ROGER.

A week after these letters were put in the Consular mail-bag, Roger had

packed up and was waiting for a gun-boat to convey him across to the

mainland--where he was to have an important interview with Captain

Wissmann, fresh from a great victory over the Arabs. Sir Godfrey,

taking leave of him, said: "Looked at the Reuters this morning?"

_Roger_: "No! What's up?"

_Sir Godfrey_: "Your friend Lord Silchester is dead."

"Phew!" said Roger, or as near as he could get to that conventional

exclamation of surprise and speculation as to what might have been....

*CHAPTER XV*

*IN ENGLAND*

Captain and Mrs. Brentham arrived in London from East Africa at the end

of May, 1889. You must picture Brentham with a reserve of savings of

about five hundred pounds lying to his credit at Cocks's, and a salary

at the rate of seven hundred a year which will go on till some time in

October. After much consideration and discussion during the voyage they

have taken a furnished flat on the eighth floor of Hankey's Mansions,

St. James's Park, as having a better address--"being close to the

Government offices and the clubs, don't you know, and of course if you

have the lift going night and day it don't matter whether you're on the

first or the eighth floor, to say nothing of the view." Lucy had

timidly suggested Pardew's Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street as being

very cheap for relations of Aunt Ellen, but Roger with that wistful

snobbishness of his class decided it would be rather a come-down to hail

from the West Central part of London when you were wishing to impress

the Foreign Office favourably; so Hankey's it was, with lots of

sunlight, superb views over the Park and the barrack ground with its

military challenges and cries.

Mr. Molyneux's room at the Foreign Office.

"Ah, Brentham! Thought you'd soon be turning up. Dewburn's been

writing to me about you.... Have a cigar? There are the matches. Well.

Horrid thing to say, when a man's only just arrived, but you've stirred

up a reg'lar hornet's nest among the unco' guid. This confounded

Nonconformist Conscience that Stead's invented or created. There's an

obvious reference to you in the last _Review of Reviews_ and Labby's put

a very caustic article in last week's _Truth_, trying to get at the

Government's East African policy through you. All this has mightily

upset the Old Man----"

Roger endeavours to give a lucid and not too lengthy account of the

whole sequence of events which led up to his marriage at Unguja;

expresses the most justly-felt wrath against the mosquitoes of the

Press; offers to horsewhip them or have them up before a court of

law....

_Molyneux_: "My _dear_ fellow, what _are_ you talking about? You'd

simply do for yourself and have to quit the career. First place,

horsewhipping's out of date--dam' low, in any case--in the second,

there's nothing _libellous_ in what they've written--only general

application, don't you know. If you took any action on it you'd just

dot the _i_'s and cross the _t_'s and get laughed at. And as to what

they say in Parliament, can't call them into court over _that_. No.

Best leave it alone. _Most_ unfortunate. Dare say not a _bit_ your

fault. Still I think you might have been a trifle more prudent, not--so

to speak--have run your head into the noose. _Quite_ agree with Dewburn

you've done the _right_ thing in marrying her....

"Well: so much for that. Now how about this missing cipher? Not sure

_that_ don't upset us a bit more than your carryings-on with missionary

ladies...."

Roger: "But I _didn't_ carry on--I--I--really must protest against these

assumptions----"

_Molyneux_: "_All_ right. Keep your hair on.... Don't get into a

wax.... I'm only talkin' for your own good.... But tell us about this

cipher."

_Roger_ (still with an angry flush): "What _can I_ tell? I arrive at

Medina and am told all in a hurry to re-organize the Consulate there.

There was no one but an Indian clerk in charge. I simply take him over.

