost.
But the trained eye of Gordon Macquarie looked her over immediately. He
turned to Lady Feo, to whom he had not addressed a word for twenty
minutes, and said with a sudden flash of enthusiasm, "Ye gods and little
fishes, what a picture of a girl! Wouldn't she look perfectly wonderful
in the front line of the chorus on the O. P. side! An actress too, I bet
you. Look at the way she's pretending not to be alive. Of course she
knows how perfectly sweet she looks in that saucy make-up."
If Mr. Gordon Macquarie had deliberately gone out of his way to discover
the most brilliant method of sentencing himself to the lethal chamber he
could not have been more successful than by using that outpouring of
gushing words. Feo had fully realized, from the moment that she had left
the dining room, that in acquiring Gordon Macquarie she had committed
the gravest _faux pas_ of her life. Not only was he a bounder but he did
not possess the imagination and the sense of proportion to know that in
being invited down to Chilton Park by Lady Feo he had metaphorically
been decorated with a much coverted order. His egotism and his whining
fright had made him unable to maintain his fourth wall and at least
imitate the ways of a gentleman. Never before in her history had Feo
spent an afternoon so unpleasant and so humiliating, and now, to be
obliged to listen to a paean of praise about her maid, if you please,
was the last straw. Any other woman would probably have risen from her
place among her cushions, followed Lola into the house and either boxed
her ears or ordered her back to town.
But Feo had humor, and although her pride was wounded and she would
willingly have given orders for Macquarie to be shot through the head,
she pursued a slightly different method. She rose, gave Macquarie a most
curious smile, waited until Lola had retired from the terrace, followed
her and called her back just as she was about to disappear into the
servants' quarters. "Lola," she said, "run up at once and pack my
things. We are going back to town. Say nothing to anybody. Be nippy,"
the word was Simpkins's, "and in the meantime I will telephone for a
car. Do you understand?"
"Yes, my lady." In Lola's voice there must have been something of the
tremendous disappointment that swept over her. But it was ignored or
unnoticed by her mistress. To leave Chilton Park almost as soon as she
had seen it,--not to be able to creep secretly into Fallaray's room and
stand there all alone and get from it the feeling of the man, the
vibrations of his thoughts,--not to be able to steal out in the
moonlight and wander among the Italian gardens made magic by the white
light and picture to herself the tall ascetic lonely figure in front of
whom some night she intended to move Heaven and earth to stand.
But she turned away quickly, obeyed orders without a single question and
ran up the wide staircase blindly, because, for the moment, her eyes
were filled with tears. But only for the moment. After all, there was
nothing in this visit that could help her scheme along. She must keep
her courage and her nerve, continue her course of study, watch her
opportunities and be ready to seize the real chance when it presented
itself. Lady Feo was bored,--which, of course, was a crime. Macquarie
was a false coin. Lola could have told her that. How many exactly
similar men had ogled her in the street and attempted to capture her
attention. She had been amazed to see him join Lady Feo at Paddington
station that morning. She instantly put him down as a counter jumper
from a second-rate linen draper's in the upper reaches of Oxford
Street.--She was ready for Feo when she came up to put on her hat. Her
deft fingers had worked quickly, and she was alert and bright, in spite
of her huge disappointment.
It was characteristic of Feo to break up her houseparty with the most
unscrupulous disregard for the convenience of the other members of it,
and to care nothing for the fact that she would spoil the pleasure of
her father. He and her brother, her little friend, Mrs. Malwood, and the
two disappointing men must pay her bill. She never paid. It was
characteristic of her, also, to turn her mind quickly, before leaving,
upon some other way of obtaining amusement, as she dreaded to face a
dull and barren Sunday in London. She remembered suddenly that Penelope
Winchfield, one of the "gang," had opened her house near Aylesbury,
which was only a short drive from Princes Risborough. It was a brain
wave. So she went to the telephone and rang up, invited herself for the
week-end and went finally into the car and slipped away with Lola
without saying good-by to a single person. "How I hate this place," she
said. "Something always goes wrong here." And she turned and made a face
at the old building like a naughty child.
Any other woman--at any rate, any other woman whose upbringing had been
as harum-scarum as Feo's--would have given Lola her notice and dropped
her like an old shoe. But she had humor.