I put my cipher in the safe, but I had to leave the key with the clerk

when at very short notice I started for up-country to warn these

confounded missionaries.... Wish to _God_ I'd paid no heed to your

instructions" ("I _say_, old chap, draw it mild ... and mind what you're

doin' with that cigar-ash." Roger strides to the fireplace and throws

away the cigar into it.) "I wish to God," he continues, "I'd left 'em

alone to stand the racket if the Arabs _did_ come. However, what I mean

to say is, I only set out to do what I was told to do and couldn't

foresee how long it would take. I didn't get back to my Consulate till

last April. _How_ can I tell what happened to the clerk or the cipher

or the money? I paid up the deficit.... How do I know what those

Bazzards were up to? Mrs. Bazzard----"

_Molyneux_ (his manner has insensibly become stiffer and more

ceremonious): "I think we'll leave the Bazzards out of it. At any rate

they aren't here to defend themselves. We must refer the whole matter

to Dewburn for inquiry. Meantime here you are on leave and I dare say

badly wanting a rest. My advice is: go down to the country.... Your

father lives in the country, doesn't he?" (Roger nods.) "Well, go down

and rusticate a bit and take Mrs. Brentham with you. In a week or two

the newspapers and the Nonconformist Conscience will be in full cry

after something else. As to whether you should go back, we must leave

that to the Old Man. He may think a change of scene advisable. Any use

asking you to a bachelor dinner? My wife's out of town just now."

Roger (_very_ unwisely, scenting in this a reluctance to ask Lucy too):

"No, thank you. I think I'll take your advice and go off to the

country. Ungrateful sort of country--I mean the nation--mine is! Here

I've made most important discoveries I've had no time to report on, I've

... I've ..." (Feelings too much for him. Takes his hat and stick,

bows to Molyneux and leaves his room.) In all this he has acted most

foolishly. If he'd gone to Molyneux's--to "Good old Spavins's"--as the

clerks called him in the room opposite--bachelor dinner, had told a few

good stories and hunting adventures, Molyneux, who really had his kindly

side like most men, would have forgotten the old grudge about his

intrusive appointment, have taken a much more charitable view about the

lost cipher and the hasty marriage and have written a memo for Lord

Wiltshire's eye which would have suggested a year's employment at home

and a fresh start in East Africa. Mrs. Molyneux would have called on

Mrs. Brentham at Hankey's and Mrs. Brentham would have been pronounced

by Molyneux "a dam' good-lookin' wench--don't wonder she turned his head

a bit--there can't have been much to look at in East Africa"--and

Brentham's difficulties were over; and the whole fate of East Africa

might have been a little different. As it was, he wrote some such memo

as this for the information of the Under-Secretary of State: "Saw

Brentham to-day--from Zangia Consulate, East Africa. Looks rather

fagged. Evidently had a rough time. But very angry when asked to

explain the awkward circumstances of his very protracted journey through

the interior with the lady who is now his wife. He protested with much

heat against the attacks of the Press and the attitude of the Missionary

Societies. I dare say he is a maligned man, but I should also say he is

what we call in diplomacy 'un mauvais coucheur.' Difficult to get on

with, quarrelsome with colleagues. He could throw no light on the loss

of his cipher. Did not seem to realize what trouble and expense it has

caused. He has six months' leave of absence due. Suggest when that is

coming to an end he be offered some Consular post in Norway or Algeria."

Roger called at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, but was told by the

man-servant opening the door that Lady Silchester and the little Lord

Silchester were still in the country, at Engledene, and that it was

improbable her Ladyship would be in town again until the autumn, being

in deep mourning. Roger scribbled on his card (which would be sent on

with other cards of calling and polite inquiries):

"So much want to see you. Starting to-morrow for Church Farm,

Aldermaston.--ROGER."

Roger delivered his blushing wife, rather overdressed (for he had

insisted on a fashionable outfit), to her parents at Aldermaston; he

shook hands heartily with his father-in-law to whom he took an immediate

liking, kissed his mother-in-law (to her confusion) and his

sisters-in-law, and then let his father-in-law drive him over to the

nearest station from which he could get a train to Basingstoke (for

Farleigh), promising to return in four days after he had seen his

father, sister, and brothers, one of them at Portsmouth. When he did

get back to Church Farm, Lucy was in bed, ill, and his father and

mother-in-law were looking grave and preoccupied. They were also--as

country people are--a little tiresomely reticent. _What had happened_?

_This_, as he afterwards pieced it together.

When Mrs. Baines had received Ann Anderson's letter--written, as you

will remember, about November 30, but not posted from Unguja till early

in January--she had a knock-down blow. It is true the Mission on the

receipt of a telegram from Callaway had warned her to expect serious

news from Hangodi, but she had not paid much attention, so convinced was

she that God must avert all harm from a son of hers. But the

letter--from Ann, too, whom she would have welcomed as a

daughter-in-law--was convincing, and for the first few hours after she

had read it twice through, she locked herself into their joint bedroom

to Mr. Baines's great discomfiture--he might wash and sleep where he

liked. She had shouted at him through the keyhole, in a hoarse,

strangled voice he hardly recognized as hers, that his son John was

dead, killed by the "A-rabs," no doubt with that slut of a Lucy's full

approval; and left to digest this dreadful news as best he might.

Eliza, touched to great pity and a sympathetic sobbing over the fate of

Master John, made him up a sort of a shakedown bedroom arrangement in

the "libery," where he did his accounts....

Mrs. Baines did not emerge from her fastness for a day and a half. When

she did come out she was composed, but with such an awful look in her

eyes that no one dared offer sympathy or proffer advice. She gave her

orders in as few words as possible. She set to work to confection the

deepest mourning and pulled the blinds down, and down they had to remain

a full week. During that week by the aid of candle-light she wrote a

good many letters--for her. Eliza, who had to post them, for Mrs.

Baines shrank from encountering friends or acquaintances till the week

was up, noticed that some of them bore quite grand addresses: the member

for Reading, the Marquis of Wiltshire, the Editor of the _Review of

Reviews_....

How did Mrs. Baines know so soon that Lucy and Roger had returned to

England and come down to see the Joslings at Church Farm? Why, because

the miller of Aldermaston saw the Brenthams arrive at Aldermaston

station and witnessed the greeting of Farmer Josling--such a fine

upstanding man--and his son-in-law--just such another, only rather

sallow-like and thin; and the miller told old Mrs. Bunsby of the general

shop at Theale; and Mrs. Bunsby, wanting badly a supply of ginger beer,

for the weather was getting warm and Oxford undergraduates sometimes

pushed their walking tours as far as the Kennet Valley--Mrs. Bunsby

walked over to _John Baines & Co._ that very afternoon to give an order

for four dozen and mentioned the fact of "pore Master John's widow"

having come back to her home "with a noo 'usband."

The assistant who registered the order for delivery in their next round,

after Mrs. Bunsby left slipped into Mr. Baines's "libery," and

half-whispered the news of Lucy's return. When, soon afterwards, Mrs.

Baines came into the dining-room to preside over the tea table, he--(he

looked very aged--my astral body floating over the scene felt a twinge

of pity for him; in his own dull way he had been fond and proud of his

only son and worked to provide him with a competency--some day)--he,

with some preparatory clearing of the throat, said: "Er ... Hrhm.... Er

... Lucy's back, I hear...."

"Indeed?" replied his wife swiftly. "Where? Bridewell? That's where

she _ought_ to be...."

"I dare say, my dear, but she's at Church Farm, her parents', you

know.... P'raps she could tell you something about John?..."

"P'raps she could. But I won't have her name mentioned in _this_ house.

_Do you understand_?"

Mr. Baines did, and took this intimation as final.

The next day was Sunday. Mrs. Baines spent much of the day (as she had

decided she could not go to chapel) communing in prayer with her Maker

in the bedroom fastness. Some of the prayers heard by the frightened

Eliza through the keyhole sounded more like objurgations, and the

Scripture readings were the minatory passage directed by the Minor

Prophets against harlots and light women.