V
Queen's Road, Bayswater, so far as the jeweler's little shop was
concerned, was in for a surprise that evening. Just as Lola's mother was
about to close up after a rather depressing day which had brought very
little business--a few wrist watches to be attended to, nothing more--a
car drove up, and from it descended Lola, carrying a handbag and smiling
like a girl let out of school.
"Why, my dear," cried Mrs. Breezy, "what does this mean? I thought you
were going to Chilton Park." But she held her ewe lamb warmly and gladly
in her arms, while a shout of welcome came from behind the glass screen
where the fat man sat with the microscope in his eye.
Lola laughed. "I went there," she said, "but something happened. I'll
tell you about that later. And then Lady Feo altered her plans, drove
over to Aylesbury and told me I might do anything I liked until Monday
night, as there was no room for me in Mrs. Winchfield's house. And so,
of course, I came home. How are you, Mummy darling? Oh, I'm so glad to
see you." And she kissed the little woman again with a touch of
exuberance and ran into the shop to pounce upon her father, all among
his watches. It was good to see the way in which that man caught his
little girl in his arms and held her tight.--A good girl, Lola, a good
affectionate girl, working hard when there was no need for her to do so
and improving herself. Good Lord, she had begun to talk like a lady and
think like a lady, but she would never be too grand to come into the
little old shop in Queen's Road, Bayswater,--not Lola.
He said all that rather emotionally and this too. "It isn't as if we
hadn't seen yer for such a long time. You've never missed droppin' in
upon us whenever you could get away, but this's like a sunny day when
the papers said it was goin' to be wet,--like finding a real good tot of
cognac in a bottle yer thought was empty." And he kissed her again on
both cheeks and held her away from him, the Frenchman in him coming out
in his utter lack of self-consciousness. He looked her all over with a
great smile on his fat face and stroked the sleeve of her blue serge
coat, touched the white thing at her throat and finally pinched the lobe
of one of her tiny ears.
"It isn't that yer clothes are smarter, or that yer've grown older or
anything like that. It's that you seem to have pulled yer feet out of
this place, me girl. It doesn't seem to be your place now.--It's manner.
It's the way yer hold yer head, tilt yer chin up.--It's accent. It's the
way you end yer sentences. When a woman comes into the shop and speaks
to me as you do, I know that she won't pay her bills but that her name's
in the Red Book.--You little monkey, yer've picked up all the tricks and
manners of her ladyship. You'll be saying 'My God' soon, as yer aunt
tells us Lady Feo does! Well, well, well." And he hugged her again,
laughed, and then, finding that he showed certain points of his French
antecedents, began to exaggerate them as he had seen Robert Nainby do at
the Gaiety. He was a consummate actor and a very honest person. The two
don't always go together.
And then Mrs. Breezy, who in the meantime had been practical and shut
the shop, followed them into the parlor, which seemed to Lola to be
shrinking every time she saw it and more crowded with cardboard boxes,
account books, alarm clocks and the surplus from the shop, and sprang a
little surprise. "Who do you think's coming to dinner to-night?" she
asked.
"Is anybody coming to dinner? What a nuisance," said Lola, who had
looked forward to enjoying the company of her father and mother
uninterrupted.
John Breezy gave a roguish glance at his wife and winked. "Give yer ten
guesses," he said.
"Ernest Treadwell."
"No," said Mrs. Breezy, "Albert Simpkins."
"Simpky? How funny. Did you ask him or did he ask himself?"
"He asked himself," said John Breezy.
"I asked him," said Mrs. Breezy.
"I see. The true Simpky way. He suggested that he would like to have
dinner with you and you caught the suggestion. He comes of such a long
line of men who have worn their masters' clothes that he is now a sort
of second-hand edition of them all, and I shouldn't be a bit surprised
if, when he falls in love, he goes to the parents first and asks their
permission to propose to the daughter; and he'll probably ask not for
the daughter herself but for her hand,--which never seems to me to be
much of a compliment to the daughter."