After two days of Aldermaston Lucy had quite recovered her spirits--she

had felt rather depressed at Hankey's Mansions and not at all lightened

at heart by her week of shopping under Aunt Pardew's furtive guidance

and rather checked congratulations. On the Monday morning she was

standing with her parents and Clara in front of the beautiful old farm

house, inhaling the scents of May, revelling with the eye over the

landscape beauty she had so often recalled to herself in Africa. Farmer

Josling had repeatedly given expression to the pleasure he had derived

from the looks, manner, and hand-grip of his son-in-law, and Mrs.

Josling still blushed and laughed at the remembrance of his having

kissed her cheek. They could not help the gratification of feeling that

their daughter's second marriage was into a social stratum worthy of her

looks, her superior education and their hopes for her....

Clara, walking away to glance at the bee-hives, called back to the

group, "Here's Mrs. Baines coming up from the road."

Instinctively the parents withdrew into the porch of the house, leaving

their daughter to meet Mrs. Baines for the first few minutes alone, with

no other listeners to the sad story she had to tell. Lucy, like the

bird fascinated by the snake, remained where she was, her fingers

playing with a pansy she had just picked. Mrs. Baines, all in black,

with black plumes to a large bonnet and black gloves, walked slowly and

consideringly up to the spell-bound Lucy. When she was close to her she

said: "_What ... have ... you done ... with ... my ... son?..._"

"Oh! I ... I ... haven't you heard?" stammered Lucy.

"I _have_ heard ... and I've guessed much _more_ than I've heard....

_You ... you harlot--you adulteress--you--you strumpet!_" roared Mrs.

Baines, who had been cooking her vengeance and rehearsing this scene

with a dictionary, during the last twenty-four hours. And forthwith

before Lucy could reply or any one intervene she had dealt her two

terrific boxes on the ears, first on one side and then on the other.

Lucy fell on to the pansy bed, temporarily stunned. Mr. Josling,

scarcely able at first to believe ears and eyes, rushed out with a roar

like a bull, picked up Mrs. Baines round her iron stays, as though she

weighed no more than a wisp, ran round to the other side of the house

where there was a great horse trough full of water, and soused in this

the head and huge plumed bonnet of the angry woman. And again, giving

her time to catch her breath, he plunged her head and bonnet beneath the

water. Then, standing her on her feet, he said, "_There! that'll_ cool

your hot blood. That is some return for your half-killing my

daughter--you _blasted she-tiger, you_ ... Be _off_! Or I'll set the

dogs on you.... I'll..."

"Father, _dear_," said Clara, crying for pity and rage over the hapless

Lucy, yet careful of appearances: "Father _dear, don't_ shout so! For

goodness' sake, let the old witch go, and don't attract everybody's

attention. What ever _will_ the neighbours think! Here!" she said,

thrusting on Mrs. Baines the umbrella she had brought and dropped on the

garden path at the moment of the assault, "be off with you, you wicked

old woman. It's a mercy father ain't killed you, he's that strong. And

if you've done any real harm to my sister, we'll soon let you know and

have you up before the courts, you _wicked old snivelling psalm-singin'

Methody_!"

Mrs. Baines said nothing to this counter-attack. She drained the water

from her plumes with her fingers, put her flopping bonnet as straight as

was possible, pressed the water from her shoulders, and made some

attempt to wipe her face with a handkerchief; and then, summoning all

her strength and resolution (for in reality she was much shaken and near

collapse), she walked firmly past them, uttering never a word, walked

slowly down the garden path, turned to the right and contrived not to

halt on her way back to the station till she was well out of their

sight. They were a little over-awed by her dignity.

It was decided--and Lucy when she could speak implored them to adopt

this negative course--not to write to Roger, and as far as possible not

to talk of this painful scene to any neighbour. But to keep it from

country gossip was an impossibility. This, that, or the other farm

servant had seen it, from the rafters of a barn in repair, from the

stables, from the dairy window; and so the treatment old Mrs. Baines had

served out to her former daughter-in-law became noised abroad,

penetrated from the kitchen and still-room of Engledene House to its

mistress's dressing-room. A vague rumour of it even reached the African

Department of the Foreign Office and Molyneux publicly shrugged his

shoulders in Sir Mulberry Hawk's room. The Carnarvons at Highclere heard

a perversion of it--rather a humorous one--from one of their farmer

tenants, and reconsidered their idea of asking Brentham and Mrs.