Mrs. Breezy and her husband exchanged a quick glance. Either there was
something uncanny about Lola or she knew that this very respectable man
was madly in love with her. During his numerous visits to the jeweler's
shop Simpkins had invariably led the conversation round to Lola, finding
a thousand phases of her character which he adored. But the last time he
had been with them there was something in his manner and voice which
made it easy to guess that his visit that evening was for the purpose of
asking them whether they considered him worthy of becoming their
son-in-law. It may be said that they considered that he was, especially
after he had told them about the money inherited from his father and his
own savings and confided in them his scheme of buying that very
desirable inn at Wargrave, in which they could, of course, frequently
spend very pleasant week-ends during the summer months. They had before
this recognized in him a man of great depth of feeling, of excellent
principles and a certain strange ecstasy,--somewhat paradoxical in one
who nearly always appeared in a swallow-tail coat, dark trousers and a
black tie.
Seeing that this was an occasion of considerable importance, Mrs. Breezy
had arranged to dine in the drawing-room. It now behooved her to hurry
up to her room and change her clothes and lay an extra place for Lola.
The dinner itself was being cooked at that moment by the baker next
door,--duck, new peas and potatoes and apple pie with a nice piece of
Gruyere cheese, which, with two bottles of Beaujolais from the Breezy
cellar, would be worthy of Mr. Simpkins's attention even though he did
come from Dover Street, Mayfair.
As a matter of fact, Lola's remark about the daughter's hand was merely
an arrow fired into the air. She had been encouraging Simpkins to look
with favor upon the lovesick girl who sat so frequently upon her bed and
poured out her heart. She never conceived the possibility of being
herself asked for by good old Simpky, who had been so kind to her and
was such a knowledgable companion at the theater. The idea of becoming
his wife was grotesque, ridiculous, pathetic, hugely remote from her
definite plan of life. She considered that the girl Ellen was exactly
suited to him. Had she not inherited all the attributes of an
innkeeper's wife from her worthy parents who had kept the Golden Sheaf
at Shepperton since away back before the great wind? So she ran up to
her room to tidy herself, with her soul full of Chilton Park and
Fallaray.
Simpkins arrived precisely on time, smelling of Windsor soap and
brilliantine. He had indulged in a tie which had white spots upon it,
discreet white spots, and into this he had stuck a golden pin,--a
horse-shoe for luck. He was welcomed by Mr. Breezy in the drawing-room
and immediately twigged the fact that there were four places laid.
Mr. Breezy was waggish. It is the way of a parent in all such
circumstances. "My boy, who do you think?"
"I dunno. Who?" His tone was anxious and his brows were flustered.
"Lola," said Mr. Breezy.
"Lola!--I thought she was at Chilton Park with 'er ladyship. I chose
this evening because of that. This'll make me very--well----"
"Not you," said John Breezy. "You're all right, me boy. We like you.
That inn down at Wargrave sounds good. I can see a nice kitchen garden.
I shall love to wander in it in the early morning and pull up spring
onions. I'm French enough for them still. You can take it that the
missus and I are all in your favor,--formalities waived. We'll slip away
after dinner, go for a little walk and you can plump the question. The
betting is you'll win." And he clapped the disconcerted valet heartily
on the back,--the rather narrow back.
"I'm very much obliged, Mr. Breezy," said Simpkins, who had gone white
to the lips, "and also to Mrs. Breezy. It's nice to be trusted like
this, and all that. But I must say, in all honesty, I wanted to take
this affair step by step, so to speak. If I'd 'ad the good fortune to be
encouraged by you in my desire to ask for Lola's 'and,"--there it
came,--"I should 'ave taken a week at least to 'ave thought out the
proper things to say to Lola 'erself. Sometimes there's a little laugh
in the back of 'er eyes which throws a man off his words. I don't know
whether you've noticed that. But this is very sudden and I shall 'ave to
do a lot of thinking during the meal."
"Oh, you English," said John Breezy and roared with laughter. "Mong
Doo!"
One of Simpkins's hands fidgeted with his tie while the other
straightened the feathers on the top of his head. Jumping Joseph, he was
fairly up against it! How he wished he was a daring man who had traveled
a little and read some of the modern novels. It was a frightful handicap
to be so old-fashioned.
And then the ladies arrived,--Mrs. Breezy in a white fichu which looked
like an antimacassar, a thing usually kept for Christmas day and wedding
anniversaries; Lola in a neat blue suit and the highest spirits,--a
charming costume.
"Hello, Simpky."
"Good evening, Mr. Simpkins."