Brentham over to a week-end party to relate some of their extraordinary

experiences. The Vicar of Farleigh Wallop realized that something of

the kind had occurred to interrupt his musings on the arrangements of

the streets in Calleva Atrebatum, and when he drove over with Maud to

make the acquaintance of his daughter-in-law--now convalescent and

thankful to find the drum of the worst smacked ear had not been

split--he was merely coldly polite and expressed very little interest in

missionary questions. Indeed he took no interest in Christian Missions

after 700 A.D. Up to that time he reckoned--more or less--they had been

spreading the ideas of Imperial Rome, of Roman civilization.

Roger, however, though he commented little on the episode of the

assault, and felt in every way the least said, soonest mended, borrowed

his father-in-law's riding-horse and rode early one morning over to

Tilehurst. He entered the factory, of design, just as Mr. Baines was

about to take his seat in the office and run his eyes over the day's

orders. "Oh, don't be alarmed!" he said to Mr. Baines, who was

instinctively about to withdraw, guessing his visitor's identity. "I'm

not a violent heathen like your wife. Sit down and let us talk this

over like sensible men."

He then put the matter very plainly before Mr. Baines.

Mrs. Baines, summoned by half-fearful, half-exultant Eliza, had "locked

herself in her bedroom, she 'ave an' ast me to go for the police!"

"Then you, too," said Roger to the startled Eliza, "remain and hear what

I have to say. Since your termagant of a mistress refuses to come, you

shall repeat my words to her. You are, from what my wife tells me, an

old and trusted servant of the family" (Eliza bridled and pleated the

hem of her apron). "When she returns to sanity, you may get a chance of

saying a word to your mistress in season, even if her husband has not

the courage to do so. Tell her then, if she ever annoys or slanders or

upsets my wife in any way I will leave no stone unturned to punish her.

And if she appears at Church Farm or anywhere else again with the

intention of assaulting my wife I will knock her on the head like the

mad dog she is. Now you can leave us. But I trust also to you as an

honourable woman and one who was sincerely fond of poor John Baines, who

ought never to be connected with these hateful sayings and doings, not

to chatter about this business outside this house."

And Eliza did not. She was much impressed by Brentham's appeal. The

interview with John's father even ended in a kind of reconciliation. He

heard from Brentham for the first time the whole story, so far as it was

known, of the circumstances which led up to the attack on the station,

John's death, and Lucy's journey to the coast; of how her baby had died

and how ill she had been; of the Stotts, and of Ann Jamblin's obstinacy.

Roger purposely prolonged the interview. It was doing the miserable

father good, and was keeping Mrs. Baines a prisoner in her bedroom just

when she wanted to be busy at house-work.

Maud on her return from visiting the Joslings tightened her lips and

"went for" her father as he had never been truth-told before; so Mrs.

Baines, if she did harm to Lucy's good name and gave her nervous system

a nasty shock, also provoked good in other directions. A disturbance of

the kind seldom fails to clear the air and create a fresher atmosphere.

Maud reproached her father bitterly with his incivility to his eldest

son's wife; with his general indifference to the well-being of his

children, his selfish absorption in his archaeological work, his

unfairness to them in lavishing on it funds which should have been their

patrimony. She even issued a sort of ultimatum: the subsidies to the

Silchester Excavation fund must cease; the curate at Farleigh must be

given his conge and the Vicar--still able-bodied--carry out his own

Church duties: _or_ she would go away and earn her own living as a

secretary or something or other. And she was at once, and on his

authority, to ask Lucy to stay--with Roger, of course--for at least a

month. He gave in. Maud had deeper plans hidden under this surface

wrath. Roger was in difficulties with the Foreign Office, she guessed.

He had resigned from the Indian Army. He might at any time have to

forge a new career for himself and would want a little capital to start

with. She reckoned that her father having originally been a well-to-do

man and her mother having come to him with a substantial dowry, there

ought to be a least twelve thousand pounds to be divided between the

four of them. If that left her father almost entirely dependent on his

income--about five hundred a year--from the twin benefices of Farleigh

and Cliddesden, that would serve him right. He had no business to

squander his children's money--as it really was--on a work of excavation

which the County or the Nation should finance.

A little repentant and more than a little rheumatic--(besides, Roman

Silchester was turning out so distressingly Christian and so little

Pompeian and Pagan)--he agreed at any rate to look into the matter. The

letter was sent to Lucy, and she came, now quite restored to health.

She found in Maud the selfless friend and good adviser she had long

needed. All she begged and prayed of Roger was that he might leave her

at Farleigh for a time and not frighten her and upset her nerves by

requiring of her the going out into smart Society, where she was ever on

the twitter for fear of being questioned as to her birth and bringing-up

and the circumstances of her life in Africa.

Roger rather ruefully consented. Maud would gradually cure her of her

nerves and her rusticity. Meantime he would now tackle Sibyl. Sibyl had

taken no notice of his card and call; but about three weeks afterwards

had written to Maud, picturing herself as having now emerged from a

swoon of grief and being ready to see Roger for a _few_ minutes if he

would _promise_ to move gently and speak in a level voice, as _the least

thing_ upset her. Pressed to be more definite, she consented to see

him--and him only--at Engledene on a certain Wednesday afternoon at

three o'clock.

He found her in a little boudoir, which was draped with pleated

lavender-mauve cashmere and shaded to a dim light. She was dressed in

black, not having as yet the hardihood to discard widows' weeds, still

less some diaphanous, filmy _coiffe_, some ghost of a widow's cap.

Queen Victoria was still a great power in Society and kept Peeresses in

order. If you were too daring you might be banned at Court and then

where would your social and political influence be?

"Wheel up, or better still _lift_ up--I can't bear the _slightest_ jar,

just now--that small armchair, Roger--the purple velvet one--and put it

near enough for me to hear and speak without effort; but not _too_ near,

because I notice you have a very powerful aura. I've only just learnt

about auras, and I realize now _what_ a difference they make!..."

"All right," said Roger, obeying these instructions, "but what's an

aura? Is it the smell of my Harris tweeds, or do you doubt my having

had a bath this morning?"

"Don't be so perfectly horrid ... and coarse.... You never _used_ to be

coarse, whatever you were--I suppose it comes from marrying a farmer's

daughter; but for the matter of that, what am _I_? My poor dear dad is

trying hard to be a farmer after spending his best years in the Army. I

didn't mean anything much about your 'aura,' except, I suppose, that as

I'm only recently widowed all my relations with men-visitors should be a

little frigid. But I'm simply talking nonsense to gain time, to

remember what I wanted to say to you." (A pause.) ... "Roger! Your

_dreadful_ letter from that Gouging place, coming just on top of poor

Francis's death, _knocked me over_. The doctors put it all down to

Francis, of course ... I don't deny that his death _did_ upset me....

But I'd been expecting _that_ any time within the last six months....

The doctors told me _definitely_ last winter his heart was very unsound

and that he must not over-exert himself in any way or be contraried or

argued with.... _That_ was why I gave up the orange-velvet curtains and

general redecoration of the dining-room at 6A, Carlton House

Terrace--which is dingy beyond belief. I shall do it now.... It's too

early for tea ... won't you smoke?" (Roger: "Thank you.") "Well, there's

everything on that little table.... No. Not those ones; they've got

the wee-est flavour of opium.... Obliged to do _something_ for my

nerves.... Well, now, about your Gouging letter.... I mean about your

marriage.... My _dear_ Roger! _What_ a _gaffe_! I mean, how _could_

you?"

"Could I what?"

"_Ruin_ your hopes and mine?"

"Well, I did hope to marry Lucy ... for at least six months before the

knot was tied.... Ever since her husband's death. So _my_ hopes were

fulfilled. And as to you, I never prevented you from marrying Lord S.