Simpkins bowed. He certainly had the Grandison manner. And while Lola
brought him up to date with the state of affairs, so far as she knew
them, Mrs. Breezy disappeared, stood on a chair against the fence in the
back yard and received the hot dishes which were handed over to her by
the baker's wife. A couple of scrawny cats, with tails erect, attracted
by the aroma of hot duck, followed her to the back door,--but got no
farther. "You shall have the bones," said Mrs. Breezy, and they were
duly encouraged.
The dinner was a success, even although Simpkins sat through it in one
long trance. He ate well to fortify himself and it was obvious to John
Breezy, sympathetic soul that he was, that his guest was rehearsing a
flowery speech of proposal. The unconscious Lola kept up a merry rattle
of conversation and gave them a vivid description of the village through
which she had passed that afternoon and of her drive back to town alone
from Aylesbury. Of Chilton Park she said nothing. It was too sacred. And
when presently John Breezy's programme was carried out, the table
cleared, the two cats rewarded for their patience and Simpkins left
alone with Lola, there was a moment of shattering silence. But even then
Lola was unsuspecting, and it was not until the valet unbuttoned his
coat to free his swelling chest and placed himself in a supplicating
attitude on the sofa at her side, that she tumbled to the situation.
"Oh, Simpky," she said, "what _are_ you going to do?"
It was a wonderful cue. It helped him to take the first ditch without
touching either of the banks. The poor wretch slipped down upon his
knees, all his pre-arranged words scattered like a load of bricks. "Ask
you to marry me, Lola," he said. "Lola, darling, I love you. I loved you
the very minute you came down the area steps, which was all wrong
because I thought you'd come from heaven and therefore your place was
the front door. I love you and I want you to marry me, and I'll buy the
inn and work like a dog and we'll send the boy to Lansing or the City of
London School and make a gentleman of 'im."
Not resentment, not amusement, but a great pity swept over Lola. This
was a good, kind, generous man and his emotion was so simple and so
genuine. And she must hurt him because it was impossible, absurd.
And so for a moment she sat very still and erect, looking exactly like a
daffodil with the light on her yellow head, and her eyes shut, because
there might be in them that twinkle which Simpkins had noticed and which
he must not see. And presently she said, putting her hand on his
shoulder, "Oh, Simpky, dear old Simpky, why couldn't you have loved
Ellen? What a difficult world it is."
"Ellen," he said. "Oh."
"I can't, Simpky. I simply can't."
And he sat on his heels and looked like a pricked balloon. "Ain't I good
enough, Lola?"
"Yes, quite good enough. Perhaps too good. But, oh, Simpky, I'm so
awfully in love with some one else and it's a difficult world. That's
the truth. I have to tell it to you. I can never, never marry you,
never. Please accept this. Whatever happens to me, and I don't know
whatever _will_ happen to me, I shall always remember how good you were
and how proud you made me feel. But I'm so awfully in love with some one
else. Awfully. And perhaps I shall never be married. That's the truth,
Simpky."
And she bent down and kissed him on the forehead, and then got up
quickly and raised the kneeling man to his feet. And he stood there,
shattered, empty and wordless, with the blow that she had given him ever
so softly marking his face, marking his soul.
And Lola was very, very sorry. Poor old Simpky. Poor little Ellen. It
was indeed a difficult world.
VI
The next day was Saturday,--a busy day for the Breezys, the one day in
the week upon which they pinned their faith to make up for slack
business during the remainder of it. In the morning Lola helped her
mother to make an enticing display in the windows and along the counter
in the shop itself. Mrs. Breezy had recently broadened out a little and
now endeavored to sell kodaks and photographic materials, self-filling
pens and stationery for ladies, which is tantamount to saying that it
was stationery unfit for men. During this busy and early hour, while
John Breezy, one-eyed, was looking into the complaints of wrist watches,
most of which were suffering from having been taken into the bath, Lola
answered her mother's silent inquiry as to what had happened the
previous evening. With a duster in one hand and a silver sugar basin in
the other, she looked up suddenly and said, "No, Mother, it wasn't and
will never be possible. Poor old Simpky."
And Mrs. Breezy nodded and shrugged her shoulders. And Lola hoped that
that would be the end of it. But why should she have hoped so, knowing
women? A few minutes later Mrs. Breezy began.