So where the ruin comes in, I can't see."

"Oh," wailed Sibyl, "_why_ beat about the bush? You must have known that

I always hoped if anything happened to poor Francis--and anything

_might_ well have done so--after all, you or I might be in a railway

accident or break our necks out hunting. In such case you _must_ have

known I _counted_ on you ... I mean, on our being happy _at last_....

Don't interrupt! ... And just think! Francis loved me awfully. I

really _was perfectly sweet_ to him and did my duty to him _in every

way_. His gratitude for that boy ... for a direct heir! ... Well, after

Clithy was born he made his will! ... Don't be silly ... and don't joke

about things I regard almost as sacred.... I mean _Francis_ re-made his

will; and left me sole guardian of the boy and sole trustee, sole

_everything_; and mistress for my life of Engledene, and of 6A, till

Clithy came of age ... and a jointure of L10,000 a year to keep them up.

Clithy has also the Silchester house which is let and which I intend to

_keep_ let till he comes of age, the moors in Scotland _and_ the

shooting lodge. Of course he has the reversionary rights of

_everything_ after my death. And equally of course he has fifteen

thousand a year, which I control till he is twenty-one or until he

marries....

"Just _think_ what I could have done for you, out of all this--if you'd

_waited_! If _only_ you'd waited!..." (buries her face in the mauve

silk cushions and cries a little or pretends to). (Roger fidgets on his

chair. An exquisite little purple Sevres clock on the white mantelpiece

ticks ... ticks ... ticks.)

_Roger_: "Look here, Sibyl. You're altogether on the wrong tack,

believe me. You might have married me in '86. I was quite ready then

and fancied myself in love with you. But if you had we mightn't have

got on. My seven hundred a year would have been nowhere to give you

surroundings like this...." (And he looks round the boudoir "done" in

white, lavender, mauve and purple, with its exquisite bits of furniture,

its velvet-covered armchair and Charles II day-bed, and pillow covers of

mauve silk; and looked also at the sinuous figure of the woman coiled on

the day-bed in her filmy black dress, with her face half buried in the

silk cushions, and one disconsolate arm lying listlessly along her side,

and at the magnificent rings of emeralds and diamonds on the pink

fingers.) "You were _quite_ right: you could _never_ have stood the

strain of Africa. I'll tell you by and bye some of the things Lucy and

I went through." (At this hint of comradeship with Lucy, the little

black velvet shoes gave angry thumps on the frame of the day-bed.) "I

know," continues Roger, "you used to throw out mysterious hints after

you were married that I might wait till some far-off date when you were

free; I mean after Lord Silchester was dead. But what decent man would

have taken you at your word? Why, Silchester might well be alive now.

He did not die of old age...."

_Sibyl_ (in a muffled voice): "N-no; he ... he ... didn't.

He--overrated his strength. He--he--oh, _how_ can I tell you? He was

so anxious to play a great part in public affairs ... but he had lost

all his energy...." (Sitting up with flushed cheeks--damnably

good-looking, Roger feels.) "_Well_! What can I do for you? You've

failed _me_. But I suppose you've come here to ask me to help you in

some way. Men don't generally waste their time on afternoon calls

without a motive. What is it? I've got no influence anywhere since

Francis died" (a sob). "So it's no good asking _me_ to write to Lord

Wiltshire or to Spavins. I hear you are out of favour at the F.O. It's

not _my_ fault, is it? It's all due to your gallivanting after

missionaries' wives...." (Roger looks sullen.) ... "Heigh ho! I expect

with all this crying and tousling among cushions, to hide I _was_ crying

from your cynical eyes, I'd better go into my room and bathe my face

before the butler brings in the tea.... _There!_ you can pull up two of

the blinds--when I am gone--my eyes are so red--and you can look at some

of my new books till I come in to make the tea. You mustn't _dream_ of

going before we've had tea and finished our talk."

"I suppose," said Sibyl a quarter of an hour later when they were

discussing tea and tea-cake and pate-de-foie sandwiches and assorted

cakelets, "what you really came to ask was would I present this

Lucy-pucy of yours at Court. But, my _dear_, I shall be in mourning for

a year, and the Queen----"

"_Lord_ no! Such a thing never entered my head. It would scare Lucy

into fits. I hope before next season comes round I shall be back in

Africa--or somewhere. So far as I connected Lucy with this visit I

might have intended to ask you to let me bring her here one day, and for

you to be kind to her ... not frighten her, as you very well could do,

pretending all the time to be her best friend...."

_Sibyl_: "Well: I'll tell you what you shall do. You must remember I'm

in mourning, of course.... We always have to think of what the servants

will say.... And--ah! Did I tell you? Aunt Christabel is here. I sent

her out the longest drive I could think of, so that we might have our

afternoon alone; still, she's staying here till I emerge from the

deepest of my mourning.... By the bye she's _horrified_ at your

marriage, just as she used to be horrified at the idea of your marrying

_me_.... Well, bring your Lucy over one day at the end of July and I'll

just have a look at her. And then, in the autumn--say October--you and

she, and of course if you like to have them, Maurice and Geoffrey too,

could come here for the shooting. _Of course_ I shan't have a regular

party; but somebody must come and shoot the pheasants. The Queen

couldn't object to that. I've asked a man--I did before Francis's

death--to come. You might like to meet him: a Sir Willowby Patterne....

Dare say you've heard of him?"

_Roger_: "I've heard no _good_ of him...."

"Oh, what tittle-tattlers and scandal-mongers you men are! I think he's

so amusing, and every one says he's a splendid shot.... However, we

will make up just a _tiny_ party and you and Lucy shall entertain for

me. I shall purposely be very little seen and shall give out my cousins

have come over to help me with my guests.... And, _Roger_! If I am to

help you you must help _me_. The doctor says I positively _must_ take

up my riding again unless I am to drift into being an invalid. Couldn't

you--sometimes--whilst you're down in this part of the world--come over

and ride with me? I can 'mount' you. You could ride poor Francis's cob

... not showy but very steady."

"I will, when I come back from town," said Roger, and took his

departure, not at all dissatisfied with his afternoon.

Two days afterwards he thought it might be prudent to see how things

were going at the Foreign Office. So he went up to town, changed into

town togs at Hankey's (where their flat was becoming a white elephant,

owing to Lucy's dislike to London, so he arranged to give it up), and

betook himself to Downing Street, and asked to see Mr. Bennet Molyneux.

"Mr. Bennet Molyneux," he was presently told, "is very sorry, sir, but

he is much engaged this morning; would you go into the Department and

see one of the young gentlemen there?"

The Department was a large, long room with a cubby-hole at its further

end for the accommodation of the senior clerk, a sort of school prefect

who had to keep order among the high-spirited juniors and therefore

required to work a little apart from them. When Brentham entered the

main room, announced by the office messenger, he recognized two friends

of yore and several new, ingenuous faces. There also emerged from the

cubby hole a man whom he had known as a junior three years previously:

an agreeable gentleman of agricultural and sporting tastes, who, because

of his occasional remonstrances and enforcement of discipline, was known

as "Snarley Yow or the Dog Fiend." Then there were "Rosie" Walrond and

Ted Parsons. (The others do not matter in this narrative: they merely

served as chorus and acclaimers of the witticisms of the elder boys.

They were all nice to look at, all well-mannered and all well-dressed.)

"Rosie" Walrond was a young man--older than he looked--with wavy flaxen

hair and mocking grey eyes, and an extremely cynical manner overlying an

exceedingly kind heart.

_Walrond_: "Hullo! Here's _Brentham_, the rescuer of beleaguered

Gospellers. We've got a grudge against you. You came here months ago

and were closeted with Spavins and never gave us a look-in. And we were

dying to hear all about the elopement and its sequel. We were prepared

to subscribe to a wedding present for a teller of good stories...."