"The inn at Wargrave would have been so nice. He said that it had an
orchard on one side and a large lawn running down to the river on the
other, shaded with old trees,--little tables underneath and lovers'
nooks and sweet peas growing in tubs. Ah, how nice after Queen's Road,
Bayswater. And your father could have fished for hours and I could have
rearranged the furniture--and very good furniture too, he said--and made
things look spick and span. And he's a good man, is Albert Simpkins, a
very unusual man, educated, religious, honest, with a sort of white
flame burning in him somewhere. He would have made a good husband,
dearie.--However, I suppose you know best." And she threw an anxious
glance at her little girl who had become, if anything, more of an enigma
to her than ever. It didn't matter about the apron that she wore; nor
did the fact that she was very efficiently cleaning that silver thing
detract from the new and subtle dignity and poise that she had acquired.
And her accent, and her choice of words,--they were those of Mrs.
Breezy's favorite actress who played fashionable women. It was very
extraordinary. What a good ear the child must have and what a very
observant eye,--rather like her father's, although he had to be assisted
by a microscope. "You won't think it over, I suppose?" she asked
finally, long after Lola had believed the subject to be closed. Mothers
have an amazing way of recurring to old arguments. But Lola shook her
head again and gave a little gesture that was peculiarly French, as who
should say, "My dear! Marriage!"
As soon as the shop was opened and Mrs. Breezy was on duty and John
Breezy was humming softly over his most monotonous job, Lola went
upstairs to the little bedroom which she had completely outgrown now,
put on her hat and presently slipped out of the house. All the usual
musicians were already at work on the curbstone of Queen's Road. The
strains of "Annie Laurie" were mixed with those of "Son o' Mine" and
there was one daring creature with a concertina who was desecrating
Gounod's "Ave Maria." Perambulators cluttered the pavements and eager
housewives were in earnest conversation with butchers and greengrocers
who had arranged their wares temptingly outside their shops so that they
could be handled and considered and sampled. Lola made her way to
Kensington Gardens filled with a desire which had been growing upon her
ever since she woke up to make another Cinderella dash into the great
world. She was seized with another overpowering eagerness to meet
Fallaray on his own level. He was to be in town over the week-end. She
knew that. The Government, as though it had not already enough troubles
to contend with--Germany haggling and France ready to fly at her throat
and America hiding her head in the sand of dead shibboleths like an
ostrich--was in the throes of the big strike and its members were
hurrying from one conference to another with the labor leaders. Lady Feo
away, she had a wonderful chance to use that night and nothing would be
easier than to dress once more at Mrs. Rumbold's and slip into her
mother's house with a latchkey. But she was not able to go into the
Gardens because they had been closed to the public. They had been turned
over to the military to be used as a center for the mobilization of
supplies. She could see men in khaki everywhere, going about their work
with a sort of merry energy. "Back to the army agin, Sergeant, back to
the army agin." Unconcerned by the crisis which had fallen upon England
and unable to wander along her favorite paths, she turned away just at
the moment when a large car, followed by a line of motor busses and
heterogeneous traffic, was being held up by a policeman to enable a
company of boy scouts to cross the high road. She heard a shout. She saw
a man in khaki with a red band round his cap and much brass on its peak
and two long lines of ribbons on his chest become suddenly athletic
under the stress of great excitement. The next instant her hand was
seized and she looked up. It was Chalfont.
"I was just going to think about you," she said.
"I've never stopped thinking of you," said Chalfont. "What became of
you? Where did you go? Where have you been? I searched every hotel in
the town. I've been almost through every street, like Gilbert a Beckett,
calling your name. Good God, why have you played with me like this?"
Somehow, for all his height and finish, in spite of his uniform and his
big car and his obvious importance, he reminded her of Simpkins. ("Lola,
I love you.") The same emotion was in the voice, the same desire in the
eyes. What _was_ there in her that made her do this thing to men,--while
the one man was unattainable, unapproachable? It was a difficult world.
"I'm very sorry," she said. "I had to go away that night. But I was just
on the verge of thinking about you again. You can't think how glad I am
to see you."
Still holding her hand as though he would never let her escape, Chalfont
mastered his voice. "You little lovely de Breze," he said, not choosing
his words. "You strange little bird. I've caught you again and I've a
damned good mind to clip your wings and put you in a cage."
And Lola laughed. "I've always been a canary," she said, "and some day
you may find me in a cage." But she didn't add, "not your cage, however
golden." Fallaray's was the only cage and if that were made of bits of
stick it would be golden to her.
"Well, you're back in town. That's the chief thing. Get into my car and
I'll drive you home and let's do something to-night. Let's dine at the
Savoy or the Carlton. I don't care. Or don't let's dine. Anything you
like, so long as you're with me. I've got to go along to the War Office
now, but I have my evening off, like any factory hand." And he drew her
towards the car, which was waiting by the curb.
"You can drive me as far as Marble Arch," said Lola. "I must leave you
there because I want to buy something in Bond Street."
"All right, Bond Street then. I want to buy something there too." He
helped her in and said to his man, "Masterman's, quick."
The scout master who had drawn his company up against the railings gave
a command as Chalfont helped Lola in. The boys presented arms and
Chalfont returned their salute with extreme gravity. "The future
strike-breakers of the country," he said. "The best institution we've
got.--How well you look. Don't you think you might have sent me a line?
I felt like a man in a parachute dropping from twenty-two thousand feet
in the dark when I found that you had left me. It was rather a rotten
trick of yours."
"It was very rotten," said Lola, "but it couldn't be helped, and I may
have to do it again. I don't want you to ask me why. I don't want you to
ask me anything. There's a wee mystery about me which I must ask you to
respect. Don't think about it. Don't let it worry you, but whenever we
go out again just let me disappear. One of these days I'll tell you all
about it, General, and probably you will be very much amused." She ran
her finger along his ribbons and gave him a little smile of respect and
admiration which almost made him blush. "Well, then," she added, "what
about to-night? I'm free. That's why I was just going to think of you
and really wasn't a bit surprised when you suddenly pounced upon me.
Things happen like that, don't they? I can meet you at the Savoy or the
Carlton or anywhere else you like. Personally, I'm all for the Carlton."
"The Carlton then," he said. "Seven-thirty, and after that,--what?"
"Let's leave it," said Lola. "I love doing things on the spur of the
moment."
"You swear you'll come?"
And Lola made a little cross over her heart.
Chalfont heaved a sigh and settled back and looked at her, longing to
touch her, longing, in front of all the world, to draw her into his arms
and kiss her lips. God, if only this girl knew what she had done to
him.--And all the while the car bowled along, competing with every other
type of car for precedence, all selfish and many badly driven. Lola had
no eyes for the undercurrent of excitement that gave the crowds the look
that they had worn in the first days of the War or for the outbreak of
khaki that lent the streets their old familiar appearance. She was
thinking ahead and making plans and tingling at the idea of dipping once
more into the current of life.
Masterman's, it turned out, was a florist's shop, filled attractively
with lovely blossoms. Chalfont sprang out and gave Lola his hand. "Come
in," he said, "and tell them where to send enough flowers to make a
garden of your house. Please,--to celebrate my having found you at
last." He wished to Heaven that he might have taken her to Aspray's and
covered her with diamonds. He would willingly have gone broke to do her
honor.
And one of the men came forward to offer his eager services to one who
certainly must be of great importance to appear so plainly dressed.
"How kind of you," said Lola. "Those, then," and she pointed to a bunch
of proud red roses that were standing in a vase.
"Is that all?"
"I want to carry them," she said.
Chalfont was almost boyishly disappointed. He would like to have
pictured her among a riot of color. He had not brought her there with a
Machiavelian desire to hear her give her address. He was not that kind
of man. "Won't you have some more?"
But somehow--what was it in her that did these things to men--Lola could
see the inn at Wargrave, its orchard and its smooth lawn with little
tables under the trees and the silver stream near by, and hear the
words, "I love you, Lola; am I good enough----" And she shook her head.
"No more," she said. "They're lovely," took them from the man and put
them to her lips.
Chalfont gave his name and followed her to the street. "Now where?" he
asked.
Lola held out her hand. "Nowhere else. I'm walking. A thousand thanks.
Seven-thirty, the Carlton then."
And once more Chalfont saluted, not as though to a company of boy scouts
but to a queen.
And when he had gone, Lola heaved a great big sigh and put the roses to
her heart. If they had come from Chilton Park--if Fallaray had cut them
for her--If.